Morning, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining Atlas Engineered Products Q1 2026 earnings call.

I am Jake Bouma, an IR consultant for AEP. Today on the line discussing AEP's Q1 2026 financial results and company highlights are the company's President, CEO and Founder, Hadi Abassi, and CFO, Melissa MacRae.

Following their remarks, we'll open up the call for an analyst Q&A session. Before handing over the call to Hadi, please note that information we present today could contain forward-looking information that is based on management's expectations, estimates, and projections.

Please consider the risk factors, including those in the filings made by AEP on SEDAR when reviewing this information. Also, all amounts discussed will be in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted.

Hadi, please proceed with your remarks.

Thank you, Jake, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. The first quarter of 2026 presented a challenging operating environment driven by difficult market condition in Ontario and British Columbia, as well as more severe winter weather across much of Canada compared to recent years.

However, our team worked very hard through these conditions while continuing to prepare for a stronger remainder of the year. We made important progress on our first automation facility, advanced our sales and design capabilities, and continued to build our order book.

While near-term conditions remain competitive, we believe our scale across the country, automation strategy, and growing national footprint positions us well to gain market share as construction activity increases. We are continuing to report high quoting volumes from the beginning of 2025.

In our year-end call, we reported that the first quarter of 2026 quotes exceeded $80 million. Quoting has exceeded $109 million up to end of April 2026, compared to $93.4 million up to the end of April of 2025.

This sustained activity is translating into a stronger order volumes, with orders totaling $29 million up to the end of April 2026, up from $16 million in the same period last year. While this stronger order trends did not fully translate into the first quarter revenue due to weather-related shipping disruptions, we believe AEP's aggressiveness to increase market share despite market condition remaining similar to the prior year.

A major milestone for AEP is the near completion of our first robotic truss manufacturing facility in Clinton, Ontario. Construction of the building is expected to be completed during the second fiscal quarter, with robotic equipment already shipped, and the first shipment has arrived in Canada.

Operations are still anticipated to begin in early July 2026. This automation initiative represents an important step in our long-term strategy to improve efficiency, increase capacity, enhance margin, and strengthen our competitive position.

From a growth perspective, we remain focused on expanding our wall panel manufacturing capabilities and increasing our ability to deliver complete project packages, including roof, floor trusses, and wall panels, and engineered wood products. This broader offering strengthens customer relationship, increases average order value, and helps reduce our exposure to recessionary pressures by driving greater revenue opportunities per project.

Beyond organic growth, we remain active in evaluating acquisition opportunities across North America. With industry EBITDA currently at cyclical lows, we believe the return potential on the strategic acquisition remain attractive.

We are actively reviewing additional opportunities through 2026 and beyond that could expand our geographic footprint, manufacturing capabilities, and industry expertise. With that, I would like to turn the call to Melissa MacRae, CFO of AEP, to provide further commentary on our financial performance and position through our Q1 2026.

Thank you.

Thank you, Hadi. Results for Q1, three months ending March 31st, 2026, include revenues of $9.3 million, gross profits of $273,000, and normalized EBITDA of negative $800,000.

Revenues decreased compared to the prior year due to market conditions in the construction industry, especially in Ontario and BC, as Hadi mentioned, with more severe winter weather conditions across much of Eastern Canada compared to recent years. Additionally, the company had two significant winter projects in the comparative period.

While the company has secured jobs of similar sizes for fiscal 2026, they are scheduled for delivery throughout the remainder of the company's fiscal year, not in the first quarter of this year, unfortunately. Gross profits declined, driven by the reduction in revenues mainly.

Each winter, the company maintains key staff that are needed during the busier construction months, and we don't want to risk losing them with layoffs. This increases the labor component during the winter months, along with maintenance costs, as the quieter winter months are the best time to complete maintenance.

These costs reduce gross profits, though, especially as revenues also decline. The company will typically work to offset these costs with as much winter work as possible, and the ability to increase margins later in the year when busier in normal market conditions.

Reduced revenues and increased costs, as already mentioned, contributed to the normalized EBITDA results as well. Additionally, the company has increased costs related to sales and management in preparation for the new automation facility, and ensure staff are trained and ready to go as soon as the plant is ready.

These costs are included across cost of sales and general and administrative costs, but are not added back for normalized EBITDA as they will be ongoing costs moving forward. I'd now like to open up the call for your questions.

Operator, please provide the appropriate instructions.

Good morning, and thanks for the question. Congrats on the order flow, it's great to see.

Wondering if you can talk a little bit more about what you're seeing on pricing, particularly in Ontario and BC. Is the pricing pressure moderating at all, or decelerating, or is it kind of continuing with the same sort of intensity you observed perhaps a year ago?

I guess second question to that would be, is the pricing pressure pretty uniform across product lines, or are some more resilient than others? Thanks.

Hello, Russell. I think the pricing pressure we have found a sweet spot that and it fluctuates up and down depended to the type of product like you asked, or type of client, and the size of the product, and the size of the job.

We have find a sweet spot that we operating in that area. Then for the moment, unless something significant changes in the volume and the future of the economy and the industry, we are going to keep operating in that sweet spot there and keep an eye on it because and we have found where our comfort level is, and we are operating in that zone right now there.

We are flowing and we're just playing in that zone. That's I'm talking about basically the Ontario and part of British Columbia, not the rest of the country.

The rest of the country is a whole different economy we have there. All we dealt with in Q1 was really the real severe winter time there that nobody was working.

That's all I can tell you. Unless you will see some significant action into the buyers coming into the market and Ontario, like if they come and buy, the inventory start moving, and all of that stuff, and all of a sudden we see a significant increase or capacity in the factory and production, the price will remain just the same way as it has been.

We want to keep the pressure on. We have find the sweet spot, and we gaining market share, we increasing our volume, and we are doing okay.

We will make money, and we going to keep our foot on the gas for now, and to keep it that way there.

Got it. Thank you for the color.

Then, my next question just around the government grant. Can you remind us what the expected cadence of how that works in terms of receiving payment or the offset there?

I guess second question would be the latest in terms of other opportunities for grants from various levels of government. Thank you.

Melissa?

Yep. I can answer that one.

The $4 million federal grant that we did receive and announce, we had to spend $4 million from February 3rd to March 31st, we had to actually accelerate some of our spending on the building and the equipment to meet that requirement. We did meet it, which is where we showed the $4 million government grant receivable in our books.

We did apply, we put in all the paperwork, and it's been approved as of the end of April 30th. Now we're just anticipating receiving the funds by the end of this quarter.

As for other grants, there is possibilities. There is some provincial ones that we can still apply for.

Within these grants, there is stacking rules. Some provinces limit that you can only go up to say 40% or 50% of the whole project costs.

That still gives us a lot of opportunity to try and go for more. At this point, we're also looking at what's the next project, and is there any grants related to that out there that we could apply for.

Got it. Maybe my last question, and I'll get back in the queue, just around the additional equipment shipments.

Can you remind me, is there just one more shipment, and when do you expect that to land for Clinton?

There's one more shipment for the robotics that's coming. Hadi may correct me if I'm wrong, but it's on its way, I believe,

and

should arrive in the next couple weeks. The same with the other shipment that so we've got one shipment of the robotics already here, one shipment of the robotics on the way, and then one shipment for the saw that's on its way from Australia.

Right now, they've left, they're on their way, and they fit our schedule of the installers in Canada that they're doing the rigging and installing. Right now is we were really anxious about all the shipping and everything happening in the world.

Somehow, that all is aside right now. There is no major thing, and they could even be in the Port of Montreal right now to be declared to the custom right now.

It's going, it's touch wood and keep your fingers crossed, it's actually going pretty good. From the pictures I got last Thursday and Friday, everything moving slowly and surely and very good, patiently, because with robotics equipment and stuff there, they keep me away from it from the anxiety of get it on, get it down, to just do it methodically and properly, and let's set everything up properly and stuff.

It's happening right now, it's taking shape in the warehouse right now. It's quite exciting to see it going stage by stage right now, Russell,

so. Awesome.

That's all for me. I'll get back in the queue.

Thanks.

Russell, there is some comment I'd like to make regarding the grant. I know in the past there was a norm of a publicly-traded company, they would tell you you have access to capital in the market and stuff there, not much of government program was favorable to it.

For this one, being on the innovation and being such a significant move in the country, that it was actually the dollar value is very, very important for us and the contribution the federal government did, but in terms of acknowledgment and giving us credit that we've taken this initiative a step forward in our industry, that was like a validation that it gives a sense of what we're doing. That is very, very important for us, and it opens the door for many, many other programs.

However, it's like everything else: this is innovative, this is first timer here we doing it, it's been proven in U.S. and Australia.

Canada, we're the first one, and we need to prove it. I have no questions about that it will be a major proof and major move for us, because I've seen it in action so many times.

It's now is for us the time from now, for the next 6 months, to diligently set it up, make it work, train the people, and prove that this concept works. Then everybody is waiting and see.

It's not just the investors, or our employees, or everybody in the country. The competition will wait and see what happens.

Once you see the concept is working, setting it up across the different areas is pretty simple because you have a proven system that is already working. That's what really that's the excitement is, and that's what when the government grant was there was exciting for me was, wow, we got validation actually from the government that this is a game changer what we are doing.

It's happening. We're 2 or 3 months away from it happening, and it's just exciting to see that.

So. Makes sense.

Congrats again on that validation. That's all for me.

I'll get back in the queue. Thanks for the color.

Thank you, Russell. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning.

Morning.

Thanks for the color on the strong quoting and order activity so far in 2026. I was wondering if you could comment on the pace of deliveries so far in Q2.

Would you say that it's meaningfully higher than Q1 as we'd expect given the Q1 dynamics? Melissa?

We're seeing shipping pick up through quarter two here as we would anticipate. We did have, what I would say last year, we did have a higher quarter one than typical and a lower quarter two than typical, whereas this year we're seeing the normal trend more.

As we move forward here, yeah, we're anticipating that the quarter two is going to follow a more normal trend and not follow the same lower trend as last year.

That's helpful. Just on the the large projects that you mentioned that you do have on the books, but weren't scheduled for Q1, any of that coming in Q2, or is that more of a second half of 2026 event?

Some of that

it's actually going to be spread across, which is where it's going to blend in a little bit more than quite been standing out as much as last year. Hadi may be able to add more color, but there's some that are going out here at the end of quarter two, but there's a lot through quarter three and four actually.

You see, Frederic, after all the years I've been in this business, I'm learning new, and one of it is because we are across country too, and in BC we dealt with the weather, but it was just crazy rain for a few days, and we didn't have the ice and snow and everything freezing and stuff there, but when I look at the Q1, and if you look at the top line of revenue, usually most CEOs or CFOs, you panic and say, 'Oh my God, we are not meeting the expectations, everything.' Then when I look at the difference in the order book, it was, 'Oh my God, how are we going to deliver everything in Q2 and part of Q3?'

Because that's not just all the orders. The orders will keep on picking up every day, every day.

To me, it was the delivery and the panic of anxiety of labor force and manufacturing and shipping all that orders. I was excited.

I said, 'Wow, our sales force and the strategy we put forward, we went to battle, and we went hunting, and then we filled the order book.' Now it was like, how are we going to deliver it?

Because you still got to design it, manufacture it, and ship it. One thing and I was looking for the panic and anxiety of shipping and pandemonium happening, but what I've noticed, thank God, there is craziness hasn't happened.

There is a steady flow of increasing, increasing as we move on. It hasn't come like all of a sudden, because sometimes in our business the dam opens up, and everything comes at you at once, and everyone wants everything tomorrow.

There used to be some kind of a whether we are used to it now, or there is a steady flow and increase on the curve if it's moving up. Although you love to see it double all of a sudden overnight, but that kills your system, too, and it costs you money by panic and anxiety.

I see a steady flow, it's moving up and moving up there, and somehow I looked at the Q1 and I looked at the book orders, the quotes, everything, and I'm not happy with the revenue where it was, I will never be happy with that, but it was an actually amazing feeling that the game plan and the strategy is working, and everything is starting to go according to plan, and regardless of what the economy is like, because the economy is not the best. We have learned to start increasing in volume, organic growth, M&A, everything, despite all the craziness is going on in the country and in the world right now there.

The sentiment is not the best. We have found that sweet spot that we are positive, we moving forward, and we doing everything: M&A, robotics, marketing, adding to sales force, everything, while everybody is trying to survive, we are building the business.

It's that sweet spot that we don't want to change. We keep there, and we operate, and we stick to the plan.

Makes sense. Thank you both for your answers.

I'll get back in the queue.

Thanks. Morning, everybody.

I'm just curious, on the quoting activity that Hadi and Melissa that you guys brought up, especially as it ties into those larger customers, is there any change that you're seeing in terms of the dynamics, either who those customers are, the types of projects that they're trying to bring forward, or what their expectations are from you as a partner? I'm curious if it's tying into the trusses, the wall panels, everything else, pricing, availability, just what shift generally in the market you're seeing.

Nick, morning. There is a shift into the organic growth part and our revenue is increasing percentage by percentage on the wall panel side.

That's some part of it is from existing client and the areas they are, and in certain areas we have been able to add to our sales force that they worked within the industry, and those are the clients that they were loyal and they were with that company, or with that sales design team, or whatever, and now that they have moved to us, that to me been one significant changes happening right now, too, as we are gaining that momentum in the market share through that area there. That's been even despite we compensating with the quoting activity stuff there, and from certain areas, especially say US, or certain areas being quieter right now, is the change I've seen happening there really is we are taking the market share away there.

We are gaining new clients that they been dealing with competitions for years and years, and now they have moved to us there because of the credibility we have earned in those regions and the addition of the sales force we have added to our company.

That's excellent color, Hadi. Thank you.

The wall panel, the organic growth is starting to show significantly on certain operations we have that they have adapted to the full component manufacturing. It's starting to show significant.

Got it. Would you say that the benefit of these new sales people, is it fully captured in these results, or for the rest of the year should we continue to expect them to steal more market share?

Is this just the beginning of a trend?

This is just the beginning, Nicholas.

Okay. On the wall panel, and I guess it ties into the M&A dynamic, are you changing or updating kind of where you want to have that new capacity, how you're thinking about growing?

Has anything shifted since we last spoke?

Yes, basically nothing changed. We keep on the same game plan, and we identify good targets, and good results, and good companies.

Now, originally when we started, the target was truss manufacturers. Now we're looking at wall panel manufacturers: what size they are, what location they are, and we're looking at some M&As at that.

Our target base has expanded, not just trusses, it's the full component manufacturing side, because there are not a lot, but there are a few wall panel manufacturers in the country that strictly they manufacture wall panels and they install them. Now we looking at in talks and stuff there to expand in that marketplace.

That's what we're looking at right now. Yes.

That's perfect. Thanks, Hadi.

Thank you.

Thank you. Have a great day, everybody.