NFI Group Inc. ($NFI)
Earnings Call Transcript · May 8, 2026
Highlights from the call
NFI Group Inc. reported its Q1 2026 earnings, highlighting strong performance in 2025 with record revenue and adjusted EBITDA despite facing macroeconomic challenges. The company achieved a backlog of over $13 billion, providing long-term visibility. Revenue guidance for 2026 was maintained at $3.9 billion to $4.2 billion, with adjusted EBITDA guidance at $370 million to $410 million. Management expressed confidence in meeting these targets due to operational improvements and supply chain stabilization.
Main topics
- Record Financial Performance: NFI achieved 'record revenue and adjusted EBITDA' in 2025, despite challenges such as a battery recall and competitive pressures in the U.K. market. The company also reported its strongest year for the low floor cutaway business.
- Backlog and Future Growth: The backlog remains strong at over $13 billion, which 'provides longer-term visibility for NFI's continued growth and success.' This positions the company well for future demand.
- Leadership Changes: John Sapp has taken over as CEO, succeeding Paul Soubry, who led the company for 17 years. The company also appointed new board members, bringing expertise in capital markets and manufacturing.
- Operational and Capacity Expansion: NFI expanded its manufacturing capacity with new facilities in Winnipeg and Las Vegas, aiming to increase production rates to meet backlog demands.
- Product and Market Expansion: NFI continues to invest in new propulsion technologies and product lines, including the Alexander Dennis Enviro EV series, to meet diverse customer needs.
Key metrics mentioned
- Revenue: $3.9B to $4.2B (Guidance for fiscal 2026)
- Adjusted EBITDA: $370M to $410M (Guidance for fiscal 2026)
- Backlog: $13B (Provides long-term visibility)
- CapEx: $50M to $60M (Guidance for fiscal 2026)
NFI Group Inc. is positioned for continued growth with a strong backlog and expanded manufacturing capacity. The company's focus on new propulsion technologies and market expansion supports its long-term strategy. Investors should monitor execution on backlog delivery and any macroeconomic impacts on the transportation sector.
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Operator
Operator[audio gap] closure, recording, transfer and use of such personal information from all appropriate persons before your disclosure. During the meeting, we'll have a question-and-answer session. You can submit questions or comments at any time by clicking on the message icon. It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Stephen King, Vice President, Strategy and Investor Relations for NFI Group Inc. Mr. King, the floor is yours.
Stephen King
ExecutivesThank you, operator, and thank you. Good morning, everyone, and I would like to welcome you to this Annual and Special Meeting of NFI Group Inc.'s Annual General Meeting. My name is Stephen King, Vice President of Strategy and Investor Relations for NFI, and I will be your MC for today. Just want to give a quick thank you to some of our team members for helping organize today. Michael Kanish up here in the front, Kieran in the back and Crystal who you might have met on the way in. So joining me today is NFI Board Chair, Colin Robertson, President and CEO, John Sapp; Chief Financial Officer, Brian Dusnib. We're also pleased to have other members of the Board here in attendance who are here in the front, and we encourage you to chat with them after the meeting. Turning to Slide 3. We will start today's meeting by delivering a territorial acknowledgment. I acknowledge that the land on which we are meeting today is the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the credit, the Asha Nave, the Chippewa the old shows, and the win that peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations into it -- sorry, in net and may peoples. We also acknowledge that Toronto was covered by 13 and with the Mississaugas of the credit. We respect and give honor to the indigenous people's history on this land and recognize First Nations, Mat and Intuit People's ongoing contributions in our neighborhoods and communities today. We proudly acknowledge our role in the many relationships that make up our home and commit to a spirit of reconciliation for the future. Moving to Slide 4, a few quick housekeeping items. We will be advancing slides on the screen during today's meeting. The accompanying slides will be made available on the NFI website after the conclusion of the meeting. As the meeting is a joint in-person and virtual meeting, it is necessary to set our guidelines for the orderly conduct. Following the formal part of the meeting, there will be a management presentation. Questions will generally only be addressed at that time. So if you have a general question for management, if you could please hold it until after John's presentation. Happy to answer any investor questions or any other questions we have in the room. To the extent there are questions regarding procedural matters or directly related to the motions before the meeting, those may be addressed during the formal portion of the meeting. That's when Colin Robertson will be up here presenting. That's the formal portion. Questions will be read out aloud before being addressed. Questions from persons attending the meeting virtually can be submitted using the instant messaging service of the virtual meeting interface. In order to ask a question, please click the Q&A icon and type your question to management. Usually, and this year is no exception, the majority of shareholders submit their proxies or voting instructions in advance of the meeting. So a lot of people have already voted prior to today. Since we are hosting a joint in-person and virtual meeting, voting during the meeting will take place both by a show of hands for those here today in the room and by electronic ballot for those attending virtually. So we encourage people to raise your hands during the voting. Registered shareholders or duly appointed proxy holders who wish to vote in person at the meeting are required to register in advance of the meeting. Registered shareholders or duly appointed proxy holders who wish to vote electronically and who have properly logged in on their control number or invite code as applicable, we'll be able to see on their screen all motions being brought forth at this meeting. These can be voted at any time up to the closing of the polls. Voting will be open throughout the formal portion of the meeting. Registered shareholders who have voted in advance of the meeting and do not wish to revoke their previously submitted proxies do not need to vote during the meeting. Please note that only registered shareholders or duly appointed proxy holders are invited -- are entitled to vote. Beneficial shareholders who have not duly appointed themselves or any other proxy holder as proxy holders will not be able to vote at this meeting. However, all shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders may ask questions either in person here or using the instant messaging application of the virtual meeting interface. I hope that's all clear. Moving to Slide 5. I would like to now introduce Mr. Colin Robertson, Chair of the Board of Directors of NFI Mr. Robertson has served on NFI's Board since 2020 and is Chair of the Board since April 2025. Colin will provide a welcome to today's meeting and then take us through the formal portion of the meeting. Over to you, Colin.
Colin Robertson
ExecutivesThank you, Stephen. On behalf of the NFI Group Board of Directors, let me welcome everyone to today's shareholder meeting. NFI delivered strong results in 2025, achieving multiple financial performance records throughout the year, even as the company faced several onetime events that impacted production field service teams and our aftermarket businesses. We achieved several major milestones, including record revenue and adjusted EBITDA. In addition, our low floor cutaway business had its strongest year ever with record deliveries and the new fire business converted stronger backlog into results. The overall backlog remains a position of strength at more than $13 billion, providing longer-term visibility for NFI's continued growth and success. These accomplishments were made as the team had to navigate challenging macroeconomic conditions, a rapidly evolving tariff environment alongside a battery recall, which impacted various financials in the second half of the year and an increasingly competitive U.K. market. I will let John recap 2025 in more detail later in his presentation. NFI is well positioned for the long term. What it aims to benefit from investment in public transport across all of its core markets, expanded product offerings in North America, including the relaunched double-deck bus product line, and the medium-duty Equess and strong underlying contributions from its market-leading aftermarket business. Our Board continues to play an active role in overseeing the company's growth and supporting the continued delivery of NFI's pledge to deliver a better product, a better workplace and a better world. During 2025, and to start 2026, the Board remained focused on executing a detailed multiyear board renewal strategy with the retirement of 2 long-serving Board members. Similar to 2025, this strategy has seen new additions in '26 that bring new skills that reflect our current trajectory. Turning to Slide 6. We provided an update on this board transition. Today, upon completion of the shareholder meeting, Larry Edwards and Katherine Winter will retire. Larry was a Board member Board Director for 18 years and held numerous positions on the board, including sorry, most recently as Vice Chair and Lead Independent Director. In addition, Larry was previously Chair of the Human Resources Compensation and Corporate Governance Committee. Larry has been a tremendous value to NFI's Board cannot be -- just cannot be overstated and his governance as a company grew into North America's leading provider of transit buses, the largest coach manufacturer in North America and expansion internationally. I personally want to go on record and thank Larry for all of his support as I stepped into the role of Chair, and I had the great pleasure of working closely with Larry over the past year as we executed on the Board renewal initiative and the CEO transition. Katherine Winter served on the Board for 7 years, having originally joined in 2019. Kathy played a significant role in providing technological insights for the NFI team as they invested in new products and expanded the product portfolio. Kathy was also a member of our Operations and Technology Committee and brought a wealth of knowledge from her long career in the mobility sector. Both Larry and Kathy were valued directors. And on behalf of the Board and management, I would like to thank them for their contributions, dedication and leadership and wish them both continued success in all of their future endeavors. Going to Slide 7. As a component of our Board renewal strategy, Daniel Barclay and John Scannell were appointed to the Board in 2026 and have been nominated to continue to serve as independent directors. Dan brings us 33 years of capital markets experienced to NFI's board, which will be extremely valuable as we continue to focus on capital structure and capital allocation in the years ahead. Dan was most recently CEO of BMO Capital Markets business, where he was responsible for the bank's interactions with corporate, government and institutional clients, investment, corporate banking and global trading needs. John Scannell brings decades of complex manufacturing experience to NFI's board. Having worked with MOG Corporation since 1990. He helped to champion their growth into a global designer of precision motion control, fluid controls and other control systems for the aerospace, defense and medical industries. John held numerous positions with increasing responsibility of Mog ultimately retiring as our CEO in 2023, a position he held since 2014. We are very excited to have both Dan and John on our Board of Directors. They bring specific expertise that makes our board stronger and will help management as NFI continues to deliver upon its strategy and growth plans. Turning to Slide 8. We will now proceed with the formal portion of today's meeting. On behalf of the Board, I wish to express thanks to those shareholders who have submitted their proxies in advance. Only shareholders or their proxies are entitled to vote electronically or in person at this meeting. To make best use of our time, I will move and second the proposals, which are called for in the notice of the meeting. The meeting will now come to order. I shall ask Mr. Colin Pewarchuk, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of the Corporation, to act as Secretary of the meeting and Lesley Ann Alan of Computershare Investor Services, Inc., the transfer agent of the corporation's common shares to act as scrutineer. Notice calling the meeting was mailed to shareholders on April 2, 2026, and we have received confirmation from the corporation's transfer agent as to its mailing. Just prior to the start of the meeting, I received a copy of the preliminary scrutineers' report on attendance. There are at least 2 shareholders holding 67,492,099 common shares represented in person or by proxy at this meeting. This represents approximately 57% of our outstanding common shares as of the record date. I have been advised by the scrutineer that a quorum of shareholders is present. I now declare that the meeting is regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business. The first item of business is the presentation of the consolidated financial statements of NFI Group Inc. for the fiscal year ended December 28, 2025 and the auditor's report therein. A copy of the financial statements, together with management's discussion and analysis of operating results and auditor's report were included in the corporation's annual report, which has been mailed to shareholders who requested copies and is available on the NFI Group's website. NFI's consolidated financial statements and auditor's report are hereby tabled for purposes of this meeting, and no further action is required. We will now proceed to the appointment of auditors and the authorization of the directors to fix their remuneration. I move and second that Deloitte LLP be appointed auditors of the corporation to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders and that the directors be authorized to fix their remuneration. You have all heard the motion. All in favor, please raise your hands. Contrary if any. [Voting]
Colin Robertson
ExecutivesThank you. The next item of business is the election of directors. Ten directors are to be elected, and information regarding the proposed nominees is set out in the information circular prepared in connection with the meeting. I have pleasure of nominating is Agile, Daniel Barclay, Adam Gray, Paulonis, Anne Marie O'Donovan, Colin Robertson, Marise San Lauren, John Sat, John Skane and Janet Walker Ford as Directors of the corporation to hold office until the next meeting of shareholders or until their successors are duly elected and appointed. The corporation's amended and restated advanced notice bylaws provide that nominations of directors by shareholders must be received by the corporation at least 30 days in advance of the meeting in order to be valid. As no such nominations were received by the corporation prior to the deadline, the nominations are closed. In accordance with the corporation's majority voting policy are a nominee to be elected and remain as a director, they must receive no less than a majority of the votes cast in favor of their election. Based on the number of votes cast by proxy in advance of the meeting in respect of each nominee, I can report that all of the nominees have received a majority of votes cast for their election and therefore, I now declare that they have been duly elected directors of the corporation to hold office until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are duly elected or appointed. The next item of business is to consider and it seemed appropriate to pass an ordinary resolution in the form set out in Exhibit A to the Management Information Circular to continue, amend or restate the fourth amended and restated shareholder rights plan agreement dated May 4, 2023, between the corporation and Computershare Investor Services, Inc., as rights agent. The rights plan is designed to provide the Board of Directors with additional time to assess an unsolicited takeover bid for the corporation and where appropriate, to give the board additional time to pursue alternatives for maximizing shareholder value. The rights plan is also designed to encourage fair treatment of all shareholders and to encourage a potential acquirer to proceed by way of a permitted bid, which requires the takeover bid to satisfy specified minimum standards designed to promote fairness -- the rights plan was not adopted in response to any specific proposal to acquire control of the corporation, nor as the Board currently aware of any pending or threatened takeover bid for the corporation. To be effective, the resolution must be approved by a majority of votes cast by shareholders represented today and entitled to vote at the meeting. If the resolution is approved, the corporation and Computershare Investor Services, Inc., as rights agent, will enter into the fifth amended and restated shareholder rights plan agreement to take effect today. I move and second that the resolution with respect to the continuation, amendment and restatement of the fourth amended and restated shareholder rights plan of NFI agreement of NFI Group Inc. And the bottom set out in Exhibit A to the management information circular be passed as an ordinary resolution of the corporation. You have all heard the motion, all in favor, please raise your hands. Thank you. Contrary if any? [Voting]
Colin Robertson
ExecutivesThank you. Our last item of business is the approval on an advisory basis of the corporation's approach to executive compensation. I move and second to approve on an advisory basis and not to diminish the role and responsibilities of the directors, that the shareholders accept the approach to executive compensation disclosed in the management information circular. You have all heard the motion. All in favor, please raise your hands. [Voting]
Colin Robertson
ExecutivesThank you. Contrary, if any? Just about late and raising your hand or your contrarian. [Voting]
Colin Robertson
ExecutivesThank you. Unless there are any questions, we will now allow for some time for voting by those shareholders and proxy holders who are attending the meeting virtually. As I mentioned earlier, voting in the virtual meeting will be conducted by electronic ballot. Polls are open and registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders who have properly logged in with their control number or invite code as applicable and wish to vote will be able to see on the screen all motions being brought forth at this meeting. Please register your votes. We will provide approximately 1 minute to complete the electronic ballots. Once the electronic balloting closes, the voting page will disappear, and your votes will be automatically be submitted. [Voting]
Colin Robertson
ExecutivesThank you for casting your votes on these matters. The polls are now closed. I have been advised by the scrutineers that based on the ballots and proxies deposited for the meeting and the preliminary results of voting, all motions have been voted in favor, and thus, I declare all motions carried. The final voting results will be available after the meeting and posted on SEDAR. The formal meeting -- the formal items of business are set out in the notice of this meeting have now been dealt with. As there is no further business to be brought before the meeting, I move and second, at the meeting now terminate. I now declare the meeting terminated. Now that the formal part of the meeting is concluded, I will turn things over to Stephen King, who will start the management presentation. Thank you.
Stephen King
ExecutivesAll right. Well, thank you, Colin, for that, and thanks, everyone, for voting online and in person. So a reminder to all participants that we do want to take your questions and we appreciate you coming in attendance and being here live and being here virtually. So for those that are in the room, if you have a question after John's presentation, please just raise your hand, and we have a microphone that will walk around and provide to various folks. And online, at the end of the presentation, please note, virtual questions can be submitted using the instant messaging service of the virtual meeting interface. In order to ask a question, please click on the Q&A icon and type your question to management. We will read the questions allowed here in the room and respond following John's presentations. We will continue moving the slides via the webcast link, and we'll also call out the accompanying slide numbers as we progress. So John Sapp, our President and CEO and a new Winnepeg very recently, will now give us a management's presentation. And then like I said, we will take your questions after the conclusion of the presentation.
John Sapp
ExecutivesThank you, Steven, and thanks, Colin. I've had the pleasure of meeting many of you here that are present in the room beforehand and several here just this morning. Look forward to shaking some more hands here after the meeting. But I have to first start with the cautionary statement. I would encourage everyone to have a look at this. It's included in the materials just to ensure you understand the context of the information that we're going to share. So if you flip to the next page, I want to talk a little bit about where we're at overall as a group. And I want to first express just how much I appreciate being here now in the seat. It is a true privilege to become the new CEO of the NFI Group and to take the baton from Paul Soubry and to help with this great management team to lead this business to what will be a terrific growth here as we go forward. That growth is going to be based on a long legacy of high-quality production and buses that we have put out into the market for decades and that's true across our entire portfolio. We have 100,000 units as an installed base. And when you consider what that means in terms of customers, their dependence on us. The safety that we provide in terms of enabling safe connections of their customers a role in the community. And as we go forward is and will continue to be very significant. And you can see that stretches across 13 countries. We have 44 facilities globally and over 9,000 employees. And so if you flip to the next page, that takes us, I believe, to #19 for online for Stephen is just a direction there. I want to talk a little bit more then about our product types. And so we are what we consider call propulsion agnostic meaning that we use and can -- as a strategy, we can install just about every type -- actually, every type of propulsion type that is out there. So whether or not that's your legacy diesel type product all the way up to the latest EV variant. We have the ability to meet just about every customer's expectation as it relates to propulsion solutions. And so that has been certainly a great enabler for us -- it also means that we've got a number of different products, over 60 plus. And you can see that, that 100,000 installed base has translated to a whole lot of mileage as well. But the revenue by group, you can also see predominantly North America is where most of our work is done, 15%, however, in the U.K. and then a small percentage as well in Asia Pac and then across products where we do everything from the coach, those high-end coaches that you ride to the transit buses all the way down to the RBOX solutions that a couple of shareholders were asking me about earlier, which are more in the short and medium duty cycle bus. So if you flip to the next page, you can tell we were invested in a whole lot of things. And the areas that I would focus on are certainly as we continue to see the evolution of new propulsion types that are out there in the market and continuing to ensure that from a product standpoint that we really are leading edge, we've leaned heavily into that space. I think most recently, our most recent additions to that family of products would be within the Alexander Dennis portfolio, primarily out of the U.K., but also does have a presence internationally to include here in North America, where they've released the Enviro 100 EV, the 200, 400, all of that done here in the last couple of 2 years. And we're going to continue to see more of those products emerge. We're also continuing to make, of course, product evolution inputs into the current fleet of product lines that we have. And that has led to us with over $13 billion backlog across our organization. So when you consider that and what we do every year, it means we have a whole lot of buses and products that we need to go deliver going forward. We're going to do that by flipping to the next page and continuing to find ways to expand our footprint. So we've achieved new milestones here in '25 and frankly, stretching into '26, but most of those have been around rate readiness and continuing to position our manufacturing footprint to be able to meet the long-term demand. And you can see Paul Soubry there with Primister Carney as he was touring the facilities last fall. And then most recently here with oral Canada, which I'll talk more in a second, we actually had the ribbon cutting for it in the top right. And so a lot of excitement in terms of what's happening there as well as other facilities. But flip to the next page, we have obviously some leadership changes. As I expressed earlier, I'm extremely pleased to be here in the seat and have the very big shoes to fill and Paul Soubry, who is leading this company for 17 years. give or take a month and obviously did a terrific job in terms of growing NFI to what it is today. And I look forward to working with our great management team and Board to continue on that progress. We've also recently named Rob Marian as our new President of the MCI business that was shared earlier today, a terrific leader with operational background. And so all of those are adds as we continue to build and ensure that our succession and leadership ranks are ready for the long term and future. So if you flip to the next page then, the all Canada build opening, here's a few images of that. This is really important for us. It's -- it has increased our capacity to where we'll be an additional 5 units per week coming out of that facility. And when we talk about units per week, that's a really important measure for us in terms of how we're doing around our capacity increases, of course, but also delivering on that backlog and at 5 units per week, all of those units will go to Canada as a customer. It was an upgrade to the facility done in Winnipeg, and it was in close partnership with the local and federal government. If you go to the next page, then you'll see our Las Vegas expansion. So this is another 1 that is very exciting for us as we really increased the double-decker presence in North America with the Alexander Dennis product line. This has seen and for those that have used the transit system around here, of course, you would see them driving around in the Toronto area, but also in the United States where you continue to see more presence from it. And so that was a big -- an important investment for us, and we expect to see north of 50 units at a minimum per year coming out of that facility. So if you flip to the next page, we're also very proud of what we do in terms of our leadership and being an employer of choice. And so leadership development, employee recognition and ensuring that as an employer that we are ones that our employee base is very appreciative of and therefore, wants to continue to grow their careers with us at NFI. And so when you get named the Manitoba Top Employer in '25 and in Alabama, we were the employer of the year for the state of Alabama for its leadership and accessibility and inclusive hiring. Those are great measures for us. And then certainly, those are very competitive areas for us to win such an award. And we also win in the market. So if you go to the next page, you'll see some of the recent big wins that we've had. Every 1 of those agencies that you see listed at the bottom are really big and important customers for us. Every customer is important for us. But these are the ones that carry with them orders of 100 to 200 buses coaches, transits. And so it's really important that we continue to win and serve those -- and for us, it's around making sure that those customers recognize we develop the best product. We deliver the highest quality, and we give them the best service and that is incredibly important for us in terms of how we go forward. If you go forward to Page 27, a few things to note here. We talked a little bit here around some of the impact that we had in terms of 2025 and some of the work that the team has done relative to our debt structure and otherwise in our capital structure overall. So last year, we actually had our first ever high U.S. yield. That was very important for us. We've seen impressive demand overall going back into '25, and that's continued to carry over here in terms of and we continue to strengthen our balance sheet overall as a result. And then the final page on 28 is early on how we're focused going forward. My priorities for 2026. First and foremost, it's around our continued focus on operational excellence, making sure that we continue to increase the volumes that are needed to be able to support and deliver on the backlog -- and then as we increase those volumes out the door, making sure that we're seeing the incremental margins that we see that profitability continue to flow through with those expanded numbers that you would expect. And so driving profitable growth through the process. We're going to make sure that we deliver the best customer experience as noted, ensuring that our vehicles are viewed as best-in-class safety, best-in-class quality, terrific customer support. And then finally, resilient solutions is around the resiliency of our business. As noted earlier, around our debt structure, the work that the team has done there. But also in terms of sustainability and its impact from an environmental standpoint, and we obviously play a major role inherently to the type of product that we deliver, but also because of the very focused sustainable solutions that we deliver to the market as well. So our guidance remains at -- from a revenue standpoint, you can see as listed $3.9 billion to $4.2 billion from an adjusted EBITDA standpoint, $370 million to $410 million and from a cash CapEx standpoint between $50 million to $60 million. And as we shared on the earnings call earlier today, our confidence in delivering on these guidance numbers continues to improve as we continue to see improvements in terms of operations, improvements in terms of our supply chain and rate readiness. Overall, our confidence here is high. So with that, that brings to a close the management presentation that I wanted to share, but we're going to open it up to see any questions that you all may have in the room or as Stephen noted through the online. Any questions?
John Sapp
ExecutivesYes, sir, in the back.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsFirst, I'd like -- did I hear correctly that -- there's a shareholder on 60% of the shares?
Paul Soubry
ExecutivesSo the question is, if there's a shareholder that owns 65% of the share. Stephen, do you want to expand on that? There is not, but we'll let Stephen talk through some of the details of that question.
Stephen King
ExecutivesYes, sure. That's really just the proxy process and the proxy process that happens. Our largest shareholder is Coliseum Capital. They're a 21% shareholder and our second largest is Marco Polo at 8.1%. And -- but that's really just how it gets treated kind of for the voting process through the formal part of the management meeting. So they get consolidated into that 65% and is represented by the proxy process. Does that help answer your question?
Unknown Analyst
Analysts[indiscernible]
Stephen King
ExecutivesNo, no, sorry, Ed. So it does -- definitely does matter how you -- that's just how we consolidate it for proxy purposes for the actual voting process that we go through. The largest shareholder, again, would have 21% of the votes that are outstanding. But your vote definitely does count. And so hopefully, you were able to vote before the meeting online or through the mail.
Unknown Analyst
Analysts[indiscernible].
Stephen King
ExecutivesOkay. Okay. It's a great question. I'll take first stab it unless you want to answer it, Colin. Well, what I would say a couple of things. First off, thanks for that. And for those online that couldn't hear the question, there was a concern over the compensation overall from an executive standpoint in terms of where that sits with the company. And is it reflective of -- and I'm paraphrasing serve, I think I'll capture it. But is it reflective of what the business has generated relative to profits for the company as we've gone forward and then also a concern around unemployment rates. What I would say first on the first point is certainly and I'll talk within Canada because I'll assume, sir, that's where the message is from relative to unemployment. We certainly are a very proud Canadian employer, and I think that reference to us being an employer of the year in '25 in Manitoba is reflective of what we're doing, not only in the community, but also to ensure that we are being good stewards relative to employment and ensure that we do all that we can to grow and to continue to grow. And so our focus is on that for sure. Earlier today, we shared where we were at in terms of the quarter. And I want to reflect on your point of around earnings and how we've done with that. I would say as you go back really over the last 12 months, and you look at our last 12 months trailing, you'll see that we've generated a considerable amount of EBITDA to the business -- or sorry, to our -- to the company. And subsequently here this quarter in terms of year-over-year, we saw a 37% increase from a profitability standpoint. So we are, without question, extremely focused on driving the profitability point that you raise and to ensure that that's delivering and so I can't speak to your experiences for the past, but I will tell you this is a high area of focus for us as we go forward. And then relative to executive compensation, of course, is the executive team's comp is very much tied to actually generating exactly what you said, which is profit. And when that doesn't come through, then of course, our team does not then benefit from that. But the other thing I would note, too, of course, is that we also want to ensure that we go outside to evaluate the compensation of this company and ensure that it is actually based on what are the practices that are outside in the market.
John Sapp
ExecutivesThank you for your question. From a Board Chair and from a Board standpoint, sir, I would just like to make it clear that Executive compensation is a matter for the Board, and it is important for us that we can attract and retain top talent. In order to do that, we make sure that we work -- we have an outstanding HR Compensation and Corporate Governance Board Committee that also takes input from specific excellent consultants that are subject matter experts in that compensation world. And everything in terms of reward and remuneration is underpinned by alignment is underpinned by our team delivering profitable growth for our company and ensuring that they steward our company to be a company that provides better products for our markets, better place for our employees to work as well. So -- these guys don't mark their own homework. We have a very, very structured framework to make sure that we take best-in-class compensation from information from consultants, we review it as a board and then put into place the appropriate compensation plans for management. So there can be no doubt that over -- particularly the COVID years, there can be no doubt that COVID was, I'll call it, a fickles [indiscernible] some businesses did incredibly well. through coved and subsequent supply chain-related times, NFI Group, any business in the transportation world was severely impacted. And over the last 3 years, stewarding this company through very choppy seas at a time when many of our competitors cease to exist today and at a time where we invested in products to underpin a $13 billion backlog, profitable backlog in our bus business and to continue to grow every other segment, you won't always get the top of the tops all of the time. John has spoken about year-on-year revenue growth and underlying profitability growth and our sense of confidence and expectation for the years ahead. So I hope that answers your question.
Stephen King
ExecutivesAny other questions?
Unknown Analyst
Analysts[indiscernible] both the demand side where you see that or at [indiscernible] And I'm just wondering -- what you're going to start this cost cap or what that is?
John Sapp
ExecutivesYes. That's again, a great question. Thank you for that. Certainly, in terms of the U.K. Alexander Dennis in terms of growth, we actually expect to see more volume here this year. We have done some things around our capacity to ensure that it is rightsized for the long term, and so that would have been some of what you've seen. But certainly, we continue to see Alexander Dennis overall as a business continuing [indiscernible]. Introduction of I think yesterday, I was over at the Metrolink site and looking to see what they're doing relative to all the repair work, and I think they're on order of 250, I think, that are roughly speaking, that are driving around in this -- the greater Toronto area, which is pretty great. And so we're building those out of Las Vegas currently. We are drawing from a supply base that goes all across North America to be able to support it. And of course, we are looking for opportunities, not only to -- for those to be sold to the U.S. but also in Canada. And so -- the -- we have a very integrated overall supply chain, so within North America, between Canada and the U.S., and we would really leverage it, I think, to the most we can possibly get from it. So yes, great question. Any others? Okay. Thank you all. Anything, Stephen, do you want to close things up.
Stephen King
ExecutivesSo well, look, thanks, John, for that. And thanks, everybody, for your questions. We really do appreciate them at any time. Please don't hesitate to reach out to us. Our contact information is on our website. so you can get it at investor relations @nfigroup.com. Thank you again for attending, and we do encourage you to mingle and mix with the management team and the directors that are here in attendance before you leave today. So thanks again, and that concludes our meeting. And thanks, no questions online. I guess, okay, I should have checked out earlier. No questions online. So now we're completely done. So thanks, everybody, for coming. Thanks.
For developers and AI pipelines
Programmatic access to NFI Group Inc. earnings transcripts and 32,000+ others is available through the
EarningsCalls.dev REST API. Plans from $24.99/month — full transcripts, speaker segments,
full-text search, and the recently-added /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.