Good morning. My name is Stacy, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Savaria Corporation's Q1 2021 Conference Call. All lines have been placed on 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, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. This call may contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to the disclosure statement contained in Savaria's most recent press release issued on May the 11th, 2021, with respect to the Q1 2021 results. Thank you. Mr. Bourassa, you may begin your conference.
Thank you, Stacy. Bonjour, everyone. It's a pleasure to present to you our Q1 with my guys. My guys, financial is Steve, the guy of lot of experience on acquisition, but he handle the ceiling lift, the patient handling. That's Nicolas Rimbert. The guy who integration, it's my son, Sébastien Bourassa. They will answer. You can ask directly the answer to them or if not, I will refer to my specialists. I am very excited to present you Q1. Why I am excited? I think we make a mega acquisition with Handicare that put us on this path to succeed. We have done that in Q1. I think our sales beat the street. Our EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA beat the street. You will see that will continue throughout the year.
We have a next, and that's important when you make a mega acquisition, to have a good start. We have a great start. The people, I repeat, the people are enthusiastic to work with us. Not directly in person, but we meet a lot of people from Handicare, and they are great people, and they want to focus with us to have the same goal, to help the people make the products for people, the aging of the population. It's accurately, "Stay Home with Savaria." I think that's a great logo that many people, many old people, they want to stay at home. They want to stay at home. My people work hard. Thanks to my people. My people who are in acquisition, the people that we make the acquisition work very hard. We are on the same page. Imagine one thing.
We have Span-America, we have Garaventa, we have Handicare, and we have Savaria. It's not just Handicare and Savaria. No, that's Handicare, and with the products, we have similar to Span-America, with the patient handling. It will be tremendous what we will do for North America in this division. We don't have to forget that. After that, we have Garaventa. They are in Europe. We will try to make some cross-selling with Handicare. We already begin that with Handicare and Garaventa, some products. What make a successful company? It's I think three item that is very important to make success. It's products, territory, peoples. You can say if you want peoples first. Me, the three as quite important. That exactly what we have with this key acquisition. It's fun. The result will be there.
The result of selling our products to Handicare will be more there in 2022. We already begin that on the cross-selling. It's great. I have one goal. I don't see before I retired. Sébastien, don't get too excited. I will stay at least until 2025 to make my personal goal and the personal goal of my people to reach CAD 1 billion of sales by 2025. It will take good internal growth that we can do. We are in better position than ever to make internal growth. Maybe some little acquisition here and there to make always some complement. I am very excited, but it's time to begin your questions. Again, thank you very much to be there. I read some people this morning about what they think about our Q1 in the future.
We see some upgrade from some broker. Thank you very much. Our success is the success of my analysts, too. We're ready for the call. Stacy.
Marcel, do you want me to give the financial update?
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. That's you, Steve.
Okay. Thanks, Marcel. Good morning, everyone. I'm going to begin with some remarks regarding our Q1 2021 consolidated financial metrics. For the quarter, the corporation generated revenue of CAD 112.1 million, up CAD 23.7 million or 26.8% compared to Q1 2020, mainly due to the acquisition of Handicare on March 4th, 2021. Gross profit and gross margin stood at CAD 38.9 million and 34.7%, respectively, compared to CAD 30.1 million and 34.1% for Q1 2020. The increase in gross profit over prior year was attributable to the acquisition of Handicare, as well as a favorable product mix. Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA margin stood at CAD 17.3 million and 15.4%, respectively, compared to CAD 12.4 million and 14% in Q1 2020.
The increases in Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA margin were mainly attributable to the acquisition of Handicare, as previously mentioned, as well as CAD 1.1 million in COVID-19 employment retention government of Canada subsidies received during Q1 2021, as well as continued corporation-wide cost containment efforts. I'll move on to our segment results. Revenue from our accessibility segment was CAD 80.6 million in Q1 2021, an increase of CAD 18 million or 28.7% compared to Q1 2020. The increase in revenue is mainly attributable to the acquisition of Handicare, which contributed an increase of 34%, while organically revenues contracted 4% and foreign currency also had a negative impact of approximately 1%. The contraction in revenues is the consequence of the economic slowdown caused by the global pandemic impacting the entire first quarter of 2021, while having a minimal impact last year in Q1 2020.
Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin, both before head office costs, stood at CAD 13.9 million and 17.2%, respectively, compared to CAD 10.4 million at 16.5% for Q1 2020. The improvements in both metrics were due to the acquisition of Handicare. Revenue from our patient handling segment was CAD 25.5 million for the year, an increase of CAD 4.5 million or 21.5% when compared to Q1 2020. The acquisition of Handicare contributed 29.5% of growth, while organically revenues contracted 4% and foreign exchange had a negative impact of almost 4%. Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin, both before head office costs, stood at CAD 3.7 million and 14.5%, respectively, compared to CAD 2.5 million and 11.9% for Q1 2020. The increase in both metrics was mainly due to the acquisition of Handicare.
Revenue generated from the adapted vehicle segment was CAD 6 million, an increase of CAD 1.2 million or 24% when compared to the same period in 2020. Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin, both before head office costs, finished at CAD 0.6 million and 10.4%, respectively, compared to effectively nil EBITDA in Q1 2020. The increases in revenue and adjusted EBITDA margin when comparing Q1 2021 to Q1 2020 were again mainly due to the acquisition of Handicare, as well as the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy received. Now turning to some financial liquidity metrics. During the quarter, the corporation increased its debt level as a result of financing the Handicare acquisition on a pro forma trailing 12-month basis. The corporation's debt to Adjusted EBITDA ratio at March 31st, 2021, was 3.5 times.
The corporation expects strong cash generation to continue and coupled with additional available financing, continued discipline in terms of working capital management and capital expenditures, the corporation has ample liquidity to fund future projects and investments. Looking ahead, although it remains difficult to quantify the continued impact of the current pandemic accurately, based on the results of Q1 2021, coupled with the corporation's confidence in the strategic integration plan with Handicare that is underway and strong underlying long-term growth fundamentals for our markets, management anticipates the corporation will be able to achieve an Adjusted EBITDA in excess of CAD 100 million during fiscal 2021. With that, this completes my prepared remarks. Marcel, I'll turn the call back over to you.
Steve, thank you very much. Very well done. It's always more easier, okay, when we have good numbers, but at least, okay, you have done very good in your presentation. Do we go to some question?
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, that is star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Once again, that is star one. Your first question comes from Derek Lessard from TD Securities.
Good morning, everybody. Congratulations on the quarter. Obviously, I'd like to talk maybe about some, if any, commodity, labor, or inflation pressures within your businesses that you're seeing and maybe, if you are seeing those, some of your mitigation efforts there.
Yes, we are seeing that. Okay, Sébastien, you want to answer on that one?
Good morning, Derek. Yes, there's inflation, okay, I would say, like any industry right now for the electronics, the steel, maybe front the transportation cost. Maybe through the year, we could maybe see a 10% inflation in different parts supply. I think at different times during the year, okay, each division, we pass some price increase to the customer. As example, if we get a 10% inflation during the year, we might pass a 5% increase to our customer. You might see some small noise from one quarter to the other, but definitely on the long term, we should be able to keep the same margins. Don't forget one thing, we are quite vertical integrated, like from China to Toronto to different place in our organization.
Whenever there's inflation, we try to have a counter project that maybe we can make some saving. Maybe we can start to be more vertical integrated. I think on the long term, we should not be worried about that.
That full, let's say, 10% inflation, you expect to offset it either through price increases or through internal initiatives.
Exactly. I say we could see up to 10% during the year. I did not say we were exactly right now at 10%, but definitely we are able to adapt to our business model.
Okay, thanks. Maybe now that you've had some time with Handicare now under your belt, just wondering if you guys have been able to identify maybe some other areas or other synergy opportunities that you perhaps didn't see during your initial due diligence?
Yes, for sure. For me, don't forget, they are like a Savaria. In other country, and with some other dealer than we have. You know something, at beginning, we say, or we're just mentioning about you knew about the stairlift, straight stairlift, curved stairlift. Now we say, "Hey, with Span, we can have a good mix of this project with their division in North America." We have Garaventa, that we can work together, and to cover more territory in Europe. What is important, that we were not seeing that before. We see right now that on technology, they are very strong. We learn from them. That's good. When you are a partner, you learn just not one side, you have to listen to the other side, too.
We learn, that with the people down there, the guy, Peter, who run all the production. We can learn a lot from them and be better of what we do right now. Their equipment, their use of laser or welding robot, I think they are better than us. That's good to meet somebody, they are better than us. For sure, we learn on marketing. I think, down there, we have Clare, who's in charge of marketing and sales. I think she's not good, she's very good. We learn more to have meeting. Sébastien can explain that later, but we have meetings, with them every week. On different subject, and we have sub-committee that go deeply in one subject. We learn that it will be better than what I was thinking at the beginning.
Thanks for that, Marcel. Congratulations again, and I'll recue.
Thank you very much.
Your next question comes from Frederic Tremblay from Desjardins.
Bonjour, Frederic.
[Foreign language] .
Merci.
Marcel, on your revenue target of CAD 1 billion by the end of 2025, can you share your vision as to how the profile of Savaria may evolve to get there? Will the company continue to expand geographically or will it add new product?
Oh, you know, me, it's what we know right now. Example, many country around the world that we're not there, they need our kind of products. Really, I push that we can be better in North America with the new products that they have. They are one of the king in their product, the straight and curved. I think in Europe, it will be a good complement, what is doing Garaventa down there. They have one manufacturer in China. We have one manufacturer in China. We don't sell a lot. They don't sell a lot in China. That is great territory. That's even in our strategy to bring a curved stairlift, all the equipment that we'll build directly in China to sell to this market.
You know what is important on the curved stairlift is how many days it takes you to bring that to the consumer. The consumer, when they are ready to buy, they are ready to buy now. It's why, in Toronto, Sébastien can talk about that, we will have, by the end of this year, working equipment, the same that they have down there in Europe. That will be in Toronto for the North American market. It's very exciting. You know something, when you do the math, it would take more a lot of magic, new things to beat this CAD 1 billion to do that sooner. Yes, we can find other thing, but I think we have a super right now, super products. When we see a dealer, nobody in the world can offer all our products at the same place. That's something.
You go to a dealer, you say, "Oh, you know, by the way, we have that, that." We have the Vuelift. The Vuelift is a great product to sell. The team of Handicare is right behind us. They love this product. It takes time to sell a stairlift than sell a Vuelift. It's two different products. They are enthusiastic about that, and I think we will push that, and we will see some great number coming from Europe on this Vuelift. This Vuelift is a product, outstanding. Nobody's doing something similar than that. Yeah, I'm quite excited.
Great. Thank you. Maybe a question for Nick, on the patient handling side. Can you just maybe provide Updated thoughts or views on how the demand environment is shaping up there in terms of access to facilities. We saw that the organic growth decline in this segment was less severe in Q1. Is that a sign that things are starting to improve on the demand side for that segment?
Thanks, Fred. I would say the short answer is yes, although it is largely dependent on geography. You have many pockets of the U.S., for example, which have reopened or are in the process of reopening, notably in the South, for example. However, there are other regions that remain closed, including Canada or I guess many parts of Canada, such as Ontario. That being said, I think we had a very strong month of March. It was very strong, not only for Handicare, but also for Span-America. I think that bodes well and gives us a lot of positivism as we move into Q2. Some other things just to think about, the hospitals are coming back. That's something that is good for our business in terms of hospitals being able to, I guess, provide these elective surgeries.
That's where they make quite a bit of their profits. Again, more profits, more means of investments in capital equipment and the like. Maybe just a little anecdotal piece of news. Our head of sales, Clyde, he was telling me when I was talking to him earlier this week that he just attended his first in-person trade show in over a year. That was great for him and for that community to get together in person. Yes, I would say, Fred, to go back maybe that was a long-winded way of answering it, but I would say yes, it is reopening. Again, we saw that primarily in March. Our order intake is good. The backlog is looking pretty strong. I think we're more positive. Again, still cautious.
Like I said, there are still pockets that are struggling here in Canada in particular. Cautiously optimistic, let me put it that way.
Great. Maybe just a follow-up to that on the margin side, 14.5% in the quarter. Another, I guess, second consecutive quarter of margins above your, I guess, previously stated goal of 13%-14% for this segment. Any read-through there for what to expect moving forward, or there was some one-time items in there that boosted the margin in the quarter?
You know. Oh, excuse me.
Maybe you must.
You will complement, okay? I want long term, okay, I see that we should stick, okay, and when we will be at CAD 1 billion, we should stick, okay, to have something around 16.5%, okay? That's our goal, okay? I think with the people, we have great people, okay? All my key people in Savaria, okay, are around 40 years old, okay? Some are a little bit younger, okay? They are strong, okay? These is people with talent, okay? We find that too with our other division that we work with, okay? You want to complement that, Nicolas?
The one thing I would say is that, we saw that exiting last year, the margin improvement it was apparent in Q3 and Q4. We had the contribution of Handicare here in the first quarter, which again helps. Again, going back to what I was saying earlier, that both of us had a very good strong month of March. That kind of definitely helped in terms of the margin contribution of Handicare in the quarter. That 13%, 14%, it is, I would say maybe the low bar, right? Marcel talked about 15%. Yes, that is where we're striving to get to.
Again, I don't know what you're modeling there for the rest of the year, but again, we are positive in this segment, and we should see some margin improvement there as well, especially as we work on some of the synergies that Marcel mentioned earlier between the Span-America and the Handicare teams.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Fred.
Your next question comes from Nick Agostino from Laurentian Bank.
Bonjour, Nick.
Bonjour. I guess a couple of questions. First, on the Vuelift, can you guys talk to the demand, specifically within Europe, how that product is being received in that market?
Oh, yes. Okay. Sébastien will look about that because he manufactured that. He can do the numbers with manufacture this year and in 2020, how many? This year, 2021, coming from our Alex, our guy of sales, in Montreal. Other salesmen. We know the number and what we expected is basically what we will do in Europe. It's a great product. I think the margin is good on this project. We are in our complete different company than other people who try to offer something similar. Can you talk about your prediction, Sébastien, your goal?
Basically, Vuelift, Nick, just to give you a rough idea of numbers. Last year, okay, we did around 100 units. This year, our target is to do around 180 units. I would say my backlog of Vuelift had the best it has been since the beginning. There's a lot of marketing effort that has been done. A good push in Europe, especially like in Germany and Switzerland with the Garaventa. Now Handicare is starting to talk to their dealer in Europe, to their direct location. I think it would take time, but you will see some traction. Definitely this year, the 180 units for the Vuelift is possible. We said previously that by 2023, we would like to be around CAD 30 million of sales. I think we are in the right direction.
I will say the Vuelift also has a big impact on all the other elevators, like the Eclipse, the Infinity, the Garaventa home elevators. We are quite busy in the home elevator segment. Our backlog is good. For sure, not all the business is good. The commercial is still trailing a bit behind the incline platform, the vertical platform. You can see the residential with the home elevator, the Stairlift. That's a strong segment in this 2021 years.
My second question on the adapted vehicles, obviously a 10% EBITDA margin. Obviously, there is obviously some benefit from Handicare. If you look at your base business before the acquisition, you guys are undergoing that restructuring. Maybe just give us an update as to where that sits today and where you guys think you'll exit the year when it comes to EBITDA margin on your base adapted vehicle business.
Sébastien?
I think previously we said that the target for the car business was a 10% of EBITDA. There has been some noise in the last two years because the sales were not there. We have restructured a bit. I think between the mix of the Savaria and the Handicare Norway, I think a 10% target for the car business over a certain time should be a good target for the segment of the business.
Yeah. Just to complement that, okay, that's good, Sébastien. We can say, okay, that during the pandemic, okay, it's not easy, but if you are in wheelchair, okay, man, it's even, okay, more difficult, okay. We have Finland, okay, Norway that make 10%, okay, and I think we have some good perspective, okay, to continue on this side, okay, and Van Action, okay, we work hard, okay, and me, if we can make 10% out in this division, I'm not happy, I am very happy.
Okay. My last question, with regards to Handicare, you spoke earlier about maybe some of the positive observations from that acquisition. Now you've had two months to look under the hood there. I'm wondering, are there any things that caught you by surprise to the negative, where maybe you feel that at Savaria, you're doing a better job at, and you can, I guess, port over to Handicare to improve their operations. Anything you can go back to them with from the Savaria side?
The only surprise that when we take possession, that was quite a surprise, that was the departure of their CFO, Pernilla. She say she want to be the CFO. She know that we have CEO. She find a job in his hometown. This is less traveling time, we understand, she is great. She help us to transfer more responsibility for the people that we have in U.K. That's the only thing. All the other thing that was negative. All the other thing are just one thing, positive.
Okay. Thank you, guys.
Thank you, Nick.
Your next question comes from Zachary Evershed from National Bank Financial.
Hi, Zach.
Good morning. It's actually Thomas calling in for Zach. Congrats on that strong quarter. Two quick ones from me. First of all, can you remind us how Handicare's accessibility residential versus commercial split compares to Savaria's, and how each end market is faring in the current reopening?
Okay, that's an interesting question. Very interesting. I am lucky. I think I can pass this ball, okay, to general with you, Mr. Rimbert, okay.
Okay, perfect. As you know, Handicare's accessibility segment is comprised of stair lifts, both straight and curved stair lifts. Those products are sold primarily in the residential space, in homes. Yes, you may find in some commercial settings, like maybe a community center of the like, I would say that for all intents and purposes, you can think of that as being a residential product.
On the Savaria side, in a more normal environment, so I would say kind of maybe pre-COVID, our business was roughly split 50/50 in terms of our commercial and residential applications. Again, you have many of our platform lifts, like the Inclined Platform Lift and many of our vertical platform lifts that are more maybe a commercial-oriented product. Obviously our residential elevators and the Stairlifts that we were selling and some maybe small porch lifts are more geared towards the residential space. What we've seen in the past year, in particular during this COVID pandemic, is that our residential activity has maintained and has actually done very well. While the commercial has lagged a bit as many of those reduced foot traffic, for example, in shopping centers, schools being closed.
All of that has had a negative impact, I would say, on the commercial side of the business. Maybe in the current year, it's a little heavier weighted towards residential. Again, going forward, as the economy is opening back up and that commercial business comes back, we may see it tilt, maybe not quite back to 50/50, but it'll be closer to that. Okay. Thank you.
That's helpful. Maybe a second one for me. How does management feel about M&A and the usual dividend increase given the company's current leverage levels?
Can you repeat quickly your question?
Yes, absolutely. I was wondering how management feels about the usual dividend increase and the M&A prospects given the current leverage?
That's a good question, and that's for me. Dividends is part of our culture, I would say, that we have always some kind of increase, and we always do that in September. You will see in September about the dividend. After that, acquisition. Just there were four big companies that we worked with, Span-America, for sure, and Handicare, and with Garaventa, and all the projects that we have at Savaria. Just going all around that, we don't need to make any acquisition. We have enough to push this company to the CAD 1 billion, just our four transit Always, going to one territory, the other territory, and to the new products.
For sure, our dealer, okay, will feel maybe some pressure to buy the Stairlift from Handicare to stay always in the same family, okay? Now they will always say, "Oh, your products in the Stairlift are so-so, not the best, okay? If you have another one, come to visit us." Now we are there, okay? We say to our people, "Hey, we are one of the best or, if not the best, in the category of Stairlift." Okay? We don't need to make other acquisitions, just play around our key period right now and just find new territory. It's just exciting that you arrive at the number, but we have to buy this company. No. Where we're at right now, we are very busy, and my people, okay, are very in the game. That's our plan, okay? No acquisition, okay? Major, for sure.
Perfect. Thank you very much. That's all I have.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Justin Keywood from Stifel Bank.
Bonjour.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Just had a question of clarification on the organic growth. If I heard correctly, it was negative 4% overall in the quarter, but I also heard that there was some FX impact. I guess my question is, does that organic growth include the negative headwinds from foreign exchange?
Steve?
Yep. I can take that one. It's overall on a consolidated basis, the organic contraction was 5%. In the accessibility and patient handling segments, it was 4%, so that's where the 4% came from. The FX impact overall on a consolidated basis was 1.7%, so looking at consolidated Savaria. Those are two separate numbers and the 5% does not include that 1.7%. It's 5% on organic and 1.7% on foreign exchange.
Okay. Maybe closer to a 3% contraction then. That's helpful. I'm just wondering when we're expecting the business to inflect as far as the organic growth coming back, kind of see the near double digits that Savaria has seen in the past. Are we there now, or is there a potential quarter upcoming where you see that potentially playing out?
Okay. I would take this one. I tell you that you will see a major change in Q2 about organic growth. Major change. The change will be that I think we can be back in the 8%-10% just on organic growth to make our CAD 1 billion without acquisition, but we will see. No, we are in the game. You will see at Q2. Q2 is exciting. We know a little bit. We are in the middle of May. It's half of the quarter. If we aren't able to know exactly or quite exactly the number of Q2, we have a problem. We don't have a problem. We're excited. We see the booking. The booking is just in Toronto.
The booking is up 60% in April 2021 compared to April 2020. That's in Toronto. That's where we make our money. Handicare is very happy. They have good growth. They are very busy. When you put that all together, I am excited about the number that we'll show you in Q2. Q2, we will have Handicare for three months, and we will have this little bit battle pandemic to pandemic because last year in Q2, we were in pandemic. I say to my people, "We don't have to beat the Q2 of 2020." We are running about the Q2 of 2019. That's the real comparison that we can do. You will see that now we will see some good growth. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. That's very clear. My last question is just on the cash generation. It was quite strong in the quarter. Cash from ops was near CAD 28 million. I believe that's a record for the company. Just wondering if there's anything particular to account for that generation.
Yeah. We have our specialists on that, Steve.
Yeah, sure. Justin, just quickly, we have a payable for the remaining 4.6% of Handicare shares that we're yet to acquire. We're working towards getting advanced title on those, and we're in the middle of the squeeze-out process. That's set up as a payable, and that's where that showed up in the cash flow. That CAD 19 million is pushing that CAD 27 million higher. That's something that we're not going to see continue.
Got it. Sorry, what was that amount that was in the payables?
It's about CAD 19 million, CAD 20 million, CAD 19.6 million.
Okay. All right, great. Thank you for taking my questions.
Okay. Thank you. Good day.
Your next question comes from Michael Doumet, from Scotiabank.
Hey, good morning, guys. Hey, good morning. I joined the call a little late, so I apologize if some of the questions are a little bit redundant.
I did hear some really interesting comments just in the last couple of minutes. Marcel, on your comments about the organic growth, I think you referenced 8%-10%. That doesn't necessarily get you to 2019 levels. For Q2, is the idea that we sort of get back to above pre-COVID levels, or is that going to take a little bit longer?
You will see that we will be quite strong, okay? I don't want to promise something that I will not deliver, okay? For sure, okay, we will beat easily, okay, 2020. Let's start by that.
Okay. It does sound like you're optimistic, at least from a sequential perspective, that there is improvement. That's noted. Maybe going back to even the prior comment, I understand that you don't expect to need to make any large acquisitions to get to that CAD 1 billion in sales by 2025. Using the 2022 consensus estimate for sales, I mean, that would imply about 10% annual growth on a per year basis. Presumably, you would do some tuck-ins there as well, so organic wouldn't have to necessarily be 10%, but is that the right way to think about it?
Actually, I don't know if it's the right way, but I think like that. We are at least to think like that.
Okay. No, that's great. Okay, maybe getting to the nitty-gritty, and again, I was late to the call, so if these questions have been asked, I apologize, but any way you can talk to the organic growth rate and the top-line trends that you're seeing in accessibility for Handicare? If I remember correctly, Handicare's organic growth momentum was quite positive in the second half of last year. Was that maintained so far in Q1?
Oh, yes, for sure. Okay. They had a very good Q1. It's looking very good to have a good Q2. If we take everybody out together in the accessibility, we will see go back maybe for near 10% that will be until the end of this year. I am very optimistic. We've seen our booking just even on the curved stairlifts. Our curved stairlifts, we see a progress more than 50% in our manufacturing of curved stairlifts, and even the straight, we have a good improvement. It's like the car, they are all together, you walk to another dealer. By the way, to buy Handicare, that push ourself of straight and curve. Plus, we have our Stay Home.
Stay at home, okay, is very important. People are aging, okay? When you are aging, you have problem with the steps, okay? W e are Savaria to help you, okay? As always, this is a beautiful industry. I was excited in this industry 30 years ago, and even I am more excited right now because our customer makes you a chair, okay, with a smile. We can strengthen this, okay, to be in an industry, okay, that you help the people. Our foundation was going very well. This year, by the end of this year, we will have given, okay, over CAD 1 million, okay, in our foundation to the people who need some mobility. I am very strong on helping kids, okay? Kids is the future. It's good to be able to do all that at Savaria.
You think about other people, our employees, okay, they stay with us for years and years and years, okay? Maybe I pay too much, but I am very happy that they stay. They are motivated, and that the success, okay, that we have at Savaria. When we have other people that they have the same spirit, okay, here we are, okay, the organic growth is come back. You will see at Q2.
That's great. That's fantastic color, Marcel. I appreciate it. Maybe one last question. Are you seeing any green shoots on the commercial side? Do you have any views on the potential incrementals from the proposed American Jobs Plan that calls for about CAD 400 billion of investment in eight years for care and elderly people with disabilities?
Yeah. That's another good question, okay. Nicolas, okay, you are a specialist of stats, okay? We see that is very good and very strong on construction, okay. The government, okay, want to push to have new home for elderly people. Nicolas, you
Maybe on the commercial side, in talking with our dealers and in speaking with the managers of our direct stores, I mean, they're sitting on some pretty good backlogs there for the commercial. They're just waiting for certain projects to, I guess, to get the green light. What I would say is that as the commercial side, it's one where the projects haven't been lost. I think it's more a question of delays. I think that's how we should think of it. Although there's a limited visibility, I think what we were seeing from the guys on the ground is that when it does open, it's more like a light switch, right? I mean, that's kind of the way it's been described to me, as opposed to it being kind of a slow ramp-up. It'll be very fast reopening.
That's probably the best color I can give you as it relates to the commercial side and how we're seeing that progress. As it relates to government spending, it's difficult for me to sit here and talk to you about Biden's plans in the U.S. and whether they're going to get passed. The one thing I would say, and this is both from an accessibility side and also from a patient handling side, is I think that there is going to be quite a bit of investment, not only in long-term care, but also as it relates to aging in place. It is an area of focus you've seen in Europe, some of the more mature markets where they've realized that it's more cost-effective to treat people in-home as opposed to having them in hospitals and other facilities.
I do think that longer term, we will see some significant investment, both on the government and on the private side. But it's difficult for me to give you any specific numbers as to what that might mean for a proposal that's going through Congress at the moment.
Perfect, guys. Thanks a lot for the color, and you've got a great story here.
Thank you very much.
You have a follow-up question from Derek Lessard from TD Securities.
Yeah, thanks, guys, for the follow-up. Maybe another one, Nick, on the patient handling. Wondering if you're already starting to see the benefits of the change in mix away from, I guess, the long-term care, particularly as it relates to the exposure to COVID.
I'm not quite sure I get what you're asking here in terms of the mix away from long-term care. Are you speaking of you're treating patients in-home, like home care, the home care aspect of that business?
No, I'm thinking about how more heavily weighted the Handicare was towards acute care, right? All the problems they had in long-term care facilities in the U.S.
Okay. The one thing I would note, just maybe a little difference between Handicare's business and Span-America's business, is that you're right, Handicare does have more exposure to acute care, in particular in the U.S. I think it's a bit more balanced here in Canada. In the U.S., it is much more leaned towards acute care. One element about Handicare's products and the way it works is that these are products that get installed. The ceiling lifts, it's a project that requires planning, project management, installation. Many of their sales are for new builds. That's something that's a little bit different than with Span-America, is that new build facilities, there aren't any patients there.
It's much more easier to access, it's not necessarily a question of you restricted access to these facilities, whether it be during the pandemic or in the current environment. It's just more of a question of construction site access that's more general in nature, because there aren't any patients in these facilities as they're getting built. I'm not sure if that helps to answer, but that is kind of one of the reasons why we have seen some increase. I guess the revenue growth there has been stronger as we've kind of exited the pandemic period because they have had that exposure to certain, whether it be the acute care space, surgeries are coming back, as I mentioned earlier, and also as it relates to these new builds where there aren't any patients.
It's much more easier to access the facility as economies are opening up.
No, thanks. That's helpful. Maybe just one final one. Just wondering if you've been able to, I guess, see any more improvements in the Handicare side from the Lift Up program, if you're seeing any more benefits from the Lift Up program.
Sébastien or Nicolas.
I think I will start. Basically, the Lift Up program is through, we don't want to talk pretty much about it. It has happened at the beginning of Q3 last year, is going to be fully rolled by Q2, so that we get a full year benefit. Now I think the biggest thing for Handicare is making their budget. They have a good budget on the table for 2021, both on the patient handling and the accessibility. I think so far that's a good start. What we are starting to see is really the mix with the cross-selling with Garaventa in Europe. Already a few inclines sold, dealers are looking at it. The next step will be really to do the curved stairlift manufacturing in Toronto. By the end of this year, we should see it.
This will really help us to save on some air shipping, some of the cost that we currently have, and that will give us a better lead time to the customer. Our target is two days instead of three weeks. That will really help to push the sales to a new level of the curved stairlift of Handicare in North America. I think, really the Lift Up is over. Now we're really working on the new synergies with Garaventa and Savaria and Span.
Sébastien, very helpful. Thanks, guys.
There are no further questions in queue.
Thank you very much, guys. Happy to be interested in Savaria, and thank you for my people with me on this call, okay? You are just great. Congratulations, okay? Thank you very much, Stacy.
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