Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Bird Construction third quarter 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 like to turn the call over to Teri McKibbon, President and CEO of Bird Construction.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Bird's third quarter 2026 conference call. With me today is Wayne Gingrich, Bird's Chief Financial Officer. Bird's performance reflects the business we have deliberately built over several years. Bird is a specialty contractor with national scale, combining self-performed depth, a strategic labor platform, and integrated delivery across a distributed work program aligned with Canada's priority investments. Our combined backlog, including recurring revenue programs, provides visibility into multi-year growth. Embedded margins remain higher than a year ago, supported by a portfolio comprising of 80% collaborative delivery, while the work remains diversified across sectors, regions, and customers. With each strategic sector contributing to approximately 5%-15% of revenue, no single market determines Bird's growth trajectory. We are not point-loaded in any one sector. Bird has a strong record of profitable growth.
Over the past six years, revenue has increased at approximately 20% annually, while adjusted EBITDA has grown at approximately 30%. Sustaining that performance across multiple construction cycles demonstrates the resilience of our distributed work program and the benefits of Bird's organic and acquisitional growth strategy. The opportunity ahead is substantial, and it was reinforced by last week's federal budget, which places major infrastructure, electricity expansion, defense, and AI at the center of Canada's economic agenda. Our priority remains safe, disciplined execution. We are focused on converting growth into accretive margins and cash flow while maintaining the project selection and risk discipline that have strengthened Bird's performance over the past several years. The strength of Bird's foundation is evident in our third quarter results. Revenue increased 36.7% year-over-year to CAD 1.3 billion, supported by significant organic growth across industrial buildings and infrastructure.
Organic growth accounted for almost 90% of the total increase, with FRPD contributing the balance. Earnings growth is outpacing revenues growth. Adjusted EBITDA increased 58.8% to CAD 106.3 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 8.2% from 7% a year ago. Adjusted earnings increased 77% to CAD 62.6 million, or CAD 1.13 per share. Improved project mix, increased self-performed delivery, and integrated One Bird delivery continued to support profitable growth. These results and the visibility of our record combined backlog reinforce our outlook and support raising our 2027 revenue expectations from the midpoint of our original target range to CAD 4.9 billion-CAD 5.1 billion, representing the upper end of our original strategic target. The multi-year investment outlook creates opportunities beyond the current plan. New work continued to outpace execution during the quarter, supporting future growth visibility.
Bird added more than CAD 1.6 billion to backlog, exceeding work executed by CAD 329.3 million.
Backlog reached a record CAD 6.4 billion, while pending backlog was CAD 6.6 billion, including approximately CAD 1.5 billion of recurring revenue programs with work expected over the next four years. Backlog quality continues to improve alongside its scale. Embedded margins are higher than a year ago, giving us confidence in our ability to achieve our 8% EBITDA margin target in 2027, and new work remains aligned with Bird's capabilities, preferred contract structures, and approach to risk. Collaborative delivery continues to provide earlier insight into scope, constructability, schedules, and resource requirements while supporting more informed pricing and risk allocation before construction begins. The more than CAD 1.1 billion of new awards and multi-year agreements announced last week expands Bird's recurring maintenance portfolio, adds visibility to future growth, and demonstrates the breadth of demand across Bird's markets.
The announcement also included a significant electrical scope for a major healthcare development in Alberta, public infrastructure projects in British Columbia, in industrial construction awards supporting Ontario's nuclear sector, wind energy in Eastern Canada, and district energy in Western Canada. Bird's strategic positioning on large capital investment programs continues to support our multi-year outlook, with Woodfibre LNG Canada Phase 2, BHP Jansen, East Harbour Transit Hub, Peel Memorial, Dow Path2Zero, Ontario's Ring of Fire, and Ontario's nuclear programs are multi-year client investments that can generate work across development, construction, and successive execution phases. In selected markets, opportunities may extend into commissioning, maintenance turnarounds, and sustaining capital work. Our current scopes establish Bird's role in these programs and position us to pursue additional work as future phases advance.
In the Ring of Fire area, through our Piinahzii LP, Bird's role has expanded from community readiness and infrastructure work to include the construction of the 184 km Marten Falls Community Access Road. The recent federal commitment to match Ontario's investment of up to CAD 1 billion in Ring of Fire infrastructure further improves funding visibility for the region. Across industrial buildings and infrastructure, Bird's 10 strategic end markets provide multiple paths for growth beyond the current awards. Bird has deliberately built what we call a distributed load, with work spread across end markets, geographies, customers, programs, and funding sources. Supported by specialized capabilities, national scale, and integrated delivery, this model allows Bird to move resources across regions, coordinate multiple disciplines, and retain more project value. Across industrial buildings and infrastructure, Bird participates in 10 strategic end markets, as detailed on the slide.
We continue to target a balanced mix across all three businesses, with infrastructure expected to lead growth. Our national labor program or platform includes thousands of electrical and mechanical trade persons that can scale for major turnarounds and large projects. Planning, local hiring, union relations, and workforce mobility allow us to match qualified teams to the work without concentrating labor requirements in any one region. The awards announced during the quarter demonstrate this model in practice, with work distributed across Bird's strategic markets, regions, and clients throughout Canada. The market outlook highlights the breadth and duration of investment across Bird's 10 strategic end markets. These end markets are supported by multi-year investment programs that extend to 2030, and in many cases, well into the following decade. Nuclear is an important part of this opportunity.
Bird supports the full industry lifecycle with multi-disciplinary self-perform capabilities backed by certified nuclear quality systems and experience across operating facilities, decontamination, remediation, maintenance, and enabling infrastructure. As technology decisions are made for Canada's new nuclear build-out, Bird is positioned to apply our capabilities across reactor construction, enabling infrastructure, and related scopes. Defense is another long-duration market where investment is expected to create opportunities across facilities, training, infrastructure, accommodations, and Arctic and remote north development. Data centers also remain a significant growth market, along with chemicals, power, mining, land, and marine transportation, utilities, essential social infrastructure, and emerging opportunities in oil and gas. Investment across these markets limits reliance on any single theme and supports several multi-year paths for growth beyond the current period. Canada's data center market is at a much earlier stage than the U.S. market.
Public data suggests that the U.S. has approximately 47 GW of installed capacity compared to 1.6 GW in Canada. Against that smaller base, Canada has a proposed pipeline of approximately 19 GW across more than 150 facilities. Bird is focused on sovereign infrastructure with established Canadian companies and partners. Budget 2026 supports that direction through measures intended to expand domestic compute capacity, accelerate AI adoption, and address the power infrastructure needed for development. Electricity remains a critical enabler, and projects will advance in phases as power customers and approvals are secured. Our opportunity set extends across power generation, site development, modular and fabrication supply, facility construction, electrical, mechanical, communication services, final commissioning, and long-term maintenance, all services performed in a turnkey solution for our clients like Bell. We have a pipeline of relationships and strategic discussion we are actively pursuing.
Data centers currently represent less than 10% of our combined backlog and are one of Bird's 10 strategic end markets. This work provides multi-year growth opportunity with a broader distributed work program. This slide highlights two additional organic growth pathways for Bird. Our recurring industrial services portfolio has grown at approximately 20% annually since acquiring Stuart Olson in 2020, expanding the business from its historical Alberta base into a national service offering. The recent awards include renewals and expanded service offerings with six existing clients under agreements extending up to five years, covering mechanical, electrical maintenance, turnaround, and outage service across major industrial and energy facilities in Canada. This builds on the momentum created through the NorCan acquisition and One Bird cross-selling announced late last year. Bird's multi-discipline self-perform offering includes mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, piping, insulation, and high voltage.
This breadth of capabilities under strong client service approaches allow Bird to continue to grow our service offering with clients. Bird also operates four fabrication and modularization facilities, including nuclear CSA N285 certified capacity in Ontario. These facilities produce structural skids, pipe spools, packaged systems, mechanical buildings, electrical panels, which can be combined into larger modules for more efficient site construction. Integrated with our field execution capability creates cross-selling opportunities across Bird's major projects while improving schedule and quality control and reducing on-site labor requirements. We see growing applications across data centers, oil and gas, nuclear, providing another pathway to higher value self-perform work. The federal Budget 2026 adds further funding visibility across a number of the markets we have highlighted. It builds on the government's efforts since the election to accelerate major projects and expand Canada's infrastructure, energy, and industrial capacity.
The scale is significant, including defense spending target to reach CAD 157 billion annually by 2030, CAD 52 billion in new electricity and grid commitments, and a CAD 25 billion Canada Strong Fund to support co-investment in major projects. Nuclear is reinforced as a core component of Canada's electricity strategy with up to 14.8 GW of proposed large-scale capacity in Ontario and developed under consideration across Canada. Bird combines broad supporting infrastructure capabilities across the nuclear construction subset, nuclear quality fabrication capacity, and multidisciplinary self-perform expertise. The budget also identified AI and data center infrastructure as growth drivers. Like nuclear, the opportunity for Bird expands across the complete infrastructure build-out, including power generation and transmission, site development, fabrication and modularization, and mechanical and electrical construction. Federal policy and funding continue in line with Bird's capabilities and reinforce the long-term investment outlook across our strategic markets.
The multi-year investment outlook supports our 2027 targets and creates opportunities behind the current strategic plan period. The breadth of this opportunity and Bird's continued execution are bringing the company to the upper end of its 2027 revenue target and supporting progress towards the 8% adjusted EBITDA margin for full- year 2027 while maintaining an investment-grade balance sheet. Our trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA is now 7.1%, leaving approximately 90 basis points to reach our full- year 2027 target of 8% with over a year remaining. Several drivers already visible in the business support that progression. Business mix, recurring industrial services, higher-margin sectors, and greater self-perform participation support gross margin improvement. One Bird collaboration, equipment, and specialty revenue, overhead leverage, and operational intelligence provide further opportunity for margin progression.
Year-to-date, G&A expenses increased at a lower rate than revenue, reflecting operating leverage from Bird's expanded scale and disciplined management of overhead expenditures. Our investment in operational intelligence is intended to give our teams early visibility into project performance and emerging risk, helping them act sooner and deliver more consistent outcomes as the work program grows. With that, I will pass things over to Wayne to discuss the quarterly financial results in more detail.
Thanks, Teri, and good morning, everyone. Third quarter revenue was CAD 1.3 billion, an increase of 36.7% from CAD 951.4 million in the prior year quarter. Almost 90% of the growth was organic, led by buildings and industrial, with infrastructure also contributing. FRPD represented the balance. Gross profit increased 50.1% to CAD 153 million, and gross profit percentage improved to 11.8% from 10.7%. Adjusted EBITDA increased 58.8% to CAD 106.3 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 8.2% compared with 7% a year ago. Underlying margins continued to benefit from steadily improving building performance, disciplined project selection, cost control, and increased self-perform participation through integrated One Bird delivery. The higher proportion of building revenue benefited from stronger margins in targeted market sectors, while greater cross-selling and internal self-perform work helped Bird retain more project value.
General and administrative expenses declined to 5.4% of revenue from 5.7%, demonstrating operating leverage as the business scaled. Stronger project margins and G&A leverage contributed to earnings growth ahead of revenue growth. Adjusted earnings increased 77% to CAD 62.6 million, or CAD 1.13 per share. Net income increased 61.2% to CAD 51.1 million, or CAD 0.92 per share. Net income included the after-tax impact of an aggregate of CAD 12.4 million of non-cash fair value adjustments in amortization related to warrants issued to a strategic customer. These are accounting charges that do not result in a cash outflow and are excluded from adjusted earnings. For the first nine months of 2026, revenue increased 24.1% to CAD 3.13 billion, with organic growth accounting for more than 80% of the increase. Gross profit increased 29.1% to CAD 335.1 million, and gross profit percentage improved to 10.7% from 10.3%.
Adjusted EBITDA increased 39.4% to CAD 217.3 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 6.9% from 6.2%. Adjusted earnings increased 51.8% to CAD 115.2 million, or CAD 2.08 per share. Cash flow from operating activities improved by CAD 199.5 million to CAD 122.8 million. Earnings growth is translating into cash generation today, reinforcing the quality of Bird's earnings. This cash generation supports execution of our current work program, as well as our capacity to invest in future growth. Trailing 12 months free cash flow increased to CAD 267 million, or CAD 4.82 per share, demonstrating that higher earnings are converting into cash. Bird's cash generation supports working capital for a growing work program, reinvestment in the business, and shareholder returns. At quarter end, adjusted net debt- to- trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA was 0.76 x, while gross debt, including right-of-use liabilities, was 1.38 x.
Together with a current ratio of 1.35x, these measures reflect Bird's strong liquidity and financial capacity. Bird ended the quarter with CAD 268 million of total cash and CAD 476.5 million available under the committed revolving credit facility. Our investment-grade credit profile of available liquidity and strong free cash flow support project execution, normal working capital requirements, and selective growth investments while maintaining financial discipline. Since 2022, Bird has deployed approximately CAD 498 million, reinvesting in the business, adding strategic acquisitions, and in direct returns to shareholders. Our approach to capital allocation remains balanced and disciplined. We continue to invest in working capital, equipment, technology, and productivity initiatives required to execute our growing work program safely and efficiently. Capital expenditures were approximately CAD 28 million through the first nine months of 2026, compared with CAD 23 million in the prior year period.
We remain active in evaluating M&A opportunities and have a strong pipeline of strategic companies we are in varying stages of discussion with. We continue to focus on businesses that expand our service offerings and self-perform capabilities, strengthen our position in attractive markets, and bring experienced teams that fit Bird's culture. Any transaction must meet our requirements for strategic fit, returns, cross-selling synergies, and balance sheet discipline. We also continue to return capital to shareholders through our dividend. A healthy capital structure gives Bird the future flexibility to invest in the business, pursue strategic opportunities, and return capital to shareholders while maintaining prudent leverage. With that, I'll turn the call back to Teri.
Thanks, Wayne. Based on performance through the first nine months and visibility from our record combined backlog, we anticipate full-year 2026 revenue growth approaching 25%, and have raised our 2027 revenue range outlook to CAD 4.9 billion-CAD 5.1 billion, the upper range of our strategic plan target. We expect the growth to be broad-based across our industrial, buildings, and infrastructure businesses. We expect year-to-date adjusted EBITDA margin to strengthen through the balance of this year, supporting further progress towards the full-year 2027 target of 8%. We also see opportunities for continued margin progression beyond 2027 as the business mix and operating model continue to evolve. Our focus is converting our CAD 13 billion combined backlog into profitable revenue. Higher embedded margins and demand distributed across Bird's target markets support our 2027 targets and provide visibility beyond the current plan.
Broader investment outlook reinforced by recent federal budget measures supports the depth and duration of the opportunity ahead. As earnings continue to grow, our capital allocation approach balances reinvestment in the business, strategic acquisitions, and shareholder returns. We remain committed to our targeted dividend payout of 33% of GAAP net income while maintaining our investment-grade balance sheet. Looking ahead, the depth of the opportunity across our target markets gives us confidence in Bird's ability to continue delivering profitable growth. With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator to open the line for questions.
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. Our first question is from Chris Murray of ATB Cormark Capital Markets.
Yeah. Thanks, folks. Good morning. Maybe starting with the outlook a little bit. Certainly, we've seen a couple of revisions now for 2026 and 2027. I guess a couple questions on this. Is there anything, or what gives you the confidence to increase the numbers now? Has it been new project wins? I know you talked about maybe having a better jumping-off point for 2027 from 2026, but can you just talk about what's actually gone into your view to be able to increase the numbers right now? And are there any projects that you need to win to hit that 2027 kind of guidance, or do you feel pretty comfortable that you've got everything, for the most part, in the backlog today? And then any new wins could be over and above and take you to that higher end of the 2027 number?
Yeah. I think the big thing for us is, coming into fourth quarter here, we've got CAD 13 billion worth of combined backlog. New record, certainly, for Bird. We had a strong press release again of kind of CAD 1.1 billion worth of awards recently. So when we look at how 2027 is going to play out, we have the work in hand. So to your point, we don't need to win a large major project to deliver the guidance we've given. When you think about collaborative contracts, from the time you get an award, it could take 18 months before you complete the design, the validation with the client, and all these things. There's actually not much in terms of large projects that we would win today that may impact 2027 results, if you think of it that way. Probably impacts more 2028 results.
And you kind of see that with the scale of the pending backlog that we report, CAD 6.6 billion combined. Think of that as the funnel of projects that are at varying stages of recently won to almost ready to convert to backlog. We always have this pipeline of pending backlog that's kind of converting every quarter. So, those things are certainly going to help us next year, and with that kind of added visibility, just gives us a lot of confidence going into next year.
Okay. Sounds great. Teri, I know you guys are working on a kind of a longer-term strategic plan. I guess we will see that maybe sometime next year. When you think about the business and what you have achieved so far and where you are going next, can you talk a little bit about how we should start thinking about kind of the next strategic cycle in terms of revenue growth, the margin progression? Is there anything in the quality or mix that you alluded to that is going to help with the margins that we should be thinking will change over time? Or is this just going to be more of continuing to be able to take advantage of all these end markets, grow, and just rely on operating leverage to carry margins higher?
I think, as we become more defined as a specialty contractor and the way we are approaching our business, which we have worked on for over five years to position ourselves in these different verticals that we are in, and you start to see things evolve, you start to see things like oil production starting to be discussed. You see, obviously, long-term nuclear development, which is obviously massive. You start to see full commitment in targets in Canada for LNG output, which are considerably higher than what the current capacity that is under construction would be. You start to look at these various end markets, defense, data centers. You start to look at those, and I think you are going to see a certainly regular growth of our revenue on an annual basis. Obviously, it might not be 25%, but it is going to be a regular growth through 2030.
Also, with us having a major focus on improving margins, you will see accretion on the margins, where that will land. We are well underway now developing our strategic plan, and that will be presented to our board in August, and then we have got a targeted date in late September for Investor Day. At that time, we will rinse and repeat what we did three years ago.
Okay. I will leave it there. Thanks.
Our next question comes from Maxim Sytchev with NBCCM.
Yes. Hi. Good morning, gentlemen. The first question I had, Teri, maybe on M&A. I mean, you do have a higher multiple right now relative to what you would have enjoyed historically. Does that open up an opportunity to potentially look at a different set of assets on a prospective basis? Just curious your thoughts from that perspective. Thanks.
Yeah, for sure. Obviously, as you know, Max, we haven't been on a I think we've had a regular cadence of M&A, and sometimes you've got opportunities that you spend some time on that you just can't get there, or you just don't get comfortable with, and that's a constant ebb and flow. We don't talk about those. But yeah, you can expect us to continue to be active. Obviously, the higher multiple does certainly help. But we have a very well-oiled machine here, as you've seen from the past, since 2020 with Stuart Olson, and that team goes through considerable efforts to investigate opportunities and obviously determine whether they're complementary and the culture fits and all of that, and then most importantly, the transactions accretive. So, yeah, there's an open-for-business sort of sign with us. We're constantly looking for opportunities, and we're constantly evaluating them.
And sometimes the prediction of timeline is sometimes difficult to predict what the timeline will be because you're looking for those real special golden nuggets that are sometimes hard to find.
Right. And I guess materiality, we should still kind of expect what you have sort of done historically. Is that the right way to think about it?
Yeah, I think so. I think the larger-scale opportunities are few and far between, so I think you'd expect to see things generally in the range of what we've done. That's kind of the hunting ground that we're in.
Okay, perfect. Then one quick question for Wayne, if I may. In terms of the building blocks around margin expansion, do you mind maybe kind of segregating the buckets in terms of, like, what's operating leverage versus SG&A versus process improvements, so we can sort of think through these things? Thank you.
Yeah. We don't disclose the individual lifts we're going to get from each one of those pieces, but I think the big driver certainly is the mix of our business. It's interesting when you look at our business over the last five, six years. Buildings, industrial infrastructure. All three businesses have been improving their margins. I'd say we probably have a higher proportion, or some of the growth is driven by a higher proportion of the Buildings work, which is coming through at strong margins for us. But the margins in Buildings still are not at the same level as, say, Infrastructure business, for example, which has higher equipment revenues and higher self-perform. So, as Infrastructure continues to grow as a proportion of the total of the business, I think that's where you're probably going to see the biggest contribution in 2027, 2028, and beyond.
I think in our strategic plan for 2025 to 2027, we thought that infrastructure by the end of 2027 would become 26% of the revenue mix, then maybe beyond that, in a perfect world, you kind of get to a third, a third, a third. We will see some lifts there. I think there is still room to be had in terms of leverage on our cost structure, but at the same time, with the growth prospects that are in front of us and how many opportunities there are in these 10 sectors, we are also investing in business development and estimating and the talent that we need to deliver and execute these projects as well.
Obviously, there can be a timing delay there where you are bringing in the people to help you win these work, then the lag is between the time you actually win the projects. But even with that, we are still getting operating leverage. I think as well, there is benefits to be had in productivity with some of the tools that we are putting in place and those things. So, it is not one thing driving it. It is a pretty balanced set of things that are driving our margin improvements that certainly going to help us get to the 8% in 2027, but also have runway beyond 2027.
Okay. That is great color . Thank you so much.
Thanks.
Our next question is from Ian Gillies of Stifel.
Morning, everyone.
Morning.
Morning.
Previously, we talked about a construct of 10% organic growth post-2027. With the revenue coming in better, both this year and next, does that change your view on how we should be thinking about, call it, the medium-term years, or is there just still enough work out there that you still think you can get to those sorts of numbers?
Yeah, I think it's going to be stronger, Ian, but devil's in the details. We've got to really map everything we've got underway out and put a lot of time and effort into that, obviously, for that framework, but I think it's going to be stronger.
As you think about that and finding the employee base to execute upon that, can you maybe give a bit of an update on some of the HR strategies you're employing, just to make sure you have the people in place?
Yeah, certainly we don't secure anything that we don't have a team for. It's one of the fundamental disciplines we have is that we don't. We're constantly looking at where we can rebalance the load with the different. We've got so many divisions and offices, and with the new companies we've acquired, if we've got a market that's a bit soft, we can redeploy teams from different areas. That's worked really well for us, and obviously we have an impeccable reputation with labor relations across the unions, relations across the non-union entities. We really don't struggle that much when it really comes down to it. You sometimes get a pocket where you've got some real heated demand, and there's a bunch of other things happening that affect your ability, but we're quick to pivot and bring in the resources we need.
Because of our capabilities to do these large 2,000- to 3,000-person turnarounds, we have a Rolodex of people that we can move in very short order from a turnaround to go and take a peak off a data center, for example, because a lot of times it's the same craft where those peaks and valleys are. The combination and the teams we have assembled to do that type of work are really impressive, and the scale of how we move. It could be moving from Alberta to New Brunswick to do a big turnaround for a client. We can just scale that pretty quick, and we have a resume that supports that. That's really how we're seeing that maintenance business grow, is we have the capabilities to do this type of thing.
On the nuclear side, could you provide a bit of an update on where you are with increasing your capabilities there? I know you've been working through a number of different avenues so you can do a bit more work on site, so that would just be helpful to know where you're at.
Yeah, there really isn't any impediments for us to do large-scale nuclear. We're not involved in the SMRs. We're not involved in the SMRs, we're not involved in the refurbishments other than the supporting infrastructure. We've done a lot of supporting infrastructure for the refurbishing at Pickering. I think one of the things that is probably not that well-known about a new build is a new build will range somewhere between 70% typical construction and 30% nuclear capabilities. The scale of these opportunities that are coming through right now in Canada-
have a significant amount of conventional construction. If you are going to do that kind of work, you have got to have impeccable safety performance. You have got to have a reputation working for these utilities that are going to be hopefully building these facilities, and we have that. Each one of those large utilities, we are doing a considerable amount of work for. We have a resume of projects like LNG Canada Phase 1, where we are a significant construction contributor to a CAD 30 billion project that was built on schedule and on budget with impeccable safety performance. We are in a really good spot as these projects evolve, when they evolve. We obviously have the full capabilities, but the projects that are underway currently were obviously committed to many, many years ago, and we were not where we are today.
There really is not anything we need, but the scale and the magnitude of the conventional construction is sometimes misunderstood. It is pretty significant.
That is very helpful. Thanks very much. I will turn it back over.
Okay.
Our next question is from Krista Friesen of CIBC.
Thanks for taking my question. Just wondering if you can give us a little bit of color on the competitive environment. Obviously, there is a lot of excitement in Canada right now with a lot of the planning and building going on, just curious what you are seeing there.
I think, to start with the tension with our neighbors to the south, there has been a strong preference to use Canadian companies, and we are seeing that open up new opportunities, give us a preferred status in many situations where we would not have had otherwise. There is a real, I think, spirit right now in Canada to support Canadian entities, and it is really nice to see. Probably the first time I have seen this in my career. In that regard, I think the landscape, as we think about the companies that we compete against, they are largely the larger Canadian companies right now. It is an environment where you have very large entities that are very mature at what they do, and obviously companies that are well-run.
You do not have that foreign invasion with a completely different mindset of what things cost or a lack of experience in Canada, not understanding what it is like to work here in the winter months, that kind of thing. You do not have that right now. It is a very rewarding environment we are in right now because of the effort that the federal government and the provinces and the premiers are making to ensure that the projects we are building are being built by Canadians.
Okay, that is great. Do you feel that, just as you are looking at some of these bigger projects, you are comfortable with the margin profile or the structure of these contracts that are out there right now?
Yeah, generally. I think we can also influence owners if they're thinking of going off on a breakaway on something that the risk transfer is just too high to be using that type of model. We're pretty quick to, when we get an inkling that something is going to be in a format, that we just tell them we won't participate. I think they're hearing that likely from others as well. When the risk is not suited for the opportunity, it's only going to hurt the owner long term because it's just going to be a project that never gets built or gets delayed for years and years. There's lots of examples of those when the models that were used in Canada were not appropriate for the risk transfer, and eventually it breaks.
So, yeah, I think we're being very disciplined, and I think we're also proving, which is important, that the right model can be very successful, and it can ensure the project gets done to the highest possible standards and highest levels of efficiency. So, owners are also starting to realize that some of these collaborative models are very successful, and they should be thinking about them more often.
Thank you. Appreciate that detail. I'll jump back in the queue.
Our next question is from Frederic Bastien of Raymond James.
Good morning.
Morning.
I was wondering how your AI infrastructure pipeline is evolving beyond Bell. Are you seeing interest from other developers, and how many opportunities are moving closer to construction?
Certainly, lots of interest. I think our priority is Bell, but we have other clients that we have worked with for a considerable amount of time. Obviously, with the large opportunity in front of us with Bell, we are putting a big focus on that, and that is a very exciting opportunity for us, which continues to evolve. There is certainly, in other provinces, I think, opportunities evolving in New Brunswick, a considerable pipeline here in Ontario. It is taking a little longer in Ontario with the power allocations and some of that, which we have worked through quite extensively over the last five years. A position, some of our developers are in the position they are in because we procured the power and found the land opportunity for them.
So, it is a very close relationship that started many, many years ago with some of the clients that we have.
I am certainly expecting to see some of those break ground in 2027, but still going through some of the hurdles. One of the differences between Canada and the U.S., in certain U.S. states, is that Canada has a very well-managed grid, and they have got organizations that put a lot of time and effort into managing how that grid is supported with appropriate power generation. So, different than certain states where the grid is kind of a more of a free market, wide open, bit of a frenzy. Canada goes through considerable efforts in that regard. We are also seeing more of an influx of opportunities where the developers we are working with are bringing, obviously, bringing power, because in some situations, there needs to be a power allocation.
We're also, I think there's still, though, some misinformation out there about the amount of water that gets used and that type of thing, and the power impacts where that is being managed very well. And obviously, the water impacts are no longer what they would have been five years ago, but that misinformation is still out there. Also, it was a bit of a municipal election issue, so that has to settle a little bit in some of the cities to clear that. But we're sensing some of those are clearing now with their moratorium, so.
Great. That's quite helpful. Thanks, Teri. My last one is, just wondering across your 10 strategic sectors, which opportunities are perhaps developing faster than you expected six months ago, and where maybe projects are taking a little longer to advance?
To be honest, they're all developing at a really nice pace. I would say that some of the bigger ones, we're starting to see oil production discussions, so that's exciting for the first time in a dozen years. We're seeing lots of inbounds on mining coming through. Obviously, LNG, we saw with the announcement that Canada's targeting 100 million tons a year, so that's interesting. We'll see where that goes. But our big clients like Dow and some of those are continuing to accelerate the Dow Path2Zero, Phase 1 and 2. We're optimistic there might be a Phase 3 at some point. You hear a lot in the news on nuclear, so that one is one that certainly will be exciting longer term.
But data centers, if you were to talk about it a year ago, we wouldn't have anticipated the pace that our data center mission-critical teams would be running at right now, and the scale of the number of resources that we have applied to that. Defense is just, the quantum of it is just significant. Some projects take a little longer because there's a lot of front-end Indigenous work that has to be done that we work in partnership with the government to develop some of that. So some of that is taking probably longer just because of the complexity, but very much underway. I'd say the one that's maybe speeding up faster than we thought is probably just the overall development of the Arctic. Combination of the opportunities to develop the Grays Bay Deep water Port and the Mackenzie Valley Highway to Inuvik.
That's getting a lot of emphasis by the government, and the Grays Bay is in procurement right now. We have a tremendous record in the north, so when you say you're building a road to Inuvik, and we built the town of Inuvik in 1956, we have a pretty good resume for those kinds of things. Then you still see the constant flow of social infrastructure, whether it's school bundles in the west or hospitals, we're still seeing those, and we continue to enhance our resume. So, I'd say it's pretty well balanced. Probably the Arctic is the one that's probably getting the most, that's speeding, going at a faster pace than I would have expected. Then you have the defense bases up there as well, but this infrastructure is helpful for these eventual bases, so yeah.
The other one I probably didn't cover that we wouldn't have been this far along a year ago is Ring of Fire. So, fully funded now. Our teams are on the ground. We will be taking a massive number of loads next spring on the ice road to really accelerate that work. We took 300 + loads up last spring, so that equipment is working now that we've been fully funded and getting underway and developing quarries for aggregates, that kind of thing. So, that one's moving at a really good pace, and it's nice to see the federal commitment come from the latest budget.
Awesome. Thanks. I'll turn it over.
Our next question is from John Gibson of BMO Capital Markets.
Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. More of a high-level one. Obviously, your pace of growth has been very impressive. What's your biggest worry, or what keeps you up at night the most—
Well, I think—
—in regard to keeping this pace? Is it skilled trades?
No, I think safety. I think safety is always the one that I always worry about. We have a very strong record. We work continuously with a very large team, but not dissimilar to issues that occur in society. Sometimes you have someone come to work that just isn't prepared for the day and can make a mistake just because they're distracted because of something happening in their personal life. So that's one I probably do worry about. Obviously, we work really hard to make sure nobody gets hurt.
I honestly believe that in the not-too-distant future, as we continue to evolve with the investment we're making in AI, there will be a day where a worker will come on one of our sites, and because of the technology and because of the ability of the AI, we will be able to determine if there's a potential risk that's evolving that we can stop that activity. It's really exciting to see some of that technology evolve. I would say safety is the one that sometimes you just cannot control what someone's thinking when they come to work.
Appreciate that. Just one for me. On the data center front, obviously, we have seen news from Bell to increase expansions in Saskatchewan. We have seen other projects pick up. What is your ability to handle this work all at once? Is there a sort of a gigawatt per year number you could handle, or will this be more of a phased build-out for Bird?
Well, a lot of the ENAs that we are working with are doing phasing, and that works really well, and not dissimilar to the rest of our businesses. We like a distributed load. We do not like a project that drops in the middle of an already busy industrial center, and there's a few of those, or there's one of those in particular that kind of dropped right in the middle of a very busy. We will stay on the sidelines on those opportunities, but we are very busy in Saskatchewan, and I think we will be for a long time as Bell, that all evolves. You have seen the announcements that they have made of the potential CAD 50 billion worth of development there with the province. We are highly confident that. The sense we get is the demand they have from tenants is through the roof.
That all makes for a very longer-term successful partnership. As you know, they have a warrant structure that encourages them to continue in our partnership. I think for us, balancing and having opportunities in specific locations that are not overheated with other industrial activity is preferred, and we are usually steering in that direction. You also need provinces and leaders to lean in and enable these projects, and you are seeing that certainly in Alberta and Saskatchewan with the premiers really leaning into these opportunities. We are starting to see that here in Ontario with the premier leaning in and senior cabinet ministers being assigned to this to make these projects, and Ontario announcing they want to be a premier destination for data centers. Those are all exciting because we are really well-resourced in those provinces, in most of the provinces.
But certainly, the ones that are evolving, which are typically pretty close to where the big urban centers are, we're really well-resourced.
Thanks all for the color. I'll turn it back.
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question at this time, please press star one one on your touch-tone phone. Our next question is from Michael Tupholme of TD Cowen.
Thank you. Good morning.
Good morning.
Question, you mentioned the Ring of Fire not too long ago on the call. I just wanted to follow up on the Marten Falls Community Access Road. If I am not mistaken, you saw a fair bit of work related to that project go into pending backlog this quarter. I guess that is just sort of the first clarification. Is that the main driver to the pending backlog going up as much as it did? Secondly, how do we think about that work moving from pending to hard backlog and then ramping- up in over 2027 and beyond?
It certainly is one of the drivers, Mike, if not the only one. I mean, we are always winning new projects, and again, just with the timing of when they get awarded and the nature of collaborative contracts, they could stay in pending backlog for a fairly long time. We also had a very strong bookings quarter, and a lot of that work came out of pending backlog. So, I would say our wins that we have had, whether either category of backlog you are going in, is pretty diversified.
Okay. That is helpful. I guess just specifically on that project, though, would that mean that there would be more to go as you further advance that project? Not everything is currently sitting in some category of backlog related to that project?
Yeah, I think we're certainly going to see expansion from what we've put in our numbers. We generally take a pretty conservative view as to what these things look like. I think what you'll see is, over time, I don't think you'll see one great big conversion of pending backlog to backlog. I think what you'll actually see is, every so often, a new work package will convert as backlog, and then it'll carry a smaller number in pending backlog, and then—
The reason it converts is because the funding is released.
Yeah.
That triggers the movement when that funding is released. We go through various gates, Mike, but keep in mind, this is the first phase. The second phase follows behind it, and then you're into 10 different mine developments that are all in the same region under the same community oversight.
Okay. That's helpful just to understand that. Secondly, there was a bit of discussion earlier about acquisitions, and it's still part of the strategic plan to continue to look at opportunities in that regard. It seems to me that a lot of the things you've acquired in recent years has been, they've been very strategic in nature and building out your platform in different areas. What is it right now as you look forward over the next few years that, what areas do you see as sort of greatest interest in terms of rounding out the platform?
Well, I think if you think of some of the things that are starting to evolve longer term, I think it's sort of those longer-term opportunities like nuclear. Obviously, the support, which we think is a long-term build in Canada on data centers to support those projects. Obviously, other areas like, I'm starting to get really excited about oil production, because it's becoming clearer and clearer that Canada's going to build 2 MMbpd of additional capacity to move oil, while the production has to be built to support that. So, I see that as a tremendous opportunity. I think, obviously, our efforts in maintenance, we're continuing to scale that opportunity. So, those are strategic targets where we can, say, take an existing company that does a specific, say, a company does mechanical, and we can come in and add the synergy of electrical to that.
Things like that would be very exciting for us. But I think if you think of the 10 vertical sectors we have, continuing to target opportunities that fit those targeted areas would be where we would be most interested. Sometimes you'll find things come along that don't really fit into those 10 and might be interesting, but we're really focused on those 10 areas right now.
Okay. That makes sense. Thank you.
This concludes the question-and-answer session. I will hand the call back over to Mr. McKibbon for closing remarks.
Thank you. Bird's performance is a direct result of the hard work, dedication, and continued commitment to safety of our teams across the country. Their contributions are central to Bird's success and to the confidence we have in the future of the business. Thank you as well to our clients, partners, and shareholders for your continued confidence in Bird. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call and webcast. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.