Aecon Group Inc.

Aecon Group Inc.

31.73
EUR
+2.36
(+8.04%)
1.85BMarket Cap
Oct 29Next Earn

Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptMarch 6, 2026

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q4 2025 Aecon Group Inc.

earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode.

After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press *11 on your telephone.

You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press *11 again.

Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Adam Borgatti, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Investor Relations.

Please go ahead.

Adam Borgatti

Thank you, Didi. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for participating in our year-end 2025 results conference call.

Joining me today are Jean-Louis Servranckx, President and CEO; Jérôme Julier, Executive Vice President and CFO; and Alistair MacCallum, Senior Vice President, Finance. Our earnings announcement was released yesterday evening, and we've posted a slide presentation on our website, which we'll refer to during this call.

Following our call, we'll be glad to take questions from the analysts. We ask analysts to keep to one question and a follow-up before getting back into the queue.

As noted on slide 2 of the presentation, listeners are reminded that the information we're sharing with you today includes forward-looking statements. These statements are based on assumptions that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties.

Although Aecon believes the expectations reflected in these statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that the expectations will prove to be correct. Before moving to our financial results, I'll first turn the call over to Jean-Louis to highlight a few of Aecon's important accomplishments in 2025.

Jean-Louis Servranckx

Thanks, Adam. As noted on slide 3, 2025 was a transformative year of growth and significant milestones for Aecon with record revenue of $5.4 billion and backlog additions of $9.5 billion, supported by a balanced and de-risked backlog profile.

Revenue grew 28% over 2024 with 84% of the $1.2 billion increase in revenue through organic growth. Revenue from US and international markets also increased by $386 million or 87% in 2025 over 2024.

We delivered our strongest safety performance in over 5 years while maintaining disciplined risk management across major projects and programs. We further advanced our nuclear leadership in North America with our partnership selection to deliver the G7's first grid-scale small modular reactor, or SMR, at the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station.

We also commenced the definition phase of the Pickering refurbishment program, and an Aecon partnership was awarded a development-phase contract at Energy Northwest's Cascade SMR project in the US. Backlog growth was also highlighted by Aecon's largest contract award to date, the Scarborough Subway Extension progressive design-build project, adding approximately $2.8 billion under a collaborative target price model.

We expanded strategically through the acquisitions of Bodel Construction, Trinity Industrial Services, and KPC Power and Electrical Services. We strengthened our leadership team with the appointment of Thomas Clochard as Chief Operating Officer, and received industry recognition with gold status on ReNew Canada's Top 100 Infrastructure Projects list, reflecting our involvement in 17 ranked projects, including 4 of the top 5.

As noted on slide 4, we achieved significant operational milestones, including completing the world's largest nuclear refurbishment program at the Darlington nuclear site ahead of schedule and below budget in early 2026, providing a model for major nuclear projects on a global scale. Substantial completion was achieved on the Finch West and Eglinton Crosstown LRTs, which were 2 of the 3 remaining legacy projects, and we delivered Canada's largest battery energy storage facility, the Oneida Energy Storage Project.

I will now turn the call over to Jérôme for our financial results, and we'll return to address our outlook at the end of the call.

Jérôme P. A. Julier

Thanks, Jean-Louis, and good morning, everyone. I'll speak to Aecon's consolidated results, review results by segment, and address Aecon's financial position.

Additional information has been provided to help clarify the underlying results, excluding impacts from the legacy projects and divestitures. Detailed reconciliation tables are included on slides 15 through 17 in the conference call presentation.

Turning now to slide 5. On a reported basis, record revenue for the year of $5.4 billion was $1.2 billion, or 28%, higher compared to 2024.

Adjusted EBITDA of $235 million compared to $83 million last year, and operating profit of $87 million compared to an operating loss of $60 million in 2024. Adjusted EBITDA and operating profit in 2025 were negatively impacted by $94 million in legacy project losses compared to legacy project losses of $273 million in 2024.

Adjusted diluted earnings per share for the year was 40 cents compared to adjusted diluted loss per share of 99 cents in 2024. As Jean-Louis noted, reported backlog of $10.7 billion at the end of 2025 was a record year-end level and compared to backlog of $6.7 billion a year ago.

New contract awards of $9.5 billion were booked in the year compared to $4.7 billion in the previous year. Now looking at results by segment.

Turning to slide 6, Construction revenue of $5.4 billion in 2025 was $1.2 billion, or 28%, higher than the previous year. Revenue was higher in all sectors, with the largest increase in Nuclear Operations, driven by a higher volume of refurbishment, new-build, and engineering services work in Ontario and the United States.

Higher revenue in Industrial was driven by an increase in field construction work on critical mineral facilities in Western Canada and incremental revenue in the US from the Bodel and Trinity acquisitions completed in the third quarter of 2025. Revenue was also higher in Urban Transportation Solutions, primarily from an increase in subway and commuter rail system projects.

In Civil Operations, higher revenue was mainly due to an increase in power and rail projects and from major project work performed internationally, partially offset by a lower volume of highway, road, and bridge building activity. In Utility Operations, higher revenue was due to a higher volume of gas distribution work in Canada and electrical work in the United States, partially offset by a lower volume of telecommunications work and battery energy storage systems work, as our team successfully delivered 3 grid-scale projects in the year.

On an as-adjusted basis, Construction revenue was $5.3 billion in 2025 compared to $4.1 billion last year. Turning to slide 7, adjusted EBITDA of $220 million compared to $34 million last year.

The primary driver of the increase was lower losses from fixed-price legacy projects in the year. On an as-adjusted basis, adjusted EBITDA was $315 million in 2025.

Turning to slide 8, Concessions adjusted EBITDA for the year was $57 million compared to $87 million last year, driven by lower income from O&M activities and a decrease in management and development fees related to concession projects nearing or achieving substantial completion of construction activity in 2025. The book value of equity of our Concessions portfolio at year end was $231 million, up 7% versus the end of 2024.

On slide 9, we brought together the as-adjusted information to exclude impacts of the legacy projects and divestitures to provide insight into the underlying performance of the business. For the Construction segment, on an as-adjusted basis, adjusted EBITDA was $315 million in 2025, representing a 6% margin, an $8 million increase over 2024.

On slide 10, at the end of 2025, Aecon held core cash and cash equivalents of $94 million, which excludes $393 million of cash representing Aecon's proportionate share held in joint operations. In addition, at December 31, 2025, Aecon had committed revolving credit facilities of $1 billion, of which $257 million was drawn and $4 million was utilized for letters of credit.

Aecon has no debt or working capital credit facility maturities until 2029, except equipment loans and leases in the normal course. Aecon's Board of Directors approved an annualized increase to the dividend of 1 cent per share, resulting in a quarterly dividend of 19.25 cents per share.

The dividend will be paid on April 2, 2026, to shareholders of record on March 23, 2026. At this point, I'll turn the call back over to Jean-Louis to address our business performance and outlook.

Jean-Louis Servranckx

Thank you, Jérôme. Turning now to slide 11, Aecon continues to build resiliency through a balanced and diversified work portfolio.

In 2025, roughly 55% of Aecon's Construction revenue was related to power and utility services across the Nuclear, Civil, Utilities, and Industrial sectors, with Nuclear representing the largest share. This represents a purposeful transition in our business, with the percentage of power activity increasing significantly over the past 5 years.

Approximately 30% of Aecon's Construction revenue was derived from power and utility services in 2020. Through our growth and diversification, Aecon is a profoundly different company now than we were several years ago.

Turning to slide 12, demand for Aecon's services continues to be strong. With backlog of $10.7 billion at the end of 2025, recurring revenue programs seeing robust demand and a strong bid pipeline, Aecon believes it is positioned to achieve further revenue growth in 2026 and is focused on achieving improved profitability and margin predictability, all while improving the risk profile of our business.

Recurring revenue was $926 million in 2025, and the proportion of recurring revenue from utility services increased from $610 million to $728 million, an increase of 19% over 2024. Recurring revenues are typically executed on a non-fixed-price basis, with the majority being over and above our reported backlog figures.

Turning to slide 13, Aecon expects 2026 revenue to exceed 2025 levels based on Aecon's strategic positioning in sectors with attractive demand profiles and a healthy pipeline of project opportunities tied to power generation, critical resource development, mass transit infrastructure, water, and defense. In the Concessions segment, Aecon continues to focus on opportunities to add to the existing portfolio of Canadian and international concessions to support trends in aging infrastructure, mobility, connectivity, energy, and population growth.

Beyond the fixed-price legacy projects, we believe that the deliberate shift towards a greater weighting of improved risk-adjusted programs, in combination with a strong focus on operational excellence, is anticipated to support a stabilization and gradual improvement of adjusted EBITDA margins in the Construction segment in 2026. Aecon plans to maintain a disciplined capital allocation approach focused on long-term shareholder value through acquisitions and divestitures, organic growth, dividends, capital investments, and share repurchases on an opportunistic basis.

We are focused on making strategic investments to support our strong growth, whether through the Concessions portfolio to provide access and entry into new markets, or to increase operational effectiveness. Our overall outlook for 2026 is very positive.

We are extremely excited about the momentum we have built and remain focused on executing our strategy to drive long-term shareholder value. I want to express my sincere thanks to our growing team for their resilience, high professionalism, and safety-always mindset that has positioned Aecon for what comes next.

Thank you. We'll now turn the call over to analysts for questions.

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press *11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced.

To withdraw your question, please press *11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.

Our first question comes from Sabahat Khan of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Sabahat Khan

Great. Thanks and good morning.

Just provided a bit of color on the sort of the opportunities ahead, I was hoping you could dig a little bit into some of the announcements we've been seeing from the Canadian government on the infrastructure side. Just hoping you could provide a bit of color on behind all these headlines, where are we in maybe some of these projects hitting the bidding process?

Are you bidding on some of these already? Then maybe if you could just tie in the announcement from the other day related to NORAD as well, just curious to get some more color on that project.

Thanks.

Jean-Louis Servranckx

I will take this one. As an introduction, where we are today is the result of being extremely serious and focused about our strategy.

We are extremely disciplined with this. We are now following our plan 2024-2027, and we had an update mid-2025.

Basically, where we are today belongs to four vectors. The first one was Aecon has to become a powerhouse.

As I've noted during my speech, we are now a little more than 55% related with power. It's an incredibly important shift for our company that was before much more road and bridges.

Point number two, Aecon had to become what we call a sovereignty champion, and we're coming to your question. You probably have noticed that we were among the first five projects of national importance that were defined with the Contrecoeur Port in Montreal and the SMR construction in Darlington.

We also announced a few days ago that we had been awarded this Arctic Over-the-Horizon Project. This project was a target for Aecon.

We wanted to come back to Defence Construction Canada. We had not been there for quite a number of years because the jobs were much more refurbishments of buildings, hangars, and not that much infrastructure.

We decided that we had to be back. We have been awarded the first two pieces of this job.

Ultimately, there will be several others for what it has been announced as a project size that could exceed $3 to $5 billion. It's a complex project.

We are leader. We won it with an outstanding scoring result.

It's a purely collaborative job. It means that we first have a validation phase, then we have a development or a detailed definition phase, then we have construction that should begin in 2027.

It was very important for us, and we got it. Third point of our strategy, we'll come back to this, Aecon has to be a national and a local strong player in the US, we'll come back to it.

Number four, Aecon has to become more international, what we also have been doing. I hope I've answered your question.

Sabahat Khan

Just maybe a bit more if I could follow up there on just behind some of these initial projects, have you seen an uptick in bidding activity, or are these projects still in initial phases? Just wondering sort of when some of the other larger projects or some of this investment might hit the ground.

Jean-Louis Servranckx

When you discuss with Defence Construction Canada, or you also can go to their website, obviously, the number of projects that are now on the list and that will be put on the market during the few years to come, has been multiplied by quite an interesting factor. We are tracking this, and of course, you have also, for example, learned about Alto, the high-speed train with a first phase between Montreal and Ottawa.

This is a pure kind of project for which Aecon is excellently positioned now. Right, and then

Sabahat Khan

just my last question, obviously you talked a bit about the power opportunity and the business here. Can you maybe just sort of rehash sort of the utility strategy?

Is it more growing it via some of these power project opportunities? How big of a role would M&A play in that?

Maybe just a little bit of color there and I'll pass the line. Thank you.

Jean-Louis Servranckx

Obviously, the power part of utilities is growing and is growing well. Our utility sector is also about gas, it's also about telecom, it's also about fiber to the home and this kind of activities.

Power is what is growing at the same time in United States and in Canada. Basically, the main topic of today is about electricity addition.

This is a wave, and we were not wrong three years ago when we just caught this and decided to focus our efforts on this part of the business. This being said, as I've always told you, Aecon has to stay balanced.

It has to stay balanced between the different core competencies that we have. It's about urban transportation, it's about industrial, it's about nuclear, it's about utilities, and it's about civil.

We have to keep balanced, but we know that the wave is about power. Maybe Jérôme, you want to add something?

Jérôme P. A. Julier

Sure. Sab, just to close the loop on the utility services side of the business, the capability that we have, both in Canada and the United States, centers around grid-scale battery storage, substations, distribution, transmission.

Then now, increasingly electrical testing, verification, meter replacement with the new team that's joined us. Our perspective is we want to continue to build capacity to serve these end markets.

There's an undeniable growth trend. Even in the more bearish case for power demand, we just see an enormous opportunity for us to continue to build out that area.

We'll do it organically. We'll do that through M&A to the extent the opportunities fit our buy box, our culture, and our safety record.

We continue to view it as an area of opportunity for capital deployment, for sure.

Sabahat Khan

Great. Thanks very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Yuri Lynk of Canaccord Genuity.

Your line is open.

Yuri Lynk

Hey, good morning.

Jean-Louis Servranckx

Morning.

Jérôme P. A. Julier

Morning.

Yuri Lynk

Morning. Just want to dig in a little bit on the outlook for construction segment adjusted EBITDA margin, calling for some stabilization here after a number of quarters of declines, and then maybe some improvement in the back half of the year.

Maybe just what are the puts and takes that get us stable here and then what could possibly drive some upside in the back half of the year in the margin? Thanks.

For sure.

Jérôme P. A. Julier

The message is simply that the direction of travel for the construction margin, whether you look at it on a reported or as-adjusted basis, the message is very much consistent, is stabilization on the direction of travel, with the potential for improvement. That's largely a function of through 2025, the business has moved the type of execution that's flowing through and being recognized into revenue away from some of the progressive elements and fixed-price contracts, which generally carry higher margins, but, in some ways, on fixed price, certainly higher risk, to a much more stably risk-adjusted return that we view as very attractive from an Aecon perspective.

We've now reached that point where we've stabilized that transition. The vast majority of our work is done under more appropriate contract structures.

The risk-adjusted margin profile that we're recognizing is strong given the contract structures that we're in front of. The improvement is going to stem largely from operational efficiency gains, improved cost and schedule performance on our jobs, and then as well as the drop-off of legacy and then the Western civil area that's added a dilutive impact to the overall margin profile in '25 and late '24.

I think from that perspective, it's a mix of factors, but I think all of this is in the context of a business that continues to grow quite well, and so we think there's good torque in that message.

Yuri Lynk

Are those Western civil contracts still dragging, or they're finished or stable?

Jérôme P. A. Julier

Our view is we have a handle on their completion and finalization, and we're going to continue just to close them out, right? They're effectively, I think, backlog-wise, we're probably talking kind of sub-$100 million here.

Same thing on the legacy side, sub-$100 million in the context of $5.4 billion of overall rev. We're feeling better about it.

Yuri Lynk

Yeah. Last one for me, just on the bookings.

A huge bookings year, 2025. Safe assumption that we're not going to get to that level of bookings in '26.

Can you remind us of any progressive contracts that might come up for that might be suitable to be booked in '26, like I'm thinking Pickering is probably one, but any help on just how we think about the new awards outlook this year?

Jean-Louis Servranckx

I will take this one. Yes, you're right.

The increase in our backlog in 2025 is mainly due to big chunk of job. We told you about Scarborough.

What is coming now, obviously Pickering is an important one. We are also on Winnipeg on a very interesting wastewater treatment plant, where we are finishing the development phase.

We are also working, you probably remember, on a fish passage and a civil job in United States, Howard Hanson Dam, that should most probably come to our construction backlog. We are waiting for a few results and eventual awards on some UDS project on which we have been bidding during the last months.

Yuri Lynk

That's helpful. I'll turn it over there, guys.

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Murray of ATB Cormark Capital Markets.

Your line is open.

Chris Murray

Thanks, folks. Good morning.

Maybe kind of following on kind of what to expect in 2026, especially on the revenue line. Certainly, really strong revenue growth through this year.

Actually I was thinking of the Ontario GO Electrification Project as well. You give the indication that you expect revenues to be higher in '26 than '25, which, given up where the backlog is, that's I guess probably what we should have been expecting.

I'm just trying to gauge how you think the magnitude's going to show up and because I can't believe that this 20% clip on year-over-year growth is going to continue. Maybe if you can characterize it a little bit better, that would help us kind of shape our view.

Jérôme P. A. Julier

Sure thing, Chris. The growth in '25, we'd likely describe as exceptional rather than just very good.

80-plus percent of that was organic, which is roughly $1 billion. Just the growth that Aecon produced in 2025, if that was its own business, would have been a top 20 construction company in Canada that was formed out of Aecon.

We're not anticipating that level next year. Our commentary in the outlook is formed on the basis of number one, the backlog; number two, a really strong recurring revenue programs across the business, but, in particular, the Utilities Group; number three, all sectors are really well-positioned for where demand trends exist today.

If we look, 2025 was effectively a flat or down year in construction in North America, except for a select few sectors, and those sectors were the sectors in which we're involved. 2026, we continue to see good outlook.

Overall general industry trends people are calling for, something in the order of low mid-single-digit growth. Again, we think we can handily beat that, but we're not going to get to the level we've gotten in 2025.

I just don't anticipate that absent some significant M&A. We're expecting another good year after an excellent year, but we have to temper expectations, right?

We can't expand our human capacity and deliver the amount of skilled trades that we use as a basis for a business at that clip on a continual basis, right? We need to be smart about it.

Chris Murray

Okay. Maybe if I ask the question a different way, but I think, if I look at your backlog kind of characteristics today, you've got about $3.6 billion that looks like delivered or planned for the next 12 months, $1 billion of probably recurring revenue that's in the pipeline.

Then how should we think about, at least even with the project demand in here, is it fair to think what would be about the right number to think about stuff that you can actually book and execute in the same year kind of on a normal run rate? Maybe that's a different way to think about this.

Jérôme P. A. Julier

If I gave you that, we'd be plugging to the revenue number that we have in our business plan, which we're not going to disclose. The opportunity set is strong, both procurement, go-get, change orders, ability to expand in existing projects and secure additional work packages.

If you go back historically, it's a relatively broad range that we've been able to pull together across the years. 2025, if you look at where we were in 2024, obviously, that kind of go-get element was quite strong.

I don't think it'll be as strong in '26, if you want to try to track back against that. Okay.

Chris Murray

Next question really quick. Just we're starting to see another one of these kind of legacy issues getting solved, I guess, in the quarter.

Can you just give us any color around the solution and if it had any material impact on the numbers in the quarter?

Jean-Louis Servranckx

Maybe I just begin with where are we physically on those jobs and then Jérôme will add a few figures that are all in our reports. As you have noticed, we are now substantially completed on Finch and Eglinton LRT, following what we call the revenue service demonstration, which is an extremely complex demonstration of the capabilities of all the systems we have been building.

This is done on those two LRT. Our maintenance and the TTCO operation is going quite well, we are very happy about it.

Gordie Howe, we are nearing substantial completion. It's about finalizing operational readiness of all our systems and finalizing the onboarding of all border agencies and installation in their offices.

I've read a few comments, just to be clear, substantial completion is totally separated from opening of the bridge. It means that we are now in the last centimeters to go to substantial completion.

The opening of the bridge is a different topic. We are on those three jobs finalizing our commercial discussion with all our clients.

We have no disputes. We are under discussion, and we think that within the next few months, we will be over with that.

Few figures?

Jérôme P. A. Julier

Financially, the legacy projects had a negative impact of $6 million in the quarter, Chris, and total for the year was $94 million. It's obviously substantially less than what we had last year.

The big focus in 2026, as Jean-Louis mentioned, is the successful delivery of the final project and then the closeout of the commercial terms associated with all three. Given where we stand today, I'm not sure it's actually additive or constructive for the overall Aecon discussion to zoom in too much on these items.

We're basically narrowing down the level of outcomes to not immaterial, but less material levels. What we might likely do in '26 is just report everything all together and then close out this chapter.

We're in the twilight phase of the legacy. We're focused on what comes next around some pretty stellar opportunities that we're in execution and procurement on, and I think we're going to want to talk a lot about that in '26 and a lot less about this very difficult phase that I think the team's done an extraordinary job managing through.

Chris Murray

Great. Thanks.

I probably asked the question a little bit wrong. I was actually more curious about the Rio Tinto agreement, and just if that had any material impact on the quarter.

Jérôme P. A. Julier

If it was material, we would have disclosed it. No, that's just another successful completion by our operational legal team to settle a dispute or claim situation with a client, and it's closed off.

I think from a macro level, if you kind of take it out a little bit, the real message here is Aecon does a really good job at managing risk exposures and reducing the overall enterprise-level risk that we're putting forward. So '24 to '25, the business has been in a better position, and '25 to '26, again, we think we're in a better risk-adjusted position.

The idea is creating a more boring, stable, more predictable Aecon from a financial perspective, and then a more exciting, more thrilling Aecon from a perspective of the people who work, and a very dependable Aecon from the perspective of our clients. I think we're advancing well on all three of those.

Chris Murray

All right. I'll leave it there.

Thanks for the color.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Tupholme of TD Cowen.

Your line is open.

Michael Tupholme

Thank you. Good morning.

My first question is just about the nuclear business. Obviously a key growth area for Aecon in 2025, and it was your most important growth area in the year.

I guess as we look to 2026, the question is, beyond executing on the substantial volume of nuclear work that you already have in hand, what should we be watching for and expecting as far as nuclear developments and progression in terms of new nuclear opportunities in 2026?

Jean-Louis Servranckx

As an introduction, I just want to come back to this incredible news about Darlington refurbishment. In February of 2026, we just finalized the refurbishment of the four reactors under budget and 4 months ahead of schedule.

It's extraordinary. You cannot imagine the number of calls and questions that we are receiving.

Something like, this is the first time we have good news on a big nuclear project for the last 20 years. How did you do it?

We are extremely proud because Aecon during the last 8 years on this project was on the critical path of its execution. It's a very good news for the nuclear industry to have been able to demonstrate that when it is well-organized, it works.

Obviously, on refurbishment, we are still on two major programs, Bruce with four reactors to complete up to 2032, and Pickering, four reactors, we have just begun the development phase and turbine up to 2035. Regarding new construction in Canada, we are working on the first unit of the small modular reactors, the 300-megawatt from GE Hitachi.

Completion forecasted around 2030 is going well. We have at this stage something like 1,100 people, between staff and workers on-site.

Nothing has yet been decided regarding new big nuclear in Canada in terms of technology from OPG or from Bruce, but we are working with these two utilities on the development phase with various options. In United States, we are working on three different topics: major component replacement, mainly with Dominion, but also now with Energy Northwest.

Second vector is the Department of Energy on their National Lab in Savannah River. The third one, you have noticed we have been awarded for Energy Northwest, the collaborative development to complete the planning, the design, and the construction of a 12x80-megawatt Xe-100 reactor with Kiewit and Black & Veatch.

It's just beginning. We are at planning and pure definition phase, but it's a new build.

What's important with this is to say that Aecon is technology agnostic. We work for CANDU and we are extremely strong with CANDU.

We work with GE Hitachi. We are beginning with X-energy.

We have been working in the past and we are working today with Westinghouse. It just means that we are ideally positioned for what is coming.

Michael Tupholme

That's helpful. Thank you very much.

Maybe just one quick follow-up on that response. As far as the Energy Northwest Cascade Advanced Energy Facility opportunity, is that something that, as you move through this next phase, you could get to the point where you are booking more meaningful amounts into backlog in 2026, or is that a beyond-2026 opportunity?

No,

Jean-Louis Servranckx

it's going to be beyond. At the moment, we're in pure definition phase.

It's a new kind of reactor. This will require some time just to get it well in the box between the next phases will be launched.

Michael Tupholme

Got it. Thank you.

Then maybe for Jérôme. You've had a few questions about 2026 revenue outlook.

I think you provided us some good information. The question's really about as we look beyond 2026.

Obviously, all of the transformation that's occurred at the company and the focus on different vectors has been done with a longer-term view. Can you talk about what sort of visibility you have into revenue growth in and beyond 2026 as we look to 2027 and future years?

You talked a moment ago about sort of 2026 being able to hopefully do better than industry-level growth. How do we think about sort of that period beyond '26?

Jérôme P. A. Julier

There's a few things. One, we've done a good job building out the stable recurring revenue side of the business on the utilities front, and we see opportunities to build out there.

The next component is if you look at our backlog, something in the order of $5 billion of the backlog is executable, effectively kind of beyond the 2-year period. The way we define backlog, Mike, as is it needs to be a project that has been awarded with costs and scope and schedule, and so it does really kind of that, air quotes, hard backlog definition.

We have visibility for financials that extend beyond based on the projects that were in procurement on, right? For instance, Arctic Over-the-Horizon, that will not enter backlog until we exit the validation phase.

We have a pretty good handle given the work that's been done by the preconstruction teams as to what that could look like. Where we sit today with, one, items that we've effectively secured, but not entered into backlog, recurring revenue, pipeline of work, and then just overall trends in the sectors where we're present, and then the inbounds that we're receiving from a demand perspective, gives us a strong degree of confidence that the business is positioned where it ought to be positioned.

You're probably looking for something a little bit more than that, other than to say that we feel pretty good about the trajectory that Aecon's on today, and an ability, certainly in the medium term to outpace the overall industry.

Michael Tupholme

That's helpful. I will turn it over there.

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Frederic Bastien of Raymond James.

Your line is open.

Frederic Bastien

Good morning. Guys, it's been almost 2.5 years since Oaktree made its strategic investment in Aecon Utilities.

How would you grade yourself or Aecon on a report card with respect to that investment, and what can we be looking forward to in the future?

Jérôme P. A. Julier

The utility business has been performing well in the context of a very difficult regulatory environment in Canada. When Oaktree entered into the equity of Aecon Utilities, we were facing some pretty good demand tailwinds, not shortly thereafter, telecom regulations, OEB regulations, a lot of the core markets where Aecon Utilities had historically been focused were just faced with a customer profile reducing CapEx to redeploy to other jurisdictions based on regulatory challenges in those markets.

The team did a very good job reimagining where they could put their resources, and so in the context of a business that was very heavily focused on pipeline and telecom, what we saw in 2025 was the addition of the Xtreme Group in Michigan provided very strong growth in the United States, our execution on 3 major grid-scale battery projects, which was internal partnership between Industrial and Utilities. All those got done with just extraordinary schedule and cost performance.

Then we also had KPC and then Ainsworth added to the mix as well. Overall, though, the performance in a very tough environment where we operate wasn't bad at all.

We're very proud of what they've been able to produce. Oaktree is a constructive partner.

They've got a very good read on aspects of the market in the United States, which, when combined with our own Intel and perspectives, gives us a very good growth algorithm for that market. We're not going to give ourselves a letter grade, but we're happy with how it's worked out.

Frederic Bastien

Great, and I think one of the options that you would be contemplating further down the pipe is potentially turning this Aecon Utilities into an IPO. What are your thoughts there?

Jérôme P. A. Julier

Our focus with the business is to continue to grow and build out the recurring revenue programs and expand its diversification from a market, client, and geographic perspective. First things first.

Frederic Bastien

Okay. We saw obviously the recurring revenues tied to utilities go up nicely year-over-year.

There was a drop if you look at the other side of the recurring revenue pie. There's been a drop from about 50%.

What's in there as well?

Jérôme P. A. Julier

That would capture a variety of items ranging from aggregate sales, but most of the change that we've seen on that level relates primarily to some of the progressive design phases that were more active in 2024 that have effectively flipped into construction now. When we think about some of these collaborative projects that were on and we're expanding kind of design and preconstruction resources, where it's not tied to backlog, but it's kind of an ongoing recognition of revenue, it falls into this bucket from a kind of disclosure perspective, and then as those projects have flipped into construction, it's now just moved into another part of the business.

It's less here, but more elsewhere.

Frederic Bastien

Gotcha. That's good color.

Appreciate the answers. Thank you.

Jérôme P. A. Julier

No problem.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Krista Friesen of CIBC.

Your line is open.

Krista Friesen

Hi. Thanks for taking my question, and congrats on the quarter.

Obviously, a number of opportunities in front of you guys, whether it's utilities, nuclear, defense, Build Canada. How are you feeling about your capacity, maybe that's the labor force, or to ask it a different way, what do you feel is your limiting factor when you're looking at all of these opportunities?

Jean-Louis Servranckx

Obviously, construction, as I used to say, is about people and processes. Here, we have to be careful about people availability.

At this stage, we have no issue. I remind you that we have extremely strong relations with the trades community and the trade unions.

We have been able, because it was part of our strategy and we had quite a good view about what was coming, to discuss with them and to be ready. We do not have at this stage a issue.

For example, our workforce in the nuclear to finish Bruce and Pickering is extremely strong. Not only in Canada, in United States, we are something like 1,500 workers in our nuclear sector, very much loyal to the company.

I would tend to say so far, good. The battle on the staff and the executive has always existed between company.

It's an open market. The fact that Aecon has a bright future is helping us a lot to be able to attract, to train, to retain a lot of new and former executives.

At this stage, I would say I'm not that worried. We are extremely focused on the contract mode of our new project, of our backlog, and I think we have done quite a good exercise to de-risk.

You remember that we have inverted our proportion of fixed lump sum cost and collaborative, progressive, variable cost. This is what I can say to you at this stage.

Krista Friesen

Thank you. Maybe just thinking about defense specifically, do you feel that you have all the capabilities that you would like to have to execute on these defense projects, or are there M&A opportunities to build out your expertise in that space?

Thank you.

Jean-Louis Servranckx

For what we have at the moment, specifically Arctic Over-the-Horizon, we are ready. It was a target, and we have been preparing this extremely carefully.

Now, obviously, you have heard that there is going to be four new bases for aircraft in the Northwest Territories. We're not going to take and win those four jobs.

We don't want to. We are extremely careful.

We are not looking at M&A to be able to execute those jobs.

Krista Friesen

Thank you. I'll leave it there.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Maxim Sytchev of NBCM.

Your line is open.

Maxim Sytchev

Hi. Good morning, gentlemen.

Jean-Louis, maybe first question for you. Nuclear right now is 30% of the business, and given the visibility of all the new-build stuff that's coming up, and, obviously, the construction revenue sort of attached to it, is it conceivable we could be driving maybe close to half of revenue in 5 to 7 years from nuclear for Aecon, or is that too aggressive of a potential assumption?

Thanks.

Jean-Louis Servranckx

I think it's too aggressive, Maxim. We just have to realize when we speak about new build and new technology, for example, or upgraded reactors, it take quite a lot of time to take them from definition or planning phase toward construction where the bulk of the revenue is.

This will take time, and that's good. That's good for us.

I think that the 50% is too much aggressive. This being said, I come back to the fact that we want to be balanced.

We want to be balanced because we don't have in hand the control of all the parameters. We think we have a good mix at the moment.

We work a lot to modify it. It may grow on the nuclear side, but not up to the level you have been citing.

Jérôme P. A. Julier

Then, Maxim, just to layer on top of it, all other sectors are also growing, right? If we were in a dynamic where we only had one shining star in the constellation, it probably wouldn't be a crazy assumption, but the fact that all five of our sectors in the Construction segment are very well-positioned, I think reduces that impact quite materially.

Maxim Sytchev

Okay. No, that's fair.

Then quickly, just in terms of potential M&A in the US, I presume anything in the utilities power space still commands pretty lofty multiples. I'm just wondering what are your thoughts there, and what are you seeing on the ground?

Obviously, benefiting from your own multiple expansion. Any comments would be great.

Thanks. Sure.

Jérôme P. A. Julier

Multiples are strong, and it's a reflection of the dynamic in that market. It's very clear that the ability to service utilities are doing quite well now in the context of the CapEx budgets that the utilities need in order to keep pace with the demand profile.

Part of that is clearly tied to compute consumption, whether it's for AI or kind of Bitcoin mining or whatever it is that is running through those server farms. Part of it's also reindustrialization, which I don't think we shouldn't lose track of.

The administration's policies are focused on onshoring a lot of that productive capacity, and that just consumes a ton of energy as well. Yes, the multiples are expanding.

We need to be very specific with what we want to target. We have very particular parameters and ways that we approach it, and we generally don't want to find ourselves in a situation where we're bidding businesses that are mercenary or private equity rollovers.

It's a challenging dynamic. We need to have businesses that will be additive to Aecon from not just revenue and EBITDA and earnings perspective, but they need to be additive from a capability standpoint, safety standpoint, team standpoint.

Our job's to find the way. If you look at the average multiples that we paid for M&A over the last dozen acquisitions that the company's done, they tend to be appropriate for what we trade at the Aecon level, and our job is to thread the needle and finesse that.

That's why if people want to go pay whatever those multiples that Quanta's trading at, they can easily go do that. If they want to find a better way of doing it, that's our job.

Maxim Sytchev

Okay. Great color.

Thank you so much, gentlemen.

Jérôme P. A. Julier

Thanks, Max.

Operator

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time.

I'd like to turn it back to Adam Borgatti for closing remarks.

Adam Borgatti

Thanks very much, Didi, and appreciate everyone's attention and interest. We're available for follow-up calls at any time.

Wish you a great rest of your day, and speak with you soon.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.