Bird Construction Inc. (BDT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Bird Construction's Inaugural Investor Day. My name is Cheryl Ballerini, Director of Strategic Development and Communications, and I will be moderating today's session, which we are hosting virtually from a close set in Calgary, Alberta. Bird strives to be a positive contributor to the overall well-being of indigenous peoples and groups with whom Bird interacts across Canada and demonstrates this by respecting and promoting their rights across our operations. Bird recognizes the indigenous landscape of Canada is broad and encompasses many First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples. Further, we respect and affirm the inherent and treaty rights of all indigenous peoples across Canada. In the spirit of reconciliation, we would like to recognize the traditional territory of indigenous peoples and acknowledge that they are the traditional stewards of the lands and waters where each of us attends this session. We are joining you today from the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy, Siksika, Kainai, Piikani, the Tsuut'ina, the Stoney-Nakoda nations, the Métis Nation of Alberta Region 3 and all people who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta. We are glad that you could join us today as we outline key components of our 2022 to 2024 strategic plan, and we hope you all walk away with a better understanding of our vision and strategy and how we are positioning Bird for the next leg of profitable growth. A copy of today's presentation can be found on Bird's website at bird.ca under the Investor Relations tab. And a recording of the webcast will also be made available following today's session. Before commencing with the presentation, the company reminds those present that certain statements which are made express management's expectations or estimates of future performance and thereby constitute forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is necessarily based on a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. Management's formal comments and responses to any questions you might ask may include forward-looking information. Therefore, the company cautions today's participants that such forward-looking information involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual financial results, performance or achievements of the company to be materially different from the company's estimated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Forward-looking information does not guarantee future performance. The company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, events or otherwise. In addition, our presentation today includes references to a number of financial measures which do not have standardized meanings under IFRS and may not be comparable with similar measures presented by other companies and are, therefore, considered non-GAAP measures. Please refer to Slides 1, 2 and 3 for important disclosures about forward-looking information, terminology and non-GAAP financial measures. Now turning to the logistics of today's event. Our presentation will start with President and CEO, Teri McKibbon, who will provide an introduction to Bird and share an overview of our strategic plan and where we see the next chapter of growth. Following, we will hear from our operations executives who will provide an overview of our business, including industrial infrastructure, civil infrastructure, industrial MRO, buildings and commercial systems. Covering a wide range of services and capabilities, these business leaders will share how we are positioned to win. We will then hear from our people and culture and ESG teams who will share Bird's commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and our vision for attracting and retaining top talent as well as the direction of Bird's sustainability strategy. Mr. Paul Raboud, Bird's Chairman of the Board, will then join us. We are honored to have him share the Board's perspective and some professional insights. Finally, Wayne Gingrich, Chief Financial Officer, will speak to our financial status, capital allocation priorities and Bird's outlook alongside Teri McKibbon, President and CEO. Following our closing remarks, we have 45 minutes allocated for questions and answers in an open forum where analysts and institutional investors can submit questions online. [Operator Instructions] We hope that following these presentations, you are left with a better understanding of both our business and our strategy, which will allow Bird to capitalize on opportunities over the near to medium term. With that, I will turn it over to Teri McKibbon, President and CEO.

Thank you, Cheryl, and welcome, everyone, to our inaugural Investor Day. My name is Teri McKibbon, and I'm President and CEO of Bird. I joined Bird in July of 2017 as Chief Operating Officer. And over the course of my tenure with the company, I've seen Bird evolve and grow exponentially to where we are now at a point where we can accelerate our growth initiatives while keeping true to our roots: building Canada for over 100 years. Throughout our long history, Bird has thrived in periods of economic prosperity and survived during periods of economic hardship. Ingrained in our culture is being prudent, pragmatic, providing superior customer service first while maintaining a strong financial position to weather any storm. This is part of our DNA, and this will not change. Bird has transformed dramatically over the past few years. However, the core of our DNA is still intact: to provide superior client service, first-class execution and remain humble. A key component of today's presentation is highlighting the framework of our new strategic plan and the steps we've already taken to provide a platform for resilient margin accretion. At Bird, we are taking change head-on, which you will hear from a cross-section of our business leaders today. Overall, the combination of our efforts has resulted in Bird becoming more diversified by geography and end market and having increased overall visibility to forward revenue generation and improve trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA margin profile compared to a decade ago. We believe that the company that we've built to date and plan to build over the near to medium term will drive superior risk-adjusted shareholder returns. Without question, the highlight of my term as CEO of Bird to date has been the transformative acquisition of Stuart Olson that we completed in the second half of 2020. Stuart Olson afforded us the ability to increase our geographic footprint and our service offering, further reduce our risk profile and enhance our extremely talented pool of constructors. As I've mentioned previously, we're really pleased with the progress we've made so far integrating Stuart Olson. We're on track, if not slightly ahead. We have and continue to see cross-selling opportunities, and they are accelerating as we execute projects as one team. As we shared in our Q2 results, our Stuart Olson acquisition has been accretive since day 1, and we remain optimistic on the opportunities that this has created for the new combined Bird. The key component of our strategic plan is growth in geographic and client diversification, and we have achieved both last week with the acquisition of Dagmar. Dagmar's specialized civil infrastructure offerings provide a platform for Bird to expand its capabilities and relationships in Canada's largest civil infrastructure market. Dagmar's extensive experience in Ontario, specifically in the rail sector, will be a significant catalyst for Bird for long-term growth in the infrastructure sector. Aside from bolstering our competitive position in Ontario, we will leverage our capabilities nationwide and seek strong cross-selling opportunities with major clients across Canada. It is well aligned with our strategy to diverse across both geography and market segments. So overall, I'm very pleased to welcome the Dagmar team to Bird and excited about the future ahead of us. Where we sit today, I believe that we've built a solid platform to launch off and grow profitably on a consistent basis over time. This sets us up for the next leg of growth and noting that, in conjunction with our Board of Directors, we have recently completed our 3-year strategic plan. Our strategic plan is rooted in 3 key pillars: team, perform and diversify. At a high level, plan focuses on the further development of Bird's team, strong project execution and the geographic diversification of service offerings. We believe that the achievement of our strategic objectives in 3 years' time will position Bird as a leader across our industry with world-class safety, high employee engagement and collaboration across our teams and operating groups. Under our Team pillar, our key priorities are continuing to build our world-class safety program, a focus on our One Bird program and building a highly engaged, high-performance team with industry-leading people programs. Our One Bird program is a focus on internal partnerships and shifting from a district focus to a national focus by leveraging cross-selling opportunities between our teams as well as sharing expertise in certain sectors nationally. Through our Perform pillar, we will remain diligently focused on capitalizing on cross-selling opportunities, increasing our self-perform capabilities, focusing on higher-margin potential projects and providing innovative client solutions. In addition, we are harmonizing and developing new processes, tools and systems to support consistent performance and efficiency. And it's a great time to be implementing new technology with the focus our industry is receiving. Bird employees will have a common and nimble technology platform that provides the necessary agility, consistency and innovation required to successfully respond to the ever-changing landscape. Accountability will remain a key driver for success under the Perform pillar and will be rooted in a strong financial framework, strong risk management and continued focus on building our backlog with an appropriately balanced risk structure. Under our Diversify pillar, we target both geographic and sector diversity. Opportunities will continue to rise organically as we leverage our competitive strengths and through M&A where we see a strategic fit that will allow us to accelerate our growth and become larger, stronger and more competitive in the construction arena. Later in our presentation today, you'll hear more about the key priorities of our strategic plan for our operations teams as well as our financial framework. With that, I hope after today's presentation that you leave with a better understanding of our business, our vision and our strategy.

Thank you for that update, Teri. It is certainly an exciting time to be a part of Bird. Now while we prepare for our upcoming discussion with our operations team, I want to turn your attention to a short video of some of the key successes and milestones for 2021. [Presentation]

Welcome back, everyone. Following Teri's high-level overview of Bird and the exciting path we are on that has been set by our 2022 to 2024 strategic plan, I'd like to introduce a cross-section of Bird's key leaders that are here with me onstage who will walk us through some of our operational capabilities and strategic areas of focus. I'm pleased to introduce Gilles Royer, Chief Operating Officer; Rob Otway, Executive Vice President, Buildings West; and David Keep, Senior Vice President, Industrial Maintenance, Repair and Operations, or MRO. Now Gilles, I'm going to throw it over to you first. You've been COO at Bird for a little over a year now. However, you've been a part of the Bird organization for quite a while longer. Could you share some of your background?

Sure, Cheryl. It's been about 30 years since I joined Bird in 1991 as a civil engineering co-op student. I worked all of my work terms at Bird until I graduated in '94 and joined Bird full time as a project coordinator deployed to a project at Suncor and Fort McMurray. I spent many years in the field until about 2005 when I returned to work in the Edmonton home office. In 2009, I was promoted to the position of District Manager for Edmonton. And I held successively more senior roles, ultimately, leading the industrial team until I was asked to be the Chief Operating Officer last year. During my tenure, I've been very fortunate to have experienced the transformation of Bird into a leading Canadian construction company, operating from coast to coast and servicing all of Canada's major markets. I get a lot of personal motivation knowing that each year that I've been at Bird that our team gets stronger and more sophisticated. And our recent acquisition of Stuart Olson and Dagmar have accelerated the development of our team, and I just couldn't be more excited for our future.

That's quite an impressive tenure at Bird, and you should definitely be very proud of that. So in your role as COO, you have oversight of our full suite of operations. Could you provide some insight into the service covered and how the business will evolve with the new strategic plan by our operations team?

Sure. So I'll start with industrial. The industrial team operates nationally, doing civil, buildings, process, fabrication and, more importantly, maintenance and turnaround services for a broad suite of industrial owners in the petrochemical, power, mining, environmental, renewable and manufacturing sectors. So with the acquisition of Dagmar, we're seeing the genesis of a new civil infrastructure team that's capable of public infrastructure projects, including rail, bridges, roads, underground servicing. In addition to the industrial civil and mining services that Bird already performs, we have a new combined strength. Our buildings team builds vertical infrastructure in the institutional, commercial and light industrial space. Commercial Systems provides electrical, communications, security, mechanical and facilities maintenance services in the ICI space. And lastly, we own a 50% interest in Stack Modular, and they provide structural steel modular buildings in the residential, hospitality, commercial and resource sectors. With regards to our strategic planning for '22 to '24, each team is focused on a set of priorities that contribute to the overall company priorities that Teri mentioned earlier. Under the Team pillar, our major focus is internal collaboration among operating groups to create a One Bird team. Under the Perform pillar, we're keenly interested in leveraging more technology into our business. And under the Diversify pillar, we're focused on diversifying into areas where we're able to earn higher margins. So you'll hear more detail further in our presentation regarding the strategic priorities related to each of our operating groups.

Thanks, Gilles. That provides a great high-level overview of the entire organization and really helps to set the stage of what our future goals are going forward. Now shifting to the industrial side of the business, what are the team's capabilities? And specifically, what are those key differentiators within the team and within their markets and the strategic focus go forward?

Okay. So we look at the industrial civil infrastructure group has 3 separate teams. So starting with the civil infrastructure team, they focus on construction below anchor bolts. So think site preparation, backfill, undergrounds, concrete foundations, et cetera. The industrial construction team focuses on above anchor bolts work. And that generally consists of multi-trade work, sometimes subcontracted but more often self-performed. And the projects can be process-driven, such as the Enbridge T-South compressor stations we recently completed in B.C. or the design-build, demineralized water treatment plant that we're currently building for Ontario Power Generation. However, sometimes, instead of being process-driven, these projects can be building infrastructure-driven, such as the 4,500-bed workforce accommodation complex that we just finished for LNG Canada or the advanced nuclear materials research facility for Canadian Nuclear Laboratories. Our MRO team, or maintenance, repair and operation, provides longer-term maintenance and turnaround services for operating industrial facilities. And David Keep is here today to expand on the success that they're having in that marketplace. I'd say the strategic focus of our new combined Industrial Group is really to leverage the vertical service offering of 3,500 skilled trades that we have working for us to capture more of the total life cycle spend on our clients' projects. So if I use LNG Canada as an example, legacy Bird would have captured civil and building projects and perhaps some smaller process opportunities. But under a new Bird with the acquisition of Stuart Olson, we're much more able to secure process work and we are also now able to win electrical instrumentation work as well as insulation work and probably, more importantly, maintenance and turnaround services for the entire life cycle of the asset. And I think that will create closer longer-term working relationships with LNG Canada and really other industrial owners because of our enhanced capabilities, operating from cradle to grave on their projects. A key component of our new strategic plan with our civil infrastructure team is to diversify geographically and continue to expand our national platform. And we want to do this so we can grow higher self-perform margins and ultimately build the Civil Infrastructure Group into a fourth operating division of the company. Dagmar is an important catalyst to expand our civil infrastructure into the Ontario marketplace, near a proven high-performing business. To give everyone a better understanding of Dagmar's capabilities, the company's work programs can be categorized into 4 divisions: rail infrastructure, civil structures, highway infrastructure and underground and site servicing. In rail infrastructure, the company has design-build experience and provides rail bridge construction, railway platforms, track bed construction and other heavy rail services. Additionally, Dagmar provides temporary shoring in both the design and the construction phase. Within its structures division, Dagmar acts as a complete contractor for road bridge construction, including concrete placing and finishing as well as the installation of the girders. The highway infrastructure division executes new road construction but as well existing road reconstruction and widening. And although it performs most of the work itself, they do subcontract paving to local partners. Within the underground and site servicing group, they provide a range of specialized capabilities, including underground services, retaining walls, reinforced slope walls and they've even performed civil services and concrete work on water and wastewater treatment projects. Dagmar has won numerous customer awards and has attained several exclusive certifications. And they are among the very few parties prequalified for specialized bridge work with Metrolinx and as well, they're prequalified on a limited short list for structural and grading work for CN and CP Rail. With our existing civil infrastructure capabilities in Western Canada, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, Dagmar really connects our civil service offering from coast to coast and provides a platform with 80 years of experience in the Ontario marketplace where we are seeing very strong potential and growth, some of which is spurred by government infrastructure investment. We're also very keen to participate more fully in the higher-growth transportation sector. And I think Dagmar will get us there and will help drive higher self-perform margins along the way. We spent a lot of time with Dagmar throughout this transaction process. And we know that this is a great fit for both companies, both in terms of values, culture, safety and operating style. And the acquisition will be a real key feature of meeting our strategic plan.

Thanks, Gilles. I can definitely see that, that acquisition really brings a lot to the Bird team. Now before we shift to David to speak to the MRO team, I want to touch on the Commercial Systems Group. Now this group was part of the recent Stuart Olson acquisition and outside of the traditional service offerings for legacy Bird. Could you provide a brief overview of that team and then their strategic priorities during the strategic planning process?

Sure. So Commercial Systems has been operating in Canada for 60 years now. It does operate at arm's length from our core operations and reports directly to Teri. Key strengths of the group include enhanced VDC and prefabrication abilities as well as security and facilities maintenance services. Looking to the future, this team will focus on VDC to improve their productivity. They'll provide services for owners who want smart building technology, which is key to lowering their carbon emissions. And they'll develop design-build and design-assist abilities to position themselves as an invaluable partner for complex projects. They'll also continue to diversify by growing the business in Ontario, expanding mechanical in Ontario westward and then leveraging the higher margins in the security and maintenance business by moving eastward from their base in British Columbia.

Thanks, Gilles, for those additional comments regarding Commercial Systems Group, the new combined capabilities of the Industrial Group, the Dagmar acquisition and really highlighting how those are key components to achieving our strategic plan. So David, I want to turn the conversation to your side of the business. And now we've worked together for several years on the legacy Stuart Olson side. And I have to say I've always been fascinated by the way your team provides true value to their clients and their projects. So can you share a brief history of your experience in the industry, and then details around your MRO team and then follow up with specific areas of your strategic plan for your group?

Sure. Thanks, Cheryl. I've been in the industrial construction and maintenance business now for 26 years, and I've been fortunate to work for large national general contractors like Comstock Canada; Stuart Olson, of course; and a large OEM, global, GE, General Electric. Over my 26 years in the industry, I've been primarily focused on the construction and maintenance of large industrial operating plants in the mining, pulp and paper and energy sectors. I've been able to work on systems such as electrical distribution systems, large rotating machinery, piping systems, tanks and vessels. And currently with Bird, I'm the Senior Vice President of the Industrial Maintenance, Repair and Operations division. Now turning to the MRO team. We focus strategically on multiyear work programs for operating facilities under a variety of multiple service agreements specific to individual clients' needs and/or their site needs. Our programs can include maintenance and small capital projects, multi-disciplined turnaround scopes, all in operating facilities. Our legacy Stuart Olson offering, interestingly enough, we were so focused on maintenance and turnarounds while adding Bird's legacy program, which was really focused on site service contracts and facilities maintenance. Putting these 2 offerings together, we're able to offer a full service, a full suite, a full offering to our customers now, both new and our existing Tier 1s, which also will give us the opportunity to extend our reach throughout the strategic geographies that we're looking at and, of course, other market sectors as well. In addition to our combined robust offering, we've developed a very successful value initiatives program, which drives efficiencies and savings for our strategic customers. And it's proven to be a true differentiator in the success of our team, and I will go into that more shortly.

Thanks for that, David, and really providing some insight and highlighting how your business is helping us to achieve our strategic plan within the industrial market. Now our Buildings Group team services from coast to coast across Canada. And I want to welcome Rob Otway here who's our Buildings West team leader, and he joined Bird about 1 year ago. So Rob, do you want to share some of your professional background and then expand on the Bird Buildings team?

Absolutely, Cheryl. My name is Rob Otway, and I'm the Executive Vice President for Buildings West, basically looking after Western Canada. I have 36 years in the construction business, 25 of those with PCL and 16 of those in an executive role. I've worked primarily in Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan. Last year, I retired from PCL in early 2020 and was recruited by Bird last summer. And one of the reasons I joined Bird was to be involved in the merger of 2 100-year-old companies. I thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and that was extremely appealing to me. So as far as the Buildings Group goes, the buildings teams provide general contracting and construction management services to private and public sector clients from B.C. to the Atlantic provinces. Projects include all sizes and complexities of newbuilds, renovations and retrofits. And with the merging of Bird and Stuart Olson last September, we created a pool of greater depth of people and resources. We also gained greater experience with contract delivery methods, particularly in construction management. And I have to say I'm really impressed with how our teams have come together and the collaboration everyone has shown to date. So this year, we've achieved some really exciting project milestones, and I'll touch on a few right now. Starting with our St. George's School and our 12-story modular design contract in B.C. to our recently announced P3 high school projects program in Alberta with our long-standing partner, Concert Properties. We have an exciting mass timber project underway for Molson properties in Winnipeg, some very large multiuse residential projects in Toronto. And we've made great progress on our complex Richmond Yards project and Villa Acadienne long-term care facility in Nova Scotia. As we move forward, we're focusing on national alignment and building on the expertise we have while implementing plans to leverage the latest in technology and continuing to expand our service offerings across the country.

So diving a bit deeper into the Buildings Group, when we think of long-term value for our clients, for our business and our shareholders, what is the focus for the Buildings Group in your strategic plan?

Well, first and foremost, it's always about growing the knowledge and skill set of our people: building high-performance teams, easy to say, harder to do, focusing on succession planning, hiring the best people and then providing them with extensive training and advancing them in their careers. We're constantly evaluating our organizational structure to ensure we have the right people in the right seats to meet the organization's needs. As Teri mentioned earlier, we've recently completed our 3-year strategic plan. So in addition to the focus on the growth of our people, some of the key areas that we see as important are: focusing on growing our culture of operational excellence and consistent profitability; building our centers of excellence in mass timber, long-term care, modular construction and sustainable construction, to name a few, as we see these as high-growth areas; building our special projects program nationally. Special projects are essentially projects less than $10 million in value. They can be anything from building a new building to renovations and interior fit-outs. This group provides the mobility and personal service of a small contractor backed by the financial stability and technical resources of a larger contractor. It's a key element to growing our next generation of people, introducing ourselves to new clients and is the foundation of our profitability strategy. We're focused on the One Bird concept of collaboration not only amongst the individual buildings, offices but our industrial and infrastructure groups as well and as well Stack Modular. So by leveraging the combined strength of the company, we create opportunity for increased profitability while providing our clients with a consistent high level of service in every region we operate. We're also leveraging technology and innovation to improve our efficiencies and decrease costs, which we'll discuss further in the next segment.

Thanks for that, Rob. I know we're all very excited to hear more about the innovative initiatives that your team is taking on. So David, similar question to you regarding MRO. What are some key areas of strategic focus for your group?

Thanks, Cheryl. The nature of our business supports sustainable, profitable growth and build shareholder value through consistent earnings over a longer time period through our multiyear contracts. We're fortunate that many of our teams have such deep knowledge of the customers' processes and procedures and have become so embedded with our clients which, over time, it's increased our trust and collaboration and often results in more direct negotiated work, which is very strategic. Looking to the future, we remain committed to our strategic priority to generate that reoccurring revenue through long-term partnerships; diversify our geography and definitely expand in the market sectors; and increase, leveraging the cross-selling of this new merged organization. We're fortunate, again, like I said, to have these long-term relationships with these Tier 1 customers who potentially could help deliver our strategic plan and our focus across the country. In the very, very short time since the merger, we've already been able to leverage our complete offering for our customers, and they can immediately see the benefit of dealing with one company instead of multiple. I'll give you a few examples. We had a large industrial civil package that needed to complete underground and overhead high-voltage electrical services, one solution for the customer, great win. Another large industrial project, we're leveraging the strengths of both legacy civil infrastructure of Bird and our electrical insulation and mechanical at Stuart Olson, putting those together, one solution, both scopes together for the customer, another great win. And one more in a maintenance delivery program where we're able to combine all of our leadership and all of our labor pool for a seamless delivery, adding value to the customer with one interface to the client. So again, having these long-term strategic clients, we've been able to really focus on the relationship and this continuous improvement. Our team, again, like I mentioned earlier, we've developed a robust value initiatives program where we're capturing several opportunities that provide efficiencies, solutions to problems that are all critical to our customers' operations. We leverage our long-term expertise, combined with tools and technology, to reduce costs and essentially demonstrate to the clients through auditable means. We often deliver efficiencies back to our customers that, honestly, exceed the sum of our fees. We like to call it fee-free maintenance.

That's great insight, David, and truly highlights the value that MRO is not only providing to our clients but to our new industrial combined group. So Gilles, during the strategic planning process, the collective strength of the industrial infrastructure team was apparent throughout. And there was really this shift to a greater full service offering that leveraged our own forces, and that really highlighted the long-lasting value for the industrial infrastructure team. Could you expand on this further?

Sure. So with the Stuart Olson acquisition, our industrial team has grown to provide a full service offering to major clients over the full life cycle of projects. And that includes site development, facility construction, long-term maintenance and turnaround services and also includes in-house fabrication facilities. We have a craft workforce of about 3,500 trades people. And with their help, we're better able to control the safety, quality, cost and schedule for our clients. Our owners prefer vertically integrated contractors as, historically, self-perform contractors perform better from a safety perspective. They eliminate double markups. And we see a real push amongst our industrial clients to reduce the number of vendors that they use and, hence, being able to deliver more service is more important for both us and our clients. Bird's also known as having a very collaborative team, and that's very sought-after by our industrial clients. It's positioned us well as an industry leader in integrated project delivery work. And this is important to us as collaborative contracting as a delivery model is growing at an exponential rate. With Dagmar's horizontal infrastructure expertise, our civil team has grown in depth and in geographical footprint. And as we said earlier, we want to grow our civil infrastructure into a fourth operating group of the company. And we'll do it by drawing from the experience and expertise we have in Western Canada as well as our presence in Quebec and Atlantic Canada and as well the growing presence we have in Ontario facilitated by the Dagmar acquisition. I think we're really well positioned to build and integrate a national team that can perform civil from coast to coast. So you'll definitely hear more about the value and opportunities that this segment will bring throughout the strategic plan period.

Well, thanks, everyone, for giving some more insight into your strategic plans. Now we are going to highlight the services that the MRO team provides with a short video. And following, we'll dive deeper into some of the innovative services that our operations teams provide. [Presentation]

Welcome back, everyone. We have covered a lot regarding our operations teams' strategic plans. And something that has been apparent throughout these conversations is how foundational collaboration, technology and innovation will be to our future. As a company, we are committed to unlocking potential across all areas of our business through new solutions, methods and services. With that, I'd like to welcome Paul Pastirik, Senior Vice President, Strategic Development to the stage. In Paul's role, he supports the organization in driving collaboration, technology and innovation across our business. Paul brings a wealth of industry experience to the organization and has been instrumental in the development of our collaborative contracting, strategic alliance and integrated project delivery efforts to date. Welcome, Paul. Can you share some of your background and then speak to the strategic importance of collaborative contracting and Bird's positioning in this area?

Thank you, Cheryl. I have spent most of my career, which spans more than 35 years, in the energy and construction industries in both Western and Eastern Canada in several roles, including business development, human resources, strategic planning, operations and finance. Much of my focus has been on building and maintaining successful, strong, long-term client and other stakeholder relationships. I participated in a number of strategic alliances, some spanning more than 20 years and can attest to the many successes, profitability, stability and repeat business that form of contracting can bring to the business. Much of my time in my current role at Bird is leading our national centers of excellence and One Bird business development where we can leverage our capabilities and focus on longer-term collaborative contracting opportunities. Over the past few years, we have really started to see a shift towards more collaborative-type contracts. We've seen many companies concerned with the risk transfer on some of the more traditional contract types. And clients also start to see the win-win situations that play out when there is a closer collaboration through the project design and delivery. At Bird, collaboration is a key part of our culture, and we have built a strong portfolio of strategic partnerships, alliances and projects completed through the integrated project delivery method. Utilizing this model allows us to form strong, long-lasting bonds with our project partners and to build on a respectful and transparent approach. IPD and alliances align incentives for multiple partners with full transparency to costs, a one team approach of cross-functional groups tailored to project goals. This flat organizational structure of a project can mitigate risk, schedule, cost and more. Bird has successfully executed the first CCDC 30 contract in Canada, the largest IPD project in Canada, and has nearly $1 billion in collaborative projects to date. And these collaborative contracts remain a key strategic focus of the business throughout the strategic planning period and beyond. Furthermore, we are working on a first-of-its-kind project in the industrial group, which I will pass over to Gilles to elaborate.

Thanks, Paul. So I think Paul is speaking about the first wastewater treatment plant to be built in Canada under an IPD delivery method. It's a $70 million project and is being completed for the city of Lloydminster. Bird and its partner, Chandos, are not only contracting as the general contractor for the project, rather are also self-performing the concrete, the mechanical and the electrical scopes as well. The project is currently under budget and ahead of schedule, primarily because of the benefit of the structural mechanical and electrical experts we have interfacing with the equipment suppliers and the designers to come up with a best-in-class level of constructible design. For me, the IPD approach is not so much about marrying the owner, engineering and general contractor into a collaborative relationship, but rather, one of the real benefits is the ability to include the trade contractors in this collaborative relationship and using their expertise early in the design process. The collaborative approach also allows us to better leverage technology, especially VDC, as the stakeholders will try to help each other as opposed to managing contractual liabilities. A slightly different approach, but another very collaborative partnership, is our 50% stake in Stack Modular. Stack delivers structural steel buildings up to 40 stories high for multifamily, hospitality, long-term care and seniors housing. Clients are really appreciating the benefits of Modular's more rapid delivery. And there's really positive momentum for rapid delivery, which is partially influenced by recent government investments of approximately $4 billion in rapid housing. There's also increasing demand for accelerated buildings in long-term care. And recently, we were awarded the Thunder Bay and Kenora correctional facility expansion projects under our Modular rapid delivery model. So we're certainly seeing many more opportunities for projects like this where our partnership can build a high-quality product but can be delivered much more quickly than conventional builds. I'd like to also say that earlier this year, the 94-bed Iqaluit hotel and conference center, which Bird and Stack completed last year, was awarded first place by the Modular Building Institute in the permanent hotel category. And lastly, Modular is delivering on many sustainability objectives. And as you all know, this is certainly an area of increased focus by our clients.

Now in addition to the Bird/Stack partnership, I know there are many other innovative solutions that the company leverages. So could you touch on a few of these?

Sure. So another very successful part of Bird's service suite is our one-pass trenching solution. So this is a specialized system that installs utilities, and it's up to 5x faster than a trencher and 20x faster than conventional open-cut excavation. One-pass trenching reduces environmental impacts and maintains better stability across a variety of terrain. Our team continues to win work in both the U.S. and in Canada and has recently added another unit to our fleet. Another exciting field transforming the construction industry is VDC, or virtual design and construction. It's become a really critical aspect of our execution, and our clients are seeing the huge benefits when these tools are embedded in our construction processes. I know we're seeing particularly strong demand for VDC within our Buildings Group, so perhaps I can ask Rob to elaborate further.

Yes, that's right, Gilles. We've really developed our virtual design and construction capabilities across the company, and we're starting to see the benefits materialize for both us and our clients. The combination of human skills and virtual technology allow us to plan and build our buildings ahead of time virtually, which enables us to identify and correct design issues long before anything is manufactured or installed on site. So this saves time and money and avoids costly rework. We're using this technology to improve the schedules, quality and cost of our projects. Another unique offering at Bird is our Centre for Building Performance. The center comes to us through the Stuart Olson acquisition. So if you think about HVAC systems, security, elevators and all the systems contained within a building that allow it to function, they quite often are operated independently. Our Centre for Building Performance designs software that talks to all of these separate systems and brings them together on one platform. Think of a computer screen or an iPad where you as an owner can see at a glance how well your building is performing, what equipment requires maintenance or service and how well your building is meeting your sustainability targets. In short, we can automate, optimize, help reduce energy consumption, save money through preventative maintenance and monitor our buildings performance in real-time, 24/7. So when you integrate our virtual design capabilities with our Centre for Building Performance, we're able to offer an end-to-end solution, from concept to completed building, that's cost-effective and truly a value-add to our customers, something we believe sets Bird apart from our competitors.

Thanks, Rob, for providing some of the innovative ways that we're really providing value to our clients. Now Paul, in your role, you oversee the strategies behind many of our centers of excellence, and you're aligning those to both the demand and the direction of our industry. Now across the centers of excellence, what are the major areas of focus, specifically, in relation to our strategic plan?

Thank you, Cheryl. You're right. We are seeing increasing demand in several sectors, one of which I am very excited about is mass timber. Mass timber products manufactured from certified forests play a major part in the complex solution to build and renew pressing infrastructure needs, including affordable housing and health care, while mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Buildings are getting smarter, and the occupants and owners of these buildings are also demanding more from their space. We are positioning ourselves to respond to these demands and therefore, increasing our ability to secure the right type of projects as we move forward, from automated buildings through to comfort aspects to attract tenants to implementing sustainable materials to support human health and reduce carbon emissions. All of these aspects make mass timber a valuable service offering. Another sector seeing increasing demand is environmental. Notably, as referenced earlier, with IPD delivery model emerging as an alternative on the environmental projects, Bird is very well positioned. Bird has broad-reaching capabilities in water and wastewater treatment, anaerobic digestion, composting and solids treatment of construction. With our combined entity, we are self-performing the majority of the work on environmental projects, which really fits well with our focus on profitability and our longer-term strategic strategy. Another major growth in investment we've seen is for food processing, things like pea protein as well as cold storage and major distribution facilities. We've completed a few projects for key clients, such as Maple Leaf Foods, and expect that market to continue to grow significantly.

Thanks for that, Paul. Now David, turning to the MRO business, you've seen a lot of change and innovation throughout your career. And what we're seeing now is these singular dashboards that monitor a variety of metrics from fleet, energy, human capital, to name a few. However, it is really imperative that these dashboards provide more than just the data, but actually provide true data -- or true value and tangible results to our clients. So can you walk us through your team's value initiatives program and share some of the major accomplishments to date?

Yes, Cheryl. I would start by saying that our industrial customers are always looking to improve all aspects of their business. And we could be talking about people, equipment, processes and procedures, everything that has an impact on the outcomes of operational safety, reliability and efficiency. Being able to quantify and continually demonstrate the value we bring to a client is the key to our success in these long-term collaborative relationships. We have deployed an app in the field that allows our people to capture ideas, efficiencies or opportunities at the work front as they arise and capture the data for further evaluation. We then quantify and submit to our customers for approval and validation and acceptance. Deploying GPS technology at some larger work fronts. We've been able to, over time, capture inefficiencies like site travel, material management and those type of administrative logistics. And then we can improve on those year-over-year and get after those nonproductive hours by actioning change from the data collection and in turn, demonstrate more tool time and increase productivity. In our equipment, we've enabled our GPS in our fleet not only to monitor speeds and to promote the safe operating habits. But by capturing our idle minutes per unit and sending real-time push notifications, we've been able to reduce our fuel consumption costs and just as important, reduce our emissions. With the help of our IT and operations digitization group, we've been able to take all these digital efforts and power some intuitive dashboards, which you're seeing on the screen, that provide us with real-time data that we do share with our customers, and we review them regularly. This truly demonstrates quantifiable value we bring and often results in a fee-to-value ratio of greater than 1:1. A couple of key accomplishments, I would say, to date as a result of our value initiatives, and it's never just one initiative, but we had a large multiyear maintenance renewal this year, which was awarded on the demonstration of our continuous year-over-year value improvement, things that we're solving problems critical to our customers' operations. And the merger was a big part of it as well. This specific client had history with legacy Bird as a very strong performer. And by having all of these craft disciplines accessible under one roof, getting best practices from two 100-year-old companies and a proven value program resulted in a multiyear award with an expanded scope offering. Similar to the previous example, we had another exciting win this year as a result of our value initiatives program and our commitment to continuous improvement. This was a large multiyear renewal with a strategic client that was fully negotiated, and it allowed us for the opportunity to add the full suite of services under this newly merged entity. The value this brings from a labor, process and efficiency perspective to this client is abundant with opportunities. These are -- Cheryl, these are just a couple examples that really highlight our future together as a combined industrial infrastructure team.

Thanks for that, David. And I would like to thank everyone on stage for joining me today and providing some key insights into the strategic direction of our operating teams and highlighting the true value that we are providing for our clients. We will be sharing a brief video, and then we will adjourn for a short 10-minute break. We will return at 12:15 Eastern to hear from our ESG team and our people and culture leader. Following, Bird's Chairman of the Board, Mr. Paul Raboud, will join us to share his perspective. We will then wrap up with final insights and key takeaways from Teri McKibbon and Wayne Gingrich. And then we will open it up to our live Q&A. [Presentation] [Break]

Welcome back, everyone. As you can see, I'm playing a dual role here today. My portfolio includes our ESG strategy, which is why I am joining Wayne Gingrich, Chief Financial Officer; and Brian Henry, Chief People Officer, as we dive a bit deeper into our people, our culture and our ESG strategy. First, I'm going to throw it over to you, Brian. So you joined the Bird team about 1.5 years ago. And to say that quite a bit has occurred over the last 18 months would be quite the understatement. So can you share some of your experiences so far?

Thank you, Cheryl. Indeed, quite a lot has occurred during my first 18 months at Bird. I joined Bird with over 25 years of HR leadership experience with SC Johnson, Dell computers and Yum! Brands, most recently with KFC Canada. In my career, I've been at the forefront of transforming good organizations into truly great companies in Canada, so I'm really excited to take a similar journey with Bird. From a people perspective, the past 2 years have been really interesting with the global pandemic and the major integration. What we have seen stand out is the dedication and resiliency of our teams. It's really blown me away. Now we're strategically focused on building for the future, being recognized as a top employer and setting our teams up in the future where they can grow and strive. One of the key ways we'll do this is to create an inclusive and collaborative Bird community driven by a strong sense of belonging, well-being and social responsibility. Mental health is clearly top of mind with our employees, so we will engage and support them with initiatives in that space. We're also a firm believer in continuous learning and providing development opportunities for our people. Our strategy is to create unrivaled learning and development opportunities for our teams that is distinctive from our competitors. We'll also launch an omnichannel strategy to attract the right talent at the right time and develop competitive employee programs to retain our key people. One of the really positive aspects of the integration over the past year is the firm alignment in our company values. Historically, both Bird and Stuart Olson have strong values in social responsibility, stewardship and really being part of the communities where we live and build. Cheryl, you've been a key part of that in your years at Stuart Olson. Can you -- and a driving force of our strategy going forward. Can you tell me a little bit more?

Thanks, Brian. Yes, it's really been fascinating to see just how aligned Bird and Stuart Olson were regarding social and environmental impact. As we began to dive deeper into the creation of an integrated ESG strategy and our sustainability overview, we quickly uncovered a multitude of initiatives from across our organization that were really embedded in the way we work.

I couldn't agree more, Cheryl. Can you dive a bit more into our ESG strategy and our focus as an organization?

For sure. So as an organization, we are truly committed to sustainable building practices, robust HSE standards, substantial community investment, authentic indigenous engagement and strong corporate governance, which is why our long-term ESG strategy is really rooted in the belief that our industry plays such an important role in providing sustainable, innovative and lasting solutions and not just for our clients, partners and employees because those are all extremely important stakeholders, but also for the communities in which we not only work but live. And with our strategy, we're really aiming to entrench sustainability best practices across all areas of our business in addition to looking at ways to better track our progress towards our sustainability goals. And this is why we've engaged EY to help support that discovery phase of our ESG materiality, our research as well as the facilitation of our materiality assessment process because this will really provide us with that necessary baseline to craft an appropriate and relevant strategy for our organization, which will really result in expanded disclosures across a wide range of key metrics, including conforming to the leading reporting frameworks that are currently being utilized within our industry. And it's with these future disclosures that really align to our Investor Relations strategy. So I want to throw it over to Wayne to really highlight what we're seeing from the IR side. So we know there has been much more interest in ESG and more pressure on companies to sustainably perform while still remaining attractive to investors. So Wayne, do you want to shed some light on how you're seeing Bird positioned as a publicly traded company within this space?

Certainly. Thanks, Cheryl. Bird has always had a strong corporate governance culture with robust oversight in enterprise risk management practices. Key examples of this include our Board of Directors who are 90% independent, and 2 of our 3 Board committees are chaired by women. Our Board has demonstrated an active interest in our sustainability journey and are providing guidance to management as we evaluate and refine our strategy and future reporting framework. Externally, we're continuing to see a heightened interest regarding more complete ESG reporting and disclosures, especially as this relates to our company profile with the investor community.

And then in addition to all the corporate governance, we've also done a lot regarding the internal governance when establishing our ESG teams.

Yes. Absolutely. Last year, we established our ESG executive steering committee along with our ESG working groups, which are cross-functional teams tasked with embedding ESG across our organization through the education, discovery and establishment of new processes and procedures. These working groups have allowed us to understand efficiencies and create alignment across our organization. As you previously mentioned, Cheryl, our ESG strategy must be embedded into our culture to ensure its success.

Speaking of how ESG must be embedded across the organization, there are some great examples of sustainable construction projects that were captured last year in our first sustainability report. Which ones really jump out at the both of you?

For me, there were many, but I think the 2 I'll focus on here were regarding net zero construction. So the first was the NX Building at Humber College in Toronto. And it was actually the first retrofit in Canada to achieve the CaGBC Zero Carbon Building design certification, and it also received the first Passive House EnerPHit certification for a nonresidential building in Canada. And the second one I'll touch on quickly here is MacKimmie Tower and Block project here at the University of Calgary, which will be one of the most energy-efficient buildings on a Canadian post-secondary campus. And in 2020, the tower had already achieved net zero standards.

And for me, one of our industrial projects really stood out. On this particular project, over 50 million gallons of treated construction contact water was delivered back into the environment without incident. And to put that in perspective, that's equivalent of the volume of water in 75 Olympic-sized pools. The success of that project actually place Bird in the position to assist other contractors to meet their water quality management requirements. Focusing on these types of projects is a prime example of Bird's sustainability strategy in action, and it really utilizes the experience of our teams to offer our clients those cutting-edge solutions to meet the highest standards of sustainable construction. And that really does make sense both from a stewardship and business perspective.

Wayne, stemming from these examples, what are some of the anticipated opportunities related to sustainable construction in the coming years? Are you seeing increased demand across our industry?

Yes. Absolutely. There are so many opportunities across our industry from a multitude of sectors, from sustainable or smart buildings to mass timber to modular, LEED Zero Carbon and the Canada Infrastructure Bank retrofits, just to name a few. As many of us are aware, the government of Canada has committed to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. This will be supported by the Canada Infrastructure Bank who will invest $10 billion to build new sustainable infrastructure. This is an opportunity for Bird to work closely with our clients to uncover funding opportunities and deliver successful deep energy retrofit projects as well as energy-efficient new construction that can optimize whole life project costs. The CIB also has a target to invest $1 billion towards the Indigenous Community Infrastructure Initiative. Bird is working with First Nation, Métis and Inuit communities to explore opportunities for collaboration on future projects. Bird is well positioned to capitalize on these opportunities as we have proven capabilities to do so in these areas, as we've already discussed. These areas of our business provide key opportunities for our company to be both a strong recognized ESG leader as well as provide long-term value for our stakeholders.

Now, in addition to sustainable construction, social is obviously a large component of our ESG strategy. Can you speak of some of the key -- these examples that you've come across during developing our sustainability overview?

I could share quite a few examples of our social impact. But I think today, I want to focus on our commitment to being a positive contributor to the overall well-being of indigenous peoples and groups with whom Bird interacts with across Canada. And we demonstrate this by both respecting and promoting the rights of indigenous peoples across our operations. And our National Indigenous Engagement Policy really provides us with that clear guidance on how we can work towards this goal, and this is further supported by our mandatory internal cultural awareness training. And we really have examples of this commitment in action across our organization. There has been an 8-week carpentry program, a First Nation Safety Watch training and employment initiative, substantial indigenous content on some of our sites and a wide variety of scholarships from across the country that really focus on investing in the future of young people from indigenous communities. And it's really this type of proactive and respectful relationship building with indigenous communities across Canada that will always be a priority for Bird.

There's no doubt that this is an important piece of our organization strategy. What's next in regard to ESG?

So I think the key takeaway from all of this is that as an organization, we will continue to keep all aspects of the ESG conversation at the forefront. And Brian, I know your team deals with this daily, but everyone's looking towards their companies or potential companies that they want to work with or work for in a different light. And it's no longer just a role or an industry. It's really how are these companies positively interacting and engaging with their communities. And this is why ESG remains such a core of our business. As an organization, we have done so many great things across our communities from coast to coast. And going forward, we will continue to embed these current initiatives into our approach to ESG as well as continue to disclose additional metrics and examples of sustainable construction methods, social impact initiatives and really just our people teams and communities truly doing great things.

This sounds like an exciting time not only for our company, but for our industry. Wayne, what is the general outlook on how ESG will impact the construction industry as a whole?

It will be no surprise to anyone on this call that the focus on ESG is growing at a rapid pace and across all sectors. This is why we're so aligned to the values of our clients, and we understand why there is increased attention to ESG principles in both the pursuit process and with construction requirements. This is particularly apparent with respect to the impact and potential of evolving sustainable construction methodologies, renewable green materials and the role of technology, which our operations team spoke to earlier today. As an organization, we are well positioned to respond to the growing demands of ESG in our markets because our ESG strategy is rooted in the core values of our organization. And throughout our integration with Stuart Olson, we're continually reminded of our strengths in building a company that will continue to evolve and thrive over the next 100 years as we focus on sustainable business practices that truly make a positive impact to the companies, communities and people we engage, work with and work for.

I couldn't agree more, Wayne. Now, while I know we could continue this conversation for quite a while longer, I'm going to end this segment here. So now we're going to take a short break with a minute-long video that wraps up this session, and we'll return for our discussion with Paul Raboud, Chair of the Board. [Presentation]

Welcome back, everyone. I'm jumping back in to my moderator role, and I'm honored to be joined by Bird's Chairman of the Board, Paul Raboud. Paul, thanks for joining us today.

Cheryl.

So you've had quite the career with Bird. Can you share some of your background with us?

Sure. I'd love to. I've actually never worked anywhere else. I've spent my entire career with Bird, 37 years. In fact, I even worked one summer for Bird as a student. Like a lot of leaders of Bird, I started at the bottom and worked my way up. As a student, I worked for 4 summers on site on the tools. And after graduating from engineering, I started with Bird as an estimator. I then crossed over to project management and then moved up to Assistant District Manager and District Manager. In 2000, I went to head office as a Vice President and eventually took the position of President and ultimately, CEO. I stepped down as CEO in 2010, but I remained on the Board of Directors. I took on the role of Chair of the Board at our last AGM in the spring. I've never considered working anywhere else. Bird was a good fit for me, and I really believe in the values of the company. Bird has a hard work culture, which is pretty common in this industry. But there's also a humility and an integrity, which I think is more unusual. There's a lot of very talented, very successful people in the company. But the way they conduct themselves in business and in their personal lives, it demonstrates that they've really remain grounded. I find that very attractive, and I think it's part of the reason we have so many long-tenured employees in the company.

That's great insight, Paul. And it's really inspiring to see how Bird's culture of hard work is still grounded into that humility and integrity throughout the organization and no matter the role. Now you mentioned that you recently took on the role of Chair of the Board earlier this year, succeeding Paul Charette, who also had a long and successful career with Bird.

[ Indeed ].

Can you speak a bit to this transition?

Sure. Paul and I worked together for a very long time. I reported to Paul for over 25 years as an employee. And for the last 11 years, we've worked together on Bird's Board. Under Paul's leadership, the company has been enormously successful. Many of the hallmarks of Bird's culture and approach to business reflect Paul's influence. I'm referring to the values of integrity and humility I spoke of earlier as well as the commitment to operational excellence, accountability and cost control. These are really the foundations upon which the company was built. When I started with Bird, we were a very decentralized company. As a District Manager, head office consisted of 3 people: Paul Charette; our CFO, Doug; and one executive assistant. This served us incredibly well. At the time, we were focused on retail and other local markets, and that organizational structure was ideal to serve and compete in those markets. But over time, the company evolved. We built a very significant industrial business, and the ICI business shifted to larger and more complex markets. And both of these shifts require more internal collaboration to bring the required expertise to bear as well as investments in support functions like IT, safety, employee training and legal, all of which require a different organizational structure than what it previously had served us so well. This is just one example of how the company has evolved. As you heard earlier from Teri, Bird is currently rolling out a new strategic plan. The Board is very excited about the plan and the structure and the steps required for its execution.

It's definitely a very exciting time for the organization. And you've really experienced quite the shift in the business throughout your years with Bird, and I can only imagine a complete evolution of the industry. So what are you seeing in regards to changes in our industry? And what is that next catalyst that you're most excited for?

Well, you're right, Cheryl. The construction industry is undergoing a period of extraordinary change. And for sure, there's been an acceleration of technological change that has impacted the industry. But another big change that has profoundly affected the industry that I don't think is as well recognized is that over the last, say, 10 years, the typical size of project has increased as well as their technical and contractual complexity. Just consider the number of tertiary hospitals and massive transit transportation and industrial projects that have come to market in the last 10 years compared to the previous 20 years. There's just no comparison. As well, many of the contract formats used recently have shifted a lot of the design responsibility and overall risk to the contractors. While we can debate the merits of these contracting strategies, one thing that is clear is this increase has -- this increase, this is generated in the sophistication of Canadian contractors and the internal investments they have made to execute these contracts to compete with foreign firms in this market. As an example, consider the size of the staff contingents that contractors have deployed working on BIM or virtual design and construction or the sophistication of the legal departments or the investment in safety or the centers of excellence that Paul Pastirik spoke of earlier supporting environmental work or food processing. Most of this infrastructure did not exist 10 years ago. More recently, the industry has pushed back on the risk transfer associated with some of the PPP and design/build formats, and the market is moving more towards collaborative formats, which is terrific. But the infrastructure that contractors developed over the last 10 years to execute these PPP and design/build contracts is crucial to be capable of creating value for owners under these collaborative formats. So in a very roundabout way, what I'm saying is the shift in contracting strategy toward collaborative formats like IPD or alliance contracting is probably the industry development that I'm most excited about because this is such a good fit for Bird.

So in addition to greater complexity of projects or collaborative contracting, how do you see technology impacting our industry?

Well, it's no secret that the construction industry has been quite slow adopting technological change, and this is reflected in the industry's poor productivity improvement record. But over the last, say, 5 or 7 years, it really feels like the industry, and certainly Bird, is undergoing a significant change. And I'd point to a couple of things that I believe are contributing to this change in the pace of technology adoption. Firstly, a lot of the previous IT investment in digital innovation was driven more by finance. So it was quite common to see significant investment in sophisticated ERP systems. In recent years, we've seen a great deal of investment in technology, which relates to more operational aspects of the construction industry. And I'm talking about things like document collaboration, virtual design and construction, drones, RFID tags, robots, GPS-enabled heavy equipment. The opportunity for productivity improvement resulting from these investment in operations is significant, which I think is contributing to the momentum in this area. The other observation I would make is the network effect of these investments. For example, as more designers use BIM for their designs and subcontractors use BIM for shop drawings and contractors use BIM for project planning, the momentum really starts to feed on itself. You also see this with document collaboration tools. As more people are familiar with these systems and work on platforms that are compatible, the more benefit is derived. I'd also point out that these productivity gains are not the only benefits that accrue from adopting technology. Bird is consistently seeing a real risk management benefit from the use of BIM. It's such a great planning tool that it really helps to identify problems early while there's still an opportunity to deal with them. As a final comment, I would note that there is a balance to be achieved. These systems are expensive, and discretion has to be exercised to avoid investing in every new idea that comes along. But any company that falls behind the curve is going to have a tough time meeting the expectations of their clients and also their employees.

Your comment regarding balance really stands out, finding that right tool or technology that really increases collaboration or productivity and finds that real value. Now we talked a lot about the evolution of Bird as a business and the changes across our industry. So now I want to turn it to your perspective on the Board of Directors. There's been some evolution there as well.

For sure. In the last couple of years, the Bird Board has undergone a period of renewal. When we looked at the Board, we noted that 6 of the 9 members would reach the mandatory retirement age in a few years. In the first step of this renewal, Karyn Brooks and Luc Messier joined the Board in 2017, and they're both outstanding Board members. Karyn is now chairing the Audit Committee, and Luc is chairing the Health, Safety and Environment Committee. And the renewal process is continuing. We anticipate that there will be additional retirements and new appointments at our 2022 AGM. We'd like to add additional HR expertise to our Board as Bonnie DuPont, our current HR chair, approaches the mandatory retirement age. As well, we'd like to add expertise to support our ongoing investment in IT infrastructure and the digital transformation that the company is undergoing. We're also keen to expand the diversity of the Board as we believe a wide range of perspective adds to the strength of the Board. So in short, I think we currently have a very strong Board, and we're working hard to ensure that we maintain that strength as members retire and that we're well positioned to address the issues in the business as it evolves.

Now the last question I want to ask you is regarding Bird and our new strategic plan. So as Teri mentioned, we recently completed the 2022 to 2024 strategic plan. Now what is both your perspective and the Board's perspective on that plan?

Well, the entire Board is very excited about the strategic plan developed by Teri and his management team. Firstly, the team did an extraordinary job incorporating the input of the Board into the plan through a series of engagements over the course of the last year. Earlier today, Teri and the operations team outlined some key elements of our new strategic plan, and I'd like to highlight 2 points about the alignment of the strategy and the natural strength of Bird. The first relates to the opportunities to cross-sell. Bird has a strong offering across virtually every construction market segment in Canada and across the country geographically. In the past, we have not taken full advantage of this diversity for cross-selling. Part of this relates to our historically decentralized structure. And Teri and his team are doing a terrific job of aligning all the systems and processes in the company to support the strategy of cross-selling between the various geographies and market segments that we operate in. The second point I wanted to make was -- about the alignment of the strategy and the strengths of the company relates to the reputation that Bird has for integrity and the high degree of trust that our clients have in Bird. The trend that we spoke about earlier today towards more collaborative contracting models, it's an excellent cultural fit with Bird. The collaborative contracting model requires that the clients work with a contractor that they really trust. As well, Bird has deep experience in virtual design and construction, smart building technology and preconstruction services in general. So we're really well positioned to perform in that business. So I think the strategic plan really takes advantage of the natural strengths of the company. I would also point out that of these strategies, cross-selling and collaborative contracting, they allow Bird to create significant value for its clients, which is key for Bird to enjoy strong, sustainable margins as well. And finally, this diversification across both geographies and markets and also the tremendous growth that we've seen in the maintenance and renewal business generates much more reliable revenues for Bird, and this is a big business advantage in a cyclical environment like we find ourselves at Bird. So all in all, we're very excited about the new strategic plan, and I believe we're already starting to see the benefits.

Thanks for this insight, Paul. We really appreciate your time with us here today.

My pleasure, Cheryl.

Now we will share a brief video, and then we'll come back to Teri McKibbon, President and CEO; and Wayne Gingrich, Chief Financial Officer, to the stage to share a financial overview and Bird's outlook. [Presentation]

Welcome back, everyone. I'd like to welcome Wayne Gingrich, CFO; and Teri McKibbon, President and CEO, back to the stage. Wayne, I'm going to throw it over to you first. Can you share your perspective on Bird's evolution and how the business is positioned to succeed going forward?

Thanks, Cheryl, and good day, everyone. Since joining Bird approximately 5.5 years ago, we've made significant strides building and strengthening our underlying business. Coming off our last strategic plan called Build Bird, I'm pleased to say that we achieved many of our strategic priorities. One of the core pillars of that 5-year strategic plan was to build the business through end market diversification, new service offerings and would allow for less cyclicality in a more robust overall business model. The acquisition of Stuart Olson allowed us to achieve this strategic objective. To refresh everyone on the acquisition, we closed on the Stuart Olson transaction on September 25, 2020, just under a year ago. The total consideration amounted to $96.5 million, of which $30 million consisted of cash and the $66.5 million balance paid in common shares of Bird Construction. Additionally, at the onset, we identified $25 million in run rate cost synergies, which we will fully achieve by the end of this year. The cost synergies included $15 million in depreciation and amortization and interest costs, which were realized immediately upon closing. And the balance was $10 million in EBITDA synergies, which all have been set in motion, and we'll fully realize these annualized cost savings by the end of the year. We also believe that over time, we will be able to realize further cost savings as we migrate onto one common IT platform. While it's still early days, we expect we will see these cost savings at the bottom line in the next 2 years. Overall, I'm extremely pleased with the acquisition of Stuart Olson and the team that joined Bird. The acquisition has been accretive since day 1. And as at the end of the second quarter 2021, our backlog stood at a record high on a combined basis. Our backlog was $2.7 billion, while our pending backlog amounted to $1.6 billion. I'd like to highlight that pending backlog includes approximately $1 billion of MSA contracts. These contracts are typically with industrial clients that [ span ] multiple years for MRO services and provide excellent revenue and profit visibility. A key tenet of our new year -- a key tenet of our new 3-year strategic plan is to achieve strong, consistent and profitable performance. The underlying composition of our backlog is at the end of the second quarter and as we go forward, reflects our discipline to continue to manage the underlying risk profile of our backlog through end market and geographic diversification and in contracting methods. Additionally, one of our key priorities is to increase our overall margin profile of the business. We've reported 11 consecutive quarters of improving trailing 12-month EBITDA margins. We've come a long way since 2017, 2018 when we worked through some tougher [ PPP ] projects and have since derisked our backlog and have a more balanced work program. Recent EBITDA margin percentages have had a lift with the inclusion of the Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy as revenues were negatively impacted by the pandemic over the past year. We don't expect to qualify for CEWS going forward. And generally, our work program is fully in place. We've stated on prior conference calls that the inclusion of Stuart Olson will weigh on our near-term margin profile given the inherently lower risk profile of their contracts. However, we are confident we're building a business that can support a higher-margin profile over the medium to long term. Further enhancing our margin profile is the recent addition of Dagmar, which will increase our self-perform capabilities in a high-growth sector and drive higher margins. We believe that we can achieve a higher margin profile as we leverage our combined expertise with our clients from coast to coast. Specifically, we will look for opportunities for our buildings and industrial and infrastructure teams to partner in environmental projects, the agriculture/agri-food sector, renewables, industrial buildings and horizontal infrastructure to name a few, to build a diverse backlog portfolio with opportunities to deliver vertically integrated projects and achieve higher margins. Furthermore, as you heard earlier, a key strategic priority is to grow through accretive tuck-in M&A. With Dagmar underpinning our civil infrastructure operating group, we expect a unified coast-to-coast infrastructure group with civil infrastructure capabilities to drive the next phase of the company's growth. The acquisition of Dagmar is core to this strategic initiative as we will leverage their expertise to enhance our nationwide service offering and drive higher self-perform margins. As Gilles mentioned previously, Dagmar brings a suite of core horizontal infrastructure capabilities we did not have previously. Dagmar's consistent in-house execution abilities stem from their experienced labor force and comprehensive fleet of owned equipment. As a result, the company boasts a well-respected and long-standing clientele lists, the likes of which Canadian National Railway, Canadian Pacific Railway, Metrolinx, municipal and government bodies in addition to others. Dagmar's clients -- or work programs are well diversified across work type with no one segment making up more than 30% of overall revenues. With an 80-plus year history, Dagmar has established a long and proven track record of stable revenues, healthy margins and profitability, which is testament to the company's ability to manage costs and consistently deliver projects on budget. As such, I believe Dagmar's high-performing team will fit well in the Bird team and drive a higher overall margin profile in addition to our propensity to be opportunistic with M&A to augment our growth.

Thanks for that overview, Wayne. Now Teri, I want to turn to you. How do you see the economic landscape for Bird over the next 3 years?

From a macro perspective, we -- a very favorable economic backdrop from a private and public sector standpoint. On top of projected economic growth of 6% in 2021 and between 3% and 4.5% for the subsequent 2 years, we see significant stimulus spending table within the most recent federal and provincial budgets, which we can participate. Strong resource prices in our core markets also supports our optimistic outlook. This backdrop, coupled with the expansive coast-to-coast reach and healthy balance sheet, positions us well to grow organically over the near, medium and long term.

Thanks for providing that color, Teri. Now you talked about us having a strong financial position. So Wayne, could you elaborate on that for us?

Certainly. As we announced concurrent with the acquisition of Dagmar, we expanded our syndicated credit facility to $235 million from $200 million and retained a $50 million accordion feature. We further extended the term of the credit facility to September 1, 2024. The expansion and extension of our credit facility speaks to the strength of the relationships we have with our lenders and their confidence in Bird and the strategic direction we are taking the company. On a pro forma basis, we will continue to retain one of the lowest leverage ratios in the industry. Our strong cash flow generation, healthy balance sheet and balanced approach to capital allocation positions us well to capitalize on organic growth and additional M&A opportunities as we look to invest in our technology platform and augment our growth through opportunistic tuck-in acquisitions while returning excess capital to shareholders by way of dividends.

Thanks for that, Wayne. Now building on the comments you made about wanting to be more acquisitive, Teri, would you be able to talk about what sectors the company would be more interested in from an M&A standpoint?

Overall, our goal by 2024 is to be an industry leader across our markets and drive higher overall profit margins. To this end, we will endeavor to make opportunistic tuck-in acquisitions to accelerate our growth when the opportunities present themselves and the fit is right. We will target sectors where we currently do not have the capability or geographic presence and that boast higher overall margin profiles. We believe that opportunities exist in civil infrastructure, process mechanical, electrical utilities, nuclear and renewable sectors that carry higher overall margins. Additionally, as we broaden our service offering and expand our footprint, we believe that we will capture additional cross-selling opportunities like what we are experiencing with Stuart Olson, which will further increase our margin profile. By focusing on organic growth opportunities and augmenting our business through accretive M&A, I believe that we will deliver sustainable, profitable growth and create long-term shareholder value.

Thanks for both of your insights, Teri and Wayne. Now before we transition into the Q&A session of our day, I'll pass it over to Teri to provide his closing statements. Over to you, Teri.

Thank you, again, to everyone who's joined us today. As you have heard through the course of the presentations today, we are very excited for what is in store for Bird. We have a clear strategy that positions Bird to succeed in a dynamic and ever-changing construction industry. Our M&A strategy, which we've gone through today, as well as the One Bird focus and our strategic external and internal partnerships will continue to drive increasing value from full-service offerings. These elements of our strategy will be key to access new markets, achieve higher margins in target areas and increase work programs with key clients. You've also heard from some of our other leaders today about the key elements of our plan, including our centers of excellence leveraging technology for construction and building on our strong ESG profile. Driven and inspired by our pillars team, perform, diversify, we continue to build momentum and build the future together. Thank you for being with us today, and I look forward to joining you in the Q&A session.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to our live Q&A with Teri McKibbon and Wayne Gingrich. We have 45 minutes allocated for questions and answers in an open forum, where analysts and institutional investors can submit their questions online. [Operator Instructions] Now I'll turn to our first question from Jacob Bout from CIBC. "Has the proliferation on Delta variant impacted your outlook? Has there been an impact on logistics, material availability and ultimately margins?"

I would say generally speaking, we've had pretty similar sort of consistent performance through the -- as the Delta variant arises and evolves. I think we're battle-tested with the 18 months that we've been in COVID. So it's a lot of the -- a lot of normality to that framework. On the material side, we're seeing things improve actually. Certainly, a few months ago, there was some challenges in areas. So we're seeing that starting to -- some of the supply channels have caught up. So I think overall, that's less of a concern moving forward. And we're seeing a line of sight to some of the specialized commodities that we need sort of normalize in that regard. But I think it's a lot of the same sort of dynamics. I think our teams have worked tremendously hard in the sites to have good practices and follow strong protocols around COVID and risk of COVID. So in that regard, I think it's pretty much the same as it's been in the last 18 months.

All right. Thanks for that, Teri. The second question we have is from Chris Murray from ATB. "Can you elaborate on your comments around the Dagmar acquisition and its ability to horizontal infrastructure, including rail to build a coast-to-coast contractor? Can you provide additional financial details, including the margin profile, any synergy expectations, cost or revenue of the Dagmar acquisition?

So the Dagmar acquisition has been a real key for us to diversify across, first of all, new geography but also new markets. And it opens us up to more government horizontal infrastructure. They have a tremendous track record. Bird's civil side of its business has been more industrial-focused, energy-focused. So any time you can bring a group like that together and cross-pollinate it, we think Dagmar will be a nice incubator for us to develop our teams. Only in a few days since the acquisition, we're getting calls to get invited on to projects that we wouldn't have had a call in the past. So that's certainly nice. And I think one of the things that Bird has done a really nice job of, and we've worked really hard on this, it's this whole collaboration across the country. So we use centers of excellence in many different areas to be the sort of the hub. Mass timber is an example, where you couldn't have capability of mass timber in every district in every division. So we have a hub. So Dagmar will be sort of the same where it has this -- first of all, has these certifications required to work for CN and CP. So it has that framework. So over time, it's not something you can snap your fingers overnight and develop. But over time, you can really build off that. But it's -- we feel it'll be a really nice thing to be able to grow. First of all, it's in the largest civil infrastructure market in the country. So we obviously feel strongly about our ability to enhance and focus on certain projects that we can take advantage of their capabilities and Bird's capabilities.

Thanks for that, Teri.

If I could just comment on the margin side, I think for the second part of that question. So what we said is that the Dagmar acquisition is going to be accretive in the first full year of operations from a margin perspective. Because of the self-perform nature of that business, the margins that we're seeing in Dagmar and its work program are higher than the average margins that you're seeing on the Bird consolidated business. And then just from a synergy perspective, we didn't announce any sort of cost synergies with this transaction because that's not what the deal is really predicated on. But we already have a nice pipeline of opportunities for cross-selling opportunities that we have. And that's really what gets us excited about this business. So I think we're going to see a lot of top line synergy coming out of this transaction.

Thanks for that insight. So the next question we have, it's from Michael Tupholme from TD Securities. "Can you speak to some of the key ESG-related metrics and targets that Bird is focused on over the life of the company's new 2022 to 2024 strategic plan?"

Yes. I can take that one, if you like. So we're in the process right now of identifying what our disclosure framework is going to look like. But with that being said, I think there's a few metrics such as greenhouse gases or our social giving, like some of the metrics around those are going to be things that we're certainly going to be including in future sustainability reports.

Perfect. The next question we have is from Bryan Fast and Frederic Bastien from Raymond James. "So on the mass timber opportunity, can you talk about the pace of adoption in Canada? And what would it take for that pace to accelerate?"

So we're seeing it actually accelerate as we speak. We've had a tremendous -- we've got a tremendous resume of mass timber projects in Canada and predominantly on both coasts, both the East Coast and West Coast, and largely in educational settings. We've seen universities and colleges and things like that develop and build with mass timber. Now we're seeing it really expand into corporate offices and long-term care. We're building a facility in Manitoba, in Winnipeg for -- called Molson Park. It's a large mass timber facility there, and we're self-performing a lot of that work. So it's accelerating as we speak. The opportunities are certainly front and center, and it's an area that we've got a really strong resume. So we're quite excited about that.

All right. The next question we have is from Naji Baydoun from Industrial Alliance. "So you talked about having a balanced approach to capital allocation. Can you quantify that or what that balance looks like between organic growth, M&A and dividends?"

Certainly. So when I think about our capital allocation, thinking about CapEx, we have a certain amount of sustaining spend that we have and plus or minus in a normalized year, so outside of a pandemic. It could be in the $15 million range, and then we might have additional equipment CapEx just based on the project portfolio and the pipeline of opportunities that we have. But that's a little bit more flexible and can change based on our wins. Certainly, our dividend is at a rate of about $20 million, $21 million a year right now. M&A is more opportunistic for us. Obviously, we just completed the current transaction, and we're going to be focusing on integrating certainly Dagmar. We still have integration work to do with Stuart Olson. We also talked about investing in technology as well. So we're going to be investing some capital spend in terms of our IT platform over the next couple of years. And then the last thing that we talked about is really just repaying some of our long-term debt that we put on the books with these recent acquisitions.

Perfect. So a question came through from an investor prior to this session. And they've asked, "As far as I can recall, Bird has never held an Investor Day. What is the reason for today's meeting?"

Well, certainly, from a -- we just launched a new strategic plan. The company has certainly evolved in many, many different areas. It's difficult on a quarter-to-quarter basis to cover the content that we covered today. I think the -- anytime you can provide a much broader overview of the things that we do is very valuable. And I think, obviously, our shareholders, stakeholders will have a much better understanding of the kinds of things that Bird is doing versus what it's done historically. So the story is more complex in terms of scale and in terms of how we've evolved. I think the Stuart Olson acquisition, we're really excited about that, and it was nice to present the material that David presented on the MRO side. And we used a cross-section of sort of the leaders. There's many more really significant leaders in the company that lead different areas, but we felt a cross-section would be appropriate. And typically, our operation teams focus on construction. They don't focus on this as a core focal point. So it's nice to have a mix and talk about some of the things that we're doing. I don't know if you have thoughts, Wayne, on -- further thoughts on that?

Yes. I think that's fair. I've been with Bird for 5.5 years, and it is the first one we've done. But I just think it's a really compelling story that we have to tell. And this is a very different Bird today than it was 5 years ago so.

Thanks for that insight. So the next question we have is from Jacob Bout from CIBC. "So as it relates to your diversification strategy, how much of this will be completed by M&A versus organically? And how far are you willing to stretch the balance sheet?"

So I think first of all, our focus on M&A is a very precise focus on areas that we're interested in. But first and foremost, it's got to be a good cultural fit. We're interested in high-performing businesses. We're interested in leadership teams that want to stay and contribute. The Dagmar acquisition is a great example where we have sort of 7 major shareholders that they're all staying long term with Bird to branch the business out in the things we're doing. So that's a great example. We don't like going into auctions to sell companies where the owners don't care who buys the business. We want to really focus on really dynamic companies that fit what we'd like to do. And so we're very, very selective. It's not like we have a cadence where we really think we're going to do something every few months or every year or anything like that. We're very focused. So -- and oftentimes, M&A kind of evolves in a way that you can't really predict, right? And Stuart Olson is a great example of that. Like you couldn't really predict that, that was going to become an opportunity for us. So there are times where something comes along that's transformative. There's times where something comes along that's more of a strategic fit in that sense, and we call it -- classify it sometimes as a tuck-in. And that's really where that is. And as far as the scale, the balance sheet, that type of thing, we're very careful with the balance sheet. We have a very strong balance sheet, and we intend to keep it that way. And obviously, as we look at our growth forward, our -- we work very closely with our Board in terms of the metrics. And that's just been the way Bird has operated. I don't know, thoughts, Wayne, on that?

Yes. On the balance sheet, obviously, we're very comfortable with our balance sheet today. And when we come up with our debt and equity kind of measures as we do these acquisitions, it is kind of on a case-by-case basis, and we evaluate what makes sense. We always want to make sure that we have enough dry powder left if another opportunistic -- opportunity were to come forward that we could transact on something like that. But I think over the coming year or so, we're going to be very focused on the integration. And we'll try to maintain certainly that debt and equity level that we have and make sure that we can be opportunistic going forward.

Thank you. So the next question is from Maxim Sytchev from National Bank Financial. "How should we think about the long-term EBITDA margin potential? And can you please talk about the specific initiatives and potential timing for margin inflection? And how should we think about tougher comparables from CEWS not being a part of the margin dynamic?"

Yes. I think maybe I'll start with the CEWS portion first. So over the last 4 quarters, Bird and the combination of Bird and Stuart Olson has recorded the Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy, as our business has been impacted certainly by the pandemic. We stated that we don't expect that to continue. So in Q3, we don't expect to qualify nor in Q4 and after. So over the next year, you're going to start to see our EBITDA margin normalize without that subsidy in there, and it's going to rebaseline. In terms of some of the initiatives and focus areas that we have, certainly leveraging technology, project execution, we like the self-perform nature of projects as well because there's inherently higher margins built in those as well. I don't know, Teri, any other thoughts?

Yes. I think in that sense, from the timing, ultimately, we're building the organization today to have a scale of services that evolves in terms of the different types of markets. And it really depends to a certain extent on the timing of certain opportunities evolving and our ability to service those. But in that regard, I think it's a evolving journey and difficult to predict.

Okay. The next question we have is from Troy Sun from Laurentian Bank. "Can you please comment on some of the incremental work you are already seeing on the LNG Canada site? And if you could quantify the potential scope as well as the margin profile for the pipeline." Troy said he's just trying to get a sense of the revenue curvature over the next 24 months.

So we've had good success. This is a project that, obviously, the clients demand very high performance in terms of quality and safety and the team and the scopes of work. And we've had good success here. And the teams that's been assembled has performed at a very high level. And so there's been a number of assignments. We continue to have a large workforce on that site. And obviously, as further evolution of the project evolves, scopes of work become available. And then longer term, you think about maintenance and things like that, that Bird can perform. So we've been very lucky to have a client like that, and I think -- but our teams have worked tremendously hard. And it's a good relationship. And we continue to focus on exceeding their expectations so we can continue to be considered for future scopes.

Perfect. All right. Our next question is from Michael Tupholme from TD Securities. "So as part of your 2022 to 2024 strategic plan, you have talked about further diversifying Bird's business. If we look out 3-years plus, which sectors and geographies do you expect to see grow in importance for Bird over this period? And as a follow-on question, would Bird consider expanding in a meaningful way into the U.S. market over time?"

So I think we are -- we have a nice geographic base to build off of. And if you think of the different types of things we do in different markets, we -- in certain markets, we're more of a vertical building contractor. In other markets, we've got a much more diversified service offering. So I think a focus on balancing that into the various markets we're in is really key. As Gilles indicated earlier, the utilities is a nice space for us. We're working in utilities both in Canada and the U.S. So that's an area that's interesting for us, thinking of expanding in process mechanical and certain types of things we do, if you think of further expansion of our civil specialized capabilities in markets that we already have a base. We have a really nice base. So there really isn't anywhere in Canada that we don't have a base to work off of. So we have local relationships, and we have -- we understand the landscape quite well. So in that regard, it's really to take this collaborative organization and fully build out those capabilities into different areas where we're not as developed. And really impressive to see the way the team has taken that strategy and really focused on it in that regard. As far as the U.S., we've been careful in the sense of the U.S. in terms of growth. It's not on our radar at this time. I think -- and the reason for that is there's just been so many opportunities in Canada for us to focus on. And I think fully developing that Canadian marketplace is really where we're focused. And -- but we are doing specialized projects in the U.S. for clients. So we're learning the landscape and developing relationships, so we'll see. But it's not front and center for us right now, and we're just finding the opportunities in Canada to be fulfilling.

All right. Next question, another one from Bryan Fast and Frederic Bastien from Raymond James. "So as it relates to the Stuart Olson acquisition, what has surprised you about the integration, whether it be positive or negative?"

Well, positive side, there's -- I have Wayne comment as well. There's been a lot of really positive things that have happened in terms of -- especially in the cross-selling and the collaboration and the whole dynamic of the teams working together. And anytime you can put 2 big 100-year-old organizations together and have the excitement around that, I think the teams are very proud of the business we're building and the kinds of things we're doing. And I think construction folks are very proud of what they're doing. So they can do something that's pretty unique and dynamic. There's a lot of excitement centered around that. So in that sense, I'm really pleased. Obviously, when you have such a significant scale of an acquisition, you worry about how that's going to go, and it keeps you up at night. But this has gone very smoothly and lots of dynamics around new things that our teams are thinking about. And you heard David talk about the expensive technology that they're using, and that was really impressive to see that. I didn't -- never expected to see that advancement of technology in that area. So that's really been really cool. As far as negative, there isn't anything that comes to mind as far as a negative surprise. I'd say the impact in Western Canada and some of the markets until recently has been -- it's taken longer for the Western markets to recover. Part of that's COVID. Part of it is just commodity prices strengthening, but we're seeing a nice ramp-up in that regard. So that would be the one that everyone, I'm sure, hoped that COVID would be settled out in a year or so. But it's taken a while. So that one's for the world, not just for us. But it would be nice to see that in the rearview mirror and see some of the markets that we've seen pressure on like the hotel and retail industries start to really recover and focus on growth again.

I think on the positive side, one of the things that surprised me is just how similar our cultures really are. And when you think back a year ago when we closed that transaction, to do something that transformative in a pandemic, like there's always a lot of change that happens with an acquisition and integration like this. But to be able to do it in a pandemic is another added challenge. And I just think having that similar culture and just how the teams have come together and tried to work together through the pandemic has really been impressive. And as we've said in our disclosures to that from day 1, this acquisition has been accretive to Bird, and that's really because of people and the way they've embraced this change.

Thanks for that. The next question is from Maxim Sytchev from National Bank. "Can you please discuss how the Commercial Systems Group geographic expansion is going as we speak?"

So it's gone really well. It's -- first of all, it's a Tier 1 electrical contractor in Western Canada. And as some of our key clients have expanded into Eastern Canada, Canem has been able to evolve with them. So that's gone quite well. And so we -- it has a list of major clients it works for, including Bird and Stuart Olson. So there are expanding opportunities. I'd say that the complexity of buildings today has really changed, and it's become a major focal point. So clients are looking for smart technology. And it's complex when you start putting this into facilities. We're also seeing evolving opportunities in security, things like that. So that is a growing area. We're seeing small special projects in the service side, the -- a very dynamic growth area where we go and work with national clients. And I think any time you can take the scale of the overall organization, larger clients that work nationally like that. So they like to see a service being provided by someone that has a very strong balance sheet that has national capability. So we're really pleased with that growth, but it has been historically a -- for 80-plus years, a very strong Western performer that's growing easterly. And the opportunities are -- certainly seem to be there for it. So it's good.

Okay. The next question is from Yuri Lynk from Canaccord Genuity. "Do you have a revenue target for 2024?"

So we're very focused on our bottom line for 2024 and continuing to see accretive improvements. So in that sense, all of our focus is there. The top line will evolve as it evolves. Obviously, we put together on a regular basis the framework of budgets. But big, big focus is our bottom line performance and ensuring that we can continue to find accretive improvements.

Yes. I think you're right. The focus is on the bottom line, but I also think we are going to see some organic growth in a lot of parts of our business just because there seem to be some favorable market conditions and government infrastructure spending coming up that certainly Bird is going to participate in and benefit from.

The next question is from Naji Baydoun from Industrial Alliance. "Can you provide more details on specific financial objectives over the '22 to '24 time frame? Do you have any margin growth and/or capital deployment objectives you want to achieve? Essentially assuming you're successful in executing on your growth strategy, what should Bird look like in 2024?"

Yes. I think as Teri mentioned, we're not coming out with specific forward guidance. But I think the way you should be thinking about how things are going to evolve is that in terms of the dividend, that's always been a very important part of our shareholder value creation strategy, and it will continue to be so. We certainly want to have enough flexibility to invest in CapEx and IT just for longer-term growth in the business as well. I don't know, Teri, any other thoughts?

No. That's kind of where we land. So...

Okay. Next question, Chris Murray from ATB. "Can you comment on some of the platforms being proposed by the various parties in the federal election campaign and your thoughts around both risks and opportunities? While there remains a commitment to infrastructure, certain elements like the elimination of the CIB could impact your strategy."

Well, we certainly have seen in prior elections, both federally and provincially, where a party will suggest that something is going to be eliminated, and it just gets restructured and reformed. And I think the development of the CIB has been something that's been good for Canada and -- in that regard. So I guess time will tell how that plays out. Infrastructure continues to be certainly a great platform, a great stimulus. Canadians are looking for more efficiency in things like rail systems and ease of getting to work and transportation networks and educational facilities that are very modern and carbon-neutral buildings. So I think I can't imagine a government getting elected and reversing any of that because it's really what Canadians are looking for. So in that sense, I think we're somewhat agnostic to who -- which party federally is elected. I think a lot of the development of the programs that are underway today have taken considerable time, and they'll continue to run their course. It will be something that affects us 5 years from now, more so than 3 years from now, more so than current. Any thoughts, Wayne?

Yes. Like we spoke earlier about the government's commitment to net 0 by 2050. One way or another, they're going to have to fund these energy retrofits and sustainable infrastructure projects. So whether it's CIB or another mechanism, I don't think it impacts our strategy that much.

The next question, Michael Tupholme from TD Securities. "In general, can you talk about how productivity levels on Bird's projects are at present and how current productivity compares both to H2 '20 and pre-COVID productivity levels at the company?"

So certainly, in the early days of COVID-19, we really saw some impacts on productivity. And that took about -- for it to normalize, it took about a year. And since then, it feels like we're back close to the productivity levels that we would have been historically achieving. So in that regard, I think it's -- we're pretty normal now in that sense. Again, it's become more routine. It's become more a framework of how we operate. So in that sense, it's back to -- basically to normal.

Okay. Next question, Maxim Sytchev from National Bank. "Can you please discuss which other services you can offer in the nuclear space? Or is the focus still very much on the buildings part in this segment?"

So certainly, nuclear sites have got many different components and many different requirements. We're just starting a water treatment plant currently for OPG in Ontario, and that's an example of an auxiliary piece of a nuclear site. So we do many more things than the building side. Obviously, lots of new technology evolving. Modular -- small modular technology is evolving, and that creates opportunities. And we'll see how that evolves. There's no definitive time line, but there certainly seems to be emerging technologies that makes sense. So we'll see how that -- and that could have broad-reaching opportunities for us in the Canadian landscape. And then you get into all the -- in CNL, for example, where you have all these -- this campus of facilities, very complex weapons-grade uranium testing facilities, and then you get into -- you get all this auxiliary infrastructure that goes with that. So we're seeing a mix of things in different areas, some long term and some shorter term in the sense of right in front of us and evolving and that sense.

Next question is from Naji Baydoun from Industrial Alliance. "As you continue to refine your ESG approach, can you talk about potentially setting corporate sustainability targets? And are you considering any green or ESG-linked financing options?"

Yes. I think on the targets, like right now, we're working on what our disclosure framework is going to look like. And over the coming year, we're going to be setting our baseline and putting measurements in place to really understand what our impact is on the environment. And then once we have that baseline, we'll be setting our targets from there. So I'd say we're still early days in terms of that. And then in terms of ESG-linked financing, yes, we're certainly starting to see more options available in the market. I wouldn't say we spend a lot of time on that yet, but it's something we're certainly going to keep an eye on. And if the opportunity presents itself, certainly, we'll consider that.

Okay. From Michael Tupholme from TD Securities, "What share of Bird's revenue today comes from reoccurring sources of revenue? Where would you like to see that percentage go? And what initiatives will see you get there?"

Well, certainly, around about 25% is probably a run rate currently. And there's a wide array of the definition recurring. Some are clients that do multiple projects that have a bit lumpier recurring nature to it, and others are -- like our -- obviously, our MRO business has got an extensive platform of recurring revenue in that sense. So it's a mix. But as far as targets, Bird is a very collaborative company. So I don't think we've thought about where we need to be or want to be, and some of it will naturally play out. But in that sense, certainly continuing to see growth from that area is good. 25%, 30% is a nice blend. And the key to it, though, is you want to ensure that as it grows, it's creating accretive margin improvements.

All right. So Jacob Bout from CIBC has asked, "When you talk about prioritizing capital allocation decisions, is M&A the focus? At what point do you think about increasing the dividend?"

So I think we're always thinking about our capital. It's a regular discussion with our Board. It's a regular discussion within our management team. And in that sense, it's a balance between growth of the business, organic growth, where M&A makes sense. Is it -- do we have the right structure to facilitate that? And the dividend is really a -- it's a regular discussion with our Board of Directors on a quarterly basis. And it's something that we give full consideration to in every meeting.

Yes. I think on the dividend, we talk about it every quarter. But you're probably not going to see us do anything in the near term. I think we'd be a lot more comfortable knowing that the pandemic is well in hand or behind us before any decisions are made on that respect.

The next question is from Maxim Sytchev from National Bank. "Is it possible to have a rough revenue percentage breakdown between industrial, civil, commercial systems, MRO, buildings, et cetera?"

Every year, we disclose that, and what you'll notice over the last 10 years is that percentage changes certainly from year to year as the mix of work changes, depending on the opportunities available in the market. But yes, I think the way to think about it would be on the industrial side, you're going to be in that 40% to 50% range. I think on the institutional side, you're going to be in that 30%, 40%, 45% range. And then commercial would make up the difference.

Michael Tupholme from TD Securities has asked, "One of Bird's strategic priorities is expanding its margins. Can you speak to the level of margin improvement that you see as achievable over the life span of Bird's 2022 to 2024 strategic plan? What are some of the other initiatives that Bird is focused on in driving margin improvement?"

Well, yes, I mean, again, we're not coming out with a specific number. But if you think about the types of things that we're focused on and a lot of the self-perform businesses, you're certainly seeing that in the MRO space, now in the infrastructure space, we think there's tremendous growth opportunity for us in that infrastructure space. So as that becomes a larger proportion of the business, we should see improvement in there and then kind of counteracting that in the short term with some of our projects in 2020 and early 2021 pushing to the right. And having the CEWS subsidy included in our margins, that kind of inflates your margin percentage. But once that starts to normalize, we'll come up with a new baseline. And then hopefully, we'll see that self-perform proportion increase.

Okay. Troy Sun from Laurentian Bank, "Can you please talk about the MRO capability and the prospects of potentially cross-selling that capability into geographies outside of Western Canada?"

Well, certainly, the opportunities have been -- it's a little bit like the Canada/U.S. discussion. We've had a lot of opportunities in Western Canada, and we continue to see those evolve and grow. And when you have a center that's in a base like that, it's very efficient to keep growing it in that base, right? So a little bit like the Canada/U.S. thoughts. But in the same breath, we've got a lot of interest from some of our key clients that are national to provide that service. And as Bird broadens its depth in major markets, you'll see us add that focal point. And many of our clients have facilities outside of Alberta. So in that sense, we've grown in 2021 with a power client, with TransAlta. So that's a new growth for us on the power side. So that opens up a broader base of power-related clients that -- with that resume, and that's growth. Growing MRO is a big step each time. It's not something that you can just evolve. It's a big step. So you make these major steps into a new client. So you can't do that. You have to really be well prepared for that, and the responsibilities are high. The demands are high. These big turnarounds and things that we do are significant. So as David indicated earlier today, you've got to have an offering that -- and a team and the scale to be able to ramp up. And we've done a nice job adding a number of new clients this year and since the acquisition of Stuart Olson.

Maxim Sytchev from National Bank, "Are there any opportunities in electrical grid transmission or the electrical vehicle space? Or is the latter too residential-focused?"

Certainly seeing -- we haven't weighed in on the electric grid side in terms of like major transmission or anything like that. We haven't -- that's probably not an area. But certainly, on anything that supports transmission to the grid, we're interested in terms of substations and things like that. It's an area that we have expertise. On electrical vehicle side, again, we have these national clients that we do things for. And there's been, more recently, an accelerated kind of discussion of, "Hey, can you guys use your commercial systems folks to put a electrical charging facility at this location?" And so there's been a lot of that type of -- and I think it's evolving with the demand and with the growth of electric vehicles. So there's some nice opportunities there. And again, it's that national footprint that gives us that capability and those clients that we work for on a regular basis. So I think you'll see us in that space as time evolves.

Okay. Next question, from Naji Baydoun from Industrial Alliance. "Following the acquisition of Dagmar, do you think you have all the tools in the toolbox you need today to grow the business? Or do you need to do more acquisitions and add more capabilities and talent?"

Well, certainly, the Dagmar team adds really unique set of tools that are very valuable for us to be able to the leverage from. And in that sense, a very high-performing group, really impressed with how they operate in that. So it's really added that significant piece for us to grow in an area that's got a lot of demand. There are other areas, though, that we're interested in. And some of those were already in, in a smaller way, and we can evolve organically. And some of them, it takes a catalyst. So Dagmar certainly has been a catalyst. So we will continue to look at unique opportunities that come along that we think we can -- to act as a catalyst for growth in those areas. In that sense, it's -- the key for us is finding those nuggets that you can really leverage off of with the balance of your business. And if it fits together with what you're trying to do and a cultural fit, then that's really key to that.

Okay. So we're coming up to the 45-minute mark. So we'll take a couple more questions, and then we'll wrap things up. So following on that Dagmar theme, we have a question from Michael Tupholme from TD Securities. "Can you provide some specific details regarding Bird's plans over time to expand Dagmar Construction's business and capabilities beyond the Ontario civil infrastructure market, timing, approach, et cetera?"

Well, as Gilles indicated earlier, the Bird business has got civil experience, strong civil experience developed in other markets. And that exists in Western Canada extensively. We're doing one of the largest self-perform concrete formwork projects in the country right now in BC. And so we have that center of excellence in certain segments. And we've got -- part of the Stuart Olson acquisition, we acquired hydroelectric civil capability in our Sudbury group. We already had that in our St. John's group with the original acquisition of H.J. O'Connell. And adding to our team in Montreal that focuses more on civil foundation work, civil environmental work for large mining companies in Northern Quebec. So you have the pieces and you sort of tie the pieces together, and that's something that Gilles and I are very focused on in terms of, again, evolving the teams. So when you acquire a company like Dagmar, you get a team of skilled individuals in areas like rail, which we obviously don't participate in to any extent. And that gives you the nucleus of expertise from estimating and pressure controls and superintendents that have that experience and that the rail companies are comfortable working with. So it gives us an ability to really add to that. So -- but as time evolves and as the right opportunity comes along, we, in consultation with our Board, will determine whether we proceed or what makes sense.

So for a final question for today, an investor had submitted this prior to today's session. "But you have announced some meaningful project awards so far this year. How are you seeing the bidding pipeline and the opportunities over the rest of this year and into '22, especially with the cross-selling from Stuart Olson and Dagmar capabilities?"

So certainly, the pipeline is as busy and as full as we've seen it in a number of years. And I think as we get -- further evolve within the recovery from COVID, over the next few months and years, I think that will continue to accelerate. And -- but at same breath, Bird has developed a wider array of services. So in that sense, I think it's -- as time evolves, you'll see some pretty exciting things evolve. And I'm certainly excited about what I see from my lens. And I know Wayne, in your sense, maybe your thoughts on that?

No. I concur, Teri. I think the pipeline is pretty active right now, and I think it's just a very exciting time in our business.

All right. Well, thanks, everyone, for your questions today. And if there are any questions that we didn't get to, feel free to reach out to [email protected]. And with that, I'll turn it over to Teri for his closing remarks.

Thanks, everyone, for joining us in our Investor Day. We have a very bright future ahead of us as a premier construction and infrastructure company with the potential to create long-term value for all stakeholders. Have a nice day, and stay safe.