Enerflex 2026 Q3 Earnings Call

Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, Jonathan, and good morning, everyone.

With me today are Paul Mahoney, President and CEO, Preet Dhindsa, SVP and CFO, and Ben Park, Enerflex's Controller. Before I turn it over to Paul, I will remind everyone that today's discussion will include non-IFRS and other financial measures, as well as forward-looking statements regarding Enerflex's expectations for future performance and business prospects. Forward-looking information involves risks and uncertainties, and the stated expectations could differ materially from actual results or performance. For more information, refer to the advisory statements within our news release, MD&A, and other regulatory filings, all available on our website and under our SEDAR+ and EDGAR profile. I will now turn it over to Paul.

Thanks, Jeff, and thank you for joining us on this morning's call. Enerflex delivered a solid third quarter, highlighted by healthy cash generation, record Engineered Systems bookings and backlog, notable commercial wins for behind-the-meter natural gas fired power generation, and continued progress towards the strategic objectives highlighted during our May investor update. We are pleased with the progress to date and adoption of operational and efficiency initiatives across our integrated company. Our results continue to reflect growing demand across core markets and the strength of Enerflex's integrated platform, which allows us to support customers across compression, gas processing, power generation, and Aftermarket Services. We are increasingly seeing end market opportunities that have the potential to drive meaningful growth across the business for years to come.

While we are positioning the organization to capitalize, we continue to review all opportunities on a risk-adjusted basis and balanced with our focus on operational excellence and disciplined execution. Let me start with our Engineered Systems business. The quarter was highlighted by record bookings of approximately $1 billion. During the first nine months of 2026, Engineered Systems bookings totaled approximately $2 billion, and we are on track to exceed $3 billion during 2026. This compares to our prior annual high watermark of approximately $1.5 billion in 2018. Strong bookings increased our Engineered Systems backlog to $2.1 billion at the end of Q3 and provide visibility into future activity levels through 2028.

End market demand remains broad-based across compression, gas processing, and power generation applications, with bookings in Q3 highlighted by the award of a contract to design, engineer, fabricate, and assemble approximately 450 megawatts of behind-the-meter natural gas fired power generation units for a North American data center developer. The volume and quality of opportunities we see across end markets reinforces our view that demand for natural gas infrastructure remains durable and supported by long-term fundamentals. We believe Enerflex is well positioned to take advantage of growing end market demand, which was a key factor in our decision to invest in expanding the capacity and capabilities of our Engineered Systems business line. We expect these investments to enhance operational efficiency, support continued execution as activity levels increase, and translate into strong value creation for our shareholders. Power generation has rapidly become an important opportunity for Enerflex.

We continue to see growing customer demand for reliable dispatchable power solutions, particularly in support of data center development and in regions where grid infrastructure remains constrained. With that said, it is important to emphasize that we are taking a disciplined approach in how we review, pursue, and assess risk for power generation related opportunities. This underlies our go-to-market approach, which emphasizes Enerflex's unique capabilities in providing a fully integrated solution, spanning design, engineering, equipment supply, commissioning, operations, maintenance, and optimization, in addition to the project and customers where our team focuses their efforts. We are very pleased with the market response to Enerflex's value proposition and our ability to secure a backlog of behind-the-meter natural gas fired power generation projects that now exceeds 1.75 gigawatts. I would like to recognize our team for these successes and their tremendous efforts over the past year.

Let me emphasize, we view behind-the-meter power generation as directly connected and complementary to Enerflex's core gas compression and processing capabilities. We are pursuing growth opportunities across all of the company's end markets, including behind-the-meter power generation. Turning to Aftermarket Services, the business continues to perform well and is supported by healthy customer activity levels across our key operating regions. Our global installed base and growing service capabilities position us well to benefit from ongoing maintenance requirements and future service opportunities associated with both traditional Energy Infrastructure and power generation projects. Recent project awards align with Enerflex's commercial capabilities to support the full cycle requirements of behind-the-meter power generation development, and are expected to provide opportunities for future commissioning, installation, and Aftermarket Services support, including digital solutions through Enerflex's ReliaCore Asset Performance Ecosystem.

We continue to view Aftermarket Services as an attractive source of recurring revenue and long-term value creation. Turning to Energy Infrastructure, our U.S. contract compression business continues to perform well as increasing natural gas production supports demand for compression services. Utilization remains strong at 94%, while fleet size increased to approximately 521,000 horsepower at quarter end. We continue to target customer supported fleet growth of 10%-15% during 2026, and are securing long-lead components to support growth into 2030. Our international Energy Infrastructure portfolio also continues to be a durable source of cash flow, supported by long-term customer relationships and contracted assets. During the quarter, we also completed the divestiture of the majority of our Asia Pacific operations.

The transaction advances several of the objectives outlined during our investor update in May, including sharpening our geographic focus, simplifying the business, and further concentrating our efforts on the markets and product lines where we see the greatest opportunities for long-term value creation. As we discussed at our investor update in May, our focus remains on growing revenue ahead of our underlying markets, improving profitability, enhancing cash conversion, and driving higher returns on capital. To support these objectives, we continue to advance initiatives across the organization, including the integration of our North American operations, strengthening our supply chain execution, driving continuous improvement in Lean, and enhanced focus on our commercial execution and advancing digital enablement. The deployment of ReliaCore is an increasingly important component of our integrated service offering.

In addition to supporting our existing installed base, ReliaCore enhances our ability to deliver remote monitoring, operational support, and asset optimization solutions across both traditional Energy Infrastructure and emerging power generation applications. These capabilities extend service coverage, accelerate issue resolution, and build the foundation for advanced analytics and predictive maintenance capabilities that are expected to improve asset performance, reduce downtime, and create long-term economic value for both Enerflex and our client partners. As we look ahead, we believe Enerflex is exceptionally well positioned. Record backlog provides visibility into future activity levels. Our contract compression business continues to grow. Demand for natural gas infrastructure remains constructive, and our emerging power generation platform continues to gain momentum. With that, I'll turn the call over to Preet.

Thanks, Paul, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin by touching on a few highlights from our third quarter financial results. Gross margin before depreciation amortization was $176 million, or 28% of revenue in Q3 2026, compared to $206 million, or 27% of revenue from the prior year period, and $173 million, or 30% of revenue in the second quarter. The year-over-year decline primarily reflects the upfront gain related to commencement of the Bisat-C expansion facility, as well as the achievement of certain Engineered Systems project milestones in the prior year period. Compared to the second quarter, margins reflect a shift in revenue mix and project sequencing, with Engineered Systems revenue improving sequentially and margins consistent with our historical average. Energy Infrastructure and Aftermarket Services once again provided a strong foundation for earnings generation, contributing approximately 68% of consolidated gross margin before depreciation amortization during the quarter.

SG&A was $64 million, down $7 million from the prior year period, primarily due to lower share-based compensation. Core SG&A increased to $58 million from $53 million in Q3 2025, reflecting cost to support growth and operational optimization in the business. Adjusted EBITDA was $129 million, compared to $145 million in the third quarter of 2025 and $128 million in the second quarter of this year. Compared to prior year, results reflect timing of project milestones and a higher level of operational activity in ES during the prior year period. Free cash flow is $102 million, compared to $43 million in the prior year period and $32 million last quarter. The increase of free cash flow compared to prior year and prior period reflected higher CFO, including net working capital recovery of $51 million, being partially offset by higher capital spending compared to the prior year period.

Return on capital employed was 15.8% in Q3 2026, compared to 16.9% in Q3 2025 and 15.4% in Q2 2026. The sequential increase benefited from lower average capital employed, predominantly due to a reduction in net debt. Compared to Q3 2025, ROCE reflects lower trailing 12-month EBIT as the prior year period benefited from the upfront gain related to recognition of the Bisat-C expansion as well as lower share-based compensation. Net earnings of $55 million, or $0.45 per share, compared to $37 million or $0.30 per share in the prior year period, and $30 million or $0.25 per share in the second quarter. Turning to the balance sheet, Enerflex ended the quarter with net debt of $312 million, including $227 million of cash.