Good afternoon, and welcome to the 2026 Perma-Pipe International Holdings, Inc. Annual Meeting of Stockholders. If you would like to ask a question, you can submit your question at any time during the call through the Q&A button on the lower right-hand portion of your virtual meeting screen. You do not have to wait until the end of the meeting to enter a question. We will also allow time at the conclusion of the formal meeting for questions to be submitted. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Jon Biro, the Chairman of the Board. Jon, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Jon Biro, Chairman of the Board of Perma-Pipe International Holdings, Inc., and I will be presiding over this meeting. We welcome you to our 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Today's virtual meeting is a live audio-only webcast. Virtual meetings are one of the ways we engage with our stockholders. Today's session allows our stockholders to participate in the meeting regardless of their location. Joining the meeting today are Saleh Sagr, our President Chief Executive Officer, Mickey, our VP and Chief Financial Officer, Chuck Heaton, our VP of Human Resources, and Leanne Cernik, Assistant Corporate Controller. Manish Dhingra, our in-house counsel, is also in attendance and will serve as Secretary of this meeting. I would also like to introduce the other members of our board who are present on the call today.
Richard Sherrill, who is our current Chair of our Audit Committee and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. Ibrahim Al Kuwari, who is Chairman of our Compensation Committee, along with Nancy Zakhour. A representative of our independent accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, is also present on the call and available to answer appropriate stockholder questions. The meeting will now come to order. The notice of this meeting stating the time, place, and purposes of this meeting and the internet availability of proxy materials were available on May 14, 2026, to each stockholder of record as of the close of business on April 28, 2026. Copies of the proxy materials are posted on our website. A total of 8,123,273 shares of common stock were outstanding as of the close of business on April 20, 2026, and were entitled to be voted for this meeting.
Each stockholder is entitled to one vote per share on each of the four matters submitted for approval. In accordance with the provisions of Delaware law, Leanne Cernik, our Assistant Controller, has been appointed to serve as the Inspector of Election at this meeting and has subscribed to the oath of office prior to the meeting. The Inspector of Election and the Secretary informed me that a majority of the shares entitled to vote at this meeting are represented by proxy. Therefore, a quorum is present, and I declare the meeting open for business and that polls are now open. Any stockholder who has not yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and follow the instructions there.
Stockholders who have sent in their proxy or voted via telephone or internet and do not want to change their vote do not need to take any further action. After the formal part of this meeting has been concluded, there will be an opportunity for stockholders to submit questions. There is a text box on your screen where you can submit your questions throughout the meeting. You do not have to wait until the end of the meeting to submit your questions. We will answer all questions to the extent we can, including any questions that were submitted by our stockholders prior to this meeting. The first proposal before the stockholders is to elect five directors to hold office until our next annual meeting of stockholders and until their respective successors have been duly elected and qualified.
The board has nominated Ibrahim Al Kuwari, myself, Richard Sherrill, Sal Sagr , and Nancy Zakhour for election as directors of the corporation. The second proposal is to consider and vote on an advisory basis on the compensation of the company's named executive officers. The third proposal is to consider and ratify the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the corporation's independent account for our fiscal year ended January 31st, 2027. Now that everybody has had the opportunity to vote, I now declare the polls for the 2026 Annual Stockholder Meeting closed. The Inspector of Election, please announce the vote on each proposal based on the preliminary count. Leanne?
Based on the preliminary count of proxies and votes received prior to the meeting, the results of the vote are known with respect for each of the proposals. I hereby declare that the following board's nominees, Messrs Ibrahim Al Kuwari and Jon C. Biro, Richard Sherrill, Sal Sagr , and Nancy Zakhour , have been duly elected as directors of the corporation with a majority of all votes cast this meeting. I hereby declare that the compensation paid to the company's named executive officers was approved on an advisory basis by the holders of a majority of the shares of common stock voted on this proposal.
I hereby declare that on an advisory basis, the frequency of the advisory vote on the compensation of the company's named executive officers every year was approved on an advisory basis by the holders of a majority of the shares of common stock voted on the proposal. I hereby declare that the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the corporation's independent accountant for the fiscal year ending January 31st, 2027, has been ratified by the holders of a majority of the shares of common stock voted on this proposal.
Thank you. The board of directors has continued to actively engage with our stockholders and seek their input on ways we might improve our corporate governance and compensation policies. We welcome communications and input from our stockholders regarding governance and policy matters and enhancements they recommend our board to consider. We commit your input will be actively reviewed and discussed by the board, and we appreciate your support. This concludes the formal portion of our meeting. I hereby declare our annual meeting is adjourned. Before we go, it is now my pleasure to introduce Saleh, our President and Chief Executive Officer. Sal took over as CEO in June of last year. Prior to that, he oversaw the MENA region as Senior Vice President since 2019. Sal, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Jon. Good afternoon to our stockholders, our board members, customers, employees, and partners around the world. It's really a privilege to address you today as President and CEO of Perma-Pipe. When I spoke at last year's annual meeting, I outlined several priorities that would guide our future. Sustainable growth, customer-centric innovation, investment in our people and culture, and strengthening our communication with our shareholders. Today, I am proud to report that we have delivered meaningful progress across each of these priorities while achieving the strongest financial performance in the company's history. FY 2025 was a transformational year for Perma-Pipe. We delivered record net sales of over $210 million, representing growth of 33% compared to the prior year. Net income increased by 58%. Earnings attributable to common shareholders grew by nearly 90%. Earnings per share reached record levels.
Shareholders' equity increased by 26%, further strengthening our balance sheet and providing a solid foundation for our future growth. These results were a direct reflection of the dedication of our employees, the trust of our customers, and the disciplined execution of our strategy across all regions in which we operate. While we are proud of our financial achievements, we are equally proud of the strategic progress we've made in positioning Perma-Pipe for long-term sustainable growth. Example, in North America, we expanded our geographic footprint through our investment in Ohio, establishing a strong presence in one of the fastest-growing digital infrastructure markets in the U.S. This expansion positions us to serve the rapidly increasing demand generated by artificial intelligence, hyperscale data centers, and advanced cooling infrastructure. As AI continues to drive unprecedented investment in digital infrastructure globally, we believe Perma-Pipe is well positioned to participate in this important growth opportunity.
In Saudi Arabia, we expanded our capabilities through the introduction of a new market product line, specifically tailored to serve the kingdom's energy infrastructure sector. Most significantly, we successfully secured Saudi Aramco approval for this product. This milestone represents a major strategic achievement and provides access to what we believe is the world's largest single market for pipe coating solutions. It significantly expands our addressable market and strengthens our position in one of the most important energy infrastructure regions in the world. At this time, we continue to sharpen our focus on water security markets, particularly across the Middle East and Africa. Water infrastructure is becoming increasingly critical to economic growth, sustainability, and national resilience. Governments throughout the region are making substantial investments in water transmission, desalination, and strategic water infrastructure products.
Our engineering expertise, regional presence, and proven product execution capabilities, position Perma-Pipe to participate in these long-term growth opportunities. Another priority I highlighted last year was strengthening our communication with our shareholders and enhancing transparency with the investment community. I am pleased to report that we are delivering on this commitment as well. Beginning with our second quarter results this year, Perma-Pipe will institute quarterly earnings calls to provide shareholders and investors with more timely insights to our performance, strategy, and market opportunities. We believe transparent and consistent communication is an essential component of good governance and shareholders' value creation. These quarterly calls will allow us to engage more directly with the investment community and provide greater visibility into our business as we continue our growth journey. As we look ahead, our priorities remain clear. We will continue to pursue profitable growth in attractive end markets.
We'll invest in innovation and operational excellence to better serve our customers. We'll continue to expand our capabilities in strategic regions and strengthen our position in infrastructure sectors that are critical to the global economy, including energy, water, district heating and cooling, and digital infrastructure. Most importantly, we will continue investing in our people. The success of Perma-Pipe has always been driven by the talent, commitment, entrepreneurial spirit of our employees around the world. Their dedication remains our greatest competitive advantage. The opportunities before us have never been greater. The world is investing heavily in infrastructure to support energy security, water security, urban development, and the digital economy. Perma-Pipe's products and solutions are increasingly relevant to these global priorities, and we believe we are exceptionally well-positioned to capitalize on these trends. While we are proud of the record results we achieved this year, we remain focused on the future.
Our objective is not simply to deliver another strong year, but to build a stronger, more resilient, and more valuable company for the long term. I would like to thank our employees for their hard work and dedication, our customers for their trust and partnership, our Board of Directors for their guidance and support, and our shareholders for their continued confidence in Perma-Pipe. Together, we are building a company that is delivering results today while creating sustainable value for the future. Thank you. Over to you, Jon.
Yeah. Okay. We will now address questions that have been submitted by our stockholders. Okay. The first question from one of our shareholders, can you talk about work coming out of the war? Have countries or large oil companies looked to find ways around the strait?
Well, very good question. Thank you. Obviously, we are all aware of the situation that had taken place in the Middle East, specifically in the GCC region, over the past several months. While this obviously created a lot of havoc in the Middle East and has somehow impacted our Q1 results, what I can assure you, first of all, that there was no cancellations of any orders. It is more of deferred or delayed execution due to the challenge in logistics that we faced in the first quarter in the Middle East. However, while things are settling down now, and it looks like the war is over, the governments in the GCC region have taken decisions to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
In fact, the UAE was the first one to announce and have committed $55 billion to build a pipeline that will go straight from the Abu Dhabi refineries over to the Arabian Sea, which 100% bypasses the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia, or Saudi Aramco specifically, have also committed, and they are very close to quarter billion dollars in new pipelines to also bypass the Strait of Hormuz. I think this is going to be the trend moving forward. While the war was a problem, we believe there is going to be a lot of opportunities for us moving forward.
Okay, good. The next question concerns our annual cost to be a public company. As shareholders probably know, we did cross a threshold that put us into a different category of filer, which is costing us some money to invest in our internal controls over financial reporting. Saleh, do you want to comment on cost of being a public company?
Obviously, the cost of being a public company, well, it is not cheap. We know this is a significant amount that we pay every year. Well, moving forward, since we crossed this threshold and we became a registered filer. However, it does come with benefits as well, especially now that we are after major infrastructure projects, whether it is in oil and gas or water security. The fact that we are a publicly listed company actually puts us in a very good position because private companies are not looked upon as capable to take on such projects. Not from a financial perspective only, but from quality, safety, and integrity as well. I think while the cost is high, I think it does provide us a lot of benefits moving forward.
Okay. All right. The last question I have concerns our Ohio facility that we've talked about publicly. Do you have any updates on how things are going with the new Ohio facility?
Yeah. I'm pleased to report that we have already started activities and production activities in the Ohio facility. We are specifically targeting AI data centers. We have built a significant backlog for this type of work, and we believe that we are in a very unique position in the United States to be able to serve such market. The facility is now ready, and it is in production.
Okay, good. All right. Well, we've addressed the questions that have been brought forth. Operator, you may now conclude the call. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.
The meeting has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's meeting.