Earnings call transcript: Mullen Group Q3 2025 misses earnings forecast

Mullen Group Ltd. reported its earnings for the third quarter of 2025, revealing a slight miss on both earnings per share (EPS) and revenue forecasts. The company posted an EPS of $0.36, falling short of the expected $0.372, marking a surprise of -3.23%. Revenue also came in below expectations at $561.8 million, compared to the forecasted $604.73 million, representing a surprise of -7.1%. Following the announcement, Mullen Group’s stock price experienced a decline of 0.9% in pre-market trading, reflecting investor disappointment. According to InvestingPro data, the company maintains a "GREAT" overall financial health score of 3.66 out of 5, with particularly strong cash flow metrics. The company has also maintained dividend payments for 26 consecutive years, demonstrating consistent shareholder returns.

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Key Takeaways

• Mullen Group’s Q3 2025 EPS and revenue both missed forecasts.
• The company achieved record cash from operations, exceeding $100 million.
• Investments in new technologies and infrastructure projects continue.
• Stock price dropped 0.9% following the earnings announcement.

Company Performance

Mullen Group Ltd. reported record quarterly revenues of $560 million, a 5.6% increase year-over-year, driven largely by acquisitions contributing $66.4 million. Despite this growth, the company faced challenges in meeting forecasted figures. Operationally, Mullen Group focused on cost control, reducing capital expenditures to $50 million, half of the initial budget. The company also emphasized improvements in efficiency and safety through investments in new technologies and robotics.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $560 million, up 5.6% year-over-year
• Earnings per share: $0.36, below the forecast of $0.372
• Cash from operations: Over $100 million, or $1.18 per common share
• OIBDA: $97.6 million, a slight increase from the previous year
• OIBDA as a percentage of revenue: Decreased to 17.2% from 18.2%

Earnings vs. Forecast

Mullen Group’s actual EPS of $0.36 fell short of the $0.372 forecast, resulting in a negative surprise of 3.23%. This marks a deviation from the company’s historical performance, where it has typically met or exceeded expectations. Revenue also missed the forecast by 7.1%, coming in at $561.8 million against the anticipated $604.73 million.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Mullen Group’s stock price decreased by 0.9% to $14.29, reflecting investor dissatisfaction with the earnings miss. The stock’s movement placed it closer to its 52-week low of $11.81, contrasting with its high of $16.06. This decline aligns with broader market trends where companies missing earnings expectations face immediate stock price pressures.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Mullen Group plans to release its 2026 budget and business plan in December, with expectations of market improvement in 2026. The company remains committed to strategic acquisitions, particularly in the less-than-truckload (LTL) and logistics verticals, and is comfortable increasing leverage to 2.5 times for the right opportunities.

Executive Commentary

Murray Mullen, Chair and President, emphasized the company’s growth strategy, stating, "We’re a growth company. We would look at adding really good companies into our network." He further noted the focus on acquiring quality companies at fair prices, reinforcing Mullen Group’s long-term potential in targeted verticals.

Risks and Challenges

• Economic Conditions: Customers are demanding lower rates amid a stable but stagnant Canadian economy.
• Regulatory Pressures: Increasing focus on safety standards could impact operations.
• Driver Shortage: Potential shortages in North America could affect logistics capabilities.
• Market Conditions: A tightening market is expected in early 2026, posing challenges.
• Supply Chain: Pressuring suppliers for better product value remains a priority.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the impact of U.S. regulatory changes on driver availability and the company’s M&A strategy. Mullen Group addressed these concerns, highlighting challenges in the oil and gas service sector and explaining accounting changes for Coal Group revenue.

Full transcript - Mullen Group Ltd. (MTL) Q3 2025:

Conference Operator: Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Mullen Group Ltd. third quarter earnings conference call and webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference, you may signal an operator by pressing star then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President. Please go ahead.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Thank you and welcome all to Mullen Group’s quarterly conference call. This morning, I’ll provide a brief overview of the quarter, then I’ll turn the call over to Carson for a more in-depth look at the results. For those of you that are interested in all of the numbers, the team headed by Carson and by Nick Woodward, they prepared the MD&A for the period ending September 30, 2025. This 42-page document contains all of the details, which can be found on our website also at www.mullen-group.com or on CDAR Plus. Our intent this morning is to provide the highlights. I will close with some outlook commentary before turning the call over to you for the Q&A session.

Before I commence today’s review, I shall remind you once again that the presentation contains forward-looking statements that are based upon current expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. As such, actual results may differ materially. Further information identifying the risks, the uncertainties, and assumptions can be found in the disclosure documents. Once again, with me this morning, I’m in all cottons with the entire senior executive team. I got Richard Maloney, who’s a Senior Operating Officer, Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, and Joanna Scott, who’s our Senior Corporate Officer. Moving right into, let’s start by talking about the impact acquisitions are having on our results and why I believe the shareholders should be pleased with how this well-thought-out acquisition strategy sets our organization apart from many of our industry peers. Acquisitions are really a critical component of our growth strategy.

However, this is not the only means. What do I mean by that? Basically, we look at growth this way. It is derived from two sources: internal, some call that same store sales growth, and external, which is clearly acquisitions. When we take a view that the economy is strong, when economic activity is robust, when capital isn’t being invested, we work with our business units to take advantage of these trends to expand service offerings. We aggressively deploy capital and we raise rates. In other words, this is when we rely upon internal growth. I suspect that you’re all well aware that we do not believe that Canada’s economy is currently in a growth mode. Actually, I don’t know of anyone that believes this other than a few misinformed politicians. This does not imply that the economy is in decline either because I do not believe it is.

In other words, it is okay. There is work to do. There’s freight to haul. However, in the absence of growth in the economy, the balance of negotiating power shifts to the customer. I will tell you, the customers are demanding these days. Why? Because they can. This forces us to focus on managing costs as well as limit capital investment because the returns just cannot be justified when rates are too low. I’d also add that new capital is very expensive to acquire these days. New trucks, new trailers, new everything. Given the current market conditions, we cannot rely upon increased rates to mitigate cost pressures. This is why we must manage the cost. We strive for productivity gains in order to maintain margin. On this front, I’m telling you I’m very pleased with how the vast majority of our business units are handling the difficult market conditions.

They are staying focused with a steady hand on the wheel, as I like to say. Let me turn to the other source of growth, the one that Mullen Group Ltd. has relied upon for over 30 years. It’s by acquisitions. These are the quickest ways to grow. However, once again, if not done carefully with a well thought out plan as to how the investment will work out in the future, the early wins can fade away very, very quickly. This is why we refer to our well-thought-out acquisition strategy. We stay focused and invest only in opportunities and in verticals in the economy that we believe have strong fundamentals and hopefully future growth potential when market conditions turn more favorable. With this short strategy overview, how did we do last quarter? As predicted, we grew the top line nicely with acquisitions being the main reason.

So too was that steady performance of our existing business units, the lone exception being those business units that provide service to the oil and natural gas business in Western Canada. I will lay the blame squarely on low commodity prices, not the good folks that operate these business units we have because customers either delayed spending or they pivoted to playing the lowest price game. That is a game we do not partake in, especially if the business is very capital intensive like it is in the oil and gas service side. We took a few lumps and we moved on. I’ll just tell you this, folks, sometimes things aren’t fair, but at Mullen Group Ltd., it’s not a reason to complain or vent. We simply go about our business and fix what needs to be fixed.

Carson will now provide some color and discuss the reasons behind our record revenues and cash from operations. Don’t forget that. Record cash, right, Cars? Carson, you’re up.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: All right. Thank you, Murray, and welcome, everyone. I’ll provide some additional highlights from the third quarter, the details of which are fully explained in our third quarter interim report. Our third quarter financial results were impacted mainly by acquisitions as we continue to grow and build out our network by adding additional logistics service offerings to our customers. This quarter is the first in which we recognized the full three months of financial results from the Coal Group. We generated record revenues compared to any previous quarter at just over $560 million, an increase of $29.8 million or 5.6% from the same period last year. Acquisitions drove revenue growth by adding $66.4 million of incremental revenue and consisted mainly from the results from the Coal Group and from Pacific Northwest.

Revenues from our existing business units, excluding acquisitions and fuel surcharge, decreased by $30.5 million and was primarily due to a reduction in the S&I segment. Not only did we generate record revenues, but more importantly, we also generated a record amount of cash as cash from operating activities increased to over $100 million or $1.18 per common share in the quarter, well above our cash requirements. This strong cash generation creates value for our long-term shareholders and, along with our well-structured balance sheet, provides us with optionality regarding capital allocation. This enviable financial position enabled us to announce our intention to redeem in full prior to maturity the $125 million of convertible debentures that are outstanding. Conversion of the debentures into Mullen Group common shares is permitted at the discretion of the holders of the debentures until November 21, 2025.

Any debentures not converted into Mullen Group common shares will be settled in cash. We generated OIBDA of $97.6 million, a slight increase compared to the prior year period. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange gains and losses on U.S. dollar denominated cash within our corporate segment, a term we’ve called OIBDA adjusted, was $96.4 million, virtually flat compared to the prior year. OIBDA from our existing business units was down $8.9 million, and corporate costs were up as we expanded our team to accommodate future growth. These declines were offset by $11.2 million of incremental OIBDA from acquisitions. OIBDA adjusted as a percentage of consolidated revenue decreased to 17.2% from 18.2%, mainly due to lower margins generated from the asset-light business model of the Coal Group and from a lower proportion of higher margin specialized business. Now let’s take a look at some of the highlights by segment.

First, in the consumer-driven LTL segment, which remains stable and consistent, revenues in the LTL segment were $197.8 million, an increase of $9.1 million from last year due to $10.2 million of incremental revenue from acquisitions. This was somewhat offset by a $2.2 million decline in fuel surcharge revenue. Revenues from our existing business units, excluding acquisitions and fuel surcharge, increased by $1.1 million due to steady customer demand and from some market share gains. OIBDA was $36.4 million, which was up slightly from last year. This increase was due to $2.6 million of incremental OIBDA from acquisitions, while cost pressures and competitive pricing resulted in lower OIBDA from our existing business units. Operating margin, while still very respectable, decreased slightly to 18.4% due to the inability to implement customer rate increases to offset greater cost pressures. Second is our L&W segment.

Revenues in the L&W segment were $208.1 million, up $39 million from last year. Acquisitions added $46.4 million of incremental revenue and was mainly driven by Coal Group’s Canadian operations, which was somewhat offset by a $2.8 million decline in fuel surcharge revenue. Revenue from our existing business units, excluding acquisitions and fuel surcharge revenues, decreased by $4.4 million and was mainly due to a decline in freight and logistics demand resulting from a lack of private capital investment in Canada. OIBDA was $38 million, up $2.8 million from prior year, with acquisitions adding $5.2 million of incremental OIBDA, while our business units, excluding acquisitions, generated lower OIBDA due to a lack of demand for their services. Operating margins decreased by 2.5% to 18.3%, primarily due to the impact of the lower margins generated by the asset-light acquisition of Coal Group’s Canadian operations.

Now, if you exclude Coal, operating margin would have been virtually flat compared to the prior year period at 20.6%. What this says is our existing business units, excluding acquisitions, did a great job in protecting margin under difficult market conditions. Moving to the S&I segment, revenues were $105.1 million, down $26.7 million from last year due to a lack of large capital projects being sanctioned in Canada, from demarketing some customers in certain markets, and from depressed commodity prices that negatively impacted our customers’ drilling and production plans. These factors led to a decline in revenue from our production services and drilling-related business units. Somewhat offsetting these declines were revenue gains made within our specialized services business units that were tied to infrastructure and mining, as Canadian dewatering and smoke contractors saw greater demand for their services.

OIBDA was $23.6 million, down $4.9 million from the prior year, as our production services business units recorded a decrease in OIBDA due to E&P customers choosing to delay facility maintenance and turnaround projects. The specialized services business units had an increase in OIBDA primarily due to greater customer demand at smoke and Canadian dewatering, which was somewhat offset by a decline in demand for services at Pre-May pipelines. The drilling-related services business units recognized a $1 million increase in OIBDA despite that lower revenue that I spoke of. Operating margins increased to 22.5% from 21.6%, which was mainly due to demarketing low-margin business and from cost control measures and more efficient operations.

Another highlight was that we deployed over $10 million of CapEx into this segment in the quarter, mainly to drill two new disposal wells for involved energy services to increase capacity at our processing and disposal facility to meet strong customer demand. Our diverse business model enables us to deploy capital where we see acceptable returns. Within our non-asset-based U.S. 3PL segments, revenues were $53.9 million, up $8.2 million from last year, as Coal Group’s U.S. operations added $9.8 million of incremental revenue in the quarter. In transitioning Coal Group’s U.S. operations to IFRS accounting standards, we determined that duties and taxes collected on Coal USA by Coal USA and remitted to government agencies on behalf of customers should be presented on a net basis. Now, presenting this revenue on a net basis has no impact on OIBDA cash flow or net income.

Holistic generated lower revenues compared to the prior year as many customers remained cautious on ramping up manufacturing and ordering inventory. OIBDA was $4 million, up $3.7 million from the prior year, with Coal Group’s U.S. operations adding $3.4 million of incremental OIBDA, while holistic results also improved compared to the same period last year. Operating margins improved to 7.4% from 0.7% due to the higher margins experienced at Coal USA. Now moving to the balance sheet. In July, we closed a private placement debt offering of 12-year long-term notes of approximately $400 million. We used these funds to prepay approximately $237 million of private placement notes that were set to mature in October of 2026 and $207 million of amounts that were drawn on our bank credit facilities, which was mainly used to fund the Coal Group acquisition.

At September 30th, we had working capital of $286 million, which included $151 million of cash on hand. Not included within this working capital is our derivative that hedges $112 million U.S. dollars into Canadian dollars at a foreign exchange rate of 1.1148. This derivative has an economic cash value of approximately $32 million, and since it matures in November of 2026, it will be included within working capital at year-end. We also have access to $525 million of undrawn bank lines. In terms of our debt covenants, total net debt to operating cash flow at September 30th was 2.6 to 1. With the announcement of the redemption of the convertible debentures, our pro forma total net debt to operating cash flow covenant, assuming all other factors remain constant, would have been approximately 2.25 to 1. In summary, we continue to generate cash in excess of our needs.

Our balance sheet is well structured, and we have ample short-term liquidity of over $150 million of cash, providing us with the ability to continue to build out our network and grow when the right opportunities come along. With that, Murray, I will pass the call back to you.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Yeah, thanks, Cars. Well done again. You provided our listeners with a really nice detailed report. There’s a lot of information there, but let me just, there’s a couple of highlights I’d like to reiterate because I believe these will impact how we can take advantage of opportunities that I personally believe are just inevitable to arise in this market. The first is record revenues from acquisitions, which really means that we’ve entered new verticals to expand in as and when the economy improves. We believe that eventually it does. We’re going to be larger and bigger in more verticals that we can sell to customers in the future with our acquisition strategy. The second is, and Carson alluded to this at the end, the record cash from operations. Funds that, along with our strong current strong balance sheet, we can use to pursue acquisitions that meet our investment criteria.

We’re going to continue to grow, pay the acquisition strategy. We just have to pick where should we put that money to work. That’s what the Senior Executive Team is highly focused on. In other words, I sure like the way that we position this organization. Let me just now give you my best take on what I think the near term might look like. As evidenced by our results last quarter, it appears the general economy has found what appears to be stable ground. Economic activity is in a better spot than we’ve seen for quite some time. That is good for freight demand. We see it in our results. There’s freight to move, and it’s reasonably active. Yes, there still remain the issues like tariffs and trade concerns that have impacted the cross-border traffic. I believe these things will subside over time.

In fact, if you get beyond all the headlines, really, there’s not much tariffs on trade between Canada and the United States. Nearly everything’s been exempted. We got to be careful on what we listen to all the time. It definitely has impacted the psyche of people that invest capital. We also think that the primary reason why Canada will continue to underperform is the lack of private investment capital. This is our view. The reality is, in the meantime, the Canadian government will deficit finance to sustain the current economy. From my perspective, the Canadian economy is in a balanced spot, not the deficit. I said the economy. It’s not growing rapidly, but it’s not declining either. It’s okay. That’s from within this perspective, that’s what we have to manage the business within. On that front, pricing still remains a challenge.

Here too, I’m starting to see some emerging signals that could impact supply, especially as it relates to the availability of certified drivers. For example, in the U.S., if the United States Department of Transportation is accurate in their analysis and they remove over 190,000 CDL authorized drivers from the market, there will be a shortage of professional drivers in the U.S. We’re watching this very carefully because once the market tightens in the U.S., it will also tighten in Canada. In addition, there appears to be a shift happening in Canada where there’s more of a focus by the regulatory authorities and the government on ensuring that safety standards are enforced across all carriers. We also know that industry capacity is really not growing, as evidenced by the lack of Class A truck orders sales.

Based upon these factors, it appears that there’s a new demand-supply balance forming, which will be good for margins eventually, perhaps even as early as next year. I suspect we will know in early 2026 if the market tightens enough for our business units to start having a little more leverage with customers and having some thoughtful discussion about what the rates should be. This is not the case today. As such, we continue to ask our business units to focus on controlling costs and look at ways to improve productivity. Now, here’s an example of what I mean by improving productivity. We’re investing in new technologies. We’re investing in robotics for our warehouse operations, initiatives that will reduce costs and improve efficiencies and safety. We’re not stopping because we think the future will eventually come around our way.

One vertical that we think will continue to struggle in the short term, I don’t think long term, but in the short term, that’s the reality, is the oil and natural gas service sector, which is included in our S&I segment. Commodity prices have been under pressure all year, and this has impacted the cash flow for the E&P industry. In response, our customers have curtailed capital investment. They delayed major turnarounds and aggressively pursued lower costs throughout their supply chain. As I suggested, I don’t think this is a long-term scenario, but it is the reality in the short term. We expect this portion of our business to underperform until commodity prices improve. We are, however, still, as I think Carson alluded to, investing in the segment and invested $8.1 million in two new disposal wells that are involved in energy services growth facility in Grand Prairie.

It’s a first-class facility, and we drilled two new wells that will give us additional capacity to handle customers’ fluids. This investment will undoubtedly double our capacity. One day, there will be a day when new pipelines are built to feed natural gas to LNG facilities on the West Coast, and we’ll be ready to handle our customers’ fluid disposal requirements. This is another example of how we think about deploying capital and we think about tomorrow. Lastly, before I turn it over to you, what about future acquisitions? As Carson highlighted, the balance sheet is structured in a manner that we can pursue opportunities. We really like the tuck-in model because this is how we can improve margins quickly. We just roll them into one of our best-in-class business units and make that 41.

We got lots of really good talent out there that we can roll in tuck-in acquisitions. When you do that, you can reduce overall costs and improve density quickly. Lastly, if the right platform company comes available, and a platform company, let’s say, like Coal Group did, this is a company that’s in the right vertical with lots of future potential. We’ll consider it. Folks, now it’s your turn. I’ll turn the call over to the operator, and we can go straight to the Q&A session.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you’re using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. The first question comes from Walter Spracklin with RBC. Please go ahead.

Walter Spracklin, Analyst, RBC: Yeah, thanks very much. Hey, everyone. How are you doing?

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Hey, good morning, Walter.

Walter Spracklin, Analyst, RBC: Murray, this one’s for you. Let’s start with your guidance. You’ve got $350 million out there, of which $30 million was to come from acquisitions. You mentioned that in your release that’s going to be, or it’s uncertain as to achieving that, and that it should be achievable on a 12-month forward basis. Now, is that suggestive then that this is now going to be your 26th, or are you saying that this is now the 26th guidance of $350 million for 2026? Am I reading that correctly? You know.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: That’s a pretty good observation, Walter. We did guide to, I think, $2.25 billion and $350 million for this year. Two things that I missed, I’ll be blunt. I missed that the commodity prices were going to be as soft as they were, and that’s really impacted our S&I segment. I didn’t think that that was going to occur. You saw how last quarter our S&I was down like $25 million. I missed that part, there’s no doubt. Do I think it’s permanent? No, I don’t believe that. I think the second one we missed is that when we had originally evaluated our Coal Group on the revenue side, we had thought that the revenues were up around $300 million.

When we did our final purchase price equations, we did not like the way they accounted for revenue in terms of tariff and taxes, and we just considered that a flow-through, so we just netted those out. On those two fronts, that’s where we missed the revenue side. On the EBITDA side, or OIBDA side, whatever you want to call it, Coal Group, we didn’t get done as fast as we thought it was going to be. Early, we thought we had this in the bag. We had a deal, and Mr. Lucky, unfortunately, passed away before we went to sign, the night before we went to sign. That delayed the deal. We had to go to the courts to get, so that delayed it. The Competition Bureau delayed us by about two months.

We probably lost a quarter, Walter, that we were counting on when we gave the guidance early on. I think that’s why we missed. We’re going to be off by a little bit, but it’s not going to be off by significant. I think if you pro forma, really is what you’re saying, is 2026, you’re taking away our thunder for the December 3rd budget meeting. You can see the business we’ve got. We’ve made all the right steps to get us to that $225 million and $350 million. We’ll articulate in December what we really think is happening in the market. Is the market changing for 2026? I gave a couple of suggestions that said maybe the market tightens a little bit next year. If that does, then you know we got a bigger book of business that you maybe get a margin improvement in 1%.

Just a 1% margin improvement is pretty significant, Walter. We’ll give our best analysis on that in December after we’ve collated and talked with all of our business units. For right now, I think our pro forma 12-month, we would have been pretty close to the 2025 guidance, but we’ll be off a little bit for calendar 2025, yes.

Walter Spracklin, Analyst, RBC: Right. Okay. That makes sense. You made reference to the U.S. climbed down, and that’s certainly creating an effect, and that’s good. I mean, I’d prefer a demand solution rather than a supply solution to this, but we’ll take the supply solution if it is. Is it as big a problem in Canada? Second, is there any avenue where you know regulators or authorities are seeing what the success it’s having in the U.S.? Is there any view that perhaps it’ll happen in Canada? If your answer to the first question is yes, it is as big an issue in Canada, then is there any avenue that’s seeing the success they’re having in the U.S. that they might do it in Canada in short order?

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: I think the systemic problem is the same on both sides of the border. We had too many new entrants come into the business that were not properly trained and certified, and there was some gamesmanship going on on some of the certification, i.e., CDLs. As a result, you just had inexperienced people out driving on the highways, and that led to a number of high-profile, very serious incidents on the road by participants of our industry. From our perspective, those people were not properly trained. We’ve had them in Canada. They’ve got them in the U.S. Where the U.S. is taking a more aggressive stand, Walter, is they’ve gone that you’ve got to be fluent in English. Now, what does that mean? I have no idea.

If they are right that they’re going to take off 190,000, and that’s their prerogative, I have, they didn’t ask me for my opinion, but if you take off 190,000, that’s too many at once, and that will really tighten the market in the U.S. There’s already some indication that the enforcement standards on both sides of the border have been accelerated over the last bit to make sure that the regulations that are currently in place are applied equally to all carriers. If that happens, that will force everybody into compliance, and that will tighten the market in our view.

Walter Spracklin, Analyst, RBC: Okay. You mentioned that tightening in the U.S. will create a bit of a tightening here. Is that just essentially because they’re drawing qualified workers from Canada and luring them down to the U.S., and that’s tightening it up? Is that the logic there? Is there any other reason that would cause it to tighten in Canada as well?

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: I just think that it’s the, it will, when the market tightens in terms, I don’t know about the availability of drivers, but when the market tightens and rates go up in the U.S., then if you’re Canadian.

Walter Spracklin, Analyst, RBC: Okay, got it.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: That’s where you benefit from that.

Walter Spracklin, Analyst, RBC: Okay. Last questions on M&A. You mentioned that your acquisitions have been a good surrogate for you for offsetting any macro-driven declines. Presumably, they’ve been modest in terms of covering off what would have been declines in 2025. You indicated that 2026 should be similar. You mentioned that, you know, you touched on platform, and that’s what I think gets people excited. How much of that is really you waiting for what comes available? I know you have to have a seller in order to buy something, but are you waiting for those sellers to just come to you, or are there any areas, and I’m talking in terms of platform, not tuck-in, but platform verticals or what have you, that you’re looking at and you’re exploring proactively, rather than waiting for sellers to pop up and come to you?

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: That’s a combination of both, Walter. We have certain parts of our business that we really think is investable. We like the LTL business. That’s been our thesis. It’s now not the biggest, though, Carson. That acquisition, because we put Coal Group into L&W, L&W is now the largest segment. Those are the two primary ones for platform companies. Not really interested in the long-haul trucking business. I get a call all day, Rich, Joanna, yes, on things. We’re not really interested in that part of the business because we don’t see what’s the long-term strategic advantage that having trucks has. We like warehousing. We like technology. We like LTL where you can drive the margin improvement over time by being smart and employing technology. There’s no doubt. You got to be careful when you’re talking, and most of the time you’re talking about entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are different ducks.

They decide when they want to sell, not you decide when you want to buy. You’re trying to pry something out of a piece of cement that doesn’t work very easy. We just got to take the high road. Everybody knows. I know. Everybody knows. It’s been in our thesis and our strategy plan since day one. Everybody needs liquidity. Just bide your time. Make sure you got the balance sheet when the good ones come around. I think we’ve done the right thing there.

Walter Spracklin, Analyst, RBC: That sounds like a good plan. I appreciate your time as always, Murray. Thank you.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Thank you very much. Good job.

Conference Operator: The next question comes from Cameron Doerksen with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: Yeah, thanks very much. Good morning. I just wanted to ask about the outlook in the specialized and industrial segment. I mean, you explained the reasons for the revenue decline. I’m just wondering if some of the deferral of turnaround work and maintenance work that you’ve seen in 2025 is something that can’t be deferred forever and may come back in 2026. I’m just wondering if you have a sort of an early look into next year or how that segment might trend just based on some of the deferrals we’ve seen this year.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Once again, that’s a really good observation. For sure, some of the big turnarounds were delayed because they’re very expensive and everybody was really managing cash flow. I mean, we were here. We cut off CapEx. We really reduced CapEx quite significantly here. Really, everybody did that. Some of it was uncertainty. Some of it was commodity prices. There’s no doubt they delayed them. You can delay, but you can’t quit. Our thesis is they’ll come back. It’s just a matter of timing, and we’ll be positioned to do it. You got to be in business. Once you miss the deal, it doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to get it next time. I’d rather get it done when it’s hot.

We’ll make sure that our business units are in the best position to take advantage of that because when those turnarounds go, and this is exactly what we had last year with our Cascade Energy Services Group. They just blew it out of the park with major projects because we invested in technology, in robotics. We went in, aced it, did a great job for the customer. The customer was happy. They got back online faster, and we made a nice profit on that. They delayed it this year. Let’s see what happens again next year. I’m hopeful, Cameron, but we’ll have more to say on that when we get, hopefully, it wasn’t one and done. It was just delayed. For this year, definitely been delayed. As I said, the other part of this equation was, some of these big oil companies really became very, very sensitive on cost.

We will not take a long-term contract at the bottom of the market. Forget it. We protect margin rather than market share because when business returns, I’d rather have our price than a low price.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: I think, Cameron, as well as Richard, we’re going into the typical budgeting planning cycle for the big oil and gas companies. Over the next month or two, we’ll get a better idea of what will be happening and what they’re projecting for the future. It’ll all be subject to commodity prices and everything else. We follow that and look and see what comes from there. We are well positioned. Murray said we’ve made investments, particularly in turnaround-related equipment, and we’re ready to roll whenever it comes. It will come. It’s just a matter of when.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Some parts of our S&I did fantastic, Carson. They did. Our dewatering group is an example that did well.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: Smullen Group.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Construction up in northern Manitoba did very well. Our involved group, we’ve already made the capital investment. That’ll help us next year because we’ve doubled capacity. When things happen, they happen. Just move on. We don’t whine about it. We don’t cry. We just go about our business. Let’s go.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: Okay, that’s super helpful. Just on the, I guess, in the very interim here in the next couple of quarters, just wondering about the margins in that segment. Obviously, business mix makes a big difference on the margin, and it was pretty strong in the third quarter, just given where the revenue was. I mean, should we expect kind of that strength in margin just based on the business mix the next couple of quarters?

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Yeah, the reason the margin stayed strong is some of our businesses did well when we gave up the low margin business in which they wanted lower rates. I didn’t like that scenario.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: Okay. Makes sense. Just one quick final clarification from you. Just on the U.S. international logistics segment, there’s been this accounting change. I guess it reduces revenue, but has no impact on EBITDA. I’m just wondering about the reported EBITDA margin, which is obviously much higher than what we’ve seen in that segment throughout its history. Is that kind of the sustainable go-forward margin? Obviously, there’s some seasonality to it, but just wonder if you can provide any context there.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: Yeah, Cameron, I would say you’re pretty spot on there with the U.S. 3PL segment. That’s, you know, the Q3 numbers kind of give you a good run rate to kind of benchmark going forward in terms of revenue and margin. This is all things, you know, all things considered constant, obviously. Yeah, you know.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: That’s our thesis.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: That’s our thesis. Tariffs are going to impact that, obviously. We’ve taken that duties and taxes and tariff noise out of the revenue line, so you can see a true clear indication for Q3 as to what that would look like going forward.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: In all honesty, when we did our final purchase price equation on this, Cameron, you go in, really, tariffs are relatively new this year. I’m not going to blame that they gave us the wrong information when we bought the company. Tariffs are relatively new this year. Taxes and duties and all that stuff, that was always embedded within the revenue side. The tariff thing, I mean, you know, all of a sudden, one day you had 100% tariffs. You know, that all of a sudden inflated the revenue number up. When we did our final purchase price equation, we went, "Hold it. That doesn’t, we’re not going to add tariffs in as revenue." That’s really where that change came from. You can see from the margin that was a very good investment.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: Okay. No, that’s great. Very helpful. Thanks very much.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Thank you.

Conference Operator: The next question comes from Tim James with TD Securities. Please go ahead.

Tim James, Analyst, TD Securities: Thanks very much. Good morning.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: Morning too.

Tim James, Analyst, TD Securities: I guess a question for Murray here. I’m wondering if, you know, this approach out of Washington that we’ve seen kind of this year, and some might say unpredictable or maybe volatile, does that change? Obviously, this could last for four years. Does that change how you approach your business at all? I mean, you know, hopefully, there’ll be some stability and some visibility that improves. I mean, is there a part of you that says, "Hey, let’s be cautious because we don’t know how long this will last"? I’m just wondering if it kind of changes any aspect of how you approach, whether it’s capital allocation or how you run any of these businesses.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: My personal take on it is, Tim, is that I think there’s been a lot of noise around tariffs and trade and Canada against the U.S., U.S. against Canada, and those kinds of things. If you take a look at the detail, it really hasn’t been that much tariff put on most of the product under the U.S. free trade. U.S.-Mexico, Canada, U.S. free trade agreement is duty-free. It really hasn’t been impacted. If you talk to the average person, "Oh my God, everything’s got big tariffs on it." That’s not the case. There’s been a couple, and that’s for reasons that I don’t understand them. It’s not as, I don’t think it’s quite as big an issue as what everybody thought it was going to be. I think that eventually common sense will rule, and everybody will go back to make the business the best decision they can.

We’re a little bit optimistic that all the big noise is over. I mean, if you read the headlines and they’re correct, and Carney’s saying, "You know, we’re going to have to be able to sign an agreement here pretty quick." The biggest risk that we see to the economy, Tim, is that the U.S. is winning the private capital game. The amount of private capital going to work in the United States, which is good jobs, and I’m assuming long-term jobs, is that the U.S. has won that game hands down. Canada’s really not even participating in that side. That leaves all the heavy lifting to the Canadian government to publicly fund any project because we haven’t seen too many private companies step up yet. I haven’t seen them. We haven’t heard from our customers that they’re aggressive on that.

All the heavy lifting is going to go to the federal government, and the higher deficits is what we suspect. Hey, from our perspective, just make a decision. Let’s quit talking and let’s get some things done because that’s when you create good jobs, and that’s when you know we can, you know, there’ll be more freight to haul and the economy gets going. You got to quit talking and get going. There are some major, I will tell you right now, there are some major, major capital projects that are happening in the United States. We are looking at, particularly through our pre-made pipeline hauling side, as to how we participate in those projects. We’ve been having serious discussions with the contractors on that, and that happens. To us, our trucks and our, we’re in both countries. We’ll go where the business goes. That’s what we’ll do.

Our capital will go where we think we can get the best returns.

Tim James, Analyst, TD Securities: Okay. Thank you. That’s a good segue actually to my next question. You know, the Q3 report calls out the nation-building projects and some optimism there. Are there any particular projects that you would call out as maybe potentially offering more opportunity to the Mullen Group companies? Any that are kind of noteworthy that we should watch more closely to see progress with positive implications for the businesses?

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: I think the one that we’re seeing the early wins on is probably on the mining side. For example, our Canadian dewatering set up in Northwest Ontario.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: Thunder Bay.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: We set up in Thunder Bay, and that’s why they’ve grown, as the capital has gone into the mining sector. You hear a lot about rare earth minerals and those kinds of things. That’s mining, and that’s just hard rock, but you still got to have water. You still move water. You need water. You got to move water. We’ll be involved in those projects. Lots of talk about big projects, mining projects happening in British Columbia. Of course, that’s where Advanced Group is situated. We’ll be up in Prince Rupert, looking at opportunities up there and scoping up with our Advanced Group here in a couple of weeks, Rich.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: Yeah, that’s right.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Myself, Richard, and Lee are going to go up to that. There are opportunities, but it hasn’t happened yet, Tim. There is a lot of chatter. After chatter, maybe that turns into activity. On the energy side, oil pipelines make for good headlines, but I don’t see it, probably not, not in the short term for sure. LNG, yes, there’s lots of talk about Prince Rupert and the Pacific, that project of LNG. That’s a big project. That would be, but what we’re really after, Tim, I don’t, you know, what does one project do? One project comes, then it’s gone. We need to have a strategy that says it’s going to be a decade or two decade-long strategy. That’s what would really get us excited. That’s what we’re waiting to hear from the federal government.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: We better hear it soon because we know, as Murray Mullen mentioned, there are major LNG projects going on up in Alaska. It’s coming, and they’re planning and thinking.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Because there’s only so much capacity for this specialty equipment. Whoever goes first gets the capacity. I’m afraid of this. Canada keeps talking. The U.S. says, "Go." They say, "Okay, we’re going to go." The capacity is already used up. There’s only so much capacity for pipeline. There are only so many places that’s built in the world. You have to code it, you have to move it, and then you have to lay it in the ground. There are only so many people that do that. Those are highly skilled jobs. We’re hopeful that Canada, you know, in the business world, if you sit and wait too long, it’s over. Somebody else gets the market. These are big huge pipelines. We’re talking 5 BCF a day of natural gas that would hit the LNG market.

There are only so many countries in the world that are going to take 5 BCF a day of production. I don’t like the fact when the High Commissioner for India says Canada is not a really stable and secure supplier of energy supply yet. That’s a wake-up call, which says, "Get your damn butt in gear and make a decision. Either be a secured supplier or quit talking to us because we have to do what’s best for our economy and for our country." I hope today that the government can make a good business case for LNG because we missed it in the last.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: Three years.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: In the last 10 years, yeah, we missed that opportunity. We’re behind the eight ball here. Let’s get going.

Conference Operator: Okay. The next question comes from Konark Gupta with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Konark Gupta, Analyst, Scotiabank: Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Good morning.

Konark Gupta, Analyst, Scotiabank: I have a few questions actually going through here. Hopefully, I’ll try to be quick on each here. First one, the clarification on the Coal Group revenue side. I get it, you have to net out these duties and taxes in that 3PL segment. Is there any ripple effect on Coal Group’s other revenue that is reported in the L&W segment?

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: No, Connor. There’s no impact on the revenue that we recorded within the Canadian operation. There’s.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: We have CARM.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: Yeah, we’ve got CARM here in Canada and you don’t in the U.S. This issue is just related specifically to the U.S. 3PL segment. Full stop.

Konark Gupta, Analyst, Scotiabank: Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you so much for that.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: For full disclosure on that, Canada and the U.S. were always the same. The customs broker always collected the duties on behalf of the customer and the intermediary for the government. They collected it from the customer, cleared it, and then they sent the money to the government, either the Canadian government or the U.S. government. Canada implemented a new program. We just earlier started this year, did it not, Joel? It’s called CARM. That really meant that every importer had to register directly with the government, not go through the intermediary, which is the broker. All those duties and taxes and whatever go direct to the government now, they don’t go through our Coal Group. In the U.S., that’s not the case. It’s still handled by the customs brokerage company. Hopefully, that brings some clarity to that.

Konark Gupta, Analyst, Scotiabank: No, absolutely. That’s really helpful. Thank you. I think on the CapEx side, I think I heard you guys saying that you are taking down your CapEx numbers as well. I think the original budget you had when you set out the 2025 was not $100 million, I believe. I think you’re tracking much lower. Any sense in terms of how much lower can we see this year? Are you preserving the CapEx that you’re not spending this year maybe to spend next year, or it’s gone?

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: Yeah, our original guide, Connor, was $100 million, is what we originally came out with. We’re sitting at $50 million net here at the end of the third quarter. Obviously, we’re going to be well below that. I would say in terms of our maintenance CapEx, what do we need on an annualized run rate? That’s pretty close to what our depreciation is, is around $70 million, $75 million, I think is your kind of maintenance CapEx budget. We deferred and delayed a lot of CapEx, as Murray alluded to earlier. There are many factors. Obviously, the demand isn’t there, and the rates aren’t there from our customers to support expensive equipment. You’re looking at $250,000 a truck now. They’re not cheap, and they don’t give you better fuel mileage. They don’t, they’re a tool. They’re not a technology.

We’re just looking at that and waiting for some normalization before we put in some big orders.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Yeah, on two fronts. One is the customers have to realize that, you know, you can’t go invest in new capital and you keep asking for lower rates. Like, we’re not going to invest in new capital. That’s the marketplace trying to figure out what’s the right equilibrium there, Connor. For right now, the customers have been overly aggressive on the rate side, and the rates that we’re seeing don’t justify a $250,000 truck. The trucks have got a little bit older. We had to run them a little bit longer. The second part of that equation, and what Carson a little bit alluded to, is we have been really aggressive with our suppliers to say, "Quit raising your prices. Give us a better product, not just a higher price and a newer pretty looking truck. I don’t want a pretty truck.

I want an effective, efficient truck." We had to put pressure on them. You can’t put pressure on them if you keep buying trucks from them. We quit buying for a bit until you get your prices in line. Prices have come down, Richard.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: They are.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: You and Lee are working on that side. I think they’ve got the message loud and clear, not just from me, but from other large buyers where we’re going, "We need a better product, not just higher price.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: Realistically, the entire trucking industry, particularly in Canada, and you see that when you look at the big operators in the state, you know, the OEMs, their sales are down. People are just, you know, it’s hard to go out and justify a $250,000-plus expenditure. If you want to have a CNG truck, add another $80,000 to that. It just doesn’t make sense at this point. You’re not getting the fuel mileages Murray and Carson alluded to, and it’s across the industry.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Connor, just to summarize, part of it was economics. It just didn’t make sense. Part of it was messaging.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: Right. That makes sense. Thank you. On the convertible debenture side, I think you guys are deeming on December 1. I mean, given the converts and the money right now, they’re likely to probably convert, I think, to some degree. If they convert to equity, that does not take away your cash. Do you see the use of cash to maybe incrementally buy back some of your stock in December or after?

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: We’ll do one or two things, Connor. If the debenture holders convert to equity in Mullen Group Ltd., that increases our share count. It sure strengthens our balance sheet. We go from 2.6 cars down to 2.2. Maybe you net out cash.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: We’d be down to $2.1 million.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: We’d be down to 2 to 1. Yeah, 2 to times, right, on EBITDA. We’re going to have, we’ve still got all the cash on the balance sheet and lots of room on the credit side. We’ll just make the best decision as the board as to what we do. Do we buy back stock or what do we do? Our first objective is, I will tell you right now, we are a growth company. We would look at adding really good companies into our network. That would be our first priority. We want to be a growth company. If we don’t see the right opportunities, we’ll go buy them back and invest in a really good company I know of. It’s called Mullen.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: There are various levers we could pull, right?

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Yeah. The good news is our balance sheet is probably as well structured, as good a shape as it’s been in a long time. We got lots of potential options for us to do that. You know, the debenture thing actually worked out, I got to tell you, because we did it in 2019, $125 million. We more than doubled the company since we took that $125 million. We raised no other equity.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: At the time, our stock price when we did the debenture deal was $7, and we had a strike price of $14 on the convert. If you look at our EBITDA in 2019, we were $200 million. We deployed that capital in 2021, and by the end of that year, we were $260 million of EBITDA. Now you’re well in excess of $300 million. The debentures served its purpose for Mullen shareholders back then, and we deployed it quite nicely. I think it’s run its course.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Yeah, we’re done with the debentures. We thank those that invested in us back then, but it’s time to move on. We’re in a different spot than we were in 2019.

Konark Gupta, Analyst, Scotiabank: Yeah, that’s fair. Absolutely. Perhaps just wrap up from a high-level perspective, Murray, I guess. You know, what is the right M&A strategy in this current environment? I mean, you mentioned a lot of things in terms of like, you know, how Canada is probably slow in inviting private capital and the U.S. is kind of, you know, accelerating on that front perhaps. Obviously, there’s a lot of complications in the U.S. and all that, right? Like it’s tariff policies and whatnot. How do you pursue M&A here in this market?

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: I think we’ll just stick to our netting, which is we’ll be pinpoint accurate of where we see really good companies. The first thing, our M&A is really this. I’m a Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. I look for great companies at a fair price, not at poor companies at a really good price because that’s just our strategy. We look for really good companies. We want to be fair. In our view, they have much longer run room to them and you can get a better return over time. The key thing is just look for really good companies. You can’t go find them every day. Over 30-some years, we’ve acquired a number. Nothing’s going to change on our M&A side. I’m patient. I don’t push just to grow. I push to make sure we get the right deals and the right companies.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: Came up earlier on the call too, Connor, about platform companies and you know whether we go looking for them, whether they come looking for us. I can tell you within our space right now that there’s not many companies in our space that have the financial position that we do. Platform companies, when they do become available, we’re one of few options that they have to go to to monetize. We get to see pretty much all of them that become available.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Right. In your coverage space, Connor, which is in the logistics and transits, there’s not a lot that can go out and do M&A today. That’s why we say we’re kind of in a unique position. There’s only a couple of us that can do it.

Konark Gupta, Analyst, Scotiabank: Yeah, no, it makes sense. Patience is a virtue, I guess, and yeah, timing is important.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: No, it’s okay. We don’t have a lot of competition when it comes to acquisitions. There’s only a few that can do it. There’s only a couple of us that have the balance sheet to do it. You have to have both of those to be able to get it done. It’s just a matter of what’s your disciplined approach to it or what’s your strategy. That’s ours. Ours is being pinpoint accurate and waiting till we get really good companies. That’s our strategy.

Konark Gupta, Analyst, Scotiabank: Right. No, understood. Thank you so much for the time. I appreciate it, guys.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Thank you.

Conference Operator: The next question comes from Benoit Poirier with Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Benoit Poirier, Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets: Yeah, good morning, Murray. Good morning, Carson. Just to follow up very quickly on Coal Group, you gave a lot of explanation with respect to revenue. Quick one, should we expect a $55 million contribution in the quarter? Is it kind of the number we should expect going forward? Is there some seasonality that we should take into account?

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: I wouldn’t say there’s a lot of seasonality to this.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Not that we know of yet. If it does, that would totally surprise us, Benoit. Everything we’ve looked at, not just at Coal Group, but in other companies that we’ve looked at, we don’t see a lot of seasonality with it. If there is, that would catch us off guard. Our view right now is, no, we don’t see a lot of seasonality.

Benoit Poirier, Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets: Okay. So.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: We’ve only had it for one quarter. I’m giving you my best advice. We don’t think it is, but you know, don’t hold my feet to the fire on that until we get it. We’ll know more after we’ve been able, if we’ve had one full year underneath our belt. We’re giving you our best estimate right now. Once we’ve had it for a year, we’ll know.

Benoit Poirier, Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets: Okay. Perfect. SG&A was up, obviously, versus a year ago due to some acquisitions. I’m just wondering, how should we look at SG&A expenses going forward? Do you see maybe an opportunity to bring the number a bit lower as you integrate those acquisitions?

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Honestly, Benoit, that’s going to really be determined, I think, by what happens with the strength of the economy. If the economy strengthens, you’ll probably see us pivot away from using capital to go do acquisitions to putting capital to work in the business units. If the economy starts growing, you know more or know better than we do. You have your economists, and you do your own analysis. If you see strong nation-building projects come in and strong economic growth in Canada, then we will have to pivot and add more to CapEx, Carson.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: Yeah.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: M&A will take a backseat to internal growth. I’m not quite at that space yet. We still think we would like to add some more, use our balance sheet, but we need great quality companies. We’re not just going to trade dollars to get growth, Benoit. We want great companies in the verticals that we see long-term potential, period.

Benoit Poirier, Analyst, Desjardins Capital Markets: That’s great. Murray, you’re always very rational when looking at the market fundamentals with demand and supply. Obviously, you provided the great color on the call about the supply and the regulation enforcement we are seeing in the U.S. that will eventually, and also in Canada. When you look at the pricing these days, would you say that the slight uptick we see in the pricing is. Is

Conference Operator: Mostly driven by hope that capacity is coming down?

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: It’s kind of a mixed bag right now, Rich. We hear from some of our customers where we’ve taken a strong stand with some customers, and we lose the contract, and then, you know, lo and behold, they come back a couple of weeks later and say, "You know, we took the low price, but they can’t service us." We try to tell you that, but you went with low price. If you want, but we had a very major client come to us and wanted a major rate reduction. I said, "We’ll give you the major rate reduction if we need your loads, if we need a load from you." "Yeah, but we want the service." "No, that’s the other price." You gotta pick your poison. What do you want? You want service or price? Because if it’s just price, it’s at our convenience.

If you want service, it’s at your convenience. We need a little higher price so we can commit our capacity. We’re seeing a mixed bag.

Conference Operator: Mm-hmm.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: I’m seeing, I’m hearing more now that customers are coming back and saying, "Well, I, you know, maybe the low price wasn’t as good as what I thought it was.

Conference Operator: We didn’t hear that as much last year as we are now.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Yeah, we’re hearing a little bit more of it.

Conference Operator: We’re hearing a little bit more.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: It needs to tighten a little bit more so that customers understand, you know, just sit with us and make the right deal. If you try and game us and go for all low price, we’re happy to walk away and say, "Go try it out. We know this business. Good luck.

Conference Operator: Yeah, that’s great. That’s a great comment. Just on M&A, you mentioned a lot of color about the M&A, the way you approach M&A, obviously, and the leverage also with the converts that is poised to go from 2.6 to 2.2 times with the cash. What is kind of your comfort level? Where do you see the optimal, or the willingness to increase the leverage with M&A or kind of the flexibility you would have to pursue the M&A?

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: 2.5. We like to be a full turn away from the covenant.

Conference Operator: Okay. And.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Because you grow your business, you grow the OIBDA. It actually increases the amount of debt you could take, right? Let’s just say 2.5.

Conference Operator: Okay. Perfect.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: 2.5 at where we’re at today, running probably $3.25, $3 something, you know, $3 some, somewhere between $3.25, $3.50. You can just pick and say, "What’s the number at $3.25, $3.50?" We think our company, the way it’s structured right now, once the market returns to some stability where the rates aren’t being totally sewered, is that we’re somewhere around $2.5 and $4.00, that this business unit could do with just a little bit of strengthening in the market and tightening on the supply side.

Conference Operator: Okay. Very good color, folks. Thank you.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Thank you.

Walter Spracklin, Analyst, RBC: Again, if you have a question, please press star, then one. The next question comes from Kevin Chiang with CIBC. Please go ahead.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: Hey, gentlemen, and Joanna, thanks for taking my questions here. Just two quick ones maybe. I guess one, just on the convertible debentures, just as a, maybe from a bigger picture perspective, it sounds like you want to simplify your capital structure. Just looking to see if this is part of that broader strategy where maybe convertible debentures aren’t the right source of funding moving forward. If you do need to tap the market, is that kind of the right read as well too?

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Yeah. I think what I’ll tell you what I’ve learned from the debentures, Kevin, is that the debt guys consider debentures debt, and the equity guys consider it equity. You kinda don’t please anybody. You go, "What is it? Is it debt? It’s a high. It’s a this or that." The other thing that you had, you can take a look at the short position on our company.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: Yeah.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: I’m not the one doing the trading, but there’s a direct correlation between the number of shorts in our company that have shorted our stock and when we did convertible debentures. If I was sitting at a table and had to make a guess, I would say they were using the convertible debentures as a form to trade, and that hurt our stock price.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: Yep, that’s a fair point.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: When they shorted the stock, they de facto put more stock into the market, right?

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Yeah, I.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: That makes sense.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: You know what? I think it’s, I think they served a purpose for us when we were at seven. You know, we went, let’s talk about valuation. What is our valuation relative to our peers? You know what? We don’t worry about what somebody else does or what they’re valued at. We worried about what we’re doing, and we let the market tell us what they think the value of us is. Let’s see what happens once the converts are out and we get rid of that noise, and let’s see where we come from. At the end of the day, we’re going to continue to grow this business and do the right things for shareholders. I can tell you that.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: Yeah, that makes sense to me. Maybe this is a difficult question to answer on a call like this, but you did mention earlier, Murray, that, you know, full truckload really isn’t a strategic interest to you.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: No.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: You do have a minority interest in CRISCA. I guess, as I think back almost 10 years or more than 10 years ago, I had the assumption that that was something you probably wouldn’t vend in over time, but maybe that’s the wrong assumption moving forward. Just, I guess, how you think about strategically that minority investment in the context of.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Yeah, that’s a very good point. We.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: Yeah.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: For clarity to everybody, we own a nice position in what I think is a really, really good company in Coal Group.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: Yeah.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Otherwise, why in the heck did we invest in them? They’re trapped in the, they’re more full truckload. The more truckload, the more company trucks you’ve had, the more truckload business you do, this is a terrible market for them. They could be the best-run company, and they are a first-class organization, but they’re in a terrible vertical right now. Now, will that vertical stay terrible forever? Probably not, Kevin.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: Mm-hmm.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: For today, full truckload ones are just, it’s just awful.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: Yeah.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Eventually, it will turn. At that point in time, we’ll work with our Coal Group and monetize that investment. For right now, we’re just working with them to make sure that they just do the same thing as what we’re doing here: watch your cost, stay in your lane, and just wait for a cue that the market’s changing. Then we’ll go all in. I haven’t seen that cue card yet, though.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: That makes a ton of sense. I appreciate you taking the time to answer that question. Best of luck as you close out the year here. Thank you very much.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Thank you, Kevin.

Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, Mullen Group Ltd.: Thanks, Kev.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Thank you to all.

Tim James, Analyst, TD Securities: This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Mullen for any closing remarks.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: Thanks, everyone. Look, we’ve already started, I think we mentioned this, we’ve started work on the budget. The good news is we knew that, we were just finishing the Q3, but then everybody was going to be asking our 2026 budget. We’re prepared for that.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: Yeah.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: We are going to be releasing our 2026 budget and business plan before the end of the year. We are going to meet with our board on December 4.

Cameron Doerksen, Analyst, National Bank Financial: Yeah.

Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President, Mullen Group Ltd.: We’ll present as a Senior Executive Team to the board that will have the business plan, what we’re going to focus on, that here’s our budget, and here’s our capital requirements for next year. We will press release out to you and then be open to chat with you about then. Until then, thanks, everybody. Good questions, and thanks for participating today. We’ll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.

Tim James, Analyst, TD Securities: This brings to a close today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.

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