Pason Systems Inc. ($PSI)

The content of today's call are protected by copyright and may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of Pason Systems Inc. Please note, the advisory is located at the end of the press release issued by Pason Systems yesterday, which would describe forward-looking information. Certain information about the company that is discussed on today's call may constitute forward-looking information. Additional information about Pason Systems, including the risk factors relevant to the company can be found on its annual information form. Thank you, And good morning, everyone. My name is Kelsey, and I will be your conference operator for today's call. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Pason Systems, Inc. First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. Thank you. Ms. Celine Boston, CFO, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, Kelcy. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for attending Pason's 2026 First Quarter Conference Call. I'm joined on today's call by Jon Faber, our President and CEO. I'll start today's call with an overview of our financial performance in the first quarter. Jon will then provide a brief perspective on the outlook for the industry and for Pason and we'll then take questions. Pason generated consolidated revenue of $102.4 million in the first quarter of a 9% decrease from $113.2 million in the first quarter of 2025. The year-over-year decline reflects lower drilling and completion industry activity in North America, along with negative impact of a weaker U.S. dollar relative to the Canadian dollar on our U.S. dollar-sourced revenue. On this revenue, we generated $38.2 million in adjusted EBITDA or 37.3% of revenue. I'll now walk through each of our 4 reporting segments, starting with North American drilling. Industry conditions in North America were more challenging in comparison to a year ago. As a reminder, industry rig counts fell after meaningful tariff announcements out of the U.S. administration on April 2, 2025. Since that decline, rig counts have remained relatively stable through the last 4 quarters. However, when comparing Q1 2026 results with Q1 2025 results, rig counts in both the U.S. and Canada were below prior year levels and industry drilling days were down 6% year-over-year. Against that backdrop, our North American Drilling segment generated revenue of $69.8 million, an 8% decline from $75.8 million in first quarter of 2025. Revenue per Industry Day was $1,046 compared to $1,067 in the prior year quarter, a 2% decrease driven primarily by foreign exchange. While operating expenses declined slightly year-over-year with strong discipline around costs, Segment gross profit was $41.7 million compared to $46.8 million a year ago as a result of the more challenging industry conditions over the segment's mostly fixed cost base. International Drilling generated $11.7 million of revenue in the first quarter compared to $14 million in the same period of last year. The decline reflects 2 factors: our largest customer in Argentina shifted focus from conventional to unconventional drilling, which has reduced the active rigs during that transition and foreign exchange headwinds on U.S. dollar lift revenue. Operating expenses fell 22% to $5.7 million on lower activity and segment gross profit was $5 million compared to $5.8 million in the prior year. Our Completions segment generated $5 million of revenue, a 6% decline from $16 million in the prior year but achieved against a 21% decline in active U.S. frac spreads, which represents meaningful outperformance relative to industry activity. IWS averaged 28 active jobs in the quarter compared to 32% in Q1 of 2025 and up from 23% in Q4 of 2025. The Revenue for Way was $5,883, a 7% increase year-over-year despite the negative effect of foreign exchange, reflecting a more complex technology mix being adopted by our customers. We continue to invest in the technology platform for completion, which in a daily rental business model shows up in advance of revenue. As such, gross profit or loss for the segment includes depreciation and amortization expense of $7.5 million on this continued investment, which includes $2.2 million of amortization on intangibles acquired in the IWS transaction. Our solar and energy storage segment generated $5.9 million of revenue, a 21% decrease from $7.4 million in Q1 of 2026 as we've noted in the past, revenue in this segment will continue to fluctuate with the timing of control system deliveries. For context, Q4 of 2025 was a record quarter for the segment with $16.2 million of revenue. Pason continued to demonstrate strong cost discipline in the first quarter with many fixed cash operating costs declining slightly year-over-year. Notably, SG&A was $10.1 million, down 6% year-over-year. Resulting adjusted EBITDA of $38.2 million compared to $45.2 million generated in the first quarter of 2025 with lower revenue generated from the company's drilling and completion segments over the company's mostly fixed cost base. Net income attributable to PayPal was $13 million or $0.17 per share compared to $20 million or $0.25 per share in the prior year period and was impacted by lower EBITDA along with higher levels of depreciation and amortization expense with ongoing investments in the company's technology offering. Cash from operating activities was $20.9 million compared to $39.9 million in the prior year reflecting the lower adjusted EBITDA and higher cash taxes paid for amounts owing under the renewed advanced pricing arrangement finalized in Q4 of 2020. Net capital expenditures were $12.4 billion, down from $16.7 million in Q1 of 2025 due to timing on purchases. Resulting free cash flow was $8.5 million compared to $23.2 million in Q1 of 2025. We returned $13.5 million to shareholders during the quarter, $10.1 million to our quarterly dividend of $0.13 per share and $3.4 million through share repurchases. We ended the quarter with $73.5 million in total cash, $97.9 million of working capital and no interest-bearing debt. In summary, our Q1 results reflect a more challenging industry environment but our business continues to demonstrate the durability that comes from a leading market position, a largely fixed cost base and a strong balance sheet. We remain well positioned to support continued growth across our segments and to return meaningful capital to shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jon for his comments on our outlook.

Thank you, Celine. Let me turn to how we see the operating environment and where we're headed. The U.S. land rig count has stayed in a fairly tight band between 525 and 535 rigs since mid-2025. As we have said before, we believe that Pason can grow revenue and earnings in a meaningful way without needing a step-up in North American land drilling activity. Our medium-term goal has not changed. We are targeting a doubling of revenue from 2023 levels from our oil and gas well construction activities over a 5- to 7-year horizon. That growth is expected to come from 5 places. First, scaling our completions business; second, increasing adoption and improving price realization of our established drilling products and services. Third, bringing compelling new technologies to the drilling and completions markets with the mud analyzer being the most current example. Fourth, expanding our international revenue, particularly as more work shifts towards unconventional drilling and completions. And fifth, addressing data management opportunities in adjacent well construction activities that we believe the industry has underserved. We are pleased with the progress that we are making in each of these areas. In completions, slowing activity from some of our existing customers has been offset by new customer wins and deploying technologies aimed at more complex jobs. The data demands that come from the rapid spread of artificial intelligence are a tailwind, both for our core drilling products and for new product opportunities in completions. Uptake of the mud analyzer continues to build, and we are working on additional mud analysis products that broaden the set of drilling operations that we can serve. Internationally, as customers move toward more unconventional development, we see a path to wider product adoption across more of our product portfolio over the medium term. We are also building a presence within certain surface rig operations and are tailoring our products and support to fit the unique requirements of that market. Yesterday, at our Annual General Meeting, I took a few minutes to speak to some of the foundational principles of Pason. I spoke of the power of simplicity, the importance of discipline and the benefits of compounding technology deployed simply. That has been our slogan and our operating philosophy for many years. The technologies that ultimately get the broadest use in the market are the ones that take complex problems and solve them with products that are intuitive and simple in the hands of the user. Simplicity also shapes how we think about scaling the business. We are investing to streamline and simplify our product and service offerings so that the operating and capital cost per job comes down over time. Simplifying our business also means staying focused on areas where we have a distinctive and durable competitive advantage. We played the long game by concentrating where our unique capabilities can generate significant free cash flow and attractive returns over time. We are disciplined in our operating and capital costs. The benefits of operating leverage are greatest when we carefully manage our fixed cost base. Our capital expenditures are increasing as we invest in building out our completions business but we only do so with high expected returns on capital on addition to investments. We expect 2026 capital expenditures to be between $60 million and $70 million. We currently anticipate full year spending to come in near the lower end of that range, and we will continue to monitor our plans as industry conditions and our competitive position evolve. In completions in particular, we are adding new customers at an accelerating rate. Average job size is moving up and more customer activity is shifting toward the complex jobs that utilize our newest technologies. Any M&A activities that surface have to compete against the expected returns from reinvesting in our own business or buying back our own shares. Today, the highest expected returns we see continue to come from organic investment in our business. Focusing on generating valuable products and service for our customers in areas where we have a unique and distinctive advantage and being disciplined on our costs allows us to outpace underlying North American land drilling activity. Continued outperformance over time leads to strong financial performance through the benefits of compounding. We continue to build our business with a focus on ensuring that we have the foundation for continued growth and compounding over the medium and longer term. As we generate additional free cash flow, we look to allocate capital responsibly between shareholder returns and growth-oriented investments. On capital allocation, our framework is unchanged. We balance the discipline and predictability of our regular quarterly dividend, which we are maintaining at $0.13 per share, with the flexibility to invest organically and to repurchase shares both of which we evaluate through the lens of expected returns on capital. We are also mindful of potential supply chain disruptions and inflationary pressures tied to ongoing U.S. trade dynamics as well as tensions in the Middle East. The effective closing of the Stratus has materially tightened global oil and LNG supply concerns of an oil glut from earlier in the year have faded. As the long end of the oil futures curve has strengthened, we are starting to see producers accelerate capital programs and contract incremental rigs. We are well positioned to respond as activity picks up. The benefits of our leading market share and high operating leverage tend to be most pronounced when activity is rising. Uncertainty is likely to stay with us for a while. Our focus is on delivering exceptional performance in the areas within our control, extending our service and technology advantages, investing in growth opportunities that are not directly available to shareholders, keeping a strong balance sheet and returning capital to shareholders in a disciplined way. simplicity, discipline and compounding have shaped Pason for decades and we believe they continue to position us well for the opportunities ahead. And with that, we would be happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] At this moment, there are no further questions. I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Jon Faber, you may continue.

Thank you very much for taking the time to join us this morning. We appreciate your continued interest and your support. And we'll look forward to speaking with you again following our second quarter results after our August release. If you have any further questions in the meantime, Selene and I will always welcome your calls and we look forward to talking. Thank you very much, and have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude your conference call for today. We thank you very much for your participation, and you may now disconnect. Have a great day, everyone.