Welcome to the Acadian Timber Corp 2026 Annual General Meeting. Please note the meeting is being recorded. I would like to introduce Malcolm Cockwell, Interim President and Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Acadian. Mr. Cockwell, please go ahead.
Thank you, operator, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is my pleasure to welcome everyone to the Acadian Timber Corp annual general meeting. It's now 11:00 A.M. Eastern Time and time to start the 2026 annual meeting. My name is Malcolm Cockwell. As chairman of the corporation, I will chair this meeting. With me today are the directors of Acadian, Heather Fitzpatrick, Karen Oldfield, Erika Reilly, and Bruce Robertson. Also in attendance is Susan Wood, Chief Financial Officer of Acadian. We are committed to open communication and are prepared to host this meeting through TSX Trust Company's virtual meeting platform, accessible to all of our shareholders, regardless of physical location, to participate and view the meeting.
I officially call the meeting to order and appoint Susan Wood to act as secretary of the meeting, and Jennifer Villarreal of TSX Trust Company to act as scrutineer of the meeting. Only registered shareholders who held shares in their name as of March 27, 2026, the record date of this meeting, or their validly appointed proxy holders are entitled to vote and ask questions at this meeting. Before we turn to the business before us, I would like to deal with a few procedural matters. The business of the meeting is described in the management information circular dated March 27, 2026, which accompanied the notice of meeting. I will take the notice of meeting as read. We will conduct the votes on the matters before us by a poll.
On a poll, each registered shareholder or their duly appointed proxy holder who is entitled to vote on the matter and has joined the meeting using their control number has one vote in respect of each share entitled to be voted on the matter and held by that shareholder. The poll will be open for all resolutions at the same time. Click the voting button on the left menu on your screen when the poll is announced. This will allow you to choose to vote on each resolution immediately or wait until conclusion of discussion on each resolution prior to casting your vote. There will be an opportunity to ask questions on each resolution in turn. To submit a question, click the Ask a question button on the left menu of your screen and type your question in the text box.
Once discussion on each item of business has concluded, I will give you a moment to enter your votes if you have not done so already. Once discussion on all items of business has concluded, I will provide a final opportunity to vote and then declare voting closed on all resolutions. I now declare the polls open on all resolutions. Registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders who have joined the meeting using their control number, you may now click on the Voting button in order to cast your votes or vote once discussion on each item has concluded. If you have not already submitted your votes in advance and do not wish to change your vote, you do not need to take further action. To expedite matters today, Ms. Wood and I will move and second all motions with respect to the business of the meeting.
This is designed to facilitate the progression of the meeting and not intended to discourage comments. A copy of the materials together with an affidavit of TSX Trust Company confirming such materials were properly mailed to shareholders will be kept by the secretary with the records of the meeting. The minutes of last year's annual meeting held on May 8, 2025 are available should any shareholder wish to review them. The transfer agent has provided a preliminary report on attendance, and based on this report, the secretary has confirmed that there is a quorum present. I therefore declare the meeting properly constituted for the transaction of business for which it has been called. I will now table the corporation's 2025 annual report to shareholders, which includes the 2025 financial statements together with the auditor's report.
Copies of our annual report were mailed to registered shareholders and are accessible on the corporation's website and profile on SEDAR. We will now proceed to the appointment of auditors. As stated in the notice of meeting, it is the intention of the persons named in the form of proxy to vote in favor of a resolution appointing PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as auditors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting and authorizing the board to fix their remuneration subject to contrary instructions given in the form of proxy.
Mr. Chairman, I will move that PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP be appointed auditors of the corporation until the next annual meeting, that the directors be authorized to fix their remuneration.
Thank you, Ms. Wood. I second the motion. To submit a question, click the Ask a question button on the left menu of your screen and type your question in the text box. Seeing no questions, if you have not already, please cast your votes using the Voting button before we move on to the next item. We will now proceed with the election of five directors, each of whom is to be elected at this meeting to hold office until the next annual meeting.
Particulars of the five director nominees are set out in the management information circular, which accompanied the notice of meeting sent to shareholders. As stated in the notice of meeting, it is the intention of the persons named in the form of proxy to vote in favor of the election of each of the six director nominees, subject to contrary instructions given in the form of proxy. I will now call for nominations for the election of directors of the corporation.
Mr. Chairman, I nominate the following persons: Malcolm Cockwell, Heather Fitzpatrick, Karen Oldfield, Erika Reilly, and Bruce Robertson, and move that they be elected directors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting.
Thank you, Ms. Wood. Are there any further nominations? There being no further nominations, I declare the nominations closed.
Mr. Chairman, I will move that those nominees whose names have been read be elected to serve as directors of the corporation until the next annual meeting of shareholders, or until their successors are elected or appointed.
Thank you, Ms. Wood. I second the motion. To submit a question, click the Ask a Question button on the left menu of your screen and type your question in the text box. Seeing no questions, if you have not already, please cast your votes using the voting button. This being our final resolution, for those of you who have not voted on either of the resolutions, please do so now as I will shortly close the poll. The polls are now closed, and I will read the results. Management has received proxies representing over 99% of the votes cast in favor of this resolution, appointing PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as auditors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting and authorizing the board to fix their remuneration.
Since the votes withheld for this resolution are minimal, I will take the voting results from the proxy tabulation report and declare the motion carried. Management has received proxies representing over 97% of the votes cast in favor of each of the directors nominated. Since the votes against each nominee are minimal, I will take the voting results from the proxy tabulation report and declare the motion carried. As there are five persons nominated for the same number of positions, I will now declare that those nominated have been duly elected directors of the corporation. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes the formal part of today's meeting. Now we will turn to our management presentation.
Before we begin, I would like to remind listeners that during the course of our presentation, and in responding to questions about our financial and operating performance, we may make forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks, and future results may differ materially. For further information on our risk factors, I encourage you to review Acadian's annual report and annual information form, which are posted on our website at acadiantimber.com. Today, we will start by providing you with an overview of our business and why Acadian is an attractive investment. We will then discuss the company's achievements and performance during 2025. We will also provide an update on our performance so far in 2026 and comment on the outlook for the remainder of the year. After which, we would be happy to take any questions. With that, Malcolm will get us started.
Thanks, Susan. Before we get into the main presentation, we wanna first pause to acknowledge an important milestone for Acadian. This year marks 20 years of sustainability at Acadian, and that commitment shows up in three important ways. We have consistently shared our land with the public for hunting, camping, and other recreational activities, and receive 10s of thousands of visits each year on an annual basis, a number that is growing each year. Second, we have practiced sustainable science-based forest management in a manner that protects the ecological integrity of our land while improving its long-term asset value. Since 2006, our merchantable forest inventory has actually grown from 28 million m3 to 34 million m3 , demonstrating disciplined long-term stewardship.
Our lands are SFI certified and support extensive water protection and wildlife habitat areas with a formal conservation program that protects over 190,000 acres in Maine. At the same time that we have delivered on these social and environmental priorities, we have run a strong business and returned approximately CAD 325 million of capital to shareholders. As we look ahead to the next 20 years, we plan to continue demonstrating that Acadian can achieve environmental, social, and economic sustainability in a manner that is rewarding for our shareholders, as well as the many stakeholders affiliated with our business and our assets. Acadian is a leading sustainable forest management company in Eastern North America.
We own and manage approximately 1.1 million acres of private timberland located in New Brunswick and Maine, and manage an additional 1.3 million acres of Crown land in New Brunswick with all of our operations being SFI certified. Acadian's timberlands have been under active management for over 120 years. We have a complete and comprehensive infrastructure network in place and long-standing relationships with a large and diversified base of customers. Our primary business is forest management and the production of saw logs, pulpwood, and biomass on our freehold timberlands, as well as providing forest management services on Crown lands. We also have flexibility to generate significant revenues through other land use activities, including real estate and environmental solutions. Why choose Acadian as an investment? First, we offer unique public equity access to Canadian timberlands.
Our business provides focused exposure to high-quality timberland assets, giving investors access to a scarce asset class with long-term supportive fundamentals. Second, resilient cash generation is central to our model. A diversified customer base combined with sustainable scientific and disciplined forest management practices supports cash flow across market cycles. Third, we deliver strong shareholder returns. We prioritize dividends and maintaining a conservative approach to capital allocation, ensuring returns are sustainable and aligned with long-term value creation. Finally, we see growing sources of optionality. Beyond our core business of growing and harvesting timber, which has upside as global demand for forest products increases, we are developing new ways to generate value through opportunities such as carbon credits and real estate. On that note, I'll spend some time today talking about one of these potential sources of value, real estate. We are progressing with three distinct areas of real estate activity.
The first is recreational use, including day passes, leases, and broader land use arrangements. These initiatives allow us to share our land while obtaining additional value from our assets. The second is commercial leasing, where we lease sites for a number of uses. We currently see high potential related to renewable energy leasing though those projects take some time to develop. The third is the sale of developed and undeveloped lots, where selective dispositions allow us to extract value from land that is not core to our long-term timber strategy and has a better alternate use. Importantly, real estate represents a highly complementary line of business. It enhances returns without compromising the productivity, extent, or integrity of our forests. We will now move into a financial overview of 2025 and a review of operational performance, for which I will turn over the presentation to Susan.
Thank you, Malcolm. We achieved positive results from our timber operations in 2025, despite a multitude of challenges and amid a high level of economic uncertainty. We're very pleased with the performance of our New Brunswick operations last year, which delivered increased sales and sales volumes, lower variable costs, and higher Adjusted EBITDA as compared to 2024. New Brunswick's steady operations helped to offset our operational challenges in Maine. Overall, demand for our timber products was mixed but generally stable, despite this heightened economic uncertainty, underscoring the resilience of Northeast regional log markets. Timber pricing softened modestly, but remained relatively stable over the year. Our revenue from timber sales and services was CAD 87 million compared to CAD 91.6 million in 2024.
In 2024, carbon credit sales contributed an additional CAD 24.6 million to total sales, while no carbon credit sales occurred in 2025. Adjusted EBITDA totaled CAD 15.8 million compared to CAD 38.9 million during 2024, and net income totaled CAD 49 million compared to CAD 21.7 million in 2024. Turning to our performance during the first quarter of 2026. As reported yesterday, revenue in the first quarter reflected consistent overall freehold sales volumes year-over-year. Within our product mix, demand for softwood pulpwood was lower than Q1 2025 as a result of increased availability of sawmill residuals in the region. This was largely offset by a higher proportion of softwood saw logs. Our weighted average selling price was broadly consistent with the prior year quarter. Timber services activity decreased CAD 2.3 million.
However, this had a minimal impact on our Adjusted EBITDA. Total operating costs and expenses decreased by CAD 1.3 million year-over-year. This decline was primarily attributable to lower timber services activity in New Brunswick, partially offset by higher operating costs per cubic meter in Maine, where we continue to transition toward internal harvesting operations. Selling and administration costs were modestly higher compared to last year. Acadian generated CAD 23.4 million in sales compared to CAD 24.8 million in Q1 2025. Adjusted EBITDA was CAD 4.8 million, and net income was CAD 3.5 million, compared to CAD 4.7 million of Adjusted EBITDA and CAD 3.7 million of net income in the same period last year. Malcolm?
We'll finish up today by looking at the outlook for 2026. We expect markets for our products to remain stable relative to Q1 in most of 2025 in both New Brunswick and Maine. End-use markets remain challenging for many of our customers; broader indicators are encouraging. North American interest rates have eased. U.S. housing starts are forecast at approximately 1.3 million units in 2026, capacity for curtailments in other regions of North America are expected to support supply-demand dynamics for our customers. These trends reinforce our confidence in the long-term sustainability and stability of the Northeastern forestry sector. We will remain focused on executing our improvement plan for Maine by continuing to progress our internal harvesting operations towards targeted production levels as well as cost structure.
We expect to deliver stronger results in Maine in 2026 compared to last year due to changes that we have made and continue making to the structure and scale of the operations. Our longer-term objective for Maine will continue to be achieving EBITDA margins at a level that is comparable to New Brunswick. Looking beyond our core operations, we expect to register the next tranche of carbon credits in the second half of 2026 following the transition to updated protocols which we expect will improve their marketability. Over the coming months, we will also continue developing real estate, the newest segment of our business, with the objective of establishing a business that delivers steady incremental EBITDA to our core business. We are grounded by our vision, which is our commitment to long-term sustainable land management for the benefit of our stakeholders.
We recognize the importance of making positive contributions to the communities in which we live and work. We continue to innovate in order to provide dependable cash flows to our shareholders. Before I conclude, on behalf of the management team, I would like to thank our employees and our contractors for their hard work, contributions, and commitment to working with Acadian. This concludes our presentation. We would now welcome any questions.