NFI Group Inc. (TSX:NFI)
Canada flag Canada · Delayed Price · Currency is CAD
21.64
+0.35 (1.64%)
Apr 30, 2026, 12:19 PM EST
← View all transcripts

AGM 2025

May 9, 2025

Operator

Hello, and welcome to the annual meeting of shareholders and stockholders of NFI Group, Inc. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. If you participate in today's meeting and disclose personal information, you will be deemed to consent to the recording, transfer, and use of same. If you disclose personal information of another person in today's meeting, you will be deemed to represent and warrant to Computershare and the corporation that you first obtained all required consents for the disclosure, recording, transfer, and use of such personal information from all appropriate persons before your disclosure. During the meeting, we'll have a question-and-answer session. You can submit questions or comments at any time by clicking on the message icon. It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Stephen King, Vice President, Strategy and Investor Relations for NFI Group, Inc. Mr. King, the floor is yours.

Stephen King
VP, Strategy and Investor Relations, NFI Group

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome you to this annual and special meeting of NFI Group, Inc. shareholders. I'm Stephen King, and I'll be your MC for today. Turning to slide two, joining me today is NFI Board Chair Colin Robertson, President and CEO Paul Soubry, and Chief Financial Officer Brian Dewsnup. Also in attendance are other directors from our board and other NFI executives. Turning to slide three, we will start today's meeting by delivering a territorial acknowledgment. I acknowledge that the land on which we are meeting today is located on Treaty One territory, the original lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, Lakota, Dene peoples, and the birthplace and homeland of the Métis Nation. We respect and give honor to the Indigenous peoples' history on this land and recognize First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples' ongoing contribution to our neighborhoods and communities today.

We proudly acknowledge our role in the many relationships that make up our home and commit to a spirit of reconciliation for the future. Moving to slide four, a few quick housekeeping items. We will be advancing slides on the screen during today's meeting, and as the meeting is both virtual and in person, we'll be calling out the slide numbers as we turn the page. The accompanying slides will be made available on the NFI website after the conclusion of the meeting. As this is a meeting joint in person and virtual, it is necessary to set out guidelines for the orderly conduct of the meeting. Following the formal part of the meeting, there will be a short management presentation, and questions will generally only be available at that time, both online and in person.

To the extent there are questions regarding procedural matters or directly relating to the motions before the meeting, they may be addressed during the formal portion of the meeting. Questions will be read out before being addressed. Questions from persons attending the meeting virtually can be submitted using the instant messaging service or via the virtual meeting interface. In order to ask a question, please click on the Q&A icon and type your question to management. Usually, and this year is no exception, the majority of shareholders submit their votes and proxies or voting instructions in advance of the meeting. Since we are hosting a joint in-person and virtual meeting, voting during the meeting will take place both by a show of hands from those here in the room and electronic ballot for those attending virtually.

Registered shareholders are duly appointed proxy holders who wish to vote in person at the meeting who were required to register in advance of the meeting. Registered shareholders are duly appointed proxy holders who wish to vote electronically and who are properly logged in with their control number or invite code as applicable will be able to see on their screen all motions being brought forward at the meeting today. These can be voted on at any time up to the closing of the polls. Voting will be open throughout the formal portion of this meeting. Registered shareholders who have voted in advance of the meeting and do not wish to revoke their previously submitted proxies do not need to vote during the meeting. Please note that only registered shareholders or duly appointed proxy holders are entitled to vote at the meeting.

Beneficial shareholders who have not duly appointed themselves or any other proxy holder as proxy holders will not be able to vote at this meeting. However, all shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders may ask questions either in person, here, or using the instant messaging application of the virtual meeting interface. Moving to slide five, I would now like to introduce Mr. Colin Robertson, Chair of the Board of Directors of NFI Group. Mr. Robertson has served on the board since 2020 and was previously Vice Chair of the board. Colin brings over 30 years of global manufacturing and leadership experience, including 13 years as Chief Executive Officer of Alexander Dennis Limited, ADL, which was acquired by NFI in 2019. Mr. Robertson previously held executive positions with global engine and power generation leader Cummins Inc. and Terex Corporation, a leading manufacturer of lifting and material handling equipment.

Colin will provide a welcome to today's meeting and then take us through the formal portion of the meeting. Over to you, Colin.

Colin Robertson
Chair of the Board of Directors, NFI Group

Thank you, Stephen. On behalf of the NFI Group Board of Directors, let me welcome everyone to today's shareholder meeting. First off, I am incredibly honored to take on the position of Chair of NFI Board of Directors. I have been a part of this board since 2020, and I am very excited for the future prospects of the company and the direction that we're heading. 2024 was a period of momentum and resilience for NFI. We saw significant improvements in bus and coach deliveries and financial results. We achieved several major milestones, including a record backlog of nearly $13 billion, which continued to grow in the first quarter of 2025, and our aftermarket segment delivered its strongest year ever. While there were many positives, we also navigated challenges related to seat supply disruption, which impacted production. Paul will recap 2024 later in his presentation.

NFI is well positioned for the long term, where it aims to benefit from a diverse propulsion-agnostic catalog of buses and coaches. Our board plays an active role in overseeing the company's growth and in supporting the continued delivery of NFI's sustainability pledge to deliver a better product, a better workplace, and a better world. Over the past few years, our board has been executing a detailed board renewal strategy with the retirement of several long-serving members. This strategy has seen the addition of new directors and new skill sets that reflect our current market environment. Turning to slide six, we provide an update on this board transition. Today, upon the completion of the shareholders' meeting, Krystyna Hoeg will retire following 11 years as a member of the board.

Krystyna was a valued director, and on behalf of the board and management, I would like to thank her for her contributions, dedication, and leadership to NFI and wish her continued success in her retirement and all her future endeavors. Going to slide seven, as a component of our board renewal strategy, Maryse Saint-Laurent and Aziz Aghili were appointed to the board in January 2025 and have been nominated to continue to serve as independent directors. Maryse has over 30 years' experience serving in various leadership roles with expertise in corporate governance and capital markets. Maryse currently serves on the boards of ATB Financial, BBA Consultants, and North American Construction Group, where she chairs the Governance and Sustainability Committee. Aziz brings over 35 years of experience in manufacturing, technology, and global supply chain.

He was most recently the Executive Vice President of Dana, a worldwide supplier to the automotive industry. Before that, Aziz spent 20 years at Meritor in various leadership roles. Aziz currently serves on the board of Graphic Packaging Holding Company and Columbus McKinnon Corporation. We're excited to have both Maryse and Aziz on our board of directors. Turning to slide eight, we will now proceed with the formal portion of today's meeting. On behalf of the board, I wish to express thanks to those shareholders who have submitted their proxies in advance. Only shareholders or their proxies are entitled to vote electronically or in person at this meeting. To make the best use of our time, I will move and second the proposals which are called for in the notice of the meeting. Slide nine, the meeting will now come to order. I shall ask Mr.

Colin Pewarchuk, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary of the corporation to act as Secretary of the meeting, and Lesley Anne Alano of Computershare Investor Services Inc., the transfer agent of the corporation's common shares, to act as scrutineer. Notice calling the meeting was mailed to shareholders on April 3rd, 2025, and we have received a confirmation from the corporation's transfer agent as to its mailing. Just prior to the start of the meeting, I received a copy of the preliminary scrutineer's report on the attendance. There are at least two shareholders holding 89,502,940 common shares represented in person or by proxy at this meeting. This represents approximately 75.18% of our outstanding common shares as of the record date. I have been advised by the scrutineer that a quorum of shareholders is present.

I now declare that the meeting is regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business. The first item of business is presentation of the consolidated financial statements of NFI Group, Inc., for the fiscal year ended 29th December 2024 and the auditor's report thereon. A copy of the financial statements, together with management's discussion and analysis of operating results and auditor's report, were included in the corporation's annual report, which has been mailed to shareholders who requested copies and is available on NFI's website. NFI's consolidated financial statements and auditor's report are hereby tabled for purposes of this meeting, and no further action is required. We will now proceed with the appointment of auditors and the authorization of the directors to fix their remuneration.

I move and second that Deloitte LLP be appointed auditors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders and that the directors are authorized to fix their remuneration. You have heard the motion. All in favor, please raise your hands. Contrary, if any? Thank you. The next item of business is the election of directors. As previously disclosed, Mr. Chan Galbato recently stepped down from the board. Given that Mr. Galbato has stepped down, his nomination has been removed from the slate of directors proposed to be elected at this meeting, and votes for his election will be disregarded. As a result, 10 directors are to be elected, and information regarding the proposed nominees is set out in the information circular prepared in connection with the meeting.

I have pleasure in nominating Aziz Aghili, Larry Edwards, Adam Gray, Paulo Nunes, Anne Marie O'Donovan, Colin Robertson, Maryse Saint-Laurent, Jannet Walker Ford, Katherine Winter, and Paul Soubry as directors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are duly elected or appointed. The corporation's amended and restated Advance Notice Bylaw provides that nominations of directors by shareholders must be received by the corporation at least 30 days in advance of the meeting in order to be valid. As no such nominations were received by the corporation prior to the deadline, the nominations are closed. In accordance with the corporation's Majority Voting Policy, for a nominee to be elected and remain as a director, they must receive no less than a majority of the votes cast in favor of their election.

Based on the number of votes cast by proxy in advance of the meeting in respect of each nominee, I can report that all nominees have received a majority of votes cast for their election, and therefore I now declare that they have been duly elected directors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are duly elected or appointed. Slide 13. The next item of business is to consider and, if deemed appropriate, to pass an ordinary resolution in the form set out in Schedule A to the Management Information Circular regarding the corporation's 2025 Restricted Share Unit Plan for non-employee directors. To be effective, the resolution must be approved by a majority of the votes cast by shareholders of the corporation represented today and entitled to vote at the meeting.

The 2025 Restricted Share Unit Plan for non-employee directors has substantially the same material terms as the 2014 Restricted Share Unit Plan for non-employee directors, which is currently in place. The purposes of these Restricted Share Unit Plans are to attract, retain, and motivate highly qualified and experienced individuals to act as directors of NFI and certain of its affiliates and promote a greater alignment of interest between the participants and shareholders of NFI. An aggregate of 500,000 common shares of the corporation are issuable under the 2025 Restricted Share Unit. A general description of the plan is set forth in the Management Information Circular.

I move and second that the resolution, with respect to the adoption of the NFI Group, Inc., 2025 Restricted Share Unit Plan for non-employee directors in the form set out in Schedule A to the Management Information Circular, be passed as an ordinary resolution of the corporation. You have heard the motion. All in favor, please raise your hands. Thank you. Contrary, if any? Thank you. The last item of business is the approval on an advisory basis of the corporation's approach to executive compensation. I move and second to approve on an advisory basis and not to diminish the role and responsibilities of the directors that the shareholders accept the approach to executive compensation disclosed in the Management Information Circular. You have heard the motion. All in favor, please raise your hands. Contrary, if any?

Unless there are any questions, we will now allow some time for voting by those shareholders and proxy holders who are attending the meeting virtually. As I mentioned earlier, voting in the virtual meeting will be conducted by electronic ballot. Polls are open and registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders who have properly logged in with their control number or invite code, as applicable, and wish to vote will be able to see on the screens all motions being brought forth at this meeting. Please register your votes. We will provide approximately one minute to complete the electronic ballots. Once the electronic balloting process closes, the voting page will disappear and your votes will be automatically submitted.

I have been advised by the scrutineers that based on the ballots and proxies deposited for this meeting and the preliminary results of the voting, all motions have been voted in favour, and thus I declare all motions carried. The final voting results will be available after the meeting and posted on SEDAR. The formal items of business as set out in the notice of the meeting have now been dealt with. As there is no further business to be brought before the meeting, I move and second that the meeting now terminate. I declare the meeting now terminated. Thank you. I'm going to hand control back to Stephen King. Thank you, Stephen.

Stephen King
VP, Strategy and Investor Relations, NFI Group

Thanks, Colin. Always a thrilling event, and it's amazing how long a minute can feel sometimes.

A reminder to all participants, we'll be taking questions at the end of Paul's presentation from the individuals both in person and virtually. Please note that virtual questions can be submitted using the virtual meeting interface. Please click on the Q&A icon and type your question to management. We will read the questions aloud here in the room so that everybody hears it both online and in person. We will also continue to move the slides via the webcast link, and I'll now pass it over to Paul, who will give our management presentation.

Paul Soubry
President and CEO, NFI Group

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Stephen. We had our quarterly update earlier today, so we've abbreviated the presentation to give you an update on the company and some of the major initiatives that are happening, so thank you to those that have attended in person, to those online.

I'll walk through the first quarter, the highlights, and then the overall business. So I'm starting on slide 17 and 18 that provide cautionary or forward-looking statements, a list of key terms and definitions. We note that certain financial measures referenced today are not recognized earnings measures and do not have standardized meanings prescribed by the IFRS. We advise listeners to view our press releases and other public filings on SEDARs for more details. A reminder that all of the information presented is in U.S. dollars, and where there are other currencies referred to, we'll highlight that. So slide 19. Those of you who know our history, we started off as New Flyer here in Winnipeg and then had this wonderful opportunity over many, many years dating back to 1930 to expand the business, scope of the business, and the mandate.

And so we've really gone from a product-oriented business to a solution-oriented business. And so we define ourselves as a global independent bus, motor coach, and mobility solutions provider. Independent meaning we're not owned or controlled by any automotive or truck business, and therefore our ability to design, adapt, and integrate and enable technology is free to us. Bus and coach very focused, pure play within that segment and global now with the addition of Alexander Dennis five years ago. We're now outside of just North America. We've worked really hard on the product that we've been working across disruptions by COVID and supply chain dynamics and so forth, but we've made two key strategic decisions. Our platforms will be based on proven platforms, on proven production lines, and that whatever type of propulsion we build, we'll build on single and common lines.

Now, inherent in that is some inefficiency of labor and operations at the root level, but also what that gives us is infinite flexibility to pivot with our customers as we migrate through the different propulsion systems. We've worked really diligently on the last number of years of expanding the buses and services. Every single day, we've got over 100,000 vehicles in service. So not just the product design, delivery, but the support, the field service, publications, training, and so forth are all embedded in our business. Today we're back up to about 9,000 people across the globe. COVID, we lost about 2,500 people, downsized the business and sites, and now we're back up in full swing, and you see that in our results.

Slide 20 gives you a bit of a glimpse of kind of how we've tried to present ourselves to not only our shareholders, but to our customers, our employees, and more importantly, as we run our business, what's important to us, and while this graphic on the right of your screen may seem rather simplistic, we're trying to get every single leader in our business to, when we make decisions, to think about the impact on our constituents. If we make that decision, what does it mean for our people? What does it mean for our customers, and what does it mean for our shareholders, and at any one time, we're making decisions that might have one of those elements as the primary driver, but it's all about balance for the long term.

Quite frankly, the vast majority of our customers are public customers, which means we're playing with your and my tax dollars, so being a responsible corporate citizen and involved in our communities and responsible relative to the environment is fundamental. Now, over the last kind of 10 years, as we've brought all these businesses together, we took the values of each of those companies and we packaged them together and have recast the values of our company, so we're now in the process of laying that out and deploying it across the business, so now I'll move to slide 21, and what it does is try to showcase the range of product and services that we provide at current count with size, type of vehicle, and propulsion systems. We have about 60 different models.

The migration to pure electric, whether it be battery electric, fuel cell electric, or trolley electric. We have over 265 million of electric service miles, and so we kind of chuckle when we hear about startups coming into markets of about, you know, if you've got a million miles, we have an awful lot of experience, and some of it has been very painful learning over the years, but we are well up the path of how to design, build, deliver, and support electric vehicles. The other thing we've tried to do is to migrate with our customers. Filling a diesel or a natural gas bus, which evolved over the years, is easy. When you go into our customers' depots, them dealing with zero-emission vehicles, whether it's battery electric with electricity or fuel cell electric, is not trivial.

And so what we've tried to do is migrate with them by providing services to install or design, install, and deploy charging infrastructure. And so as we stand here today, we're nearly 100 megawatts of charging infrastructures that have been installed since 2018 with a business we call NFI Infrastructure Solutions. Now, our Q1 revenue is, by geography, it's obviously predominantly North America, but what you can see on the bottom right there is we've started to grow both geographically, but also expanding the product business, the various products within our business. We cannot underestimate the impact of our parts business. You've got 100,000 installed vehicles on the road. And what we've done over the last number of years is we've tried to bring all of those parts under a common umbrella, tighten up the cost of that machine, and run more parts through it to be way more efficient.

The cash flow, the customer support dynamics, and the reach of our aftermarket business is absolutely significant. On slide 22, just a highlight of the various brands. Now, when we go around North America and talk to investors, very few understand what NFI is. And we created the NFI moniker as a corporate brand because that is our stock symbol. But in reality, the real relationship with customers is the product brands. And so on the far left, the legacy business, New Flyer transit buses, the largest provider in North America. Next to that is Motor Coach, ironically founded two years later here in Winnipeg in 1932, the largest motor coach provider for both public and private customers. We acquired ARBOC in 2017, I believe.

ARBOC started off as a low-floor cutaway manufacturer, so meaning a truck-based chassis that we modified the chassis and put a body on it. And that business has really started to come into its own, and the vast majority of ARBOC customers are also New Flyer customers. And ARBOC in the last couple of years is now migrating to add to its portfolio medium-class vehicles, so shuttles and community shuttles. And finally, the addition of Alexander Dennis in 2019 has allowed us to think not only from a double-deck perspective in North America, but in terms of opportunities in the UK and around the world. Next one. So I'm on now 23. Really a bit of a sorry eye chart, but to give you a flavor. In North America, the vast majority of transit agencies live within an umbrella called APTA, which is the American Public Transit Association.

A number of years ago, we stratified those customers by size of customer, not geography, but based on the way they buy and operate their facilities. There are 25 large agencies in Canada, the United States. There's about 100 agencies that are medium-sized operators, and then there's about 1,100 small operators. We've chosen to play with the large operators and the medium-sized operators. And so prominent on this chart would be everything from Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Los Angeles, Dallas, and so forth. You can see a vast array of customers across North America. At any one day in North America, between our public and our private business, we have about 500 field service technicians supporting our vehicles, half of which are employees, and the other half are extension through contracts in our business.

On the far right, the addition of Alexander Dennis now opens up our eyes to the U.K. and internationally. And it's not only important from a market perspective, but from a learning perspective. What we see in the U.K. internationally is also how global competitors are playing in the bus space. And so we're learning a lot about how Daimler and Volvo and TRATON and so forth compete on an international basis. In the U.K., there's kind of two types of operators. There's the big groups in London, and then there's distributed operators throughout the U.K. And so we sell buses to both of those types of operators. And in the Pacific Rim, Alexander Dennis is the dominant double-deck provider with massive fleets, for example, in Hong Kong, and significant fleets, for example, in Singapore or New Zealand. Next slide, 23.

You've heard a lot in our materials, and Colin referred to it this morning. Backlog is really important because what backlog allows us to do is actually plan our current capacity, but our capacity going forward. Our backlog now represents $13.8 billion and is north of 15,000 units. Close to 40% of that backlog is fixed. 60% of those are options. And what we've seen over the last year is the option conversion rate, LTM, is up around 76%. So it's not that we're guaranteed the next couple of years of business, but we have very good insights into what we're going to build through 2025 and into 2026 and 2027. Our option backlog actually goes out to 2030. So in 2024, we added 9,489 units to our backlog, so massive, massive awards. And in the first quarter alone of this year, we added 2,503 equivalent units.

The great news in there is that we have everything from ICE, or internal combustion engines, all the way through battery electric and fuel cell, and you'll see some of the important names that have awarded us business in this past year. Slide 24. This shows you the history of the backlog, and many will remember our dynamics. Yes, we had lots of challenges through COVID and supply chain, but we also saw the SPAC phenomenon in North America where all kinds of international players showed up and said, "We're going to stand up facilities. We're going to make zero-emission buses. One of them, we're going to do it with complete robotics and 3D print, and this bus was going to be built," and so forth, going through billions of dollars. We've seen significant drop-off on competitors, some leaving the market and some going bankrupt.

What this has allowed us to do is actually grow through a period of time the size of our total backlog. The dark gray on the bottom shows you what portion of our backlog is firm, and the light blue there shows you the number of units that are options. The black line takes from a scenario back in Q1 of 2019 through to now where we're almost $14 billion of backlog. And yes, there are funding dynamics in the United States with DOGE and looking at the size of the FTA and the funding vehicles. Very excited to see in the last couple of days the U.S. government proceed with announcements associated with funding that continued backlog. I'm now on slide 26.

The other thing that goes with the backlog, and this started probably about a year and a half ago, as a lot of these companies came into our space and a number of our competitors were struggling and many went away. The White House at the time got very concerned through and pushing the FTA, saying, "We're giving you all this funding to build buses for North American cities." The problem is the contractual relationship was heavily one-sided towards the customer, everything from how to deal with price escalation dynamics to hyperinflation, milestone payments, and so forth. And that culminated in a White House meeting February of 2024 where the industry got together, operators and OEs like us, to explain to the FTA the realities of those contracting dynamics. The result of that was major changes to the way we contract.

The first was that the vast majority of contracts today have milestone payments, and when a bus was $400,000 or $500,000, where it's now a million plus, we were financing that working capital. The second issue was language around how price redetermination mechanisms would work where there are unplanned events, whether it be government changes in policy or whether it be hyperinflation dynamics. The last element that started in there is this issue of customization and trying to work with operators to move somewhat from unlimited customization into configuration of vehicles, and that continues today, so the output of that was the FTA issued what they call Dear Colleague Letters, which is the way in which the FTA communicates with the grantees of the public money.

I'm really pleased to hear in the last two weeks that that first round of the task force for APTA and the FTA has been rejuvenated with a whole new set of chairs, both of which are customers of ours. We've been invited back to Washington on February 19th to re-kick off this task force to work on everything from how to deal with tariffs to what the next funding bills look like, the customization dynamic. The last element is this whole issue around cybersecurity. One of the concerns we have as an industry, if every customer has a different cybersecurity dynamic, the ability to comply as a manufacturer is a relevant challenge. So massive progress on the contractual vehicles in addition to the funding that we have in the backlog. Slide 27 talks about the recovery of our business.

I very much appreciate many of the shareholders that have stuck with us through some very difficult times. We lost an awful lot of money managing through COVID, but more importantly, the dynamics associated with supply chain. You can see the recovery of the business. Thank God we had a very strong and well-defined aftermarket parts business that continues to have lots of opportunity. I should note that the aftermarket parts has gone from being just selling parts for our buses to we're now an aftermarket parts business for the bus and coach industry, expanding the basket of parts and the ways in which we sell to customers. I am very pleased to see massive recovery in 2024 and continued recovery here in 2025 on both the OE business and the aftermarket. That leads us to slide 28.

Notwithstanding the tariff dynamic and the funding uncertainty, three or four years ago, we set some targets for 2025 to get over $350 million of Adjusted EBITDA. Now, we've put brackets around that today in terms of our guidance for this year, $320 million to $360 million. But you see in the top left the dynamic of volume drop, the numbers in the boxes. We troughed in 2020-2022. We could have reduced our workforce even more dramatically than the 2,500 we let go. Our concern, though, is our backlog was growing dramatically. We send the people home, we'll never be able to execute on the backlog. So we tightened up our cost base, and now we've been able to execute on that. So the revenue obviously has guidance between $3.8 billion and $4.2 billion this year.

On the top right, the Adjusted EBITDA, you can see we troughed in 2022 with actual negative results in Adjusted EBITDA, massive recovery to 2023, significant recovery to 2024. And again, very excited about what our current guidance and forecast is for 2025. The bottom left, the CapEx. We spent a significant amount of money in 2018 setting up a fabrication business in the United States that makes parts for our business. And we've been able to manage our CapEx through those lean years, and now we expect to spend between $50 and $60 million this year. And the new credit agreement that the team's put in place now takes the handcuffs on our ability to finance any investments, either in product improvements or facilities. And then finally, what's most important to our shareholders, even I know that a negative return on capital is not a good thing.

We've come a long, long way and expect tremendous recovery again this year. I'm now on slide 29. In addition to the pride that we've put in our business, we've been able to really now get some both provincial and federal support focusing on our business. Earlier this year, we had a partnership between us, the Manitoba government, and the federal government to bring back to Canada for the first time in almost 15 years the complete build of customer buses in Canada. We called it Project True North. We had the federal government, the provincial government, and us announcing earlier this year that that is going to happen. We toured our board through yesterday. We're well down the path now of expanding our facility. We've leased some completion space across the street.

I think it's September 20th, our first all-Canadian electric bus build will go online here in Winnipeg. Very great news for us. The next slide. We were fortunate enough just in the middle of the election. Prime Minister – brand new Prime Minister Carney – got a call Sunday morning at 7:00 A.M., "Hey, can we see your facility on Tuesday?" It was wonderful to see our team respond, fantastic to see our new Prime Minister walking through our facility, talking to people, asking about their backgrounds, asking about their capability in our industry, and so forth. Then, of course, Mr. Carney was elected our Prime Minister. It was a really good opportunity to help showcase what we can do from Canada and the heartbeat of what New Flyer is all about here in Winnipeg. Finally, a picture of two things.

One is just some fun awards here in Winnipeg, but it's very well celebrated in Winnipeg. It's called the Winnipeg Spirit Award, and this is all about communicating and being part of the community. You can see our illustrious Stephen King did a fantastic presentation and tap dance on the stage. And then the next slide on slide 32 shows that we've once again recognized one of the most prominent employers here in the province of Manitoba. And that isn't just a Manitoba dynamic. We take all of those things very seriously across all of our, I think it's 40 locations around the world today. So finally, I'm on slide 33. Before I open it up for any questions, either online and Michael will call it if there's any questions. Thank you, Colin, for taking over the chairmanship of our business. Aziz and Maryse, thanks for joining the team.

Krystyna Hoeg, who's left us today after, I think, 11 years on the board, tremendous service and support to us. We've been through hell as a business, and so to watch our team rally with relatively minor turnover in our people, very few changes in the middle or the senior executive leadership ranks and stick with the business has been remarkable, and so we're really proud about this chapter now where there's more wind in our sails than there's wind in our face. We've got in the room with us today, and I know a bunch online. We've had tremendous support from our advisors, our lawyers, and probably most importantly, our bank partners who have gone through a numerous amount of credit agreement revisions and extensions and amendments, and then, of course, yesterday, announcement of a completely new senior credit agreement.

So, really appreciate the engagement and support from those banks. Our investor has been patient. Thank you for that. I think yesterday proved positive. Today proves positive. We still got to put a number of runs on the board, but we really feel like, as I said before, there's way more tailwinds than there are headwinds. Our customers have stuck with us, and our customers have been very, very lenient in lots of issues. We haven't delivered our bus on parts on time given parts issues. We've had challenges with zero-emission buses like the old industry has. But we as a business have stood up, and they have stood by us, and so we're very, very grateful and finally, our suppliers and customers, we got a few that we're still struggling with.

But if you walk through our business and looked at parts and station availability, we're back to the way the game was pre-COVID. So that whole ecosystem and network of people that have stuck with us and supported us, we greatly appreciate that. So with that, I'll take any questions in the room if anybody has any. If not, Michael, if you have any online, let me know.

Colin Robertson
Chair of the Board of Directors, NFI Group

Really nice cookies at the back, by the way, if you're interested.

Paul Soubry
President and CEO, NFI Group

Michael, any questions? Okay. Thank you very much. So this concludes the meeting. Thank you for coming. Thanks for your support. Look forward to even better results next quarter and next year. Thank you.

Operator

This concludes the meeting. You may now.

Powered by