Mullen Group Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Mullen Group (TSX:MTL) reported third-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

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Summary

Mullen Group Limited reported a strong third quarter with some of the best operating performance in its history, validating its diversified business model.

The company maintains a robust balance sheet with $214 million in cash and ample working capital, supporting its growth strategy through acquisitions, such as the recent Wilson International deal.

Management emphasized a cautious approach to capital expenditure, aligning investments with confirmed project opportunities to ensure high returns and avoid unnecessary risk.

There is optimism for future growth tied to large capital projects in mining and LNG, but the company is holding off on heavy capex until these projects are confirmed.

Operational efficiency and strategic demarketing of lower-margin contracts are ongoing, with a focus on maintaining high margins and avoiding long-term low-margin commitments.

The company is leveraging its strong position in the Canadian market, benefiting from tightened labor standards and reduced competition in certain segments.

Mullen Group remains prepared for potential future demand increases, demonstrated by the strategic ordering of 100 trucks, assuming future growth in major projects.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to Mullen Group Limited 2026 Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call and webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode and the conference call is being recorded. After the presentation there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. And should you need assistance during the conference call, you may reach an operator by pressing star then zero.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Murray Mullen, Chief and Senior Executive Officer. Please go ahead, Mr. Mullen.

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

Welcome everyone to Mullen Group’s quarterly conference call. This morning we released our third quarter interim report. It’s a 60-page document. It’s full of detail, numbers and analysis prepared by our team headed up by Carson Erlacher and Nick Woodward. So this document contains updated information. It’s available on SEDAR+ and on our website, www.mullen-group.com. Now I’m going to remind everyone that today’s presentation and commentary contain forward-looking statements that are based upon current expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. As such, actual results may differ materially. Further information identifying the risks, the uncertainties and assumptions can be found in the disclosure documents.

With me this morning, I’m joined in Okotoks by the senior executive team, Carson Erlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Joanna Scott, who’s our Senior Corporate Officer. And on the line is Richard Maloney, our President and Senior Operating Officer, and Lee Hellyer, our Senior Commercial Officer. So for today’s call we’ll follow a similar format as the last few conference calls, all in an effort to make sure that this call is as meaningful and productive for everyone as possible.

All the prepared remarks by Carson and myself can be found in the third quarter interim report, the financial report and press release documents which were released earlier this morning. So truthfully, we have nothing further to add. So we will head straight to the Q&A session as I suspect you will have some interesting questions. But before I hand it over to the operator, I’m going to offer up a few opening comments. Let’s start with the obvious. Our operating performance in Q3 was very good. In fact, some of the best ever. It’s a strong validation of the strength of our diversified business model, you know, that truthfully we’ve built up over 30-some plus years as a public company. Second, the balance sheet is rock solid. It’s backstopped by those 10- and 12-year long-term bonds we placed a couple of years ago.

Now this in itself looks pretty timely given where interest rates are trending these days. Furthermore, if you look at the cash position as at September 30, 2026, you’re going to see that we had $214 million in cash on hand, $381 million of working capital and a boatload of untapped bank loans. So this leads to my third comment. You need to consider the Wilson International announcement on Monday morning. In conjunction with our Q3 MD&A, we used a portion of the $214 million cash on hand to grow the business with another quality acquisition, the backbone of our long-term growth strategy. So enough said. Operator, would you please open the lines to the Q&A?

OPERATOR

Yes sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. And to withdraw your question, please press star then two. And we’ll pause momentarily as callers join. And the first question will come from Kevin Chang with CIBC. Please go ahead.

Kevin Chang (Analyst)

Hey, good morning everyone. Congrats on the good results here. Maybe two questions for me and maybe just first one, as we think about how you look to deploy capital for growth, is there a way to frame how you might think of the investment intensity in 2027 and beyond just given maybe the growing optimism in the end markets you’re servicing and you have a productivity mega deduction that looks like it’ll be helpful to your free cash flow conversion.

So just in terms of if, in improving free cash flow, does that get deployed towards more growth capital or does that extra free cash flow get deployed to maybe other initiatives?

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

Good question, Kev. It’s one that we debate here all the time, and it’s not that we’re not going to have to deploy more capital to capitalize on the potential new growth, which is basically, we all know, tied to these huge capital projects. The question I think, Kevin, is really timing, and thus far we’ve heard all the anecdotal evidence that these projects are going to go. But the only area that we’ve really seen them going is really in some of the mining projects.

And then you can see in our results how we increased capex tied to those projects and the corresponding results that we have when there’s growth opportunities. So it’s all in the timing. Is it going to happen in 2027? Maybe, maybe not. All I can tell you is we will probably not get too far ahead on the capex until we know it’s real. Otherwise we’re just gambling with our shareholders’ money. And remember, this is Canada. Sometimes it takes a long time to get these projects off the drawing board into shovels working. So we’ll just want to trick Kev and then when it’s time, boom, we’ll go and we’ll go fast.

And of course we’ve got the balance sheet to go fast and I think that’s, you know, that’s the way we’re going to look at it. Until that happens, the economy is pretty good and our business is pretty solid. You can see it from the results. But the outsized growth and the outsized opportunity for us is when these capital projects come to fruition.

Kevin Chang (Analyst)

Right. That’s great color. Maybe just my second question. You know, when I look at your S&I margins, they’re the highest at least I’ve seen since maybe during the pandemic when there was a little bit of noise in everyone’s numbers, I guess. But at the same time, as you mentioned, a lot of optimism in those end markets. Maybe we haven’t seen a lot of the FIDs come through yet. Is there a way to frame how these margins could trend as those projects come through?

Is this something where you could see a step function improvement in the profitability of S&I given the combination of both maybe increasing activity, which we’re all hopeful for, plus it sounds like you’re repricing somewhat some of the book of business today to capture some of that higher pricing as you improve the quality of the existing book? Just is there a way to frame how these margins could trend as hopefully some of these nation-building projects get off the ground here?

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

Tough to frame it, I think. I don’t know if that’s the right word and not the way we look at it. I can tell you once the projects go you’re going to need new capital. But I’m here to tell our shareholders and everybody we’re not deploying new capital unless we see that the rates are going to go up from our customers. Because new capital really implies that we should be making way north of 20% EBITDA margins, up around 25% for new capital, and new capital you’re only going to get 25% when demand exceeds supply in any market, and demand will exceed supply when the projects go.

So when they go we will put new capital to work when we’re going to get 20%, 25% EBITDA margins or else we’re not deploying the capital. And we’re not going to take the risk on behalf of shareholders unless we can get 25% for our shareholders. So that’s how we look at it here. We’re poised to go, but we’re not going to go too, too early. Honestly, you’re just wasting your bullets.

Kevin Chang (Analyst)

That’s super helpful. Again, congrats on a good quarter then. I’ll pass it along. Thanks.

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

Thank you very much.

OPERATOR

The next question will come from Konark Gupta with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Konark Gupta (Analyst)

Thanks, Operator. Good morning, Murray and team. Congrats on good results in Q3. I want to follow up on Kevin’s question here as well on the S&I segment. I mean, it seems like from the commentary you put on the press release, there wasn’t everything that was perfectly aligning in the quarter yet the margin was pretty good. I mean, you still had some declines or challenges in the turnaround projects. Maybe the drilling was up. But I don’t think we are hearing that the drilling activity is kind of catching up completely with commodity prices today because producers are not taking the view that these commodity prices are structurally sustainable.

So my question is how much more upside you would think the S&I segment might have in terms of both top line and margin if this commodity price environment becomes more structural, you know, I mean, it becomes more sustainable over the next few years.

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

I think the simple answer is that, yeah, I agree with you that the energy prices are up, but I’ll be honest with you, we haven’t seen that turn into a whole bunch of new increased demand yet. Our customers are doing exceptionally well off the backbone of high energy costs. And you know, we all know why. So they’re doing exceptionally well. But I haven’t seen where they’ve really upped their capex dramatically yet. And I think everybody’s waiting for, you know, the infrastructure to get built and get going and then they’ll free up their balance sheet to go invest.

But right now they’re just, they’re holding their cards pretty close to the vest, to be honest with you. So we have to be very, very picky about where we go and until demand exceeds supply. As I said on the last call with Kev, is that, look, we’ll be prudent with our shareholder capital. Where we have seen nice uptick is, for example, Carson is our Canadian dewatering group, which there’s some really nice projects going on in Canada tied to mining that, you know, those projects have gone and we’ve had some nice returns there and some really good growth. So in the meantime, I’ll just tell you margins going up because we’re still right-sizing. I’m getting rid of business where the margins aren’t high enough. It’s in anticipation that I’m not going to go to work for nothing.

We’re going to go to work where we can make a return for our shareholders and where we can create great jobs for our people. So we’re just waiting. And when it does, you know, I will go back to the margins we used to have when capital was flowing freely back in the last decade and a half ago. And it’s all about the flow of capital and right now it hasn’t really increased yet. So that’s why I’m optimistic that once it does, we will do better. Period.

Konark Gupta (Analyst)

Right. That makes sense. Thanks, Murray. And then if I can delve into LNG opportunities, obviously we are seeing some momentum on the LNG side in Canada. There’s also a big contract you guys were talking about in the last earnings call. Can you provide an update perhaps on what’s happening on the LNG side for you guys and how are you preparing for some of those contract opportunities?

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

Oh, we’ve heard the same thing as you and everybody else on the line because it’s in the news every day. We’ve had lots of ceremonies and ceremonial signings and, you know, we’ve had lots of everybody patting themselves on the back that we’re going to do it, but we haven’t seen the purchase orders yet. We haven’t seen this or that. We think maybe we’re closer to that in 2027, but I can’t commit to what time that is. I don’t have any better insight on that than you do.

Konark Gupta (Analyst)

Okay, thanks, Murray. And then my last one before I turn the call over, on M&A opportunities — maybe you can perhaps explain the rationale behind the Wilson deal, and is that the area where you think there’s going to be a lot more M&A activity? I mean, that seems to be the area where a lot of your competitors have also focused recently. We have seen a few transactions in that arena. And then are you looking at something more on the S&I side as things evolve in the oil patch over the next couple of years?

Carson Urlacher (Senior Financial Officer)

Well, Konark, I think what we did — I’ll turn this and let Carson. But I think with Wilson, first of all, it’s a great, it’s a brand name company and it’s in a vertical we like. But I think the big thing with Wilson is, of course, that we were able to use that strong balance sheet and turn making a couple percent, I think, and turned it into a decent return. So, yeah, for sure. You know, with those, Konark, you can’t really pick your time with respect to when those acquisitions become available.

You know, entrepreneurs are on their own schedule and they pick the time for the liquidity event, not us. So we just make sure that we have the balance sheet that we can participate in those transactions, which we did this time. You know, it’s a hundred-year-old company in a vertical that we quite like. It’s going to complement our coal acquisition that we did just over a year ago. So it’s a space that we like and the opportunity came available to us and obviously we transacted on it, as you know. But that doesn’t preclude us from looking elsewhere into different verticals as well, including S&I. So I would say that the number of opportunities on our desk right now is robust, to say the least.

I think Joanna’s been working her tail off here, looking at files and such, but I would say that there’s lots of opportunities for us on a go-forward basis, including in the S&I.

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

Once again, I’m just going to caution everybody — you know, it’s coming, but when? And, you know, so when we see the right opportunity, Konark, we pounce. But we do not do it to grow to grow. We do it because they’re great quality companies and we can see outsized returns and they complement what we’re doing in our business model. That’s always been in our DNA — not changing today. Happy to do S&I. Happy to do in any vertical that’s going to be the right opportunity and a good brand.

Konark Gupta (Analyst)

That’s great. Appreciate the time as always. Thank you.

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

Thanks, Konark. Thank you.

OPERATOR

The next question will come from Benoit Poirier with Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Benoit Poirier (Analyst)

Hey, good morning everyone and congratulations for the strong quarter. Maybe, Murray, just in terms of supply-demand, obviously no big recovery in demand yet, but I would be curious to get some of your thoughts about how did you see the supply and demand evolving over the last quarter and whether you still see a disconnect between Canada and the U.S. Just curious, especially given the temporary softening in pricing we saw back in July and August.

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

I think, you know, basically you can see from our numbers, Benoit, that the market appears to be in balance. If the market’s not in balance, it would be really difficult for us to generate the results we do. So the market’s pretty much in balance. There are the pockets where we saw the growth primarily was where capital went to work, and I’ve highlighted that. And that was really in the mining sector and anything to do with that. It just so happens we’ve got a diversified business model and we’ve got multiple ways to capitalize on that.

But generally the overall market — it’s in balance. Look at our LTL side. We said there’s just no growth. That’s the Canadian economy. You know it. Everybody knows that the Canadian economy’s got a little bit of growth, a little bit of downside, you know, because of the trade issues. But on balance, it’s about flat. And that’s what we see. If the capital goes to work, which drives economic growth, then you’re going to see margins go up, because I don’t want to oversimplify it, but demand exceeds supply and that’s the only time you can raise price, period.

So our job here is to predict where we think there’s opportunity for demand to exceed supply. In the meantime, you will see, including on our LTL side, where we work on productivity gain, on watching costs, on using new technology tools. I hate the word AI, but I’ll use it because everybody talks about it. But AI is just another tool to help you improve your productivity. And that’s not going to change with our group. We’re going to continue to employ all the tools available to drive productivity gain.

And you need to do that. In a flat economy, there’s no growth, so you have to improve. And you can see we did a very good job of that. And then when growth does happen, watch out — that’s when you’re going to have outsized margin improvement. Until then, we just stay in our lane and run the best business we can.

Benoit Poirier (Analyst)

Okay, that’s great. And in terms of capex, it seems to be well under control with about 45 million spent so far this year, while the board approved close to 135 million with the latest round of 50 million. So I was just curious about how we should be thinking about Q4 given what you spent so far and what the board has approved.

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

I think that’s timing, isn’t it, Carson? We’ve got in our order book for capex — it’s just when it arrives, but I think there’s a fair amount coming in in Q4.

Carson Urlacher (Senior Financial Officer)

That’s correct. So we placed the orders back in July. So a lot of that equipment is going through the manufacturing process right now. We’re expecting a lot of it to land in November, December, and then early into the new year.

Benoit Poirier (Analyst)

Okay. Okay, that’s great. And maybe in terms of the former question about the tax deduction benefits, I was curious if you could quantify what we could see in terms of free cash flow, given the recent discussion on those benefits.

Carson Urlacher (Senior Financial Officer)

Yeah, Benoit, there’s a lot of variables that are at play on that — i.e., you know, the timing of when equipment comes in, the class that it sits in, and those sorts of things. Just to give you a ballpark, we did kind of the back of the napkin as to our best guess as to when things are going to show up, but you’re probably looking at about a $10 million cash tax savings immediately. But you gotta remember that that’s a saving — that’s a one-time savings.

So going forward in year two, three and four, there’s no tax deductibility now. So you’re getting that benefit up front, but it doesn’t help you long term. So 10 million is kind of our—

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

Yeah. At the end of the day, I think, truthfully, Benoit, I think it’s a bit of smoke and mirrors. It helps with your cash taxes now and your cash flow, but it punishes you after year one. So it’s just a temporary cash flow situation. We don’t have that problem here. We’ve got a strong balance sheet. That might help some smaller business with some immediate tax deduction, but you pay the price in years 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Yeah, so it’s a one-timer. Yeah. It’ll save us on tax this year and it’ll catch us in the back. So we don’t — we’ll never make a decision based upon, you know, we maybe save a couple bucks on tax right now. It’s got to make economic sense.

Benoit Poirier (Analyst)

Okay, that’s great. Thank you very much and congrats again.

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

Thanks, Benoit.

OPERATOR

The next question will come from Walter Sprachlin with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Walter Sprachlin (Analyst)

Yeah, thanks very much, operator. Hi, everyone. Morning. Yeah, I’d like to go back to the rate point you were making, Murray, that you need rates to go higher. And I’ve been speaking to a couple of your Canadian peers and they’re really saying that the tax application now on the Driver Inc. model is indeed leading to some outflow of labor. Some of it was migrant workers and that’s not available anymore. So the driver pool is tightening up a bit and that’s allowing for the start of some nice price activity in Canada.

I know it has been prevalent in the U.S. And are you seeing that, Murray? Are you seeing that driver availability affecting supply? And is that giving you the opportunity to raise rates to the levels that you need to? Is it something you expect to happen? Is it happening now or do you not see it in the cards for Canada?

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

You know, it’s a really good headline, newsworthy story, but I haven’t seen it actually show up yet. I think that it’s a long-term trend that is happening, which just says I think you’re going to still have more immigrants in our business, but I think you’re going to have tighter standards now in terms of training, in terms of certification, and that will end up as being a much better safety result for the motoring public. The facts are over the last bit, it’s not that we have immigrants come in, it’s the fact that they weren’t trained properly before they went out there, so they weren’t certified.

But I think the standard is going up. I think that there’s more enforcement which is raising the bar. But thus far I haven’t seen where it gives us enough freedom, if you will, to tighten the market substantially to raise rates. It’s different than in the U.S. You know, that has happened in the U.S., but in Canada, just a little bit slower. I think the trend is there, but it hasn’t given us enough, you know, the leeway to go and raise prices to the customers right now.

Haven’t seen that yet.

Walter Sprachlin (Analyst)

Okay. On the large project pipeline, I was wondering if you could rank order for us both in terms of size and expected announcements or decisions on any RFPs you have out there. I know the Alaska pipeline, you’ve got a few in the works on that one. Have any of those been decided on yet? And when do you expect those specific to Alaska, the Alaska pipeline, to come across your table?

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

Well, the easy answer is I expect those decisions to come in the future. The more difficult part of that is when in the future, I have no idea. But when they do, and it moves from us talking with our customers about what’s the potential to, we got a contract, we will press release it. Until then, all we’re doing is the same thing as everybody else. We’re talking, we’re debating, we’re, you know, everybody’s waiting for final approval from the government authorities.

And truthfully, you’ve got First Nations on site and you’ve got to take a great. So it’s coming in the future. I’m convinced of that, but the timing, I have no idea.

Walter Sprachlin (Analyst)

When you say convinced of it coming in the future, do you mean you’re—well, I guess I’ll leave that question. As to whether you’re going to win it or not, are you convinced of your positioning to win it or is it—

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

We’re in good position to win our fair share, guaranteed. We’re not going to win it all. That’s, you know, that’s being too cocky. But we’ll get more than our fair share and we’ll do quite well when those projects start going. We’ve proven it. Once those mining projects went and capital went to work and people got employed, that very same thing will happen. For example, we really haven’t—there’s not enough activity yet for us to increase our headcount, Joel. In fact, we did more revenue, but, Joel, our overall headcount is down year over year. We’re down 160 people despite being able to knock out the results we did. You know, this economy, if we’re going to look after Canadians and give jobs, we got to get capital going to work. That’s my primary message to Canadians and the government: get going so we can employ people.

Until then, we’re still on a productivity hunt and how do we get better and smarter and using, you know, all the tools in the toolbox to make sure that we’re as productive as we can be. But we’re poised to grow. We’re poised to get new capital and we want to desperately hire more people, but not until the projects go, period.

Walter Sprachlin (Analyst)

So related to that, what do you think is the ramp time once a contract decision is made and when you start booking revenue and getting to work on it? Six, 12 months?

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

Yeah, six to 12 months. I think once you get go, you know, they’re not going to happen in two days. It’s six to 12 months. There’s just so many logistical issues to get going. But once you get going, then the meter starts going, okay, start positioning, start getting capital, start hiring people and those kind of things. But we’ll have a 6- to 12-month lead time.

Walter Sprachlin (Analyst)

Okay. And then last question is, am I rank ordering it right? Like you got the Alaska pipe, you already mentioned the mining work, so that’s ongoing that you’re capitalizing on now; the pipeline still TBD in the future, but still TBD. Are you going to be involved in the data center construction, and have you done any work on isolating, of all the large projects that you see possible in your area, how many or how much of that you’re ready and willing to bid on?

Carson Urlacher (Senior Financial Officer)

I would say with the data centers that we’re well positioned to participate in the construction of those. One of the leading products that goes into constructing those facilities is cement, and as you know we have a couple business units that are directly involved in that line of business. The data center that’s projected for north Edmonton is well situated by our transload facility that is serviced by both CP and CN. So we would be in a very good position to be moving steel and various products that are required in the construction of that facility, and then on the offtake of it after—you need energy to run those facilities, which means natural gas and drilling activity. So we like to participate in major projects right from cradle to grave: we’re involved in the construction piece and then that ongoing annuity at the end where we’re involved in helping generate or provide the power source to those facilities.

Walter Sprachlin (Analyst)

Are you still expected to give your typical update in—are you targeting December, Murray, for the following year? And can I ask if you’ll be able to put anything out on project potential, or is it really on base business that you’ll be giving your business plan?

Carson Urlacher (Senior Financial Officer)

I think that we’re going to be presenting to the board early December. We’ll present our base case to the board and then we’ll come up with our business plan that we’ll articulate to all investors of what we think will happen in 2027. Will we have any more clarity in the next six weeks on nation-building projects and whatever? I wouldn’t hold my breath on that. And we will not factor into our business plan that the projects are going to go. So we’ll factor in what we think is our base case, and this year our base case thus far looks to be—we are trending above what we said our base case was going to be for this year.

But, Walter, I don’t remember when we did our outlining of our base case that there was going to be a war in Iran and fuel prices were going to go up to where they went. So anything to do with an increase in fuel surcharge, we didn’t put that into our base case. What we did is—and I give all the credit to our business units—we had these uncomfortable discussions to say to our customer, you got to pay, because we’re not paying. And those are called fuel surcharges.

But that’s where we’re really off, Walter, in terms of revenue, is on that side. But generally our base case was pretty close. Car’s pretty spot on. Pretty spot on on the fact I just didn’t count—I didn’t, I don’t know what I missed on that. I didn’t see that in December. So there will be something that comes up next year that I have no freaking idea what’s going to happen. But I can tell you our business model and our structure allows us to move very quickly whatever happens.

Walter Sprachlin (Analyst)

Awesome. Appreciate the time and color as always, Murray.

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

Thank you. Always. Thank you. Appreciate it.

OPERATOR

The next question will come from Tim James with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Tim James (Analyst)

Thank you. Thanks very much. Good morning. Great, great quarter. My first question, I just wondered if you could elaborate a little bit on the demarketing of lower-margin contracts. I guess I’m thinking of the S&I segment in particular. Does your runway with respect to demarketing depend on new opportunities coming in one side of the door, or do you have your sights set on a particular number of contracts or revenue where you want those to roll off and it’s irrespective of the new opportunities?

Or do more opportunities mean more demarketing?

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

Well, that one’s—you know, first of all, that’s a really good question. But here’s our thesis on that right now: on some of this production services, the customers for all intents and purposes are trying to trick you into signing a long-term contract and fix the price right now, so we won’t get sucked into that because we think it’s going to get busier. And the biggest delta you’re going to have in the future when it gets busy is going to be labor.

So we will not fix a contract right now. You know, when we didn’t see opportunity, we accepted lower margin and a lower return just to keep our people employed. But in the future, we think we’re going to have to redeploy our capital into higher-margin business and we will need to move the people to where we can pay them more. So we’re just not going to get tricked by any big oil company. Not happening. So if our little competitors want to sign on to that, fill your boots, but we’re not doing it.

Tim James (Analyst)

Okay, thank you. My second question, just getting into a little bit of detail here: I noticed within the LNW segment you called out in the MD&A greater demand for cross-border shipments. Just wondering if you could elaborate on that. Maybe surprising might be a strong word, but it just caught my attention given the kind of trade environment we’re in. What was the driver of the stronger cross-border shipments for that business? Just supply constraint?

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

The U.S. has tightened labor standards, entrance standards, and we just have fewer competitors that can cross the border because you’ve got to comply with U.S. rules when you cross that border. And, you know, a number of the ones that are doing it just can’t. They can’t comply. So that’s why even though the demand hasn’t increased, the supply has shrunk. And that’s why we’ve done well—because we comply.

Tim James (Analyst)

Okay, I got it. Okay, that’s helpful. Thanks, Murray.

Carson Urlacher (Senior Financial Officer)

Now, cross-border is not a significant piece of our business within LNW, but I would say that, to Murray’s point, the trend is showing that supply is constricting and the business units that we have in that vertical are benefiting from a reduction in supply.

Tim James (Analyst)

Great, thank you.

OPERATOR

The next question will come from Cameron Dirksen with National Bank. Please go ahead.

Cameron Dirksen (Analyst)

Thanks very much. Good morning. Apologize if I missed this, but just hoping for a couple more details on the Wilson International acquisition. I know that the revenue is going to be split, I guess between LNW and the US International Logistics. Are you able to provide, I guess, a split of the revenue for Wilson between those two segments? Okay, that’s helpful. And maybe we’ll get more details when the acquisition closes. But just on acquisition price, any color you can provide there?

Fair enough. I’ll stay tuned on that. Maybe just secondly, in the MD&A there’s a mention of a leasing of a facility in Vancouver related to some logistics opportunities, fairly sizable building. I’m just wondering if there’s any specific opportunity that you’re eyeing there or what can we read into that? Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Appreciate the color. Thanks very much.

Carson Urlacher (Senior Financial Officer)

Yeah, Cameron, it’s Carson here. I would say in the US3PL, in terms of revenue, you’re probably looking at about 25 to 30 million going into the US3PL segment. And in terms of the LNW segment, that’d be the remainder — call it 55 million in revenue going into that segment.

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

Oh, we paid way too much. I told that to the seller. I said, God, we’re paying way too much. But it’s a great quality company. It generates free cash, it’s in a vertical we like. It’s complementary to our coal business unit and we were comfortable with the price. So that’s the art of the deal. But this is a great quality company. We just happen to have a great balance sheet and cash in. So we just turned 2% money into 10 plus and then we’ll work with that team and with our cold team to make it 10 plus plus plus.

And we haven’t closed yet so we’re a little sensitive right now to what exactly. But that’ll all be disclosed at year end of what it all is. Until then, yeah, I told the story: I’m paying you way too much money but you’ve got a great company, so. Well, I’ll tell you about that facility — everybody on the line might have called this great Canadian company called Hudson’s Bay. Hudson’s Bay could not make it in this ultra-competitive world and they vacated this wonderful facility and it sat empty for a couple years. And we think we’re going to be able to — on our BAS network — use that as our logistics hub out in the Vancouver area as we think as Canada grows and as Canada pivots to new markets and Asian markets and offshore.

You got to bring it in through Vancouver. And we just happen to say, you know, we used our balance sheet to get that long-term lease on that facility and that sets us up wonderfully to be able to service our clients. And away it goes. It’s a great facility in a great area and we got it. So that’s what we’re calling it, the MTL Logistics Park. We’re going to put all of our businesses that we got out in Vancouver under one roof and become more efficient.

OPERATOR

If you have a question, please press star then 1. Our next question will come from Trevor Reynolds with Acumen Capital. Please go ahead.

Trevor Reynolds (Analyst)

Yeah. Hey guys. I think most of my questions have been asked, but just in terms of the Alaska project, I was just curious where that will fall, assuming it goes ahead, in terms of US3PL and SNI? Got it. And then just in terms of, does that fall under the US3PL division or under SNI? Perfect. And then just in terms of the truck buildout — like you guys think you ordered enough trucks there? And maybe just some insight, as you kind of mentioned that you wouldn’t be investing ahead of approvals yet you did invest in these hundred trucks. So just some insight there.

Perfect. Thanks for providing clarity there.

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

That one’s coming in the future. What day, I don’t know. Probably nothing — you’re not going to hear anything — until US elections are over, Trev. And then we’ll see what happens after that. It’s such a political hot potato. I can’t answer that. But, you know, we’re still… I’ll be meeting with our business partners next week and positioning and making sure that when it is finally announced that we’re ready to pounce and go if — now I’m qualifying this — if the customer will pay us appropriately.

We’re not doing it for practice and I’m not doing it for free. We’re going to put capital to work and employ people and we expect to make a profit for our shareholders. So we’ll be positioned. But if they want it done for free, don’t call us. Yeah, we hedged our bets on that, Trev. Yeah, we positioned. It’s a perfect hedge because if it goes, we’re ready. If it doesn’t go, well, we just cut our capex for next year because we got the trucks ordered for our existing network.

Carson Urlacher (Senior Financial Officer)

I think, Trevor, our plan is to include those results within the US segment. We’re differentiating — our US-based business goes into the US3PL segment which is kind of dedicated for that. Yeah, I don’t think so. We ordered 100. We’re optimistic that there’s going to be projects going on a go-forward basis, whether that’s in Alaska or Canada, the timing of which is obviously uncertain. And if they don’t go, well, we order that just next year. Capex — we don’t have to make capex.

So we hedged our bets on that, Trev. It’s really no risk to our shareholders and we really wanted to get ahead of the order book to be able to get access to that equipment.

OPERATOR

The next question is a follow up from Tim James with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Tim James (Analyst)

Thank you. Just a quick follow-up question here that was kind of triggered by that last discussion. Murray, do you think there’s any way that the supply and availability of trucks over the next couple of years could be an actual bottleneck in terms of some of these major projects if a lot of them go forward at once? And therefore, you obviously moved ahead on 100 — do you try and kind of stay ahead of the game so that you are not impacted by that, or as you look at the long-term truck supply, do you think that that is not going to be an issue given what’s on the drawing board?

Okay, that’s helpful insights. Thank you. Good color, Rich.

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

Yeah, it is a little bit of an art or science — I’m not sure which one it is, to be honest with you, Tim. But in this case we saw a couple things happening. One is we needed to get prepared because it really was all about how much capital is going to be employed in the U.S. The U.S. truckers are making more money now and they’re upgrading their fleets quickly. So nobody’s adding any more capacity. But the trucking industry down in the U.S. is making more money and they’re upgrading their fleets, and that hogs the order book and leaves very little for the Canadian market.

We do not manufacture anything in Canada. We have to import it. So we get allocated, if you will. So we just took a prudent move. But, you know, with our scale and size, we have more pull than a little guy, let’s just put it that way.

Richard Maloney (Senior Operating Officer)

I think, Tim, it’s also important to point out — this is Rich talking. I mean, at the end of the day, you can have all the equipment in the world if you don’t have drivers. Our focus will be to continue to get operators and, at the end of the day, if there’s only so many drivers, then we charge accordingly. This gets to a fundamental principle: we got to get the right return for what we’re doing. And, you know, the last 10 years has been lost because of the lack of investments in the energy space.

We got to rebuild that space. So we’re going to do it. We’ll do it safely, properly retrain our people, and then be able to have the right equipment at the right time. So just part of the overall way in which we run a good business. Important point, that.

OPERATOR

And this will conclude our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Mullen for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Murray Mullen (Chief and Senior Executive Officer)

Hey, thanks for joining us, folks. You know, I sit here and I’m, you know, I’m pinching myself that our team did such a great job over the last quarter, that things are doing as well as they are. But we’re not going to get too ahead of our skis. We’re just going to go back to work and make sure we’re positioned to take advantage — whatever the market is and what it will give us. So thanks for joining us. And we will — we’ll be talking, I guess, pretty soon.

So thanks so much. Have a great day. Cheers.

OPERATOR

This concludes today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for your participation and have a pleasant day.

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