BluMetric Environmental Inc. (BLM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everyone. And welcome to this Annual and Special Meeting of Shareholders of BluMetric Environmental Inc. My name is Scott MacFabe, and I'm the CEO and a Director of BluMetric. We're meeting in person today, but we're also joined by many of our shareholders who are joining by conference call and by teams. We've encouraged shareholders to vote by proxy in advance of the meeting because only those shareholders and proxy holders who are at the meeting in person can vote during the meeting. Shareholders joining us by conference call or by teams cannot vote during the meeting. I would like to introduce past year's other directors of BluMetric who are joining us in person and/or by phone and Mor MacDonald, our Chair, Ian Murray Macdonald, Wanda Richardson; Mohsen Mortada, and Dr. David Rudolph. Also present and/or on the phone is Dan Hilton, BluMetric's Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary. Shawn Mincoff, Audit Partner with MNP LLP and then [indiscernible] of Odyssey. Following the formal meeting, I will make some brief comments on BluMetric's fiscal year 2024 performance and some goal statements for fiscal year 2025. Those who have registered to participate on the team's platform can follow along with the presentation if you are participating by phone. A copy of the presentation will be posted to our website after the meeting. Before the presentation begins, I will ask the Corporate Secretary to read the customary caution with respect to forward-looking statements. Dan?

Thank you, Scott. While the information contained herein is believed to be accurate and reliable, BluMetric Environmental Inc., and its predecessor companies and their respective agents, advisers, directors, officers, employees and shareholders make no representations or warranties expressed or implied as to the accuracy or completeness of such information and expressly disclaim any in all liability that may be based on such information or errors or emissions thereof. The forward-looking statements contained herein, the future anticipated direction of the industry, plans for the future expansion, various business development activities, planned capital expenditures, future funding sources, anticipated sales growth and potential contracts involve important risks and uncertainties that could significantly affect anticipated results in the future. And accordingly, such results may vary materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements made by or on behalf of BluMetric. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in the presentation. Please refer to the company's management discussion and analysis posted at www.sedarplus.ca for a complete list of the company's risks and uncertainties. BluMetric Environmental undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information or statements if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change, except as required by applicable securities laws. For more information, please refer to the company's documentation posted at www.sedarplus.ca. Scott?

Thank you, Dan. I now call to order this annual and special meeting of the shareholders of BluMetric. At today's meeting, holders of common shares are entitled to be present in person or by proxy and to vote. I'll be acting as Chair of the meeting, and Dan Hilton will act as Corporate Secretary. [indiscernible], of Odyssey Trust Company is appointed as scrutineers for the meeting. I now table the statutory declaration of Odyssey Trust Company, our transfer agent, certifying the due mailing of the materials for this meeting. I direct that a copy of the statutory declaration and copies of those documents be kept by the Corporate Secretary as part of the records of meeting. I'm advised by the Corporate Secretary that there is a quorum present. As notice has been duly provided and a quorum of shareholders is present, I declare that the meeting to be regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business. The Canada Business Corporations Act and the bylaws of the corporation entitled any shareholder or proxy holder present in person at the meeting to request a vote by ballot rather than a show of hands. I will ask the Corporate Secretary to read the scrutineer's report on attendance and voting by proxy. Dan?

So we have 1,974,598 shares in attendance through 7 shareholders on site, 22 shareholders by proxy representing 9,616,341 shares for total shares voted of 11,590,939 shares, representing 31.39% of the company -- the shareholders.

A copy of the financial statements of the corporation for the year ended September 30, 2024, were delivered to those who requested a copy. Copies of the financial statements and MD&A as well as the auditor's report on the financial statements are all available on sedarplus.ca. Are there any questions on the financial statements? Hearing none. certain shareholders and proxy holders have volunteered to move and second resolutions where required. While this procedure will facilitate the handling of former matters -- formal matters, it should not discourage any shareholder from speaking out on any matter before the meeting. Please indicate if you have a question and once I recognize you, please give your name and state whether you are a shareholder or proxy holder. Election of directors. The first item of business is to proceed with the election of directors for the ensuing year or until their successors are elected or appointed.

Ian Murray MacDonald, Mohsen Mortada, and Scott MacFabe, I [indiscernible] move that the persons who have been nominated for the election as directors are elected directors of the corporation for the ensuing year or until their successors are elected or appointed.

I, Tiffany Svensson second the motion.

I now put the motion to the meeting.

Doug Jansen, shareholder.

Yes, sir.

I have some problems [indiscernible] maybe attending [indiscernible]. I have some problems with the public -- I believe we have some problems with management [indiscernible] but it does not state the fee [indiscernible] as directors obtain, but it does state in fee structure. [indiscernible] identified is more to term any way, which I think is often -- it does state a number of meetings that their attendance record for the past year, which is a critical element of shareholders' value based. So we're -- and it's nowhere to a bigger agent. Now in by itself is not leading to buy -- but if every director is 75, I got to have to concern about extension. And if every 3 of the directors are under age 25, I have issues probably how they have achieved so much in such a young age be a director. So I get them requesting that all these things, which, in my opinion, are standard information in most management circulars be added of the insured to be a part of the next year. And also on page -- sorry, on Page 17, there's a list of options based for directors. The value of under exercised in the money options is blank. And I don't understand why they are blank when the default price of $0.74 a share, all the options listed are well under.

Does that conclude your questions? Okay. There's a few in there we'll try to unpack and I'll personally state that I'm not quite 70, but I'm heading in that direction. So -- but I think all that you've asked for is reasonable and appropriate. There's no reason not to provide that information that's well documented in other aspects of the business, the minutes, the meetings and so on and can certainly provide that. I think in terms of a statement for the improvement of the MD&A going forward, I see no reason not to accept those proposed changes or improvements and also to admit that, as you can see from our business, we're committed to constant improvement, including how we present our MD&A. Other than that, Dan, is there anything else you care to offer in terms of the commentary?

We will incorporate it absolutely next year, circular. I think that's a great suggestion.

I'm trying to make, was there anything I missed? Are we good? Okay. Thank you for your question. I now put the motion to the meeting. Many of you have voted by proxy for the present in person. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by raising your hand. Any contrary? Seeing none, carried. I declare those nominated to have been elected as directors of the corporation for the ensuing year or until their successors are elected or appointed. The second item of business is the appointment of our auditor.

Yes. I, Gail Giesbrecht move that...

Yes, I can ask you to stand up, please.

I, Gail Giesbrecht move that MNP LLP chartered accountants be appointed auditors of the corporation at the remuneration to be fixed by the Board of Directors, the Board of Directors being hereby authorized to fix such remuneration.

I, Lydia Renton, second the motion.

Yes, sir?

Following attendance in the auditors what policy on the sort of government practice of changing auditors, as of those as [indiscernible].

Okay. I think they're third year -- this is our third year with MNP. And there's an evaluation of performance and results on an annual basis in terms of their ability to provide us their audit and their information to meet all of our deadlines and all of our business obligations.

My understanding that in general, the government suggests that the auditor be change that in the third period at an overall basis just on the matter of making sure if they can take fresh that other [indiscernible].

Well, I would say that certainly, MNP, and since I've been here a little over 7 years has taken the reins over a predecessor. And so that had been executed 3 years ago on the basis of your suggestion, that is certainly part of our assessment of performance of our auditor, and that goes to our Board for a vote as well before it comes here. Now in terms of changing auditors too often, that is also a matter of opinion that some shareholders may not agree with because it appears that you're shopping an answer, which we will not do. Well, is it 3 to 5 years? Is it 10 years up for debate. I'm not sure that there is a standard that I could point to, but your point is well taken. Dan, is there anything I've missed or here to add?

No. Other than currently, there is no policy, but it is assessed annually by the floor.

Yes. Okay. Any other questions? Thank you for the question. Again, many of you have voted by proxy for those present in person, all those in favor of the motion, please signify by raising your hand. Contrary, if any? Seeing none, I declare the motion carried. The third item of business is the amendments to the corporation's amended and restated its stock option plan 2025, as more fully described in the management's proxy circular included a full text of the plan.

I, Tiffany Svensson, the option resolution as set forth in the corporation's management proxy circular be approved.

I Gail Giesbrecht second the motion.

Yes, sir, shareholder again. I have several questions. The currently sorry, it's currently 4.5 million available shares in Europe -- I'm sorry, for 4.1 million or 4.2 million something like that. So there seems be a reason to increase to 5.5 million. How many years you suggest this increase will last [indiscernible].

Well, I don't think we look at it in terms of years, it's in terms of the size of the business. Options are a critical part of us to recruit and retain key people that produce the results that we all enjoy. And as we grow the expectation will so will the need for that to grow with us, which is exactly why we're doing what we're doing now. The percentage of shares outstanding for options is exactly the same. We're just taking it slowly up that as we bring in potentially new aspects of business and former ownership that we can make sure that, that is part of what they would incentivize to come to the firm. So I can't say that I could say within 3 years, it's going to last us 3 years. It may, but I can't say with certainty if that's the kind of answer you're looking for, for your question.

It states that the option plan will represent 14.9% of shares. Can you make any comment on how that compares to other companies. You're a smaller company, a particular business compared to Bell Canada and GE Bank, they probably isn't logical, but are how does the option plan portion availability to the total shareholding or how does that compare in general to the industry?

Well, I don't think our percentage has changed since we offered options but our market cap has grown from $3 million to $40 million. And so as the business has grown and accommodating what we need to accommodate nothing has changed, just the total number available. It's our benchmarking to say that 15% is typical and ordinary for a business of our size.

It mentioned, the options will be available to employees in general. What sort of policy does the Board have towards encouraging employee ownership in terms of our options available, for example to all employees who have worked for a year or whatever, some limit are options available to all employees who need a reasonable criteria.

I like where you're going with your question because to speak to it, I'm going to step back a few years in our history when we released the largest tranche of options in the history of the firm to all who would participate, just not management, just not me, just not someone who has a fancy title, the intent, the purpose and the outcome there is that -- those options are very broadly held throughout the entire organization to make sure those that are producing the results that shareholders enjoy, they also do. And so that distribution was based on assessment of title and position. So it was a bracketed assessment, but it was not a pure distribution only for the Board, only for senior management and we're proud of that. And that will be the way we'll continue to operate. Again, there is an expectation we will need capacity to look after and take advantage of that incentivization for new acquisitions or new very senior additions to the leadership in the business. But the goal here is to have broader benefit to the organization as best as possible.

Can you estimate what the proportion of shares or options are held by employees?

Yes. One thing I forgot to mention is in the presentation, but I'll tell you now, with the support of Dan and his team, we've just recently launched an employee stock purchase plan with Morgan Stanley. So if you follow our trade history, you'll see Morgan Stanley showing up. That is a matching program where we're encouraging staff to purchase and then we add on to that purchase so that they will have ownership in the company. And that is on the retail market.

We don't have any percentage of shareholdings and options that are held by employees?

I'd say total is around 40% -- 35%. Okay. Thank you for your questions. So I repeat, I think we already did pass. So the options -- the option statement has passed. I declare the motion carried. This concludes the formal business of the meeting as there are no further business to be brought before the meeting, I declare the formal meeting to be concluded and I'll provide -- and I will now provide my CEO's report. Matt, can I get you to grab water for me? -- just get a little sip before we go. Here we go. Thanks. Thank you. Excellent. So what a privilege to stand before you all today online or in person to provide you with an update on BluMetric, where we are, where we're headed, what we've accomplished and what we intend to accomplish. Very proud of the organization and very grateful to all the shareholders who have been with us for a long period of time, who've been patient with us, who supported us through the good and the bad. And for those that see the opportunity ahead of us who've taken the opportunity to invest in BluMetric and help us grow the firm and our business as we have and we'll continue to. So before I start anything, I want to make sure that I thank all who have been involved and participated in the investment in our company. You have many dedicated people behind me with me driven to make that a very successful venture. So the title for the presentation today is beyond the horizon. I know Roger Weller, you're a Mariner, you love these kind of analogies, I would think. You're a terrific sailor. I am not -- but to all the same, hopefully, some of these statements will resonate with you and others because I think they fit the story of what we want to do, what we've done and what we plan to do. So we're looking beyond the horizon. Dan has already read to you this disclaimer, so I will pass on it. For those of you that had a chance to work with me or heard presentations I've given in the past. My style is to tell you, first and foremost, what I'd like you to take away from the presentation, fill in the details, and then I will tell you again at the end of the presentation with the hope that if you had a conversation with me tomorrow, you'll remember at least this. BluMetric, we are a leader and a valued business partner and high-demand professional environmental consulting and clean water solutions. We have an appetite for continued strategic acquisitions and are in a unique and ready position to do so as we speak. We're focused on organic growth as well in 2025 and onward. We have continuous investment in our culture, our people and our technology. Our water tech innovations and evolution in business model want to include recurring operations and maintenance and optimization revenue will service and support what we sell. Geographic expansion throughout Canada, the U.S. the Caribbean driving revenue growth fueled by strong market tailwinds. So here's our agenda for today. Brief overview, who BluMetric is today, our vision, our innovation, our team, breakdown of our financial results. Most importantly, the market tailwinds that will drive us forward and some key takeaways. So what's our growth strategy and what's going to drive us forward? Within the team, we throw around different ways to describe who we are and what we're doing. And some of us, we'd say there's the cheeky side that love the -- from ice caps to Sun hats and then there's -- I'm a little dry and perhaps a little boring, would just say we do a lot of work in the very far north and all the way to the Caribbean and beyond. We have tremendous bandwidth, tremendous reach within the company. So our growth strategy is from ice caps to Sun hats, our growth strategy will deliver meaningful, high-demand solutions, solidifying our role as a valued business partner for enduring water and environmental consulting solutions. We are proudly advancing our strategy as we speak. Forward momentum, what's driving us, strategic acquisitions, water-tech innovations and our growing team, they fuel our geographic expansions across Canada, the U.S. and the Caribbean, driving revenue, margin gains, reinvestment in people, tech and future growth. Position for progress. What does that mean? Leading up to 2024, we spent a lot of time on these points. We needed stability. We need to derisk. We needed to be profitable. We needed organic growth and we needed to extinguish debt, run a tight business, stay in the black. Accomplished in 2024, geographic expansion, investment in BluMetric, people development, water tech advancements, business development and partnerships, a U.S. acquisition and marketing pipeline development. When you consider what we've accomplished in 2024, you often hear from me, we have goals. We have ambitions and we have contingencies. That has always been our goal, especially working with Dan and the team to find ways to grow the business. We realized that we had gone from the low 20s top line to the 30s to $35 million and capping out have to break through that plateau. And in order to get there, there is a key sense of patience, but also from a standpoint of a clean balance sheet, money in the bank, and a deserved good reputation with key banks to support us. So our growth strategy, 5 key points: acquisition expansion and organic growth. One of the key pieces for organic growth is, is not just internally. It's what happens after you complete an acquisition. Gemini down in Florida were about 10 people that we have doubled them in size in terms of people. We have taken their floor capacity from 10,000 square feet to 25,000 square feet, and we're only 5 months into the acquisition. And we have some key people who are coming from other countries to join this entity and BluMetric to build the business. We haven't got a half a year under our belt yet and they're just doing so well. And I would hope that they would -- if you talk to them, they would tell you that they're enjoying the ride. And this is exactly how they would love to grow, but they needed help. And coming to BluMetric, we were able to support them in expanding their business in ways they couldn't on their own. Expanding product offerings, increasing manufacturing capacity and investment in business systems, kind of along those lines, we just talked -- our business systems are very outdated. They've been around a long time. They're not providing what we need in order to run a type business, get the metrics and information we need to improve our profitability, productivity. We're investing this year in a brand-new ERP to be able to accomplish that. The hope would be we're going to start to see functionality come the end of October, November in that range. But we are currently in the process of investing in that now too. Geographic footprint expansion in Canada, U.S. and the Caribbean, there are places that we certainly can go where our clients are asking us to go, where the markets are pulling us towards. Those are the compelling reasons to expand, not because we like a certain part of the country to live in. We are being compelled by the markets and our clients to go places we are not yet there. Key strategic hires, strengthening our operations, expanded service lines and business development. One of the key hires that we're making that's coming out of Australia into Florida is an old partner and friend and colleague of the managing partner of Gemini and his whole [ Raison D'etre ], his reason to be is to grow operation and maintenance as a part of the technology cycle that we sell. Gemini does a fantastic job. Our people for the DND and out of Carp just down the road, do a phenomenal job of producing incredible solutions, we support in Canada, the DND, that's our history. To grow the operation and maintenance business out of the states is a huge opportunity yet tapped. That is not something that Gemini does yet much of. They're extremely quick to market. They can design, execute, install a system like few can. So their speed to the field is incredible, too. But we want to take advantage of the recurring revenue from operations and maintenance thereafter. New sales and improved client retention. Our current client retention is about 92%. Our clients who work with BluMetric like what they see. And there's no reason that it's not a hard reason to explain our people are that good and our technology is that good. So we continue to advance our sales, broaden what we do, where we do it, get the message out. We've made some investments. I'm fortunate to say we've got Hannah DeGeer in front of me, who's expanded a new hire to the firm about a year ago is exploded our digital footprint, which was so long overdue. It's those kind of additions to our business that are making an incredible difference in how we operate now and in the future. And so I can't be happier for how the people are coming to the firm and making an enormous difference. So Hannah, thank you for that. So a little diagram BluMetric today. If you look at the map, the green is BluMetric. The blue is Gemini, you can see there's quite a gap between the green and the blue, lots of room to move and North, we have a tremendous history in BluMetric of servicing our clients north of 60 to parlay that into solutions, especially in protecting our northern sovereign waters, there's huge military demand building right now. All of those opportunities are tailwinds in our business right now. And hopefully, this time next year, we'll see a different map with a few more circles within those gaps. So what's our advantage? On the professional service side of the business, focused on water resources, environmental engineering and compliance, site assessment and remediation or cleanup of contaminated sites, industrial hygiene and occupational health and safety. We don't do anything unless we can do it safely. And I'm delighted to have Lydia Renton with us today. Lydia is our Director, Executive Vice President, of health and safety -- environmental health and safety at the company and has a voice at the table and has made an incredible difference in the safety culture of the company. And that will continue here for. Thank you. Talk a bit about water tech systems. Mission-ready water, you may have read about that. Really, what that encompasses is the petition from our clients in Canada from the Department of National Defense to take the larger systems -- land-based systems that we have been providing -- BluMetric has been providing to them for the last 20, 30 years that are very large, take that resilient and improved technology and scale it down and make it agile and mobile on a trailer mount. We competed for and won a contract with Rheinmetall from Germany, you may know them. They're one of the top international technology companies. They basically work with us to provide the trailer the power and the interface and we provide the technology. So they have worked with us and the DND to soon execute on what we call the ASUWPS contract. Our end is done. All of our boxes have been checked in terms of the technology that we need to provide for that particular piece of equipment. But we will see the advantage of that being executed not just for the deployment within the military. That particular piece of equipment can be deployed anywhere without a lot of special equipment and what comes to mind? Well, NATO countries who are supporting the eventual, we hope, rebuilds of Ukraine. We've been told we've had interest from the U.K. on our systems, but we've been told that things are sadly to a point where the priorities and demand for the Ukraine are -- is ammunition above clean water sadly. So we're ahead of the market, but we're ready. We're ready to take these systems to be able to deploy for resilient contingencies where the network is down, things are shut off, but you can always produce clean water. That's what the system will do. So to discuss the demand -- this has universal appeal in a very broad market. So we're very excited about that. Our first unit is done, very proud of it. But as Rheinmetall, we hope to hear from very shortly. We're ready to hit the gas and start producing the rest of the units as part of our contract. Water purification as part of the systems that we put together depending on deployment, we can customize that. Wastewater treatment. It's interesting, the technologies that Gemini uses out of Florida, in the southern states and also in the Caribbean are pretty much the same as the ones that we work on up here. And that was part of the interest in coming together was if you walk through Gemini shop down in Gainesville and you walk through our shop on Carp Road, it's the same technologies, just slightly adjusted for climate. And they're doing the same kind of things that we're doing. Their expertise using membrane bioreactors. We're working with those too. We've deployed some. They have expertise in it. We're going to learn from them. They don't do agile systems like mission-ready water. They see huge opportunities in the United States to the U.S. DND to sell through them. Fixed and mobile systems, mine affluent treatment, the mines, they need all this whether it's on the front end of a work camp or whether it's an operating mine or treating mine water, we can do all of those things and currently do. Operations maintenance, I talked a little bit about what goes along with service and support. BluMetric is pretty thrifty. We don't have a bad big fat R&D budget. But what we do is, as part of our culture. We have a flywheel for innovation. We work with our clients. We work with them to listen to what they really need, not what we think they might need, and we improve on what we have to solve their problems. So the flywheel, often it starts in consulting, where we're working with the client and we're discussing their worst problems, and that turns into an opportunity for us to bring in new solutions to either existing or new technology or new consulting. And then eventually, new products and services, and that wheel turns. So the reality is, our culture is designed to have a flywheel of constant improvement in innovation in our services and our technologies and that is what keeps us ahead of the curve. That is what keeps us in demand with our clients. We're not thinking of great thoughts about hobby technologies that may solve a problem that has huge need to solve. These are real applied solutions to real problems that need solving, and that's our dedication to that culture. One of our long-standing standard ambitions was to balance out the revenue generation within BluMetric. So we could see 50% or better of our revenue produced in our water tech and 50% from our professional services. I'm happy to report that with the acquisition of BluMetric or with the acquisition of Gemini in BluMetric, we've met or exceeded that goal. We are now approximately 50-50. And we're delighted for that because different aspects of our business can be lumpy, margins are different. But that -- and markets are diverse. And when you put all that together, it represents growth, but it also represents a resilient business. So we balance our water tech and professional services. We continue organic growth in both with a long-term ambition to capitalize on flywheel approach, as we discussed, build a selective M&A pipeline for accretive inorganic growth opportunities, but be patient and prudent with targets. I'll repeat that. We will be patient and prudent with our targets. It took us a while to find Gemini, and we've only been in it 6 months and I would hope to say that they would feel as happy as we are with the decision they made to join BluMetric. And when you see the results, as you will or have, it's paying off already. That's patients. We're not looking to buy a cheap aspect of a business or something that looks like we could throw it into the mix and temporarily pump up our top line at the expense of our bottom line, we want value adds that are accretive to the business as quickly as possible. We've only just reported in our first quarter with Gemini in the books and if things continue the way they are, and we hope they will, then we're going to be in great shape. But that is the kind of target we will be patient for to add to the business. Expand recurring revenue from professional services and WaterTech, I said in our business, we have 92% retention of our clients as good or bad. You have to bring in new clients, of course, and build on that. But again, it's that sticky revenue, it's those deep relationships, it's a business adviser or a technical adviser, technology provider. Those are the things that give us enduring connections with our clients to produce stable results. So our vision, changing tides. It's not hard to turn the news on anymore or listen to the radio and think, I'm not sure if the tides are going out or in. I'm not sure what tomorrow holds. In fact, I might even -- may not even buy green bananas because I don't know what tomorrow holds, but the reality is we're not afraid of it. In fact, we're going to embrace it. Change represents opportunity. So we're well positioned to handle change in both the U.S. and Canadian political administrations. We can produce in Canada for Canada. We can produce in the states for the states. We can exchange ideas, expertise, technology without a tariff, and we can execute in country, however, we choose. We can execute to other countries as we choose. So we have a platform and a basis to be able to tailor how we approach a solution with a client that we can take advantage of our footprint and our history and our technologies and our services. However, we see fit. Our footprint in the U.S. provides confidence in a period of political instability. Well, yes, I would say even before the new administration was in, the Biden administration, although gave the impression of inclusion and opportunity for others was not that inclusive. If you were competing with another firm in the states for technology, you still have tremendous headwinds. You could win, you could definitely win, but it was not easy, it's gotten even harder. With Gemini, clearly, we have the opportunity to still take advantage of growth in the U.S. while respecting political change and such, but also take advantage in Canada of the change that, that represents. There's enormous demand in Canada for Canadian Native solutions, especially now more than ever. Especially now in the military, more than ever. All markets were strategically positioned to take advantage of. Contingencies to overcome geopolitical uncertainties, it's just in fact that it's business agility is having made the investments in advance of the occurrence of an issue that you need to resolve. We often say the best consultants, when they talk to their clients, tell them, before the client expands -- explains their problem, we were up the night before solving it. That's good consulting. That's also good business. We're looking and trying to read the tea leaves, trying to understand where things are going and strategically position ourselves so that when others may see disadvantages, we can take advantage of opportunities. Opportunities arise as a result of uncertainty. I think that's a very key point. We run to them, not from them. Innovation, well through this a little bit some key pieces or pictures that you can see. Professional services continue to foster a culture of innovation across our environmental consulting service lines. WaterTech Canada, we specialize in containerized shipboard and agile mission-ready water solutions for military, mining, remote indigenous communities and humanitarian operations. WaterTech USA, we specialize in supporting fixed-based water and wastewater solutions for remote locations, private islands, resorts and municipal developments with a capacity of up to 5 million gallons per day. Our footprint is now in North America and the Caribbean. All good, thanks. Let's talk a bit about our team, culture and growth. BluMetric needs to be the place that the best want to come to, to advance in their careers or develop technology that's going to change the world and make a difference. We often say our culture is, we're fortunate. We get to do things that are meaningful. But we provide our clients is in demand. It's a meaningful work. It's meaningful technology. So the investment in our people and growth of our team is critical. Balance, we're unique. BluMetric, when you look at our demographic, it's 50% women, 50% men. In the STEM business, that's unheard of. I think that's part of -- a big part of what makes us great for what we do. How we look at problems, how we relate with our clients, we need to look like our clients look. We need to be built like what our clients need. So this whole concept of DI and going away, I can give you the assurances from here. We will be diverse, we'll be inclusive, we'll be balanced, we will look like our clients, and we will gravitate the best in industry because of it. We're not about exclusion, we're about inclusion. That's the BluMetric gravity we talk about talent, M&A like-minded entrepreneurs. Most entrepreneurs don't like to be part of enormous organizations. We're not that big. We know it. But we're not that small either. We're just big enough where you can come in, we're firm like ours and enjoy all the same opportunities to be an entrepreneur and advance your ideas and grow business. That's hard to do at the largest of large organizations in the business where we're in. So it's important to us, while being integrity, environmental sustainability, innovation and community. Couple of shots of our team, an indigenous spotlight. We do work in Canada. We better have reference and appreciation for First Nations, the aboriginal community. We have operations out of Yellowknife, where we support big mine treatment, a lot of work, it's north of 60, and we team and pair and have joint ventures and are excited to grow that aspect of our business with aboriginal businesses with First Nations businesses. On the far left is a picture of a fellow with the name of Darrell Chocolate, technician out of Yellowknife, Darrell also happens to be an incredibly accomplished artists, we've come to find out that's in the far left. I went to the shop and met Darrell and I said, "Could we commission a piece?" He said, "Sure." Had his stuff with him, who's going to do some painting. And in 3 days in a hotel, he presented us with -- we funded and he presented us with a painting that hangs in our main office in Ottawa. I would encourage you come to see it, just an incredible talent. And to have people like that, that you can support and encourage and be part of the BluMetric family is really critical. In the middle, we have annual awards for certain aspects of our business. Every year, we celebrate and this year, especially, we're having a leadership summit within a couple of weeks where we bring -- we're going to bring almost 100 people together to make sure that we're doing the right things together to support growth, leadership succession. So the last time we did this, a young lady by the name of Rebecca Grooms, who comes from the Dene region near Yellowknife, was awarded the Emerging Leader Award for BluMetric, she was also featured on cabin radio up north, which is the community and where she lives. We wanted to encourage the community to know that Rebecca had come to work with us. In the winter, often being slow down. She came down to our shop in PARP and the valued technician to learn what it is that we do, and she's back again this year. But she uprooted her life. She's changed everything. She came down to Carpenter, only complaint to me was it's too warm. We hope she continues to be a shining light in her community. Last, [Janine Naljek ], artisan merchandise at our trade shows and giveaways when we go and we go to a technical show or trade shows and stuff, we encourage and support our aboriginal artisans and we do what we can to invest and promote it. Let's talk about financial results, key piece of the conversation. If you take a look at this the last 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 years, you'll see notably a couple of shifts in our top line actually. We spent a lot of time slowly and pragmatically lifting the company's top line and bottom line. And you can see we go in the mid-20s top line to the mid-30s, 35 and then we add Gemini, now we're heading -- that's a trailing 12 months of $40 million. So you've gone from about $26 million, $25 million to about 43 -- 40.3%, I guess it is. And EBITDA of over $2 million, that's trailing 12 months, all moving in the right direction, pragmatically in a stepwise fashion. We're very proud of that. So we see multiyear investments completed, ready for her to see the benefits of our higher revenues. You see Gemini's acquisition, the possible with overall financial profile is great, it's a step change. Integrated Gemini and focus on driving organic revenue growth in 2025. It wasn't just not your part of us go, it's let's sit down and dream a little bit. What we say is, let's get the band back together. If you could have whoever you could, who would it be and let's bring them to Gemini and BluMetric to grow this business, and that's what we're doing. A strong working capital and a clean balance sheet, I can't repeat that more than enough. We're currently sitting with a working capital again of over $10 million and a clean balance sheet and about $4 million of cash in the bank free cash, 6 months after our acquisition. Executing growth plans. So I talked a little bit about the austerity and disciplined years, getting us on our feet, working hard to get there, hard decisions, running a business on to the execution accumulation phase. This is net cash that we're charting here. And eventually, the growth phase. So again, over $10 million worth of working capital or $4 million worth of cash and no zero, no material debt. That's a very strong position to be in that fast after an acquisition. You can see the little Gemini and Cigna there. That's obviously added to our results. That's what it's intended to do and we hope that that will continue the rest of the year and long beyond. So we're ready for our next growth opportunity earlier than we thought. Part of that had to do with right after -- we closed on Gemini. The very next day, Dan and I are in Vancouver, giving a presentation at a MicroCap Conference, first time in years. So by invitation. And very shortly after that presentation, were pursued very heavily by a number of entities, but one in particular, in Claris and Toronto that said, our clients would really love to meet you. Dan and I went down to Toronto when we did a pitch day. They came back and said, almost universally, everybody wants to invest in BluMetric metric, but they want more stock than they can get off of the market. And it was also important for us to get institutional investment in the company as well to start building that side of our investment community to find and protect the floor. And so with that, we endeavored on a life offering with Claris, $3.5 million for them. We had $0.5 million for other investors that they wanted to participate. That offering was oversubscribed in 5 hours. We're pretty happy about that. Financial results, so if you look at the BluMetric stock in the last 5 years, that's a 940% increase. That's a good result. Everybody who's worked hard at this deserves a huge pat on the back, and this is not the end. This is the start. We're now in a position of strength more so than we've ever been. You look at the TSX Venture average, about 200 -- we got about 58%; LD Micro, 81%. So we beat them all. What do we do? Really, we invested in our capital market events, increased investor outreach substantially. We have a good story to tell. Let's go tell it well and tell it often. Gemini on the Board, September 24, 25, like I said, Microcaps in showcase in Vancouver. By the way, through that, we were invited to be in Las Vegas in mid-April for the MicroCap Conference there, we're delighted to attend that one. Dan and I will be there to present. On the back of the showcase in September in Vancouver, we started trading on the OTCQX, so our American interest is there, and there is American interest. The U.S., there's a number of investors that picked up on our story and are looking to invest, some heavily. Employee share purchase plan for Morgan Stanley, as I mentioned, we need to find a way for our people to participate in and support their ownership of the success they're fueling. It's important to us. Our people need to see the same opportunity and have our support to realize the same opportunity for growth of their wealth by being part of BluMetric and I already talked about our oversubscribed financing. So I'm going to talk about, most importantly, our tailwinds filling our sales, not trimming our sales, filling our sales. We're ready to help our clients navigate the challenges with innovative future-ready solutions. Economic uncertainty creates opportunity. The demand from the military markets in Canada now is about as ready as it can get. We are due for the approval of many proposals we have submitted yet soon to be hopefully approved by the Canadian government, protecting our sovereign waters, manufacturing in both countries, all great opportunities for us to take advantage of uncertainty and drive through it. Military demand for decentralized mission-ready water solutions without a doubt, building on the ASUWPS contract we currently have and are about to go into deep production this calendar year, new and aging municipal fixed water treatment operations and maintenance solutions. Aging infrastructure, buried infrastructure is an enormous building liability for every municipality and even more so in sensitive environmental settings like coastal environments and Island nations. We're ready to support water scarcity, conservation and humanitarian relief efforts, especially with our mission-ready water. The impact of emerging contaminants, we continue to assess and address things like PFAS and other emerging contaminants that are critical to us producing clean and portable water or improving the quality of the environment through remediation, assessment remediation and the impact of climate change. One of the driving forces for the work that we do down in the Caribbean, has to do with saltwater intrusion below islands that infiltrates and overcomes and eventually overwhelm freshwater resources. The well systems on the islands go from saltwater to brackish from clean water to brackish to saltwater very quickly and the need to have desal systems to be able to provide water, what used to be just for potability, drinking water is now for potability and irrigation, agricultural. So the demand is universal in these sensitive settings with C level rising and weather patterns changing. So back to the key takeaways where we started, what I'd like to leave you with, BluMetric is a leader and a valued business partner and high-demand professional environmental consulting and clean water solutions. We have an appetite for continued strategic acquisitions. We're ready now. Organic growth and a focus is a focus in 2025 and onward. We want to continue to bring the best and the brightest. We wanted to distill the market. We don't need to consolidate it, continuous investment in culture of people and technology, WaterTech innovations and evolution in business model to include recurring operations, maintenance and operations optimization revenue. There's a whole lot of tail on these projects we need to take advantage of and be an even better business partner for our clients and geographic expansion throughout Canada, the U.S. and the Caribbean driving revenue growth, fueled by strong market tailwinds. And that ends my presentation. We'll now open the floor to any questions from shareholders. We apologize that we are unable to take questions over the phone. We apologize that we are unable to take questions over the conference line or via teams. However, for our shareholders listening in or on the team's platform, if you have any questions, please e-mail them to [email protected] and we will do our best to respond to them after the meeting. When you're sending your questions, please identify your name and indicate if you are a shareholder. Now if there are any questions from the floor?

Yes. Hello again. Great, do we have tech stack are trying to get [indiscernible]

Yes and yes. Yes. You can look back not too long ago, maybe 3 or 4 months ago, 5 months ago, there's a press release where we won our first mobile system that will be provided for First Nations Community in British Columbia. It's being purpose-built. They have their own engineering group that we're working with, and we have finished the negotiations on the contract and we're about to go into production as we speak. If we can fix this problem for 20, 30 years and never miss a mission for the Department of National Defense, surely, we can solve this problem for First Nations.

As I'm just thinking that, that hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts, yes, 2015 was solved that and gathering [indiscernible] has a training, wanted to come back?

We're going about it in a slightly different way. And without getting into too deeply now, I'll put it this way. The remote areas that you're servicing to solve these problems do not have necessarily. It would be rare if they do, have the staff and the expertise to operate these big systems they've been provided. They need something purpose-built that's resilient, easy to operate and supported by AI and telemetry by a central location, be it here to ensure that it operates safely and continuously. So I would put to you that I think we have a better solution that we're just embarking on to be able to solve those problems there. And anywhere else you're in a remote area that needs clean water or treated wastewater.

And I would agree in to get the understanding Governments don't agree -- have not agreed in the past. They have focused on Idaho's technology that doesn't work for a technology that cannot be supported. It does happen -- some of the time, of course, new places, new regulations we're at. I just don't understand why it's not a creditor to understand why you haven't had a big role and help this.

Well, the best way that I can respond to that is it's more than caught our attention. Our firm has not been known to provide or design those big systems that have been provided to date. That's not what we do. Okay. What we do is we provide mission-ready militarized systems that can go anywhere with the military and produce at the ready clean water. That's what most of the remote areas especially in First Nations, we believe needs. And we have somebody in B.C. right now agreeing with us. So we have that on the books. It's in our production schedule, and it will be delivered hopefully this calendar year. but it is a 1 contract and it is 1 we're executing on today. Dan?

Make sure [indiscernible]

Yes. That's a great prompt. A couple of years ago, remember, Christmas, at [ Calais ] water suppliers clearly shut down. You know why? Reason?

Loyalty.

All of the electricity for Callaway is diesel generated and so diesel contamination. So when that occurred and shut down their water supply, the Canadian Army headed up to Callaway with, I believe, 3 of our systems set them up by the side of the sea, and they produced all the clean water for Callaway for nearly 5 months until they rectify the problem. And it was 1 of the first deployments in minus 40 Celsius in that technology's history, but we worked with the Army to come up with a method to keep everything heated and operational. So that is -- in terms of you talk about contingency systems, I can't imagine a more aggressive, more difficult place to produce clean water than Callaway in January, but we did with them to the D&D's credit.

The other area and retention as you do the consulting contracts, all you addressed our problem, they're done. Yes. I don't -- let me I don't see retention you sell a desalination for equipment. It's in -- it's suck. I'm not addressing back to you have to hope together maintenance after the fact that's still part of the same partner, but what you got to being in the capacity.

Let me address this. Let me explain that. In terms of the work that we do in Canada for the Department of National Defense, all of our revenue last year was from -- for refurbishment and repair. I can see that and for the work that's being done south of the border, that's a whole new part of their field of view and their business that we're going to support them on. So as a result, we have this expert coming from Australia, who is a known expert to support us on full cycle management of water systems and it is a personal friend of the managing partner for managing principal down in Florida for Gemini. That investment has been made. He's on his way. He's packing his stuff up. He's coming back to Gainesville and he's going to be part of the team. That's a key piece of it. We want to make sure that we don't get them to the trough and forgot to tell them how to drink. We've got to make sure that we support what we sell. And that's part of the presentation is to build the operation and maintenance side of the business. For the Army and the Navy, we do have field service reps that make sure that when all else fails, if we tried everything remotely, telemetry, it's not working right. Then we put somebody on a plant and off they go to, it could be Singapore, it could be Dublin, it doesn't matter, and we've got them running. But our reputation is, the military has never missed a mission because our system hasn't provided them clean water to execute. So we're good at it. We can expand it, does that answer your question?

I'm done.

I think you've created the opportunity to address the BluMetric Board of Directors and all shareholders present, both in person and virtually. This will be the 9th AGM where a group of shareholders will provide a formal message to the Board. We represent a group of current employees that have been part of the organization sits before the reverse stakeholders over by the corporation of WiSA Group, Inc. in November of 2012. As such, we believe that we bring a unique and valuable perspective to this meeting. The following are 3 key points that we wish to highlight. The audited financial statements for the fiscal year ended 2024 -- September 30, '24 were encouraging, and we think they reflected the significant and collective efforts of many in the BluMetric organization. Specifically, we take note of the following notable indicators. First, we will be debt-free at the end of April 2025 at the time of heightened market uncertainty you pointed out. We had a successful equity raise and BluMetric's share price has tripled since this time last year. BluMetric's acquisition of Gemini Water, a U.S.-based company was both finally and a positive strategic initiative that has proved to be beneficial to our customers as well as shareholders and employees of the integrated organizations. The launch of the employee share purchase plan, the move to a semiannual incentive compensation program as well as the spot recognition and works program are appreciated by staff and noticeably contributes to employee engagement, appreciation and retention. BluMetric is an exemplary company with respect to having demonstrated and sustained employee gender equity and diversity. The recent second BluMetric International Women's Day Symposium, a hybrid virtual and inverse event, including both concurred sessions of a women's panel dialogue as well as the men's roundtable. It was followed by a combined discussion over lunch. Due to the high level of participation and positive feedback from employees on this initiative, we expect that there will be continued conversation support and positive action resulting from this symposium. BluMetric reaffirmed our commitment to environmental sustainability and social governance by successfully recent mining to continue accreditation with EcoVadis. Similarly, BluMetric is committed to partnership accreditation and indigenous relations also known as pair, a demonstration of the company's ongoing commitment to developing our indigenous engagement through equity, diversity and inclusion. We strongly support the significant investment the organization is making in leadership development and succession finding. The BluMetric Leadership Summit held in 2023 and the upcoming 2025 leadership and succession Summit will result in the following tangible benefits. First, they facilitate the process of building strong, supportive and integrated teams of professionals who often operate in different service lines and/or markets by sharing success stories that showcase the collective expertise and experience that allows to meet our clients and customer needs. And second, they mitigate many of the challenges associated with fast growth of our, by building on our proven and viable enviable corporate culture of respect, innovation and a collective thrill of success through face-to-face meetings where new ideas and lessons learned are shared. We continue to gain from the focus on health and safety in every project we do, including a safety share at every meeting. It is important to continue to foster the safety culture within BluMetric. It helps to remind us that working safely is everyone's responsibility. And finally, and very important to us, we appreciate and confirm Ian Murray McDonald as our employee shareholder Board representative for the next year. Signed by myself, Francois Richard, Lydia Renton, Tiffany Svensson, Andrea Jenney, Gayle Giesbrecht, José Tranchemontagne, Wayne Ingham, Rich Schmidt, [indiscernible], Robert Hillier and Mark Somers.

Thank you, Francois. Well, if there are no other questions or statements from the room. Much appreciated. Definitely feel that this was a great conversation. We hope, we've answered your questions and that you have a renewed appreciation of BluMetric, our goals, our ambitions and our plans to grow the business. And so with that, thank you for your attendance. We wish you the best until next time.