Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Stella-Jones Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. If anyone has any difficulties during the conference, please press star followed by zero for operator assistance at any time. Before turning the meeting over to management, please be advised that this conference call will contain statements that are forward-looking and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. I'd like to remind everyone that this conference is being recorded on Wednesday, May 11th, 2022. I'll now turn the conference over to Éric Vachon, President and CEO. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everyone. I'm here with Silvana Travaglini, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Stella-Jones. Thank you for joining us for today's discussion of the financial and operating results for Stella-Jones' first quarter ended March 31st, 2022. I will provide an overview of our quarter, then I'll turn the call to Silvana Travaglini to review our results in greater detail. I'll then return with concluding remarks before we open the call for questions. Before that, let me start with a brief recap of our annual meeting of shareholders, which we held earlier this morning. All resolutions brought forward to shareholders were approved, including the election of all nominees to our Board of Directors, including Ms. Sara O'Brien as a new director, the appointment of auditors, and support for our approach to executive compensation or say on pay.
Turning to our results, our press release reporting first quarter results was published earlier this morning and can be found on the Stella-Jones website at www.stella-jones.com in the Investor Relations section. It's being posted on SEDAR today as well. As a reminder, all figures expressed in today's call are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. First quarter sales exceeded last year's Q1 sales and met expectations. This was primarily attributable to increase in sales in our infrastructure-related product categories, which were up 14% in Q1 versus the same quarter last year. Within our infrastructure-related businesses, utility poles benefited from increasing pricing, strong demand from maintenance work and broadband expansion, steady demand for transmission poles, and contributions of the Cahaba acquisitions. As you recall, we closed the acquisition of Cahaba Pressure Treated Forest Products and Cahaba Timber in November 2021.
This was our first full quarter being able to leverage the acquisitions. Additionally, our Kirkland Lake pole plant, which we recommissioned last year, played a valuable and timely role in supporting strong customer demand during the quarter. For railway ties, the trend was also positive, although the tightness of untreated ties in the market has continued for a longer period than initially anticipated. Q1 railway tie sales were up, mostly driven by pricing, while volume remained unchanged. As expected, sales for residential lumber decreased from last year. Demand for pressure-treated lumber in the first quarter last year was exceptionally high, and we're expecting lower sales this quarter. Sales were nevertheless higher than anticipated in this seasonally slower period. The second and third quarter will be better performance gauges for this product category. In terms of margins, they remained under pressure due to increasing input costs.
We continue to anticipate a certain degree of lag as contractual price adjustments are being implemented. With that, let me turn the call to Silvana for a detailed look at our financial performance.
Thank you, Éric, and good afternoon. Earlier today, we reported net income for the first quarter of CAD 46 million or CAD 0.73 per share, compared to CAD 56 million or CAD 0.85 per share last year. During the first quarter of the year, we generated sales of CAD 651 million, up from CAD 623 million for the same period in 2021. Excluding the contribution from the acquisitions of Cahaba Pressure and Cahaba Timber of CAD 15 million, pressure treated wood sales rose CAD 21 million or 4%. This increase was essentially driven by strong organic growth in our infrastructure-related product categories, namely utility poles, railway ties, and industrial products, partially offset by lower residential lumber sales as we lacked a very strong first quarter last year.
Looking at results by product category, sales of utility poles amounted to CAD 254 million in the first quarter of 2022, up from CAD 206 million last year. Excluding acquisitions, sales rose 16%, led by continued improvement in maintenance demand, selling price adjustments to reflect cost increases, and a more favorable sales mix, mainly due to higher fire-resistant wrapped pole sales. Railway tie sales reached CAD 175 million this year, up 11% from CAD 158 million last year. The variation essentially stems from selling price adjustments with Class I customers to reflect higher fiber costs and higher pricing for non-Class I customers. Volume remained relatively stable compared to last year.
Residential lumber sales totaled CAD 132 million, down from CAD 166 million last year, as lower volume following the exceptionally strong Q1 in 2021 was partially offset by the higher market price of lumber. As Éric mentioned, a sales decline was expected this quarter. More importantly, Stella-Jones' momentum remains solid in this product category as this year's Q1 sales are more than double our pre-pandemic first quarter sales of CAD 58 million. Industrial product sales were CAD 33 million, up from CAD 28 million last year, largely due to greater demand for pilings and timber. Finally, logs and lumber sales amounted to CAD 57 million versus CAD 65 million a year ago. The decrease stems from lower lumber trading activity compared to the same period last year.
Turning to profitability, gross profit was CAD 100 million in the first quarter of 2022 versus CAD 112 million in the same quarter last year. As a percentage of sales, gross profit margin was 15.4% this year compared to 18% last year. The decrease in absolute dollars mostly reflects the lower sales volume for residential lumber when compared to last year's exceptionally strong demand. Meanwhile, the reduction in gross profit margin is mainly attributable to the time lag in contractual price adjustments, as rising costs outpaced selling price increases during the quarter. As a reminder, a large part of Stella-Jones' infrastructure-related sales are contractual and include price adjustment mechanisms to cover cost increases.
In a rising cost environment such as the one we are presently into, the normal time lag before selling price adjustments reflect the new input costs temporarily impacts margins. Turning to cash flows, this year's first quarter cash flows from operating activities before changes in non-cash working capital components and interest and income taxes paid was CAD 88 million compared to CAD 100 million last year, mostly reflecting lower profitability. Given the normal seasonal increase in working capital, changes in non-cash working capital components reduced liquidity by CAD 207 million this year versus a reduction of CAD 213 million last year. As a result, cash flow used in operations was CAD 136 million in the first quarter of 2022 compared to CAD 141 million last year.
We repurchased approximately 1 million shares during the first quarter for a cash consideration of CAD 39 million. Since initiating the current normal course issuer bid program last November, Stella-Jones has repurchased more than 1.7 million shares out of an authorized maximum number of 5 million shares. Our financial position remains sound with a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 2.75x and CAD 86 million available under our credit facilities. The variation in both metrics during the quarter stemmed from higher seasonal working capital requirements. Finally, the board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of CAD 0.20 per common share payable on June 22nd, 2022 to shareholders of record at the close of business on June 1st. I will turn the call back to Éric for concluding remarks.
Thank you, Silvana. Let me take a moment to add some color as to how we see our business progressing. We are optimistic about utility poles, thanks to a combination of price increases and strong pole demand, which I expressed earlier. This aligns with our decision to grow capital investment in the category between CAD 90 million and CAD 100 million over the next three years. To date, purchase orders have been finalized for pole peelers, dry kilns, and treating cylinders, with deliveries expected by the end of 2022, all of which will help us continue to meet demand. We also continue to work closely with our customers to phase out pentachlorophenol. We now have two of our plants offering DCOI, and by the end of 2022, we expect to convert between two and four more of our treating facilities to DCOI.
Our investments in future growth notwithstanding, we will face some short-term challenges. Raw material sourcing will continue to be a hurdle this year and likely beyond. Right now, access to untreated ties is presenting a challenge and has led to fiber cost increases. We had similar issues in 2021, and it was the strength of our procurement network that set us apart when it came to successfully meeting customer needs. The flexibility of our customer agreements allows us to recoup most, if not all, of any cost increases, albeit on a delayed timeline. That can result in short-term headwinds for our margins, but it does not impact the solid fundamentals of this business. Turning to residential lumber, we continue to see volatility in the price of lumber, which started at the beginning of the pandemic and has continued until today.
While this year's price swings are not as extreme as 2021, we have still seen prices move by more than $500 a thousand board foot from the low to the high during the quarter. That being said, the residential lumber division is operating where we expect it would be over the long term. In summary, this quarter provides a good start in laying the foundation to our three-year strategic plan. Our business remains very strong. Demand from our infrastructure-related product categories continues to grow. We have a strong balance sheet, a seasoned and sophisticated team with a well-developed relationship network with customers and strong procurement and distribution capabilities. We intend to pursue acquisition targets as we return capital to shareholders. In short, we are building upon a well-established and strong fundamentals.
That concludes our prepared remarks, and we will now turn the call over to your questions. Can I please ask the operator to begin?
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star one again. Our first question comes from Walter Spracklin, RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, thanks very much. Good morning, Éric. Good morning, Silvana. How are you doing?
Good. Yourself, Walter?
Good, good. I guess my question to start is really to see how your guidance both for this year and into the three-year guide you provided, how the quarter has played out to that. It would seem that on the surface at least, and I know you gave some color about waiting to see how the summer months go in residential lumber and so on, but it looks like you're off to a very strong start. My question, I guess, starting with ties and poles, where you were kind of guiding low single-digit ties, high single-digit poles, your experience in Q1 has come out of the gate a lot stronger than that. Just curious if you see upside now to your 2023. I think you were talking about flat YoY.
If your 2023 target would be or your 2023 guidance for the full year is moving higher, and whether it's enough yet to start to move higher some of your guidance for out to 2023 in those two segments.
All right. Thank you, Walter. I'll answer your question with talking about the three main product categories. I guess first a general comment would be it is a bit early, you know, to think about readjusting, you know, the total guidance for the full three-year guidance. However, as you mentioned, strong start with utility poles, you know, driven in part by volume as, you know, very healthy maintenance that is supporting that number, but also price increases which are driven by, you know, increase in fiber costs and increase in oil costs. So I would suspect, you know, as we look at how this year unfolds, you know, as we were thinking about that high single digit, you know, could it be the low teens for this year?
Seeing how our pricing has started out this year, I would probably say yes, that would be a fair statement for this year. We're still maintaining the high single digits perecent, you know, for the three-year period. With regards to railway ties, again, strong start to the quarter this year, prompted essentially all by you know, pricing and cost pass-throughs of you know, price increases we saw in Q4 last year. Again, you know, more increases to come with what we're seeing in Q1. We still remain cautious with railway ties because of the tightness of availability in product. You know, if I need to describe this year, you know, the dynamics would be flat.
Probably pricing would be up, but I think, you know, it would be probably offset by some volumes. I guess the caveat there is if availability of railway ties, you know, sort of opens up, you know, better than we're seeing right now for the second half of the year, we could potentially, you know, get back to that low single digit growth for railway ties. Last but not least, the residential lumber product category. We're very happy of how we started off the year. We've been very tactical on the procurement side to make sure that we maintain very reasonable cost profiles, even though the market has at one point through the quarter risen to high lumber prices.
Our team was very smart about how they went about that. We have a good start to the year, yes. Still early to understand fully the demand, how that is gonna unfold at the retail level. You know, R&R indicators do demonstrate some strong interest for renovation. That being said, you know, our guidance was, you know, that, you know, in our three-year guidance, we would be at 35% of our 2019 benchmark, and I think that still holds.
Okay. That's great. Just my follow-up is actually exactly on that point, Éric, and that is the 35% guidance of pre-pandemic for residential lumber, right? I guess when you came up with that number the first time, given the volatility and the uncertainty in predicting that, you know, three years out as to what your revenue stream will be in that segment must have been very difficult. I get a sense that you know, you probably made an educated guess with a little bit of a conservatism built into it, if I know you well. My question is, what point and what markers are you looking for that would change that 35%?
What can we follow or look for that might have been part of the input into how you derived your 35% that we could follow and track to see if it's doing better or worse when we look out to your 2020 or your three-year guide?
Right. Well, you know, the base is really the input cost of the raw materials, so the dimensional lumber. Obviously, random length is something that, you know, we look at, and we look at the future pricing there. You know, obviously, you know, today the prices, you know, are probably sitting in the CAD 1,100 ballpark number. Futures are sitting at, you know, CAD 650, CAD 700, or actually higher than that there. Sorry. Futures are sitting more around the CAD 850. You know, that would give you a sense of, you know, how we look at it.
That being said, 2019, you know, price of lumber was around CAD 500, and when we sort of did our educated guess, we used about CAD 650. That gives you a bit of an idea of how to look at it.
That's very helpful. Appreciate the time. Thank you very much.
My pleasure, Walter.
Our next question comes from Benoit Poirier from Desjardins. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah. Good afternoon and, congratulations for the quarter. When we look at the pre-
Thank you, Benoit.
Yeah. When we look at the residential lumber, you mentioned some pressure on the margins driven by obviously lower sales and increasing input costs. Could you quantify maybe the impact in Q1 and the timing of the lag before you get back to more normalized levels?
Well, first, the answer to the question that you know, that lag is essentially behind us. You know, we completed the shipment of certain orders earlier in Q1 that were booked in Q4, where we were, you know, trying still to move some inventory in the market to lower our inventory levels. That's a bit of the result of that. That had the impact. That was really call it the first half of Q1, but that's all behind us at this point. You know, if I look forward, we've reset our prices for the Canadian market, you know, for the second quarter.
You know, it's pretty well established and it takes into consideration our current cost profile, even, you know, considering the volatility we saw in the first quarter. I think we're well positioned going forward.
Okay. When we look at your overall EBITDA margin, 13.5% for Q1, which tends to be typical given the seasonality. Given the improvement that we've seen and then the completion of this shipment, what about the magnitude of the improvement we could expect in Q2? Would it be more similar to 2019, 2020, or 2021?
Well, you're completely right. The first quarter is at 13.5%, is probably typical for a first quarter, as we usually see volumes as a whole for all product categories, you know, increase or being higher for Q2 and Q3. Pricing will have a play in the margin and in the pricing. If I think about utility poles, in the first quarter, we did not see the full impact of our price increases, and we will see those full 100% in the second quarter and going forward. Same for railway ties.
You know, we had price increases in the first quarter driven by increased cost of railway ties, and I suspect that on July first, we'll have other increases. As you can understand, with railway ties, we're still chasing that margin profile and, you know, we will keep increasing our pricing and our margins will recuperate faster as soon as the cost increase stabilizes.
Okay. That's great. For utility pole, what was the breakdown between volume and pricing, and how important was the contribution of the fire retardant sales volume in the quarter?
Right. Excluding Cahaba, because we carve it out in the MD&A. If I exclude Cahaba, the increase was about 50% volume and 50% pricing. The fire wrap, when I talk about it, we include it in the pricing piece. As we've talked about in previous calls, you know, the fire wrap is about now 10% of the product category, and we think that's where, you know. That's a good estimate to use for now. As you know, we're talking to different customers about adoption of the product, but it's still under analysis and review. The current customers now have adopted it, and it's fully in place.
Okay, perfect. Just lastly, on the capital deployment, given your overall working cap consumption of about CAD 200 million in Q1, Silvana, do you still feel confident to finish the year with an overall consumption of about CAD 50 million? Would you still feel comfortable with the CAD 100 million of CapEx? Is this a good proxy for 2022?
The assumption, I guess with the CAD 50 million, I guess just two factors to take into account. One is, you know, it's a reasonable number, but obviously always take into account, you know, the market price of lumber. If there's any significant variation there, that could impact that number. As well as Éric mentioned, you know, the availability of ties. We do expect, you know, a gradual increase in availability over the 9-12 months. But if ever there is a difference in the market where there is more availability in the second half, that would also impact that number that we have, that we put forward.
Okay. CapEx for the last part, CAD 100 million, is it still a good proxy for 2022?
It is. It has not changed. It's still a good estimate.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Benoit.
Our next question comes from Hamir Patel from CIBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good afternoon. Éric, could you give us maybe the breakdown in res lumber, how volumes fared in Q1? Also, are you seeing any signs from your major retailer partner about maybe end-use demand differing in terms of sort of contractors versus DIY?
For the residential other product categories in Q1, obviously, you know, YoY sales are down and the volume piece of it is, you know, call it 80% compared to the previous year, and the pricing actually being a bit better than last year, but slightly. Call it, you know, pretty much all on the volume part of it. If you remember, Q1 2021, there was a lot of expectations, you know, for a strong R&R year season and a lot of retailers and dealers stocked up on inventory just wanting to make sure they had, you know, the product to sell in store.
That's a bit of the comparison if you want. As far as what we're hearing today from you know our customers or at you know big box level, they're not shying away from their expectations for the year, so that's you know relatively stable. You know between us as we're discussing today and April being behind us, the spring in Eastern Canada, anyhow, in Quebec and Ontario was slow to start, it remained cold for a long time. You know we got some snow, I would say that the volumes were off to a slow start in April. As I look at daily shipments so far in May, things are picking up and looking good.
Right now, not really, no signs of a downturn on demand. More precisely, you asked about, you know, contractors and do-it-yourselfers. You know, we do have in-store reps, we do have contacts with the contractors. We understand that they're pretty much all fully busy, you know, for the balance of the season. The do-it-yourselfers, I mean, you know, I can again point to the R&R statistics, but you know, the proof will be when the do-it-yourselfers will walk through the, you know, in the store and actually pick up the product. You know, the price is still relatively high if you compare it to last year, which you know, could have been a bit of a disincentive.
Right now, we remain really optimistic, and we've done, you know, a good job also managing our inventory levels internally. So I'm not concerned of, let's say, a repeat of last year.
Okay. Fair enough. Éric, what impact do you expect the construction strike in Ontario to have on the residential lumber business? Could you just remind us how much of that business is from Ontario?
Yeah. I would say, for our Canadian business, it's a good 50% of our sales are in the Ontario market. The strike you're referring to, I believe, is mostly framers. I don't think it's impacting, you know, the independent contractors. At least that was my understanding. Obviously if framing is slowing down, housing has slowed down, maybe some of those decks that are built on new homes won't get built. You know, the team right now doesn't seem too concerned about that part.
Okay, great. That's all I had. I'll turn it over. Thanks, Éric.
Thank you, Hamir.
Our next question comes from Michael Tupholme from TD Securities. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Thank you. Good afternoon.
Hey, Mike. How are you?
Good, thank you. Just picking up with a question on the residential lumber side. Éric, you mentioned that you're not seeing any signs of a slowdown in demand as you sort of look at how things have been trending so far through the second quarter. I guess I'm taking that to be more of a comment, sort of in terms of the, you know, the progression of Q2 versus Q1. I'm guessing on a YoY basis, the comp is still pretty tough from the prior year, and would you expect to still see some volume decline on a YoY basis? Or if you can clarify, that'd be helpful.
The comp is difficult. You're right, because the sales price last year were just, you know, were higher than, you know, what we're foreseeing for the quarter this year. However, if you know, we think about last year's sales dynamic for residential lumber in Canada anyhow, you know, we did see a decline in demand, which was offset by the growth in the sales price. That being said, for the second quarter, yes, a difficult comp. You know, I think the lower sales price will, to some extent, you know, get compensated by better volumes, but it is still a difficult comp.
You know, when I think about the year, you know, where we could, you know, most likely, match up to last year's numbers would be in Q3 where, you know, things really slowed down and, you know, all things being equal for now, that similar slowdown would not happen in the third quarter.
Okay. In Q2 it's a bit different than Q1, then it's just in terms of the composition of residential lumber. You'd actually expect volumes to be similar or possibly up even, and it's more on the pricing side where you'd give it back?
Exactly. Yep.
Yeah. Okay, perfect. Then on the margin side, again, you sort of ran through a couple of the various product categories. Is it fair to say that the only area where you're sort of lagging now is really on the ties side when you look at the product categories in terms of catching up with the cost increases through the price increases you've put through?
Yes, for ties definitely. Also to some extent for poles. The contracts we have with the utilities are annual and the adjustments on pricing are typically annual. A large part of our contracts have their anniversary, you know, in the first five months of the year, let's say, but, you know, they do actually have anniversaries throughout the year. Let's say majority is concentrated in the first few months of the year. As we're sort of adjusting for fiber and oil cost increases we saw this year and we're starting to see this year as well, you know, those prices are coming into effect.
Back to my comment about not seeing the full effect of price increases for Q1, but there's still some more price increases to come through in Q2 for customers that would have, you know, their contract anniversaries in April and May, for example.
Okay. Obviously, you don't break down the margins by product category. If we're looking at the entire company's margins, is it fair to then conclude, though, notwithstanding some ongoing lag impact and catch up, the margin pressure you'd expect to feel in Q2 should be less pronounced than it was in Q1? I'm not talking seasonally here. I understand Q2 is seasonally stronger.
Yes.
I just mean on a YoY basis, it's less pronounced.
Yeah. Exactly. We would. Our sentiment is that, you know, we would see less of the margin pressure in Q2.
Okay, perfect. Then just in terms of the acquisition pipeline, can you provide an update on what you're seeing, what's happening there? Also, don't know if anything's happened here yet, but last quarter, when you unveiled your three-year plan, you had talked about the possibility of evaluating growth opportunities in adjacent businesses. If there's any progress or developments or sort of preliminary comments on that'd be helpful as well.
Yeah, certainly. The top-line comment is that there's no big news to share with anyone today. We continue to have discussions with different targets, you know, in the treated wood sector. As far as analyzing adjacent businesses, our internal review is progressing well. You know, we have a group, a task force internally that's looking into this. You know, the board is being debriefed on our progress, and we're discussing and sharing strategies at that level to make sure that we're board sounding all of the ideas we're bringing forward.
So far, nothing new to be able to disclose today.
Okay. Sort of I took your response to be more focused on sort of the latter part of my question, just as far as the more normal course acquisitions, if you will, that you'd be targeting in your existing product categories. I realize there's nothing to report on as of yet, but just the pipeline and sort of the opportunity set. Are there some things that you're looking at at the moment that could come to fruition at some point? Or is it too hard to call at this point?
Well, you know, we did guide like CAD 200- CAD 300 million, you know, in potential pool of acquisitions. You know, in there, yes, you know, we're talking to targets and, you know, there's some discussions and some interest. You know, I don't wanna commit to anything, you know, in the next couple of months, let's say. We're, you know, still very active and discussing with different parties.
Understood. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Maxim Sytchev from National Bank Financial. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, Maxim.
Éric, I just wanted to start with your capital investments and was wondering if you can please discuss some potential benefits of these projects, maybe how you're thinking internally from either ROI perspective or how it could be, you know, helpful for labor productivity margins, so forth, because, you know, we're still talking about relatively significant investments. Thanks.
Yeah, no, it's a good point. You know, when I think you're referring to the capital investment that we're targeting especially for utility poles.
Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah. We know when we get out, you know, the range of CAD 90 million-CAD 100 million with our forecast and projections on sales growth and obviously volume and pricing and margin growth, we were looking at a payback somewhere between 3-4 years. Some of these investments are in existing facilities. As we're enhancing our productivity and production capabilities, you know, we're leveraging the current workforce. You know, that's one of the benefits of our plan and not wanting to, let's say, build a whole brand new plant in a new area and having to recruit an entire team and train them.
However, we are looking into some new procurement yards in different geographical regions in the country, and obviously we'll need to recruit some employees, but those teams are usually smaller crews, you know, like a pole peeling yard. You know, we might need, you know, 10, around 10 employees, let's say, if you want. You know, we definitely feel that in the regions that we're looking to expand, you know, we have that opportunity to be able to hire the labor since we have the luxury of selecting the communities where we're going. That is one of our selection criteria, if you want.
Okay, super helpful. Thank you. Last question, just, if you can please comment in relation to the progress of Cahaba integration, how yeah, how that's going. Any color there? Thanks.
Yeah. Q1 was our first full quarter. you know, as of the end of the year last year, you know, the systems were fully integrated. Q1 was still a bit of a training ground to some extent, you know. Educating employees on our ERP system, permanent inventory systems, it requires a bit more diligence in, you know, providing more data. There was still some training ongoing. I feel that at the end of the first quarter we had things pretty running pretty smoothly. The Cahaba facilities combined, 'cause they're, you know, they're both of the acquisitions are adjacent. If you look at that footprint, you know, in our case, it's probably the equivalent of three or four of our plants. So it is, you know.
It's two great production units. A lot of potential and power to produce a lot of volume, which I think we've pretty much got under control. You know, it takes a bit of time when you have such a big footprint to manage. Things have gone well. Very impressed with all the time that our team has invested in the first quarter, spending time there with employees and training and monitoring performance month-over-month. I think we're about there starting in Q2.
Okay, excellent. That's it for me. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Maxim.
We have no further questions in queue. I'd like to turn the call back over to Éric Vachon for any closing remarks.
Well, thank you, Julianne, and thanks everyone for joining us today.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.