ADF Group Inc. (DRX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the ADF Group Inc. results for the 3-month period ended April 30, 2025 conference call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on June 10, 2025. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jean-François Boursier. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to ADF's conference call covering the first quarter ended April 30, 2025. I am with Jean Paschini, Chairman of the Board and CEO of ADF, who will be available to answer your questions at the end of the call. We are currently an hour from hosting our 2025 Annual Shareholders' Meeting, which will take place at the Impéria Hôtel & Suites in Terrebonne. I will now update you on our quarterly results, which were disclosed earlier this morning by press release. First, a word of caution. Please note that some of the issues discussed today may include forward-looking statements. These are documented in ADF Group's management report for the first quarter ended April 30, 2025, which were filed with SEDAR this morning. Given the circumstances and more particularly the uncertainty related to the U.S. tariffs, we are pleased with the results of our first quarter -- with the results of the first quarter of our current fiscal year, which ended April 30, 2025. It is important to remember that the same quarter that ended a year ago on April 30, 2024, was our best quarter of the previous fiscal year in terms of revenue and gross margins. Revenues during the 3-month period ended April 30, 2025, totaled $55.5 million compared to $107.4 million for the same period ended a year ago. The variation in revenues is mainly due to the uncertainty related to U.S. tariffs. Although the corporation's order backlog is more than adequate, exceeding $300 million as at April 30, 2025, the uncertainty surrounding the implementation and functioning of these tariffs has caused a nonrecoverable delay in fabrication hours, mainly at ADF's Terrebonne plant in Quebec. The gross margin at $12.2 million decreased by $19.1 million during the 3-month period ended April 30, 2025, compared with the same period of the previous fiscal year. Gross margin as a percentage of revenues went from 29.2% during the 3-month period ended April 30, 2024, to 22% during the same period ended April 30, 2025. The decrease in margins is in line with the revenue decrease and is also explained by the impact of U.S. tariffs. The revenue decrease forced ADF to put contingency measures in place, including implementing a work-sharing program at its Terrebonne plant. This program has allowed the corporation to mitigate the negative impacts of the decline in fabrication hours, as previously explained, but not entirely. Tariffs also had an indirect negative impact on the corporation margins caused by an increase in the price of steel set by U.S. steel mills. For the 3-month period ended April 30, 2025, selling and administrative expenses amounted to $3.4 million, posting a $6.3 million decrease compared with the same period ended April 30, 2024. This variation is mostly explained by the adjustment in the market value of deferred share units or DSU and in performance share units, or PSU, in line with the corporation share price during the analyzed periods. We, therefore, closed our first quarter with net income of $8.7 million or $0.30 per share compared to $15.3 million or $0.47 per share for the same quarter a year ago. Besides the elements previously mentioned, the net income year-over-year variance was also impacted by lower net financial expenses, which benefited from interest revenues coming from our outstanding cash balances and by a $2.9 million foreign exchange gain, mostly coming from the impact of the strengthening of the Canadian currency versus its U.S. counterpart on our FX contract mark-to-market valuation. Our balance sheet remains strong and actually even stronger. We closed our first quarter ended last April 30 with cash and cash equivalents of $75.3 million, $15.3 million higher than our January 31, 2025, ending balance. Working capital stood at $108.6 million for a 2.41 -- 2.45:1 ratio. CapEx for the first quarter ended last April 30 totaled $1.6 million, including the redesign of our integrated ERP software package, which will take place over the next 3 fiscal years. We expect full year CapEx to be under $8 million. During the quarter ended April 30, 2025, we repurchased for cancellation an additional 699,000 subordinate voting shares for a total cash outflow of $5.1 million, including the associated fees. Additionally, after the end of the quarter, we repurchased for cancellation the remaining 350,000 subordinate voting shares for $2.5 million, thus ending our NCIB program. In total, the 1.8 million available shares from our NCIB program were repurchased at an average price of $7.97 per share representing a total cash outflow of $14.1 million. Finally, we closed the quarter with a backlog of $330.4 million. The announcements of U.S. tariffs and Canada's counter tariff on steel, among others, kept the business community on the edge of their seats for several weeks before coming into effect in Canada during the corporation first quarter ended April 30, 2025. This new economic climate has created an immediate level of uncertainty for many of our U.S. clients. Faced with the unknown impact of these tariffs on their projects, some clients have reacted either by delaying their decision to award contracts or by changing their choice of partners to turn to U.S. companies that are not subject to these tariffs. While the rules and exemption that govern these tariffs on both sides of the border have since been clarified, they, however, continue to raise concern for some U.S. customers. This situation resulted in a loss of certain business opportunities for the corporation in the first quarter ended April 30, 2025, resulting from the imposition of such tariffs. This said, the markets and business sectors served by ADF remain buoyant and offer interesting business opportunities in the coming quarters. We continue to consolidate our presence with our current and potential customer across our market, where ADF has built a strong reputation in highly complex project, continue its efforts -- its marketing efforts and is still very active in promoting the capabilities and quality of our 2 fabrication complexes that we operate in Canada and in the United States. Notwithstanding, we were able to generate cash, all the while continuing and completing our NCIB program. As I said previously, we closed our first quarter with an order backlog exceeding $300 million, allowing us to expect an increase in revenues and profitability for the second half of our fiscal year ending January 31, 2026. Therefore, we will continue our proven approach of growing our order backlog, always ensuring that we limit the risks while maintaining the operational excellence that sets us apart from the competition and that allows us to generate long-term growth for shareholders. Thank you for your interest and confidence in ADF. Jean and I will now answer your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Nicholas Cortellucci at Atrium Research.

A couple of questions here. So firstly, I know you guys mentioned in the press release to expect growth in the second half of this year. I just wanted to clarify if that was meant to imply year-over-year growth, getting you guys back to that $80 million-plus level? Or would that be growth over the quarter reported today?

Well, knowing what we know today, based on what we know today, we expect our revenues and -- well, definitely, our revenues to be back to levels that we had seen last year. So the $80 million, $85 million are definitely in the cards. But again, this is based on what we know today with the rules as they are laid out today.

Okay. Got it. That makes sense. And things are changing pretty fast. So -- okay. And then just with your guys' contract discussions now that you're going to clients with the exemptions, how are those conversations going? Are you seeing more receptiveness? And generally, should we see new contracts over the next couple of months?

You're going to see new contracts in the next couple of months. Is it going to be U.S. contracts? We don't know yet. Right now, we have good conversations with our clients. But today, there's tariff. Tomorrow, is there going to be something else? So it's tough with the clients right now because the President is changing -- he is changing his mind almost every day. So a client who's going to give us some work, well, he doesn't want to get stuck with the tariff or whatever it's going to be in 3 months. So it's tougher for -- to get work in our shop here in Terrebonne, but to get work in our shop in Montana, then there's no problem at all.

Yes. Okay. Got it. And are you seeing any momentum with Canadian clients? I know this quarter was almost entirely U.S., but going forward?

No, I see a lot of momentum right now with Canadian clients. So -- and we have good things going the right way. So I see a big potential.

Okay. Got it. Okay. And then just on the NCIB with it completed now and you guys have a very large cash balance, what are you thinking in terms of capital allocation? Do you want to pay down some debt? Or are there any CapEx projects that you have on your radar?

We're looking right now at some CapEx projects. We're looking at different scenarios right now. But yes, we have a lot of cash, but we're going to use some cash to do some projects in our shop.

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Jean-François for closing remarks.

Thank you. Again, we wish to thank you for your interest in ADF Group, and remind you that we will hold our fiscal 2025 shareholders' meeting in just a few minutes at 11 at the Impéria Hôtel & Suites in Terrebonne, Quebec. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.