Brookfield Business Corporation (BBUC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Cyrus we are ready to commence the meeting.

Thank you A.J. Good morning everyone It is now 9:00 A.M. time to begin the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders of Brookfield Business Corporation My name is Cyrus Madon and as Executive Chairman it is my pleasure to chair today's meeting. On behalf of the Board and its management team, I would like to extend a warm welcome to everyone joining us today. As a first order of business, I would like to ask A.J. Silber, our Managing Director, General Counsel and Secretary, to serve as today's moderator and set out the voting procedure for the meeting and the process to submit questions.

Thank you, Cyrus. Voting during the meeting will take place on our virtual meeting platform. I will now explain this process. For each matter being voted on, every holder of Class A subordinate voting shares, which we will refer to at this meeting as the Class A Shares, is entitled to 1 vote in respect of each share held as of the close of business on April 30, 2026. The Class A Shares as a class collectively hold 25% of the outstanding votes. And the Class B multiple voting shares, which we will refer to at this meeting as the Class B Shares, all of which are held by Brookfield Corporation, holds 75% of the outstanding votes. Adoption of a proposed motion requires a majority of the votes cast at the meeting by the holders of the Class A Shares and the Class B Shares voting together as a single class. Voting will be open for all resolutions throughout the formal portion of the meeting. This will allow you to choose to vote on each resolution immediately or wait until conclusion of discussion on each resolution prior to casting your vote. If you voted in advance of the meeting and do not wish to change your vote, then no action is needed. If you vote on any matter during this meeting, all of your previously submitted votes in respect of all matters to be voted upon at this meeting will be automatically revoked. Accordingly, if you do vote on any matter during this virtual meeting, please ensure you vote on all matters for which you are entitled to vote. We welcome questions from our shareholders, which may be submitted by typing the question into the virtual meeting platform using the messaging icon on the top of the page. Please indicate whether your question is of a general nature or if it relates to a motion being considered as part of the meeting's formal business. Please click the submit button once you have finished typing your question. I will read out the question and ask a member of management to respond to it. If we receive many questions that are similar, we will read one of the questions and indicate that we have received many similar questions. Only registered shareholders or proxy holders are able to submit questions at this meeting. If you are connected to this meeting as a guest, you will not be able to submit a question. We will endeavor to answer all questions submitted during the allotted time. We recommend that you submit your questions relating to the motions being tabled as soon as possible as it may take time for the virtual meeting platform to process them.

Thank you, A.J., and I now call the meeting to order and ask TSX Trust Company by its representatives Helen Kim and Karishma Aliar to act as scrutineers. I also ask A.J. to act as the Secretary of the Meeting. In the unlikely event of a serious technological failure that prevents the meeting from continuing, the meeting will be rescheduled and you will be appropriately notified. It is now my pleasure to introduce Anuj Ranjan, our Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Cyrus, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our Annual General Meeting. I am pleased to be here and introduce Jaspreet Dehl, who our Chief Financial Officer. Once we get through the formal part of the meeting, Jaspreet and I will give a brief presentation, and we will be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

That is great. Thank you, Anuj. There are three items of business to be considered today, and I am going to ask A.J. to outline them for you.

First, to receive the financial statements of the Corporation for the period from October 10, 2025 to December 31, 2025, including the external auditor's report and the financial statements of Brookfield Business Partners L.P. for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, including the external auditor's report. Second, to elect Directors who will serve until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders. And third, to appoint the external auditor and authorize the Directors to set their remuneration. As mentioned, in connection with the business to be addressed today, all voting will be conducted online through the virtual meeting platform. Voting is now open on all resolutions. In order to expedite the formal part of today's meeting, our Executive Chairman has asked Jaspreet Dehl as proxyholder to move resolutions. Although this procedure will assist in the handling of the formal matters, it is not intended to discourage anyone from submitting questions in reference to any resolution after it has been proposed. Mr. Executive Chairman, please be advised that the Notice calling this Meeting and the Management Information Circular were disseminated to all voting shareholders in accordance with all applicable laws. As Secretary of the Meeting, I will keep a copy of the notice and proof of mailing with the minutes of this meeting. Based upon the scrutineers' preliminary report on attendance, I can confirm that there is a quorum.

Thank you, A.J. I therefore declare the Meeting properly constituted for the transaction of the business for which it has been called. Turning to the first item of formal business, I will now table the Corporation's financial statements for the period from October 10, 2025 to December 31, 2025, together with the external auditor's report. I will also now table Brookfield Business Partners L.P.'s consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, together with the external auditor's report. Our annual financial statements have been mailed to shareholders who have requested them and are also available on our website.

Mr. Executive Chairman, we have not received any questions or comments submitted in connection with the financial statements.

Thank you, A.J. The second item of business at our Meeting today is to elect Directors who will serve until our next Annual Meeting of Shareholders. And A.J., would you please read the names of the proposed Board nominees?

The seven proposed nominees for election by holders of the Corporation's Class A Shares and Class B Shares are Cyrus Madon, Jeffrey Blidner, David Court, Stephen Girsky, Paul Farrell, Lori Pearson and Patricia Zuccotti. Information on all seven Director nominees is set out in our Management Information Circular, which was posted on our website and is available from the Corporation upon request. Mr. Executive Chairman, we have not received any questions or comments with respect to the nomination of Directors.

Thanks, A.J. We invite shareholders and proxyholders to submit their vote online if they have not already done so. And as a reminder, if you have already voted or sent in your proxy, there is no need to do anything unless you wish to change your vote.

Mr. Executive Chairman, I nominate for election as Directors the seven nominees named in the Management Information Circular dated May 7, 2026, to serve as Directors of the Corporation until the next Annual General Meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed.

Thank you, Jaspreet. With that, I declare the nominations closed. Management has received proxies representing a majority of the Corporation's Class A Shares and 100% of the Class B Shares. These proxies direct management to vote a majority of the Class A Shares and all of the Class B Shares in favor of the resolution. I now declare that those nominated have been duly elected as Directors of the Corporation. The third item of business today is the appointment of the Corporation's external auditor and authorizing the Directors to set their remuneration. As stated in the Management Information Circular, the Audit Committee of our Board of Directors has recommended that Deloitte LLP be reappointed as the Corporation's external auditor.

Mr. Executive Chairman, I move that Deloitte LLP be appointed the external auditor of the Corporation to serve until the next Annual General Meeting of Shareholders and that the Directors be authorized to set their remuneration.

Thanks very much, Jaspreet. The resolution has been moved and the motion is now before the Meeting for discussion.

Mr. Executive Chairman, we have not received any questions or comments submitted in connection with the appointment of the external auditor.

Management has received proxies representing a majority of the Corporation's Class A Shares and 100% of the Class B Shares. These proxies direct management to vote a majority of the Class A Shares and all of the Class B Shares in favor of the resolution. With that, voting is now closed on all resolutions, and I am advised that we have the results of the resolutions based on the tabulation of votes cast in advance of the meeting.

Thank you, Cyrus. On the matter of the appointment of the Corporation's external auditor and the authorization of Directors to set their remuneration, I am pleased to declare the motion carried. Final results of all voting will be available after the meeting and posted to SEDAR+ at sedarplus.ca.

Thanks, A.J. Well, that completes the formal part of today's meeting, and since there is no other business, this concludes our meeting. And now that the formal meeting is concluded, Anuj and Jaspreet will make a short presentation on behalf of the management team. And at the end of that presentation, they will both be happy to take, respond to any questions or comments you have submitted. Please note that in responding to questions, in talking about our new initiatives, and our financial and operating performance, we may make forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks, and future results may differ materially. For further information, please review the Risk Factors section of our Annual Report on Form 20-F. Finally, we would like to ensure that all shareholders who are interested in asking a question have the opportunity to do so. We will make every effort to address questions during the allotted question-and-answer period. Over to you, Anuj and Jaspreet.

Thank you, Cyrus. Good morning, everyone. On behalf of the management team, I would like to thank all of our shareholders for their continued support of our business and interest over the past year. We made excellent progress in 2025 across all three pillars of our strategy: acquiring great businesses for value, improving underlying operations and cash flows, and recycling capital to reinvest in growth. Our business was built for this environment, one which rewards hard work and operational excellence. As a result, the value proposition for our investors is as strong as ever, and we are in a great position to continue compounding value for our shareholders. I will now pass the call over to Jaspreet Dehl, our Chief Financial Officer, who will touch on our strategy and highlights from the past year.

Thank you, Anuj, and good morning, everyone. We launched the business as a way to provide public investors access to Brookfield's private equity capabilities. And today, our business is just that, a large and extremely valuable way to invest alongside Brookfield's highest returning investment strategy. As a reminder, we are value investors. We focus on acquiring high-quality businesses that are inherently strong compounders of value. We take an operations-oriented approach to improving performance and building long-term value. Finally, we opportunistically recycle capital to continue compounding value and generating strong returns for our investors. As Anuj mentioned, we had a successful 2025. We made excellent progress advancing our capital recycling program, generating over $2 billion of proceeds during the year. We took these proceeds and invested $700 million into four market-leading businesses which will support our future growth. We also further strengthened our balance sheet, repaying approximately $1 billion of corporate borrowings, providing us with additional financial flexibility. In addition, we executed our $250 million share buyback program, repurchasing over $280 million of our units and shares at highly accretive levels since the beginning of last year. These actions supported the improvement of our trading performance with our market capitalization increasing more than 40% during the year. We also simplified our corporate structure, which is an important step in the evolution of BBUC and one that will be important in driving long-term value for all our shareholders. The simplification became effective at the end of March, whereby we converted all existing BBU L.P. units and BBHC Exchangeable Shares on a one-for-one basis into a new Canadian corporation. Since closing, our daily trading volumes are up roughly 40% compared to average levels last year, and we expect passive ownership of BBUC to increase twofold from index rebalancing over the coming weeks. While it is still early, we believe the transaction benefits all shareholders, making BBUC simpler, more accessible, and more attractive to investors globally. Building on this momentum, our business is off to an excellent start to 2026. Since the start of the year, we have secured nearly $1 billion of capital recycling proceeds, including the partial monetization of La Trobe and the sale of Multiplex, which we announced earlier today. The sale of Multiplex is a great outcome for BBUC shareholders. It is a business we own since we spun out of Brookfield, which we do not think was ever fully reflected in our valuation as a public company. The sale not only enhances the durability of our underlying earnings and cash flows, but also provides us with significant proceeds that we can redeploy to continue compounding capital for shareholders. In addition, Clarios, our largest and most valuable business today, received $1 billion of cash tax credits in April, the first of similar amounts expected annually through to the end of the decade. As we look forward, the market for what we do is as attractive as it has been in years. Demand for essential services and industrial businesses has rarely been stronger, and we have capital, capabilities, and expertise to execute. We are in an excellent position to continue to execute our strategy, build on our strong realized track record, and continue compounding capital for our shareholders. We look forward to welcoming you to our Annual Investor Day, which will take place on Tuesday, September 29, where we will provide further updates on our business initiatives and outlook. Further details will be made available on the Events page of our website in the coming months. With that, I will hand it back to Anuj.

Thank you, Jaspreet, and thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. We appreciate your trust, partnership and continued interest in our business. Please do not hesitate to reach out to any of us should you have any questions, ideas or comments that you wish to share as partners in our business. This concludes our prepared remarks. We would now be pleased to answer any questions. A.J., would you please advise if there are any questions at this time?

Mr. Executive Chairman, there are no questions to be addressed.

Okay. Well, that concludes our meeting, and I would like to thank all of you for taking the time to join us today. And hopefully, we will see all of you at our Investor Day at the end of September. Thanks very much. That concludes the meeting.