Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Bird Construction conference call and webcast. We will begin with Teri McKibbon, President and Chief Executive Officer's presentation, which will be followed by a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, analysts will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded, and at this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Before commencing with the conference call, the company reminds those present that certain statements which are made express management's expectations or estimates of future performance and thereby constitute forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is necessarily based on a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, and competitive uncertainties and contingencies.
Management's formal comments and responses to any questions you might ask may include forward-looking information. Therefore, the company cautions today's participants that such forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause the actual financial results, performance, or achievements of the company to be materially different from the company's estimated future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Forward-looking information does not guarantee future performance. The company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, events, or otherwise. In addition, the presentation today includes references to a number of financial measures which do not have standardized meanings under IFRS and may not be comparable with similar measures presented by other companies and are therefore considered non-GAAP measures.
I would now like to turn the call over to Teri McKibbon, President and CEO of Bird Construction.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. With me today is Wayne Gingrich, Bird's Chief Financial Officer. Yesterday afternoon, we entered into a definitive share purchase agreement under which Bird will acquire Fraser River Pile & Dredge for an estimated aggregate consideration of CAD 82.3 million. This acquisition builds on Bird's strong infrastructure presence across Canada and continues to expand our self-perform capabilities, adding marine construction, land foundation, and dredging expertise that strengthen our cross-selling opportunities across our businesses. The news release and presentation slides are available on our website for reference. Over the next few slides, we'll walk you through the profile of the acquired business, our strategic rationale, the benefits and structure of the transaction, the expected financial impact, and how this transaction supports sustainable growth and delivers long-term shareholder value.
Headquartered in New Westminster, BC, FRPD is Canada's oldest and largest privately owned marine construction, land foundation, and dredging company with substantial self-perform capability. Founded in 1911, FRPD's experienced workforce of over 300 salaried and hourly employees have earned a reputation for safety and high-quality work while delivering some of the largest construction projects in Canada. Another key strength of FRPD lies in its commitment to community and collaboration, including through its strong Indigenous partnerships. Their approach reflects a culture of respect, sustainability, and shared success, making FRPD not only a contractor of choice, but a valued partner in the regions where they operate. FRPD maintains a versatile marine and land construction equipment fleet and has a specialized construction skill set that's well suited to Canada's growing demand for infrastructure, including nation-building projects that support port expansion, transportation, trade, defense, and energy requirements.
FRPD's projects experience spans multiple key sectors, including bridges, ferry terminals, docks, wharf, land foundations, and dredging. Their client base is broad, and they are known for cultivating strong, long-term relationships built on trust and performance. For Bird, the acquisition of FRPD represents another catalyst for future growth, strengthening Bird's national infrastructure vertical and adding new, unique self-perform capabilities in the form of marine construction, land foundation, and dredging, to an already extensive portfolio of capabilities and operating locations. As with all Bird's recent acquisitions, there is a strong cultural alignment between FRPD and Bird. The incoming team brings deep bench strength, technical expertise, and collaborative mindset that mirrors Bird's values. Their commitment to safety, quality, and innovation complements our own, and we're confident this will support a seamless integration.
FRPD has a strong market reputation and proven ability to deliver critical infrastructure for long-term public and private clients such as the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, BC Hydro, CN Rail, and Infrastructure BC. With the acquisition, these clients now have access to Bird's comprehensive scope of services in BC and nationally, and Bird's trusted clients have access to new marine construction, land foundation, and dredging capabilities across Canada. Financially, the acquisition is expected to be accretive to Bird's EBITDA margin, moving us closer to our 2027 strategic EBITDA margin target of 8% and is accretive to Bird's adjusted earnings per share on a full-year basis, creating value for our shareholders. FRPD has a healthy backlog and pipeline of projects and adds an additional multiyear recurring work program to Bird's portfolio with its dredging contract on the Fraser River.
Cross-selling and partnership opportunities with Jacob Bros. and across the entire Bird organization are robust, including land foundations for infrastructure, buildings, and industrial projects across Canada. These capabilities are highly complementary to our existing service offerings and will allow us to pursue larger, more sophisticated projects as a combined company. Finally, the acquisition of FRPD positions us to meet market demand for marine construction and other infrastructure services. We see strong investment in both public and private infrastructure and growing demand for specialized services like marine construction that is expected to outpace industry capacity. The FRPD acquisition positions Bird to capitalize on these high-demand sectors and deliver increased long-term value to our shareholders.
With a deep history centered in BC and along the West Coast, FRPD has expanded its services across Canada, and has included contributions to notable projects, including the Centerm expansion in Vancouver, BC, executed in a JV with Jacob Bros. Diavik Mine Northwest Territories, the Port of Churchill expansion in Manitoba, the Randal Reef Reclamation Project in Hamilton, and dredging in the St. Lawrence and the Port of Montreal, just to name a few. Taking a look at FRPD's project track record, there's a strong cultural alignment with current provincial and federal infrastructure initiatives, investment initiatives.
As we mentioned during our second quarter conference call, Canada is entering a period of strategic investment under Bill C-5, the federal government's August 26th announcement regarding significant new investments in port infrastructure, including commitments for expanded port facilities in Montreal and Churchill, Manitoba, an initiative tied directly to Canada's critical mineral strategy and Arctic gateway ambitions. FRPD's past experience operating in Churchill and in the Port of Montreal, along with their key role in major port infrastructure initiatives, such as the four-year Centerm Expansion Project in Vancouver, position them to participate in these upcoming major investments. The Centerm project, delivered in a partnership with Jacob Bros., showcased FRPD's marine construction expertise and ability to execute large-scale, high-impact work in complex coastal environments. FRPD also has a long-standing client relationship with BC Ferries, having been awarded and executed a steady stream of projects over the past 20 years.
In supporting the organization's current commitment to spend CAD 1.1 billion upgrading and expanding its terminals over the coming years. Another part of FRPD's business is dredging, where FRPD has had the exclusive contract to dredge the Fraser River for over 35 years and expects to continue the work in future years. FRPD has also done dredging work across the country for infrastructure and port expansions. FRPD's land foundations work, while not the largest component of the footprint, sees them first on site for new construction, creating new Bird opportunities for expanded scope with access to Bird's comprehensive self-performed capabilities. The transaction, with an aggregate consideration of CAD 82.3 million, will be funded through a new term debt facility negotiated in connection with the acquisition.
After the close of the transaction, Bird expects its debt ratios to remain consistent with the company's long-standing practice of maintaining low leverage. FRPD will be acquired on a cash-free, debt-free basis. Following close, the transaction is expected to be accretive to Bird's adjusted earnings per share by approximately 7% on a full-year basis. Accretion has the potential to be further enhanced through future synergies, including cross-selling opportunities. On a pro forma basis, FRPD is expected to generate approximately CAD 160 million of revenue and CAD 20 million of adjusted EBITDA on an annual basis. A strong backlog and pipeline of construction projects, combined with a long-term dredging contract and cross-selling opportunities with Bird's current operations, will support further growth in revenue and adjusted EBITDA beyond the current year.
We expect the transaction to close early in the fourth quarter of 2025, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, including approval under the Competition Act. The acquisition of FRPD is a strong strategic fit with Bird's M&A strategy, which focuses on sectors with specialized capabilities, margin enhancement, margin enhancement potential, and strong cultural alignment. In addition to strengthening our existing national infrastructure presence, the company unlocks new cross-selling opportunities across Canada, particularly in marine construction, land-based foundation work, and dredging with Jacob Brothers and other divisions across Bird. These capabilities, supported by a highly experienced workforce and leadership team, are a strong complement to Bird's existing infrastructure and industrial operations and align well with the depth and strength of our team.
Company's focus on specialized projects and unique self-performed services is expected to enhance Bird's adjusted EBITDA margin and support further value creation through adjusted EPS accretion. Exclusive of future synergies, the transaction reflects an implied purchase multiple of 4.1 x FRPD's projected full-year 2025 adjusted EBITDA, based on the estimated purchase price of CAD 82.3 million. I'll now hand the call over to Wayne to discuss our combined operations.
Thank you, Teri. As part of our 2027 strategic plan, we outlined Bird's goal to continue to grow our infrastructure business in relation to other businesses, with a long-term goal of achieving an evenly balanced revenue mix between all of the businesses. Our 2027 expectations that we outlined at our Investor Day in October 2024, were that infrastructure would make up 26% of our total revenue based on organic growth, with industrial and buildings at 37% each. With the acquisition of FRPD and assuming growth patterns similar to the rest of the Bird businesses through 2026 and 2027, we expect to be much closer to our evenly balanced revenue goal by the end of 2027, with infrastructure comprising 30% of total revenue. Future growth expectations of FRPD will be driven by cross-selling opportunities similar to Bird's approach and success with past acquisitions.
FRPD is also expected to act as a catalyst for growth in Bird's other businesses, leveraging our combined suite of capabilities and services, allowing both companies to access new clients and provide new services to existing clients at a greater scale. Historically, Bird's and FRPD's pursuits have not overlapped. However, we've worked together in the past to deliver an expanded offering to our clients. By leveraging the knowledge, insight, and experience from our successful past acquisitions, we are confident in similar success with FRPD. This is a highly complementary business combination. FRPD is expected to contribute to Bird's top and bottom line, with pro forma annual revenue of approximately CAD 160 million and adjusted EBITDA of CAD 20 million. On this slide, we've laid out pro forma revenue and EBITDA for 2025 based on analyst consensus as of August 18, 2025.
Pro forma revenue for full year 2025 would be 4.6% higher than the current consensus estimates, while pro forma adjusted EBITDA would be 8.6% higher. FRPD's strong margins complement Bird's strategic focus on margin accretion, with the acquisition expected to add 30 basis points to the adjusted EBITDA margin on an annualized basis if it were owned for the full year, 2025. As we've discussed throughout the presentation, the FRPD acquisition aligns with Bird's M&A criteria, which we've articulated on slide 11. The acquisition supports our strategy of targeting high-performing, culturally aligned, and complementary businesses that have strong cross-selling opportunities with our existing businesses. The acquisition further expands Bird's national infrastructure presence and adds unique and complementary self-performed capabilities.
The transaction creates a more comprehensive and compelling platform for the combined company to pursue key infrastructure work across Canada, including nation-building projects that support port expansion, transportation, trade, defense, and energy requirements. We anticipate further upside post-acquisition, driven by cross-selling opportunities, strong market demand for marine construction capabilities, and the combined company's ability to pursue projects of varying size and scale, some of which wouldn't have been accessible to either company separately. The acquisition also meets Bird's financial criteria. FRPD is accretive to EBITDA margins and adjusted EPS and provides a boost to revenue. In line with prior acquisitions, Bird also assesses accretion based on a target capital structure, with the FRPD acquisition meeting that threshold as well. FRPD has a strong backlog and pipeline of new work, including its multiyear dredging work program, which provides additional visibility into future revenue and margins.
The strengths of Bird's balance sheet provided the flexibility for Bird to execute the transaction on an all-cash basis using new term debt. Post-acquisition, we expect our debt ratios to remain consistent with our long-standing practice of maintaining low leverage with future optionality to pursue both organic and inorganic growth. Our capital allocation remains balanced, reflecting a combination of M&A, capital investments to support work programs and productivity enhancement, and returning capital to shareholders through our monthly dividend. The company continues to target a dividend payout ratio of 33% of GAAP net income over its 2025 to 2027 strategic plan period, and M&A will remain an area of focus for Bird, targeting opportunities that fit our M&A criteria. With that, I'll hand it back to Teri.
In summary, the acquisition of FRPD is highly complementary to our existing business and supports Bird's long-term growth and profitability strategy. The acquisition expands our national infrastructure presence and adds new, unique self-performed capabilities in the form of marine construction, land foundations, and dredging. FRPD's highly experienced and skilled team will be a welcome addition to Bird and will make the combined company even stronger. The acquisition of FRPD increases Bird's exposure to key secular tailwinds, expanding the company's capabilities to pursue high-demand infrastructure work and creating opportunities for larger and different scopes on nation-building projects. The acquisition creates an anticipated 7% adjusted EPS accretion and the potential to realize further upside through cross-selling opportunities and other synergies.
Finally, while contributing to Bird's strategic growth journey, Bird continues to be disciplined in our approach to M&A, ensuring the transaction structure to preserve Bird's strong balance sheet and flexibility to support our balanced capital allocation approach and continued growth into the future. With that, we'll hand the call back to the operator to take your questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, analysts who wish to ask a question may press star one one on your telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the queue, you may press star one one again. Please stand by for our first question. Our first question is from Yuri Lynk with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open.
Hey, good morning, guys.
Morning.
Good morning.
Teri, maybe you can share with us who you're buying FRPD from, why they're selling, and how you're structuring the deal to retain some of the key employees within the company?
We're purchasing the company from TriWest, a private equity entity here in Calgary. The employee side of things, obviously, we've known the employees for quite a period of time, especially through Scott Jacob and Jacob Brothers. Scott was instrumental in the framework of this. We have, as we always do, a long-term plan for the employees to retain them. We're highly confident that the team, based on all the time we spent, you know, a considerable amount of time with this team over the past year. I think the logic for TriWest is not dissimilar to any private equity shop.
They have a term that they look at investments, and I can't comment on the timing currently, what drove that decision, other than it was an asset in their business that they obviously decided that it was time to transact, and we're happy they did.
Okay, that's helpful. Can you provide a little bit of color on the dredging side of the business? Specifically the Fraser River Channel contract, and firstly, how important that would be to annualized revenue, that one contract, and then maybe just the size of the dredging business relative to the rest, and if it has any different margin profile.
Yeah, rough order, order of magnitude, you know, be 20% dredging, 80% marine and land construction. Company recently entered into a 12-year extension of their current contract with two 4-year optional extensions. So, you know, essentially 20 years of future work on the Fraser, which is quite exciting. So, obviously, was key, you know, for this, putting that scope of work into their backlog. So... And, you know, the margin profile on that type of work is higher than normal construction. I would say, you know, that's, you know, obviously logical, given the specialized nature of that kind of work.
Okay, that's helpful. I'll, I'll turn it over. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Murray with ATB Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Thanks, folks. Good morning. So going back to some of the comments you made around revenue, can you just maybe walk us through how they've been seeing their revenue stack grow over the last few years? And if you can give us an idea, and you did mention that, you know, even if we were to think that they were to grow at the kind of, I guess, that 10% organic you guys have talked about for a while, or is there an opportunity for this to grow at a faster pace? And while you're at it, can you talk a little bit about any seasonality or anything else that we should be kind of thinking about, as we model this up?
Yeah, certainly, you know, you're right with the scale of the opportunities. I'd say the market currently in Canada for this kind of specialized service is higher than it's ever been. So there's certainly a, you know, a solid opportunity to grow beyond the 10%. We think the 10% is a reasonable annual growth, you know, target. And, you know, obviously, the longer-term backlog that's evolving supports that. You know, these new opportunities certainly are exciting, and we've seen those evolve. We think about the, you know, the scale of LNG that's evolving. It's considerable work for, you know, this part of LNG Phase 2. You know, Western LNG up in Prince Rupert, you know, is evolving. Considerable amount of work there.
And then you look at, you know, other large nation-building projects that are on the docket, including a lot of work in the Arctic and, you know, defense bases in marine or northern Arctic bases in places like Iqaluit. But all of that stuff will have, you know, considerable amount of marine development. So, yeah, it's the timing has worked out well. As you know, these things take a while, and we've been working on this for the past year. So, it's... You know, your question on seasonality, yeah, certainly the seasonality in the dredging business, the balance of the marine business, it really just depends on what it is and where it is, depending on permits.
You know, obviously, the environmental side is something that has pretty stringent permits that only allow you to work in certain seasons, depending on where you are. It's different, you know, depending on where you're working. They also work on, you know, some of the larger mine sites where they'll come in and do dredging and tailings work and that type of thing. And on the land side, not so much. You know, the land side is a lot less impacted by seasonality. So, and that's an area that we expect to see considerable growth.
Okay. And then my other question is just, again, on some of the mechanics. You've talked about kind of an early Q4 close, just, and you mentioned that it's one major seller, so I guess this is a little less complicated. Can you just walk us through what's required to get the close? If there's any break fees or anything that we should be thinking about?
Yeah, it's really just the Competition Bureau, Chris. You know, there's not really anything else that's that we require. It's really the bureau, and there's no overlap, so you can take that as we're highly confident that this will close, given the fact we've no overlap. But as we've seen recently, the time frame for the, you know, the Competition Bureau's review is certainly longer than historically it's been. But we'll see. We're expecting to be, you know, certainly into Q4, but we could be surprised and get an early decision, just given the fact that there is just no overlap. You know, it's not, there isn't anything that they do that any of the Bird businesses have ever done, so pretty clean, so.
Okay. I'll leave it there. Thanks, folks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Tupholme with TD Cowen. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Good morning.
Hi, Mike.
Over the last several years, Bird has talked a lot about its shift in revenue mix toward a much greater share of revenue coming from collaborative contracting models versus fixed price work. For FRPD, I'm wondering if you can talk about what percentage of their revenue comes from collaborative contracts or lower risk type contracts versus fixed price work?
Yeah, it's a mix, I think, Mike, in terms of the types of contracts they have. They obviously work closely with a number of clients. So they've got, you know, different commercial models. We don't expect it to be a lot different than we currently have and what Jacobs, you know, currently has in terms of the types of things they do. They do a lot of enterprise work. It's such a specialized business that it's certainly easier than, say, you know, a normal construction business to de-risk, you know, just because of the specialized nature and capabilities of it. So they do a lot of work that we would be, like, reimbursable, for example. I can't give you the exact percentage, but I would say it's not dissimilar to what we're currently doing.
Okay. That's helpful. Just to clarify, I think I missed your answer earlier, Teri, on the percentage of construction versus dredging. Did you say 80% construction, 20% dredging?
Yes. 80% land and marine construction, 20% dredging.
Okay. Within the construction piece, the vast majority of that is marine-related construction. The land piece is quite small?
Yeah, it's probably the same, 80/20 of the 80. I would say probably 80, 80/20 of the 80 would be marine currently, and we see the real potential to grow that land side.
Okay. Helpful. Thank you. Just in terms of the margins, you did mention dredging is a high margin part of the business. On the construction side, how would those margins compare to Bird's own standalone Bird margins?
I'd say the three variables that you in their world would be the highest margin would be dredging, the next highest marine construction, and then the next, you know, piece of that would be the land side. That's how I would see it. Yeah, these infrastructure businesses that we've been acquiring have been some of the strongest margin profile that we have in the business. You know, first year into Jacob Bros., it's performing at a very high level. Margin profile is consistent with what we thought, so we expect the same here.
Perfect. Just, you talked a little bit about this already, but just to maybe build on it. So can you talk a little bit about what's happened in terms of historical revenue performance in the last couple of years? You're talking about CAD 160 million this year, so just trying to understand, you know, where that was a few years ago, where we've come from. And then, again, you mentioned the 10% potential organic growth, but could be much more significant depending on what projects are secured.
Within the $160 million, though, is there anything large and lumpy in there that, you know, is sort of one time, or is that a good number to kind of build off of going forward, and then we just sort of see how fast you grow off of this $160 million?
Hey, Mike, I can take that one. Actually, I'd say there's nothing really lumpy in there. That revenue has been pretty stable over the last, you know, couple of years. You know, been slightly growing, certainly, but we think the combination with Bird, that we can help accelerate some of that growth. And there's no one key driver that's, you know, driven 2025 or prior years. They have a pretty diverse work program contributing to that.
Okay. That is helpful. I'll, I'll turn it over there. Thank you.
Thanks.
Our next question comes from the line of Frederic Bastien with Raymond James. Your line is now open.
Good morning, everyone, and congrats on this transaction. In your prepared comments, you highlight that FRPD has previously performed work in Churchill, Hamilton Port, and also along the St. Lawrence Seaway, which I find quite encouraging given the liberal government's ambitions for trade infrastructure. Just curious, how long ago was this work performed? And how would a company like based in BC have mobilized for such work? Presumably, you'd send over some skilled trades and then rent the equipment to perform the work there. Just curious how the dynamic works.
Yeah, it could be, it could be a mix of things, Fred, to be honest, you know, in terms of the equipment that's required. Order of magnitude, I'd say the timing, Randal Reef was just recent in Hamilton, and Churchill would have been next a few years ago, and then prior to that would have been the dredging in the Port of Montréal. Exact dates I don't have for you, but order of magnitude in the last, you know, 10 years or more, or so.
Okay, that's helpful. That's, that's all I have. Thank you.
Yeah, I think the key to highlighting that is their experience and their team's, you know, presence in projects, you know, across the country, and, you know, we are, you know, we've got bases in, you know, in all of Canada's major provinces, and we expect many of those have marine, you know, requirements because of where they're located, you know, whether that's Toronto or Halifax or, you know, cities like that, so we expect, you know, certainly to leverage our large bases in those areas for opportunities that evolve.
Were you finding that some of the work that you were contracted for, you have, you had to some subcontract to companies like.
Absolutely.
RHRP?
If I could have one wish, it would be that we had this a year ago, because we've subcontracted, you know, significant amounts of marine work, and it's all going well, and good, good support, good partners, you know, opportunities to joint venture with these entities going forward. But yeah, that's. There's some exciting things ahead for us in those same markets, and we've got a lot of this underway that we're subcontracting currently, and hence the logic and the, you know, the background of why this was so important.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ian Gillies with Stifel. Your line is now open.
Morning, everyone.
Morning.
Could you maybe talk a little bit about the historical project size for FRPD for its various projects, where they might have topped out, and given that you've been involved in some of these new larger projects moving forward, where the potential project sizes are going?
I'd say that, to give you an example, like Centerm was recent, order of magnitude, about CAD 500 million on project I think. And, you know, they were a joint venture partner in that with Jacob Bros. and Dragados. It, you know, as far as their... So this just gives you a sort of a range that they've been involved in. They would have, you know, had joint and several risk on the project, on not dissimilar to Jacob Bros. and their partner, Dragados. So, you know, I'd say that that's kind of been the upper end of what they've done recently. It doesn't seem to be very qualified for that type of work, but there's a mix.
A little bit like Bird, like we're not, you know, we've got a number of projects that are in that range, but they're not, you don't see them every day. So, you know, the profile of what they do is not dissimilar to what we do.
Understood. I can't help but look at the business and there seems to be, it would appear that it seems to be a bit more asset intensive, and there's floating assets as well that seem to be embedded in the business. So, is CapEx as a percentage of revenue or thinking of it from some other angle, significantly higher, or?
I think, well, you know, it, it'd be similar to what we currently have with some of our infrastructure businesses. It's certainly not... You know, it's not something that's, is gonna, you know, be unique. It's got a lot of similarities to what we're investing in, an example like Jacob Bros. I think if there's growth, there's always flexibility in how you do that, you know, with options, you know, for fleet and that type of thing, for organic growth, growth with the company. So we do expect to see organic growth, and there's always flexibility on how you acquire that, you know, that equipment in terms of, you know, different, you know, rental facilities and rental purchase, you know, facilities, that kind of thing, so.
But we don't anticipate this to stick out relative to our other companies in terms of CapEx. It would be similar.
Okay. At the risk of being completely off base, in the press release, you know that this is the largest private player in Canada. Is there some form of government participation in dredging or any of the marine construction that also competes for this work? I'm just curious on some of the wording in the press release and.
I'm not sure I understand your question. You, you said government participation? I'm not sure.
Yeah.
I'm clear what you mean by that.
Yeah. You noted it in the press release that this is the largest private player in Canada, and so I was just curious, like, who are you only competing against other private players, or is there some version of dredging that the government does themselves, or is it, is.
Yeah, I'm not aware. I'm not aware of the government doing any of this themselves. There could be situations where something of considerable scale, you know, gets done. There's four large dredging companies in the world, two are in Belgium and two are in Holland. Like, there could be something that happens that one of those companies are involved in, don't know. But yeah, no, well, we're in our normal course of Canadian business, they're the largest.
That's helpful. Thanks very much. I'll turn it back over.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Anshul Agarwal with CIBC. Your line is now open.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. So, I would like to ask you about the potential upside from cross-selling opportunities from this acquisition. And do you also see any kind of a cost synergies from this acquisition, or it's more of a just revenue synergies?
Yeah, I can take that one, Anshul. Thank you. Yeah, on the cost synergies, like, when we buy these businesses, you know, we're buying them for the people. You know, we wanna retain the people in the business. That's the most important thing, and we have mechanisms in place to do that. You know, I think there's always gonna be some cost synergies on things like, you know, insurance and those types of costs where, you know, we can leverage Bird's purchasing power. So for sure, there's gonna be those types of things. And then, you know, in terms of the revenue synergies, you know, for us, there's gonna be.
As Teri mentioned in the presentation, you know, there's opportunities for us to pursue projects that neither one of us could have pursued before. So in the event of winning one of those, you know, that's gonna be incremental growth to the business. And kind of following that one Bird strategy of Bird, where we can self-perform more components of the work, well, then, you know, obviously we're retaining more margin in the business, and that's gonna be extra accretive to our margin profile over time.
Oh, thank you. And other thing I have is your future M&A pipeline. So after this acquisition, are you still like to be active on M&A, M&A space in the near term, or would you like to take a pause before moving to M&A again?
Yeah, I think it's, you know, as we indicated in our comments earlier, you know, this transaction fits nicely into our current, you know, framework and the conservative, you know, approach we take. We're always on the hunt for opportunities that fit our profile. We always have a number of things that we haven't had time to consider 'cause we're, you know, we're looking at this. So, I would say that, yeah, nothing has really changed in that regard. It's not a burning platform for us, but if something comes along that's quite strategic, that can be a catalyst, like this will be and like our recent acquisitions have been, yeah, we'll look at it. So that's one of the beauties of, you know, of the approach we take, so.
So, like, just a follow-up on this. So, like, are you still okay, like, if something good comes up, are you still okay for, like this kind of this size of transaction or, or like would you?
Yeah, these fit nicely. Yeah, and I don't wanna leave the impression that we're jumping onto something else next week, but, these are a nice fit. This size is a nice fit for us. You know, these are CAD 100 - 200 million transactions, 'cause they really move the needle, especially when they've got this high accretion of EBITDA. So, you know, that's kind of, you know, the sweet spot, I guess you'd say, and, and that's how we look at things. But, you know, as you know, you know, we did Stuart Olson in 2020, and that was quite transformational. So you just never know what comes along.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the clarity. I'll get back in the queue.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Maxim Sytchev with NBF. Your line is now open.
Just a couple of follow-ups, if I may. Are there any, I don't know, like, sort of, top three, five, projects that you guys are pursuing right now, that maybe we should be tracking, in terms of potential backlog additions? Thanks.
You know, obviously these recent projects that were announced will be a long ways down the road to, you know, to move forward. But, you know, we have seen the federal government moving very quickly in a lot of defense work. We obviously, with this just being announced yesterday, the entire Bird organization, which we're in the loop on this, we only have a small handful of people that work on these transactions. Now, our whole organization is aware. I think any of the projects that are being, you know, discussed, Western LNG, Prince Rupert, LNG Canada Phase 2, a lot of the larger marine work that's happening in the west coast of BC.
You know, new opportunities are evolving in the East Coast, you know, in the Atlantic with, you know, range, with our base there in Halifax. So, yeah, I think, you know, it's. There'll be a long list of things that, you know, that we'll be looking at with the new acquisition.
Okay. Okay, wonderful. That's great. And then, one sort of general question around, sort of, you know, especially on the piling side of things. I remember there was a transaction that, Keller, the U.K.-based player, acquired in Canada, and at the time, there was some thought process around, you know, potential margin compression around the industry, et cetera, which, I mean, doesn't seem to be the case. Do you mind maybe commenting a little bit on the competitive landscape in relation to kind of like land-based things, that exist right now? Thank you.
Yeah, I think the unique thing with this is we're in, you know, we're in a scenario where we can control our own destiny in terms of the execution of large, complex infrastructure projects. And that's, you know, that's what we're really looking for on a regular basis. So, we're not certainly seeing the pressure on the margins with the work that we're working on in subcontracting currently, and we don't anticipate that moving forward. I think the types of clients we're working for are looking for the highest levels of safety and quality and execution, and putting this new entity into our array of service offerings just gives our clients a much higher level of confidence and, you know, it puts us in a strong position to be their service provider.
We've seen that evolve with some of the prior things we're doing, but the market is very, very strong right now, and the demand is very high.
Okay, excellent. Thanks so much for the color and, congrats on the deal.
Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question at this time, please press star one one on your touchtone telephone. Our next question is a follow-up from Michael Tupholme with TD Cowen. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Wayne, what level of lease liability should we expect to see results from this transaction when once you close it?
Yeah, I mean, when we consolidate this, and if it consolidate this in our financials and closes in October, we we'd certainly come out with our opening balance sheet at that time. But you know, plus or minus, what I think you're looking at is a few leased properties that we have now and some small leased equipment, but it won't be that significant of a figure, Mike.
Okay. So not materially different from what we last saw?
No.
Yeah.
No.
Okay. And then just in terms of the backlog, you mentioned that FRPD has a strong backlog. Wondering if you can provide a little bit more detail around the level, if possible, but also the composition and on the composition side, wondering specifically, I guess, about the dredging contract and how that gets included in backlog. Is the full duration of that included, or does that come in in pieces as time passes?
Yeah. At this point, Mike, we're not disclosing what the backlog is, and there's a few reasons for that. But what we can say is, you know, they have a good backlog to support the work program in front of them, and that's why we're comfortable coming out with the revenue numbers that we have. You know, the dredging work they have is good recurring revenue streams, you know, for them as well. So that's another aspect of this business that we like. But yeah, at this time, we're just not disclosing the actual hard number.
Okay. All right, that's all for me. Thank you.
Great. Thanks.
Thank you. Our next follow-up is from the line of Chris Murray with ATB Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Yeah. Thanks, guys. Just one follow-up on the financing, if we could maybe turn back on what you've done with the cap structure. So can you walk us through sort of the changes that you've made to the cap structure? It sort of sounds like it's just an extension and a bit of an expansion of the term loan, but can you talk about if there's any interest rate savings or anything like that that we should be thinking about overall? And any additional flexibility, either new accordion features or anything like that, that we could think of if you do look at further M&A?
Yeah, I can take that, Chris. So really what we've done here is when this closes, we'll have an amendment to our existing credit facility. And really, the only thing that's changing is that we're upsizing the term loan portion of that to pay for the proceeds of this acquisition. And then we'll also use some of those proceeds to repay, you know, a portion of the long-term debt that we have drawn on the revolver that was from, you know, acquisitions for, I think, Trinity and Dagmar and the like. But there's no, you know, economies of scale or discount on the interest for upsizing the facility. It's a variable rate facility, so it fluctuates with what rates are. But yeah, it's a nice back and forth.
There's no change to the accordion facility. That's still in place at the current value. The revolver is still gonna be the same value.
Okay. Thanks. That's. I just wanted to check.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. I will hand the call back to Mr. McKibbon for closing remarks.
Thank you for joining our FRPD acquisition call this morning. We're very pleased to welcome FRPD to the team and look forward to accomplishing great things together.
Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call and webcast. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.