Dexterra Group Inc. (TSX:DXT)
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12.97
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May 12, 2026, 4:00 PM EST
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Earnings Call: Q1 2026

May 7, 2026

Operator

Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is John, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Dexterra Group Inc. First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed in mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Denise Achonu, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Denise Achonu
CFO, Dexterra Group

Thank you, John. Good morning, and thank you to everyone for joining the call. My name is Denise Achonu, Chief Financial Officer of Dexterra Group Inc. With me on the call today are Mark Becker, our CEO, and our Board Chair, Bill McFarland, who will provide some brief introductory comments. After a brief presentation, we will take questions with the call ending by 9:15 A.M. Eastern Time. We will be commenting on our Q1 2026 results with the assumption that you have read the Q1 2026 earnings press release, MD&A, and financial statements. The slide presentation, which supports today's comments, is posted on our website, and we encourage participants to access the slides and follow along with our presentation. Before we begin, I would like to make some comments about forward-looking information.

In yesterday's news release and on slide 2 of the presentation we have posted on our website, you will find cautionary notes in that regard. I will not cover the content of the cautionary notes in any detail. We do claim their protection for any forward-looking information that we might disclose on this conference call today. I will now turn it over to Bill McFarland for his introductory comments.

Bill McFarland
Chair of the Board, Dexterra Group

Good morning. Thank you, Denise, and thanks for joining our call today. Dexterra's results for Q1 2026 showed continued progress, profitable growth, higher Adjusted Net Earnings, growing free cash flow, a smooth integration of recent acquisitions, a strong balance sheet led by a seasoned and reliable management team with a business plan that will build long-term shareholder value. The stars appear to be aligned today as we are experiencing negligible impacts from U.S. tariffs or the Middle East war and have a growing IFM market in the U.S. and Canada and a market-leading remote services business. We have experienced significant uplift in our share price over the past year. Management and the board continue to believe our shares are undervalued and are trading at a multiple well below many of our competitors.

As we said before, our primary focus is on the long term, and we continue to believe our intrinsic value will be realized over time by shareholders as we deliver on our long-term business plan. With those introductory comments, I'll now pass it over to Mark for his overview.

Mark Becker
CEO, Dexterra Group

Great. Thanks very much, Bill and Denise, good morning to everyone. You know, starting off on slide five, as Bill mentioned, Q1 has indeed been a very good start to the year. We generated revenue of CAD 275 million and Adjusted EBITDA of CAD 33 million in Q1, those are increases of 15% and 32% respectively from Q1 of last year. Additionally, Adjusted EBITDA margins were higher in Q1 at 12% compared to 10.5% in Q1 of 2025, just given the mix of business. Our strong performance and growth in Adjusted net earnings of 10% during the first quarter was driven by strong camp occupancy, organic growth, and the contributions from PVC and Right Choice.

Results this quarter highlight the successful execution of our growth strategy and resilience of our business. Onboarding of our two strategic acquisition investments has proven successful, and we are optimistic about the growth potential we expect to fully realize from these investments going forward. Right Choice is now fully integrated into Dexterra operations with IT systems and business processes successfully transitioned in early Q1. The Right Choice camps and personnel are now an integral part of Dexterra camp operations. The optimization of Dexterra and Right Choice open camps in Lamont, Manning is substantially complete, creating new capacity for equipment redeployment across Dexterra's broader workforce accommodations network in support of our new growth opportunities. Our fleet is about 85% deployed today, and we have a good pipeline of opportunities for new work.

We should see our utilization rate continue to build and are closely monitoring and pursuing nation-building opportunities. With Right Choice now fully integrated, we are no longer reporting revenue or EBITDA contributions from Right Choice on a standalone basis. We also continue to invest in our U.S. business and our U.S. team. In sales leadership and IT and finance, we're well-positioned to execute on our U.S. strategy. The PVC investment further expands Dexterra's growth runway and positions the corporation to scale its Facilities Management platform across the U.S. The partnership is progressing well with PVC with strong leadership engagement, and our collective efforts are focused on organic growth. Our U.S. sales pipeline is growing, and winning new mandates is the key focus.

Our Canadian Facilities Management business also continues to build momentum with a solid foundation of long-term business, a continued strong pipeline of new opportunities across the spectrum of IFM segments, and developing opportunities in the government and defense space. We continue to monitor macroeconomic conditions and inflation closely. Dexterra's business is generally insulated from the direct impacts of tariffs as we employ labor on both sides of the border and source a majority of our commodities domestically. We may soon start to see that exert broader inflationary pressures. We are actively mitigating these impacts through contract inflation terms, repricing mechanisms, supply chain initiatives, and operational efficiencies that have been very successful for us to date. We continue to monitor conditions closely.

At this point in time, we don't anticipate material impacts to our business. I'm also pleased to report our trailing 12 months return on equity as of the end of Q1 was 15.9%, exceeding our target of 15% and continuing to demonstrate our commitment to delivering strong shareholder value. With that, I'll turn things back to Denise to provide a more detailed overview of our segment results and financial position.

Denise Achonu
CFO, Dexterra Group

Thank you, Mark. I'll begin with a detailed look at our business segment, starting with Support Services on slide 7. Revenue in Support Services for the first quarter were CAD 234 million, an increase of 18% over Q1 2025. Driven primarily from strong camp occupancy across the platform, including the Right Choice camps acquired in Q3 2025, and organic growth from our new contracts. During the quarter, PVC contributed CAD 1.5 million to Adjusted EBITDA. As a reminder, PVC is accounted for under the equity method as we own 40% today and have an option to buy the remaining 60% in 2027. Accordingly, its revenue is not included in our reported results.

We anticipate PVC will be cash flow neutral in the near term as PVC is investing in its proprietary IT system and people to build an even stronger platform to deliver long-term distributed model growth in the U.S. and Canada. Adjusted EBITDA for support services increased by 29% period-over-period to CAD 24 million, while Adjusted EBITDA margins increased to 10.4% in Q1 2026, up from 9.5% in Q1 2025. The improved profitability was the result of strong camp occupancy, contributions from recent acquisitions, and organic growth related to new contracts. Adjusted EBITDA margins excluding PVC were 9.8%. We continue to expect Adjusted EBITDA margins for support services to exceed 9% in the long term.

The focus for Support Services remains on delivering profitable organic growth by being disciplined around new projects and through margin improvement and management. As Mark mentioned, we are effectively managing inflation pressures, and in Q1 2026, saw our direct costs as a percentage of revenue decrease 1.4% to 85.3%. A good result that was achieved through a combination of strong supply chain and contract management and improved scale of the business in both Canada and the U.S. Moving on to Asset Based Services on slide 8. Revenue increased 1.2% period-over-period, with rental revenue improvement of 11% driven by higher asset utilization, which was partially offset by lower camp installation activity for clients, which varies based on the timing of projects.

However, it is important to note that the camp installation activities are critical to obtaining the long-term equipment rental revenue stream and Support Services contracts. You will note that we have expanded our disclosure regarding the composition of Asset Based Services revenue to provide further transparency. Supplemental 2025 comparative information by quarter for Asset Based Services revenue components is available on our website on the investor page under Documents and Filings. Adjusted EBITDA of CAD 16 million increased 18% compared to Q1 2025, while Adjusted EBITDA margins increased to 38% in the first quarter of 2026, up from 33% in the first quarter of 2025. The margin improvement reflects increased rental activity, which generates higher margins compared to camp installation and demobilization revenue.

As Mark mentioned, current market indicators point to growth and increasing utilization of our workforce accommodation fleet over 2026, supporting solid sales momentum. Access matting utilization is also expected to remain broadly in line in 2025 levels. We remain focused on maximizing asset utilization and returns across the ABS segment through disciplined capital spending and deployment of assets. We continue to expect margins will be at the higher end of our long-term range targeted of 30%-40% in 2026. Moving to slide 9, I would like to highlight that the addition of more open camps with the Right Choice acquisition has shifted our seasonality profile. As a result, Q1 and Q2 are now more comparable in terms of their contribution to Adjusted EBITDA, with Q2 experiencing a lower post-secondary food service activity, which typically resumes in Q3.

Q3 remains our strongest quarter, now followed by Q4. We're closely managing our corporate expenses. In the first quarter of 2026, they declined slightly to CAD 6.9 million or 2.5% of revenue, compared to CAD 7.2 million or 3% of sales in the first quarter of 2025. 2026 costs also included investments in our technology and innovation projects. Going forward, we expect corporate costs to be approximately 2.5% of revenue. Even as investments are made in technology and sales resources to support our U.S. business platform as it continues to scale. On January 2, 2026, a limited fire at one of our camps in the Prince Rupert region of B.C. resulted in the loss of certain equipment and a temporary disruption of operations.

The net financial impact of the insurance recoveries and asset write-off of CAD 4.7 million has been excluded from Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Earnings, and Adjusted EPS, as well as Free Cash Flow. The camp has returned to normal operations, and receivables include approximately CAD 10 million in insurance recoveries. Capital expenditures in the quarter of CAD 9.5 million are higher as they include sustaining capital expenditures of CAD 4 million relating to the fire. Normalized sustaining capital expenditures are expected to continue to be approximately 1% to 1.5% of revenue on an annualized basis and are replacement expenditures necessary to maintain the existing business. Free Cash Flow continues to grow on a normalized basis, consistent with our EBITDA growth. For Q1 2026, Free Cash Flow was CAD 1 million.

In Q1 2026, free cash flow included the payment of CAD 6.7 million in long-term incentive plan amounts as the Performance Share Units met the hurdle level for payment for the first time. The Adjusted EBITDA conversion to free cash flow is expected to continue to exceed 50% on an annual basis and similar to prior years. Q3 and Q4 are expected to have the highest conversion to free cash flow. Net debt as at March 31, 2026 was CAD 225 million. The net debt to Adjusted EBITDA was 1.7 times. Well within our comfort level and objective of supporting a strong balance sheet. The increase in net debt in Q1 2026 was driven by seasonally higher working capital requirements, the 2025 income tax payment, share-based compensation payments mentioned earlier, and the impact of the fire incident.

We expect our debt to be reduced significantly in the back half of the year with excess free cash flow. Our CAD 425 million term loan matures in 2029 and has significant unused capacity. We remain committed to delivering strong returns for our shareholders, and we declared a dividend of CAD 0.10 per share payable in July 2026. In addition, our board has approved the renewal of our NCIB program as of May 6th, 2026, subject to TSX approval, which will allow us to remain opportunistic on share buybacks with the capacity to repurchase up to approximately 3 million shares in the period from May 23rd, 2026 to May 22nd, 2027. I will now pass it back to Mark for concluding remarks.

Mark Becker
CEO, Dexterra Group

Great. Thanks, Denise. Before we open it up for questions, as I normally do, we'll provide some comments regarding our outlook and priorities for 2026, which are highlighted on slide 10. As we look ahead to the balance of 2026, our key focus remains on strong execution and delivering profitable and predictable results while realizing the full value of our recent acquisitions and building momentum on organic growth. This includes continuing to scale our U.S. platform and expand FM and IFM opportunities through the complementary delivery model afforded by PVC to us. At the same time, we are deepening and expanding current client relationships and leveraging that to build a pipeline of new growth opportunities in both the U.S. and Canada. As previously mentioned, the addition of Right Choice excess equipment also gives us flexibility and supports our sales pipeline.

Our market activity and new sales pipeline remains strong with quality opportunities across the board in all areas of our remote and facility management businesses on both sides of the border. This includes workforce accommodations and potential facility management associated with large U.S.-based data centers, which we have already established initial contracts with one of the hyperscalers in the South U.S., and we're optimistic about more. Opportunities related to potential Canadian nation-building projects in energy mining, infrastructure, including government and defense, which we have a strong history in all of these segments. We are currently tracking approximately 30 opportunities in the Canadian nation-building category, a mixture of workforce accommodations and facilities management, near term and longer-dated opportunities that represent upside to our growth prospects.

As previously mentioned, we'll continue to this year to monitor economic conditions and inflation closely with a focus on supporting target margins in the business. In 2026, we are also expanding the Dexterra brand, replacing some legacy brands, which reflect the evolution of the organization into a strong and integrated Support Services platform. This initiative is intended to simplify how the corporation presents its capabilities, will improve consistency across client engagement and service delivery, and strengthen our market visibility by more clearly reflecting the scale and breadth of our operations across North America. The transition positions the business for future growth across North America, particularly in complex, large-scale, and remote service operations without changing the underlying operational execution or service commitments relied upon by our clients.

We continue to invest in our people and technology, including a focus on labor management technology to drive innovation, operational efficiency, and differentiation. At the same time, we remain committed to develop and invest in our indigenous partnerships and advancing our sustainability and safety initiatives. In closing, our disciplined approach to capital allocation is a real plus. Firstly, supporting a reasonable and sustained dividend. Second, investing in the business through both sustaining and high return capital expenditures. Third, pursuing accretive acquisition investments, all the while maintaining a strong balance sheet, paying down debt over the remainder of 2026, absent M&A activity, and opportunistically buying back shares to support the share price. Overall, we are confident in our ability to execute our strategy, navigate market uncertainty, and to deliver long-term shareholder value. We will be hosting our annual general meeting today at 10:00 A.M. Eastern Time in a virtual-only format.

The management presentation will cover our longer-term strategy. I will take questions on that strategy at the AGM and the webcast, and that presentation will be available on our website in the events and presentation page after the AGM. This concludes our prepared remarks. I'll turn the call back to John for the Q&A portion of the call.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the Q&A session. At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit your questions to one question and one follow-up. Afterwards, you may rejoin the queue for any additional questions. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Kyle Brock with ATB Financial. Please go ahead.

Kyle Brock
Analyst, ATB Financial

Good morning. It's Kyle on for Chris. Hoping you can provide an update on your current bed capacity utilization rates, as well as any color you can share around your strategy to deploy the remaining capacity, and if you see any potential to lean more into pricing given the strengthening demand environment.

Denise Achonu
CFO, Dexterra Group

Good morning, Kyle. It's Denise. Thanks for your question. You know, as we said in our prepared remarks, we're seeing asset utilization at, you know, 85%, which is quite strong. We do have some excess capacity of, you know, about 1,500 beds to deploy with, you know, towards those opportunities that Mark mentioned that we're looking at, whether it's nation-building or any of the other opportunities in that we're looking at in the U.S. You know, we expect that to really grow to, you know, above 90, which is similar to where we've been in the past.

Kyle Brock
Analyst, ATB Financial

Okay. Thanks for that. Shifting over to FM. Looked like strong levels of organic growth in the quarter. Can you talk about what drove that, and if mid-single-digit growth remains an appropriate way to think about things for the balance of the year? Thanks, and I'll jump back in the queue.

Denise Achonu
CFO, Dexterra Group

Sure.

Mark Becker
CEO, Dexterra Group

Yeah. Overall, I would say, Kyle, I mean, you know, as we've talked about, you know, our pipeline remains strong, you know, kind of both sides of the border. You know, certainly with our new platforms that we've established in the U.S., that gives us kind of a broader range of opportunities in the facilities management space. You know, both on self-perform model as well as now the distributed model and our partnership with PVC. That really kind of builds our ability to bring on our organic growth and kind of hit our organic growth targets.

You know, I would say, you know, quarter-over-quarter, probably nothing specific other than we are bringing on what we are expecting to bring on in the Support Services space, which also includes, you know, the Support Services elements of the remote business as well. I would just say overall pipeline and kind of hitting the targets as we see on a broader long-term scale of those mid-single-digit target.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Zachary Evershed with National Bank. Please go ahead.

Zachary Evershed
Analyst, National Bank

Hey. Morning, guys. Congrats on the quarter.

Mark Becker
CEO, Dexterra Group

Yeah, thanks.

Zachary Evershed
Analyst, National Bank

With the split between the U.S. and Canada here for the opportunities in workforce accommodation and facilities management, where would you say you're spending most of your time? With a hyperscaler already signed versus nation-building maybe taking a little bit longer, how are you thinking about the sequencing?

Mark Becker
CEO, Dexterra Group

Yeah. I would say, Zachary, you know, we've got kinda two broad business areas and we've got two, you know, we're a decentralized model, so we've got, you know, a president on both sides of the border of the FM space. You know, we have Jeff Litchfield in the remote space. You know, kinda taking advantage of that decentralized model to make sure we are kinda prosecuting all the, you know, the market elements that we're going after. I would say, you know, the timing's set a lot by our clients and the development side of things.

You know, we are excited about the data center opportunity in the U.S., and it's great to be part of the ecosystem for that, so that we expect to grow, and that's under Jeff Litchfield's organization. In the facility management space, you know, Sanjay Gomes and his team, you know, continues to kinda prosecute organic growth, including the nation-building stuff and which includes, you know, defense and government, which we're seeing opportunities there, and we have a long history on that side. Now with David Lambert, you know, creating our U.S. based team on the facility management space, you know, supported by CMI, supported by PVC, kind of building out and prosecuting that pipeline.

That's kinda how I'd answer our approach and how we're kinda balancing, as you say, the kind of the opportunities on a few different fronts.

Zachary Evershed
Analyst, National Bank

PUD thanks. For the follow-up fuel and food inflation, obviously more and more of a worry in the markets. Can you go into more detail on your strategy for dealing with this, given the logistics-heavy nature of your business?

Mark Becker
CEO, Dexterra Group

Yeah. You know, good question, Zach. You know, we certainly, you know, learned a lot and, you know, you've been around with us for a while and, you know, we went through the hyperinflation times post-pandemic and learned a lot. Our contracts have never been in better shape around things like inflation support and inflation management. You know, both, you know, there's direct impact of fuel, you know, on our business, particularly the remote business, 'cause there's a lot of fuel gets used up there. In a lot of cases, those are pass-through costs to our clients.

If they're not pass-through costs, we tend to have, you know, the ability to pass them through inflation terms in our contracts just because energy fuel itself can be just a volatile price all the time, right? The other aspect I would say, Zach, if you really look at our contracts now, combination of our contracts that have inflation terms in them or are in some cycle of repricing, either, you know, through renewal or new contracts, which allows us to update pricing on those fronts. You know, we've done a lot around labor to make sure we are protected on the labor front. Majority of our contracts, majority of our clients are covered that way.

Doesn't mean we don't need to work very hard on this front, and we are working very hard on this front. A key thing that we've always talked about is the supply chain side of our business and, you know, our strategic supply chain efforts, you know, around protecting us from tariffs. Also, you know, managing inflation is also a key part of it. Very active, but we're in very good shape and, you know, from what we see today, we just don't see material impacts in the near term.

Zachary Evershed
Analyst, National Bank

Great. No, thanks. I'll turn it over.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Mark Neville with Canaccord. Please go ahead.

Mark Neville
Analyst, Canaccord

Hey, good morning. Maybe just a few follow-ups. Just on, in the workforce space, the 85% utilization, like what's a realistic sort of upside number to get that to that sort of sustainable and like, you know? Yeah.

Mark Becker
CEO, Dexterra Group

Yeah. It's great having you aboard, Mark. Yeah, we've, you know, what we would kinda say, because we always do have camp equipment moving from project to project and, you know, Denise talked about 1,500 beds. It's closer to 2,000 these days, you know, kind of available to bring to bear if you do the math. Generally, we know, we would say kinda north of 90% is really a strong, a really strong utilization for camp equipment.

The other thing I would say, Mark, you know, we are seeing, and particularly maybe as an example, you know, the data centers in the U.S., you know, we are sourcing equipment from other places to support kind of that growth because it's not all coming out of our fleet. You know, so really we are looking to maximize our fleet and then looking for, you know, access around, you know, bringing equipment to bear both in Canada and particularly in the U.S. on some of these larger opportunities. I think north of 90 is what we would say would be very strong utilization. That's what we've seen in the past.

Mark Neville
Analyst, Canaccord

Yeah. I think you called out in the MD&A somewhere some, you know, CAD 2 million of CapEx in that business. Would that be tied to sort of this U.S. data center opportunity, or is it something more broad?

Mark Becker
CEO, Dexterra Group

Yeah. I would say generally speaking, you know, when we get into these big projects, you know, around the data centers and those kinds of things, we're looking to kinda the clients. In fact, one example we're currently working on, the clients are actually putting, you know, putting the money forward for the camp equipment that's required. You know, we do try to stick, you know, to kind of the low capital model and that's kind of what we still continue to prosecute because we just find that it's the most advantageous for us and gives us the highest free cash flow conversion and, you know, kind of the highest return on equity as a business.

Mark Neville
Analyst, Canaccord

Right. Maybe just one last one. Just I appreciate you don't wanna sort of separate Right Choice anymore, but the 18% growth in Support Services, do you have sort of a rough number of what's kind of organic?

Denise Achonu
CFO, Dexterra Group

Sure. You know, we, I guess, disclosed when we purchased Right Choice, you know, last year, CAD 75 million in revenue, et cetera. Against that, they're performing very well and exceeding our expectations. I would say for this quarter, our performance around organic growth is very much in line with our expectations. You know, that mid-single digit organic growth is what we achieved for this quarter. You know, as we mentioned, we're not able to really start separating Right Choice, but I think a good indicator would be to go back to what we disclosed when we initially purchased it to kind of bridge that gap. Again, both are very happy this quarter with our organic growth as well as the way Right Choice is performing.

Operator

Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Sean Jack with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Sean Jack
Analyst, Raymond James

Hey, good morning, guys. Last quarter, for Support Services, we saw, you know, sales investments, you know, impact some of the bottom line. Wondering how the spending is trending this period and how we should think about this for the rest of the year.

Mark Becker
CEO, Dexterra Group

Can you say it again, Sean? Which investment? Sorry.

Sean Jack
Analyst, Raymond James

Sorry, yeah, the sales investments going on at Support Services. I was just wondering how those trends within the periods and how we should think about it for the rest of 2026.

Mark Becker
CEO, Dexterra Group

Yeah. I think, I'll let Denise comment here too, but, you know, I think we've been pretty kinda clear on where we see kind of our overall kind of our overheads, you know, trending at that kinda 2.5% sorta mark. You know, some of that, Sean, for sure is in the U.S. You know, as David Lambert builds out the team, you know, sales resources. We're building our sales teams in the U.S. that are kind of helping, you know, kinda build out these new platforms and kinda prosecute these pipelines that we've got now in the U.S. You know, we do kind of incorporate and roll that into our overall kinda overhead spending targets.

I think probably what you might be seeing as well, Sean, to agree, is, you know, you're seeing kind of the benefits of scale 'cause as we do get bigger, we are able to kind of absorb some of these initial kind of upfront investments and kind of stay within our overhead targets. I don't know if you'd add anything, Denise, to that?

Denise Achonu
CFO, Dexterra Group

No, Sean, we would expect to maintain the margins we've shared before, so within kind of the Support Services above that 9%, and that contains any additional investments we've made in sales. We've also, as part of corporate expenses, provided we expect that to be about 2.5% of revenue. The investments we're making are contained within those expectations, and we don't see that changing.

Sean Jack
Analyst, Raymond James

Okay. Awesome. Thanks. Then just quickly on Asset-Based, you know, looking out for the basis of the year with this new segmentation details that you guys are providing, are you expecting kind of a similar mix that what we saw in Q1 to trend for this year, or yeah, just thinking about the pipeline, any details?

Denise Achonu
CFO, Dexterra Group

In terms of Asset Based Services?

Sean Jack
Analyst, Raymond James

Yeah. Like the mix between.

Denise Achonu
CFO, Dexterra Group

Oh, yeah.

Sean Jack
Analyst, Raymond James

Yeah.

Denise Achonu
CFO, Dexterra Group

Yeah. In terms of the mix, again, I'd refer you to the what we provided on our website just in terms of the supplemental for prior year, just in case, you know, as you're trying to compare organic growth and within ABS organic growth, again, kind of low single digits. Related to the margins, again, as we mentioned, we're expecting to be kind of within that higher end of the 30%-40% range. Again, driven by business mix because we are seeing that higher rental revenue in Q2 and for the balance of the year.

Mark Becker
CEO, Dexterra Group

I think that's kinda why we showed that breakout.

You know, we did see last year, you know, some higher mobilization efforts around camps and now you see the benefits of that with the kind of higher rental rates, the higher end of the 30%-40% range, because those camps are mobilized. Part of the reason, Sean, we wanted to make sure we do that split out because kind of mobilization kind of comes and goes, and it's obviously at a different margin than we get when we've got, you know, camp equipment on the ground and under rental with clients.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Trevor Reynolds with Acumen Capital. Please go ahead.

Trevor Reynolds
Analyst, Acumen Capital

Hey, guys. I was just wondering what the kinda pricing strategy is here with the expected outlook on WAFES, expected to, you know, take up a lot of the spare capacity in the market. Just kinda how you guys are looking at that moving forward here?

Mark Becker
CEO, Dexterra Group

Yeah. You know, we're always looking at that, Trevor. I would say generally speaking in workforce and particularly, you know, kind of in, you know, energy markets, I would say, you know, that we see in Canada, even mining, we are seeing prices increasing, and we are increasing pricing, and that ties in both, you know, to kind of our margin target management, as well as to the point I think you're making and asking about is, you know, the nature of the market. We are seeing an increasing pricing in those areas for sure.

Trevor Reynolds
Analyst, Acumen Capital

Just maybe kinda how you're seeing the demand increase here. There's obviously been lots of chatter in the market about the major projects, but things have moved a little bit slower than I think originally anticipated. Just kinda, you know, what your sense is in terms of being able to get to that when you expect to be at that kinda 90% plus utilization.

Mark Becker
CEO, Dexterra Group

Yeah. I think the way we'd like to talk about it, Trevor, is kinda build over time for sure and bringing, you know, kinda what's currently got 2,000 beds, now we're gonna have other beds available. As I said, we're gonna access other capacity of equipment that we can bring to bear, you know, outside our fleet and those kinds of things. I'd say over time. You know, I'd agree with you, I think, you know, generally speaking, some of the larger nation-building projects are getting going. We're seeing good traction with them. We're seeing a lot happening on those fronts.

A lot of the, I guess, kind of the reality related to when things like Workforce Accommodations would be on the ground, it's into that late 2027, 2028, 2029 range. I'd even say we're seeing a lot of activity on the defense side. A lot of that takes time to bring to bear. Some of it involves base expansions that builders are gonna do. There's expansions that are gonna happen and then we can support those in the short term for the Workforce Accommodations scenario, and then longer term supporting those with facilities management opportunities.

We are kinda able to take advantage of both the short term and long term, but I would say. Some of the really big stuff and some of the things around pipelines and those kinds of things can be a little bit longer dated.

Trevor Reynolds
Analyst, Acumen Capital

Great.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Zachary Evershed with National Bank. Please go ahead.

Zachary Evershed
Analyst, National Bank

Hey, guys. Just a quick follow-up. Negotiations for the fire insurance settlement are ongoing. What's the expected range of outcomes there and the timing to put that to bed?

Denise Achonu
CFO, Dexterra Group

Yeah. You know, as I'm sure you can appreciate, these things sometimes take time. We're really fortunate that we were able to really set up the new camp quite quickly, that's back to operations. In the meantime, we are still negotiating with the insurance company. Obviously, we're talking about a range in terms of outcomes. We feel very confident with the range that we have in Q2, sorry, in Q1. That said, there may be a little bit of upside, again, because we've got our Adjusted Net Earnings and Adjusted EPS, it will be very clear when we call that out to the extent there's anything, you know, that we need to adjust for that happens in Q2.

We do expect that we should be able to wrap this up in, by the time we report Q two.

Zachary Evershed
Analyst, National Bank

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Frederic Bastien with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Frederic Bastien
Analyst, Raymond James

Good morning. You get your healthy dose of Raymond James today.

Mark Becker
CEO, Dexterra Group

That's good to see on a WSP call.

Frederic Bastien
Analyst, Raymond James

As you near the first anniversary of the Right Choice and PVC acquisitions, how would you evaluate their performance so far versus the underwriting and synergy assumptions that you had at closing?

Mark Becker
CEO, Dexterra Group

Yeah. Good question, Fred. You know, starting with Right Choice, I mean, the Right Choice onboard has just been really great. You know, as we talked about, they're kind of, everything's fully integrated into the Dexterra remote services system now. You know, people are all onboarded together. Systems are all onboarded. We've been able to take advantage of, you know, the kind of the Manning optimization. I mean, we've closed some of our open camps, and we've closed some of the Right Choice open camps just to get that kind of optimized version in the Manning, which was a key part of this acquisition.

Obviously freeing up freeing up the equipment, excess equipment that we've brought over, which was about half the equipment in the Right Choice situation being available now for redeployment, which is very active as we talked about. Right Choice, I would say kind of right on what we're expecting in terms of value, benefit and return from that acquisition. PVC is going great. I think a lot of the collaboration, the work together, the developing that distributed model platform, obviously in the U.S., they've got a long history there, but then even start looking at back drafting that into Canada is going very, very well.

That, you know, the PVC front is a lot about, you know, using that to kind of prosecute a bigger pipeline of work. We're seeing a really strong pipeline of work, you know, from PVC and even bringing opportunities from Dexterra into PVC and PVC opportunities and clients into the Dexterra world. I would say, also very much on track with what we would have expected with PVC as well.

Frederic Bastien
Analyst, Raymond James

No, that's great, encouraging and nice to hear. Speaking of M&A, where do you need to see leverage go down to before returning to the acquisition trail? Or does it matter? Are you ready to go back again at this point?

Mark Becker
CEO, Dexterra Group

You know, and I think we've talked about this for sure, like, you know, with the Right Choice and it's gone really well, as I said. PVC is a bigger deal for sure with us and around facilities management. We really wanna make sure we focus on the full onboarding on these latest acquisitions, getting full value from them, making sure we've, you know, we're going to, you know, realize the organic growth that these, that these acquisitions, represent as a prime focus in the M&A space, Fred. I think, you know, our focus is gonna be on making sure we do get good value from the acquisitions we've made, particularly the ones in 2025.

Even to that extent, I would also include, you know, the our government services business in the U.S. through CMI from 2024. Just making sure we do get good value as a priority compared to other M&A opportunities. Never say never and, you know, as I've said many times, you can't always control your opportunities around M&A. I think how I'd leave it with you is those are our kind of our focus and priorities around the team and what we're focused on right now.

Frederic Bastien
Analyst, Raymond James

That's great. Thank you.

Operator

At this time, we have no further questions. That concludes our Q&A session and today's conference call. We would like to thank everyone for their participation. You may now disconnect your lines. Have a pleasant day.

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