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Operator: Good day, and welcome to the GigaCloud Technology Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Larry Wu, CEO. Please go ahead. Lei Wu: Thank you, operator, and welcome, everybody, to today's call. This quarter's performance is a strong testament to GigaCloud's resilience and adaptability. Despite the challenges brought by global trade uncertainties, a cooling housing market and wavering consumer confidence, we delivered a robust 10% year-over-year growth, returning to 2-digit increase and setting new records of $333 million in quarterly revenue and $0.99 in quarterly EPS. These results reflect our ability to move fast, stay lean and execute with precision even in the face of macroeconomic headwinds. We're navigating today's environment with confidence, guided by the disciplined execution to our long-term strategy, staying agile, continuing to diversify for resiliency. Our Nova House optimization is delivering fantastic results. strategically adding new products and phasing out underperformers has fueled our first year-over-year revenue growth, since we completed the acquisition. We are excited for the future value that we expect this portfolio to unlock as we continue our optimization effort. As we have discussed many times before, we view our M&A as a part of our long-term growth strategy. Noble House is a powerful validation of the strategy by combining product, channel, vendor resources from Noble House with operational efficiency and transformative marketplace of GigaCloud. We have not only been able to turn a bankrupt company losing nearly $40 million in 2023 to a profitable growing assets in less than 2 years, but also expanded our product line and the channel outreach. This result is exactly why we view M&A as a cornerstone of our long-term growth. As we look forward, this successful playbook gives us tremendous confidence in our strategy to continue unlocking new value for the future. With that said, I'm very excited to share our plan to acquire New Classic Home Furnishing scheduled to close on January 1, 2026. As a traditional brick-and-mortar focused wholesaler, New Classic is a perfect strategic fit for GigaCloud to further diversify our business and reach beyond e-commerce. As many of you know, GigaCloud ecosystem has historically been more concentrated towards e-commerce of big and bulky. This acquisition represents our strategic move to recalibrate our focus, making brick-and-mortar wholesale a more significant and complementary part to our ecosystem, an area we see tremendous opportunities in. We have already proven the viability of our marketplace. The next step of evolution naturally is to bridge the digital and the physical world. For truly channel, agnostic ecosystem that empower buyers and sellers to trade seamlessly with unparalleled reach and flexibility. Executing this next phase of evolution in the current economic climate is a deliberate choice. While no company is immune to macro pressures, our focused execution, strong balance sheet and use of diversification as a hedging strategy allows us to navigate this turbulence more effectively than most, securing competitive advantages today that will fuel our next chapter of growth. To that end, I will now turn the call over to Iman, who will provide more detailed update on the progress we continue to make against our key operational goals. Iman Schrock: Thank you, Larry. Hello, everybody. Our marketplace continues to gain momentum, delivering another strong quarter of growth. For the trailing 12 months ending September 30, 2025, marketplace GMV rose approximately 21%, reaching nearly $1.5 billion, underscoring the scalability and resilience of our platform. Our active 3P seller base continues to expand, up 17% year-over-year to 1,232 with GMV for this cohort climbing more than 24% on a trailing 12-month basis to over $790 million. Buyer growth also accelerated, increasing 34% to 11,419 as more businesses looked for new efficiencies and risk optimization in a challenging environment. Our global revenues increased by 10% in the third quarter on a year-over-year basis. While the domestic U.S. market faced headwinds, our international markets acted as a powerful hedge, driving growth and offsetting domestic softness. Diversification and having a balanced portfolio is a core tenet of our strategy, ensuring we are not overly reliant on any single market. Europe continues to be a powerful growth engine with year-over-year revenues up 70% to a record $100 million, making a major milestone in our global expansion. Our diversification efforts, however, is not limited to geographical expansion. We're also looking to create a more dynamic marketplace supported by a broader range of product offerings and distribution channels. To accelerate this strategy, we leverage M&A to acquire key capabilities. Our playbook has a two-pronged approach, deepening our core capabilities through acquisitions and leveraging our ecosystem to make the acquired assets more efficient, competitive and profitable. Our 2023 acquisition of Noble House is a prime example. It's not just an addition, but a strategic integration that deepens our product catalog and capabilities. We have made substantial progress with our Noble House portfolio optimization. Since last quarter, we have introduced another 2,300 new SKUs and retired 1,100 underperforming SKUs, shaping a more streamlined, high-performing portfolio built to scale. As shared earlier this year, our SKU rationalization efforts have successfully returned the portfolio to profitability, while temporarily impacting our top line. I am pleased to report that in Q3, this disciplined approach has paid off with the portfolio not only maintaining its profitability, but also returning to growth. We have effectively reset our foundation and now reigniting growth from a much healthier foundation. Looking ahead, we plan to build on this momentum. Our strong balance sheet positions us to be highly active and disciplined in pursuing inorganic opportunities that align with our long-term strategic goals, and our pending acquisition of New Classic is a great example of the type of value-creating asset we are looking for. New Classic is a well-respected, long-standing U.S. wholesaler with deep roots in the brick-and-mortar furniture space. The company has over 1,000 primarily brick-and-mortar retailer relationships, over 2,000 active SKUs, a high-performing team and a wide network of vendors that specialize in products tailored for this specific channel. The acquisition is strategically targeted to dramatically widen our distribution and channel reach. By pairing New Classic's network with GigaCloud's marketplace ecosystem and logistics capabilities, we can accelerate growth and unlock new efficiencies. We expect to close the transaction early in the first quarter of 2026 and expect 4 to 6 quarters of strategic initiatives to be reflected in our financial performance. Now I'll turn things over to Erica for a discussion of third quarter financials. Erica Wei: Thank you, Iman, and hello, everybody. A quick note before we get into our results. All figures I cover today are rounded and unless otherwise noted, comparisons are against the same period last year. Now let's take a look at this quarter's results. We delivered a great quarter, including double-digit growth revenue of 10% to $333 million, a new quarterly high. Now let's break this down by revenue streams. Our service revenues declined 2% year-over-year, primarily driven by reduced U.S. ocean shipping and drayage revenues. The uncertainties seen in recent months has resulted in significant declines in the demand for ocean shipping services to the U.S. for many industries. Lower demand has suppressed ocean spot rates, which translates to lowered ocean service revenues for us. U.S. revenue pressures were partially offset by strong year-over-year growth in similar services delivered to our European market sellers. Service margin came in at 9.1%, down 2.3% sequentially, primarily driven by higher last-mile delivery costs in the U.S. following pricing adjustments implemented by some of our ground transportation fulfillment partners. In response, we are actively recalibrating client pricing to reflect these updated cost structures. Total product revenue grew 16% year-over-year, driven by our strong performance of 69% growth in Europe. Growth was partially offset by a 5% decline in the U.S., which is reflective of the challenging macroeconomic pressures in the region. But more importantly, it is a direct outcome of our disciplined strategy. As communicated last quarter, we have implemented targeted price increases to address rising tariff costs. Our strategy is to prioritize margin integrity over pure volume, ensuring the growth we deliver is sustainable and valuable. Our commitment to margin integrity was put to the test this quarter and proved effective. We faced a significant margin headwind from the sale of products sourced in Q2 under tariffs exceeding 100%, which we successfully navigated with strategic price increases, protecting our baseline profitability. Beyond this mitigation, we delivered a sequential product margin expansion of 70 basis points to 29.9% as we grew our higher product margin channels and benefited from lowered ocean shipping costs. For GigaCloud as a whole, gross margin was 23.2% for the third quarter, a 70 basis point sequential decline from the second quarter of 2025. Operating expenses declined 1.7% sequentially to 11%, primarily driven by lower G&A expenses. This is a reflection of lower stock-based compensation this quarter as most stock-based comp is granted and vested in the second quarter of each year. Selling and marketing expenses remained flat sequentially at 8% of sales. This brings net income to $37 million or 11.2% of revenue, an expansion of 50 basis points sequentially. I am also pleased to report a new record for quarterly EPS of $0.99 per share, driven by our team's focused execution and amplified by our ongoing share repurchase efforts. For the third quarter, we generated operating cash flows of $78 million, ending the quarter with total liquidity, which includes cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investments of $367 million. We remain debt-free and continue to execute on our capital allocation strategy of pursuing strategic acquisitions such as New Classic, while simultaneously returning capital to shareholders through buybacks. Since the announcement of our $111 million share buyback plan in August, we have executed approximately $16 million in buybacks to date or 15% of our latest plan limit. This brings our cumulative buyback total to $87 million as of date, since our IPO in 2022, and we plan on continuing to execute opportunistically using buybacks as a flexible tool to return value to our shareholders. Finishing with our fourth quarter outlook, revenue is expected to be between $328 million and $344 million. Operator, we are now ready to begin the Q&A session. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from Tom Forte from Maxim Group. Thomas Forte: Congratulations on the quarter. I have 1 question and 1 follow-up. So you talked about a new M&A acquisition. Can you talk about your thoughts on additional M&A acquisitions? Recently, you've talked about looking for opportunities to expand in Europe and then also looking for opportunities, I think, to add technology, perhaps on the software side, things of that nature. So that's my first question. Lei Wu: Yes. We'll keep looking on different opportunity by focusing on any opportunity that can bring us more product or the fulfillment capability. But right now, I think we're more focusing on concluding -- the closing of New Classic. But our team is definitely concurrently looking for new opportunity, but it's unlikely that this can happen in the coming few months because we'll be focusing on new classes at this moment. Thomas Forte: Okay. And then for my second question, thank you, Larry, for the answer on that one. The good news for the housing market is that the Fed has now had multiple rate cuts. I recognize that the housing market is still very challenged. Do you think any of these rate cuts are starting to translate into greater interest in home merchandise and then the possibility for some sort of sales catalyst over the next 12 months? Lei Wu: Yes. That's -- obviously, this is Larry. We were hopeful about the bouncing back of the housing market, but we're trying to keep ourselves more focused on the execution on a micro level, because we do have the toolbox of more diversified revenue avenue that we can really enjoy the [indiscernible] ability to avoid any kind of reliance on any of the macro positive other factor to happen to really provide the opportunity to grow that we are trying to deliver the growth regardless of what the macroeconomic is doing. Operator: Your next question comes from Joseph Gonzalez from ROTH Capital Partners. Joseph Gonzalez: It's great to see you guys kind of transform Noble Health. I want to see, if you guys can unpack that here a little bit. Is there any chance you can just give us a cadence of how the quarter went and kind of the drivers for that growth there in 3Q? Erica Wei: Thanks, Joseph. Yes, Q3, I think, overall went really well. The main drivers here are Noble Health outperforming in the U.S. and also Europe, it's nothing new, continuing to perform very strongly. Joseph Gonzalez: Got it. And as it pertains to your core business -- like excluding Noble House, any drivers there you'd like to unpack for us as you come out with about double-digit growth in the fourth quarter through your guidance. Just kind of what you guys are seeing in your early innings of 4Q and the confidence there? Erica Wei: I think as of today, we're seeing kind of Q4 going well kind of as expected, and this is reflected in the guidance that we gave just now. And this is, of course, inclusive of the expectation of Europe, which is mostly -- it is entirely organic, continuing to perform strongly, Noble House and then, of course, our original non-acquired parts of the business, all 3 combined. Joseph Gonzalez: It's good to hear you guys are able to navigate during a dynamic environment. We'll go ahead and leave it there. Operator: Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. And with that, that does conclude our question-and-answer session. This conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the CytomX Therapeutics Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Call. Please be advised that today's call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the call over to your host for today, Chris Ogden, CytomX's Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Chris Ogden: Thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during this call, we will be making forward-looking statements. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties and risks that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control. Important risks and uncertainties are set forth in our most recent public filings with the SEC at sec.gov. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise. Earlier this afternoon, we issued a press release that includes a summary of our third quarter 2025 financial results and highlights recent progress at CytomX. We encourage everyone to read today's press release and the associated materials, which have been filed with the SEC. Additionally, the press release, recording of this call and our SEC filings can be found under the Investors and News section of our website. With me on the call today is Dr. Sean McCarthy, CytomX' Chief Executive Officer and Chairman. Sean will provide an update on our pipeline and company progress before I cover the financials for the quarter. We will then conclude with a Q&A session. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Sean. Sean McCarthy: Thanks, Chris, and good afternoon, everyone. We're very pleased to be here today to provide an update on our third quarter developments and our strong continued company momentum at CytomX. I'd like to start by welcoming Rachael Lester to the team as Chief Business Officer. Rachael's broad strategic planning and business development experience will be highly valuable as we shape our pipeline and corporate development strategy towards realizing our ambition of building CytomX to commercial stage. Rachael is a terrific addition to a wonderful team that I'm privileged to work with every day. Our goal at CytomX is to make innovative medicines for people with cancer that are substantially more effective than currently available treatments. Our most advanced drug candidate, CX-2051, is currently focused in colorectal cancer, one of the biggest unmet needs in oncology today with more than 1.9 million new cases annually worldwide, expected to exceed 3 million by 2040. I'll refer to colorectal cancer as CRC from here on. CRC is also increasing in younger patients and is the second leading cause of cancer death. 5-year survival for metastatic CRC is only 13%. At CytomX, we have used our proprietary PROBODY therapeutic platform to attack this problem in a new and different way. The PROBODY approach is a masking technology that allows us to hit cancer cells hard and with stealth, sparing normal tissues, opening up therapeutic strategies that were previously impossible. Specifically, with CX-2051, we have deployed our platform to bring the power of an antibody drug conjugate to the treatment of CRC. ADCs are transforming the treatment of many cancers. There are currently more than a dozen approved in the United States, but thus far, ADCs have not broken through in CRC, a notoriously difficult cancer to treat. There's an enormous opportunity here to meaningfully impact patient lives and access a global multibillion-dollar market, and our ambition at CytomX is to build an integrated commercial stage organization around this exciting opportunity. CX-2051 is a masked PROBODY ADC targeting EpCAM. This drug candidate has been intentionally designed by selecting the optimal target, tumor type and cell killing mechanism to deliver potent anticancer activity. CX-2051 is, we believe, a truly differentiated molecule being the first and only EpCAM-directed ADC in development. EpCAM is a very highly and consistently expressed target in CRC. While certain locally administered EpCAM strategies have shown promise in cancer treatment, systemic approaches have consistently failed due to toxicities in normal tissues where EpCAM is also expressed. To solve this problem and realize the potential of EpCAM, CX-2051 leverages our masking strategy to reduce normal tissue binding and maximize activity within tumor tissue. The CX-2051 payload is a topoisomerase-1 inhibitor known as CAMP59, selected because of the well-established responsiveness of CRC to this mechanism of cell killing, underscored by the widespread use of irinotecan in CRC therapy. Our CX-2051 product design strategy was quickly validated with our positive interim Phase I data reported in May this year from a highly focused dose escalation study in late-stage unselected metastatic CRC. This first look at data from our Phase I study demonstrated robust clinical activity and the potential, we believe, for CX-2051 to become a new standard of care in this setting. To briefly recap the data, CX-2051 demonstrated meaningful tumor reductions, including confirmed objective responses or disease control in nearly every patient as well as preliminary median progression-free survival of 5.8 months, a potentially substantial improvement over currently available treatments for late-stage CRC that provide only 2 to 3 months of benefit. Patients included in this initial data set had a median of 4 prior lines of therapy with all patients previously having been treated with irinotecan. Encouragingly, anticancer activity was observed across a wide range of clinical characteristics, including in patients with liver metastases and KRAS mutations. The activity we've seen across this broad late-stage patient population, together with the fact that we don't need to select the EpCAM expression in CRC suggests that CX-2051 could become a pan-CRC drug. CX-2051 was generally well tolerated, including a notable absence of safety events such as pancreatitis and liver toxicity that have limited prior EpCAM therapies, strongly suggesting that our masking technology is working as designed. We were encouraged with the hematologic safety profile of CX-2051, which could be favorable for future chemotherapy combinations. The most common adverse event in early Phase I was diarrhea, a known side effect of TOPO I-based therapies such as irinotecan. We're currently focused on better characterizing and managing gastrointestinal adverse events as part of our ongoing development program. Based on these very promising initial results, we're now well into the expansion phase of the Phase I study with our next data update planned for Q1 2026. With that, let's review our progress with CX-2051 this quarter as well as next steps. In August, we announced that the CX-2051 dose expansion cohorts at the 7.2, 8.6 and 10 mg/kg doses had reached our enrollment goal of approximately 20 patients each. Since August, we've continued enrollment in the dose expansion cohorts, and we now expect total enrollment in the CX-2051 Phase I study to be about 100 patients by our planned data update in the first quarter next year. As we work towards our goal of initiating a potential registrational study for CX-2051 monotherapy in late-line CRC, we expect this expanded Phase I patient enrollment will further inform dose selection, including FDA dialogue regarding Project Optimus. Additionally, given the momentum within the program, we expect to initiate a Phase Ib study with the anti-VEGF antibody, bevacizumab in the first quarter of 2026. Bevacizumab is a core component of CRC therapy across multiple lines of treatment, and we anticipate this combination data will unlock broad additional potential. Beyond CRC, we continue to see potential for CX-2051 across many other cancers where EpCAM is also expressed. Given our compelling initial results in CRC, we're currently assessing additional indications for future development, and we expect to provide an update on non-CRC indications in 2026. Now turning to CX-801, our masked interferon alpha-2b program currently being developed in combination with KEYTRUDA in advanced melanoma. The metastatic melanoma landscape continues to evolve rapidly as checkpoint inhibition moves to earlier-stage treatment, leaving considerable unmet need in later-stage settings. Advances are being made, for example, with cell therapy and oncolytic virus strategies, but new approaches are urgently needed. We are very excited about the potential for CX-801 in melanoma as illustrated by the positive initial biomarker data we will present at SITC this weekend. In designing CX-801, we have applied a similarly focused set of design principles as we did with CX-2051 by selecting a validated pathway, a potent effector mechanism and a focused initial clinical development path centered on clear unmet medical need. Interferon alpha-2b is a well-validated powerful immune system modulator that has previously been approved for cancer therapy, but that has been limited in use due to poor tolerability. Our masking strategy for CX-801 is highly novel and includes masks on both the cytokine domain and an Fc masking domain to really minimize activity in the periphery while directing activity towards the tumor microenvironment. Conceptually, what we're aiming for here is to harness the potent ability of interferon alpha to selectively activate the tumor immune microenvironment, allowing for synergistic antitumor activity in combination with checkpoint inhibition. We treated our first patient in the CX-801 Phase I study in September last year, and we've made excellent progress thus far in the clinic. Monotherapy dose escalation has reached the fourth dose level, including multiple dose levels that exceed the approved clinical dose of unmasked interferon alpha-2b. Now this is important since it already suggests that masking is working as designed. Our SITC presentation this weekend encompasses biomarker data from 5 melanoma patients treated with monotherapy. CX-801 has been generally well tolerated through the first 3 dose levels and is inducing robust interferon signaling within the tumor microenvironment. Specifically, our initial data includes gene expression analysis of pre- and post-treatment patient tumor biopsies, demonstrating consistently increased expression of interferon-stimulated genes, evidence of T-cell activation and upregulation of immune checkpoint inhibitors such as -- checkpoint genes, including PD-1 and PD-L1. We also observed evidence of sustained chemokine elevation in the tumor microenvironment with stable chemokine levels in the blood, suggesting preferential 801 activation in the tumor. Furthermore, CX-801 is activating cell populations of both the innate and adaptive immune systems as anticipated and consistent with interferon alpha's broad mechanism of action. This initial progress with CX-801 is exactly what we aim for in assessing the initial monotherapy performance, and it lays a strong foundation for the potential of the combination with KEYTRUDA, which we initiated in May of this year. We currently expect initial data for the CX-801-KEYTRUDA combination by the end of 2026, and we look forward to sharing those results. Before handing over to Chris for financials, I'd like to also briefly highlight a second poster presentation we have at SITC this weekend, introducing a new program at CytomX, CX-908, a masked T-cell Engager targeting CDH3, also known as P-cadherin. In addition to our work on masked ADCs and cytokines, we continue to be active in the T-cell Engager space, and this preclinical data highlights the power of masking to substantially widen therapeutic window for this modality. We also continue to be active in T-cell Engagers and bispecifics in our collaborations, including with Astellas and with Regeneron. With that, let me hand over to Chris. Chris Ogden: Thank you, Sean. Reiterating Sean's earlier sentiment, our third quarter was characterized by continued momentum with our clinical development programs, and we continue to drive towards our key milestones in a capital-efficient manner. Having completed a $100 million financing earlier this year with a strong group of investors, we are positioned to rapidly advance 2051 towards later phase development and build value in CytomX over the near and long term. As Sean mentioned earlier, we are on track to provide a CX-2051 data update in Q1 of next year, and investing behind a potential first approval will continue to be our top capital allocation priority. We also will begin focused investments to drive additional value in CX-2051, including initiating a combination study with bevacizumab in the first quarter of next year. And we are also in the process of evaluating additional EpCAM-expressing indications for CX-2051 development. With that, I'll now walk through our third quarter financial results. As of September 30, 2025, we ended the quarter with $143.6 million in cash, cash equivalents and investments versus $158.1 million in cash at the end of the second quarter of 2025. We continue to project that our cash balance, will be able to fund CytomX operations to at least the second quarter of 2027. As a reminder, our cash guidance does not account for any additional milestones from existing collaborations or any new business development, and we continue to make progress with our partners and expect to remain active in business development to extend the reach of our technology. Looking at revenue and operating expenses for the quarter. Total revenue was $6 million compared to $33.4 million in the third quarter of 2024. The decreased revenue was primarily attributed to the completion of our performance obligations in our Bristol Myers Squibb collaboration. Operating expenses for the third quarter were $21.7 million compared to $29.3 million in the third quarter of 2024. R&D expenses were $15.3 million during the third quarter, representing a decrease of $6.1 million versus the third quarter of 2024, primarily due to a reduction in CX-904 expenses as well as reduced research expenses. G&A expenses decreased by $1.5 million during the 3 months ending September 30, 2025, to $6.4 million, driven by lower personnel costs as well as patent and legal expenses. As we look ahead to 2026, we will continue to employ a disciplined approach to capital allocation, focused on delivering on our key program milestones for CX-2051 and CX-801 and advancing the pipeline towards later-stage development. With that, I'll turn the call back to Sean for closing remarks. Sean McCarthy: Thanks, Chris, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. 2025 certainly continues to be a highly productive year for CytomX. Our PROBODY masking platform is really coming into its own with 2 exciting programs in the clinic that build on everything we have learned over more than a decade about how to optimally deploy this strategy that we have pioneered. CX-2051 and CX-801 both utilize validated mechanisms. And in both cases, the clinical problems we're addressing and the potential value we can create are very clear. We remain focused on our objective of building CytomX around these and future innovative programs and moving them further into development and ultimately to commercialization. Regarding CX-2051, our planned Q1 2026 update will encompass broad progress with the program as we look to position the initial registrational path while initiating combination strategies to support use in earlier lines of CRC therapy. This is a major opportunity. CX-801 is also off to a promising start, and we're excited to see KEYTRUDA combination data in 2026 in melanoma. Before I wrap up today's call, I wanted to sincerely thank all CytomX stakeholders for your support. We are here to make the biggest difference we possibly can. With that, operator, let's go ahead and open up the call for Q&A. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And your first question today comes from the line of Edward Tenthoff from Piper Sandler. Edward Tenthoff: And really great update. I'm excited to hear all the progress with 2051 and looking forward to the 801 and the new program at SITC this weekend. My question really has to do with respect to expectations for the 2051 readout, and I appreciate that you're up to around 100 patients. What should we be expecting from an ORR? Is there a chance for that to deepen? And I know that the PFS was immature at 5.8 months, what do you guys sort of see as a win here for PFS in the late-line pieces? Sean McCarthy: Yes. Thanks for the questions. So just to recap our data in May, which we were super excited about. As you know, across the 3 relevant dose levels that we're currently expanding, the 7.2, 8.6 and 10 mg/kg doses, we saw an integrated confirmed response rate of 28%, which very substantially beats the current standard of care in the late-line setting, where, as you know, response rates are in the single digits. So that gives us a lot of room to maneuver. Similarly with progression-free survival, the 5.8-month preliminary estimate based on that early data set compares to 2 to 3 months in the late-line setting for current standard of care. So our feeling is a lot of room to maneuver on the data set as it continues to mature from this larger expansion phase, and we're excited to have the update in Q1. Edward Tenthoff: Yes. And I totally agree with all that. And a quick follow-up question. Will you break out dose -- or will you break out efficacy by dose? And do you think you'll have enough data at that point to really select the dose or doses in [indiscernible]? Sean McCarthy: Yes. We absolutely would expect to be breaking the data out by dose in this next update. I think that's going to be very important from an efficacy and safety standpoint as we continue to work towards dose selection for the next studies. Absolutely. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Roger Song from Jefferies. Nabeel Nissar: This is Nabeel on for Roger. Maybe 2 from us. Excited to hear about the enrollment picking up. What do you attribute that to? And is there any more feedback you have maybe from your trial partners in terms of what you're hearing from them and anything regarding the prophylaxis and how that's going? And then another follow-up would be just regarding the ESMO data that we saw from some other competitors that did not differentiate from standard of care, if you had any thoughts on that as well? Sean McCarthy: Yes. Great. Thanks for the questions. In terms of enrollment, I'd take you back to the comments we made during our August updates where we were able to rapidly increase enrollment during Q2 and Q3 after the initial May disclosure to 73 patients. And that really was a reflection of the high interest from our investigators and patients to come on to the study. And that's been continued in Q4. We continue to see a lot of demand for 2051, and we felt as we moved through this quarter that it will be helpful to continue to enroll patients and continue to gain additional experience with this drug as we work towards dose selection for our next stages of development in 2026. Regarding prophylaxis, that continues to be an important area of investigation. We are highly focused on really the one adverse event that we need to actively manage with the drug, which, as you know, is the diarrhea. We have implemented prophylactic measures at the early stages of the expansion phase, and we would anticipate that we will continue to learn about the AE management protocols over time. And we feel that we'll have a much better understanding of many aspects of this adverse event as we move into 2026. And I can assure you that we're very much on it. In terms of ESMO, it was a busy conference, wasn't it? And there was quite a lot of news in CRC after such a long time of very little innovation in this space. It's really exciting to see multiple mechanisms, pathways, targets strategies being used to try to make inroads into this very difficult-to-treat cancer. We didn't really see anything that gave us any concern. We continue to believe strongly that 2051 is a highly differentiated molecule and approach. Of course, as an antibody drug conjugate is bringing the concept of the ADC into CRC, which we think is going to be really, really important. So we are as excited about 2051 as we have ever been. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Olivia Brayer from Cantor Fitzgerald. Olivia Brayer: Congrats on all the great progress here. What is the strategy for the combination approach with bev? Are you looking at enrolling third-line patients? Or is it really more about exploring second line? And would you wait until the next CX-2051 monotherapy update to actually inform a dose escalation strategy for the combo? And then I've got one follow-up. Sean McCarthy: Yes. Thanks, Olivia. Thanks for the question. So the strategy initially, of course, we will be beginning by looking at a few doses of 2051 to explore the combination with bev as we -- because we're beginning this study in Q1. We think it's important to get this study going. It's a crucial part of the development plan as we broaden out the 2051 strategy to bring the drug into earlier lines of therapy. So -- but starting in Q1, it will be concurrent with continued evaluation of dose selection for monotherapy. So I anticipate that we'll be looking at more than 1 dose of 2051 with bev. Obviously, the goal ultimately is to get into the second-line setting. Specifically, which patients we enroll into the very earliest phases of the combination, that remains to be determined. In terms of the data update on the combo, too early to tell. We want to get the study going, and we'll see how it's -- timing-wise, we'll see how it aligns with future updates on the monotherapy. Olivia Brayer: Okay. That's helpful. And then what can you tell us at this point just around the percentage of patients who you actually expect to receive loperamide in the dose expansion phase for the monotherapy? Are there any parameters that you guys have put in place in terms of which patients can or can't receive it? Or is it really truly at the investigator's discretion? And then just to kind of sneak in a point of clarification on that. Can that loperamide regimen, can it actually be used both proactively for prevention, but also reactively at first onset of diarrhea? Sean McCarthy: I'll take the second question first. And the answer there is yes. I mean loperamide is used -- it's a common drug to be used to manage diarrhea for any medicine that has that adverse event. So that's a very normal thing to do. But it's also been shown to be effective, as you know, for example, in the PRIME study with TRODELVY, where upfront treatment of patients with loperamide was effective in reducing the rates of Grade 3 diarrhea in patients treated with that particular TOPO I ADC. In terms of our study, as we've said previously multiple times, we instituted loperamide prophylaxis in the protocol concurrent with initiating the expansions in April. We did leave the investigators some level of discretion there. Loperamide, as we've commented before, does not come without its own side effects. And so that has to be used thoughtfully and deployed thoughtfully. And so we felt it was important to give investigators the flexibility because, of course, they're managing their patients on the ground as it were. Over time, and again, just to really emphasize, we are laser-focused on this question of learning more about the onset, the timing, the overall etiology of diarrhea in these patients and learning how to get ahead of it with loperamide. And over time, as we learn more, I would anticipate that our AE management plan will continue to evolve and continue to be refined as we move into 2026 and towards discussions with FDA relating to dose selection and, of course, navigating Project Optimus. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Biegler from Oppenheimer. Matthew Biegler: Thank you so much for the update here. I just wanted to ask a follow-up one on your current thinking of the regulatory strategy, particularly as a monotherapy. Do you think you can go head-to-head against bev-Lonsurf in the third line? Or are you thinking monotherapy would more likely be a fourth-line trial against, I guess, physicians' choice? Sean McCarthy: Yes. Thanks, Matt. Look, I think everything is still on the table. So we're generating now an even more substantial data set with the continued enrollment into the Phase I. And I think we feel, as we commented previously, pretty confident that the very first look at the profile of 2051 showed us that this drug has the potential to comprehensively beat standard of care in the fourth line. So that seems clear from the very early data set. In the third line, of course, we know that bev-Lonsurf has a PFS of 5.5-ish months. And we need to see our data mature to have a better handle and understanding of how competitive monotherapy 2051 can be in the third-line setting. So that remains to be determined, but it's very much still on the table as we collect more data, we follow our patients for longer. And by the time we get to Q1 of 2026, just to further build on one of the earlier questions asked, we do anticipate that we'll have estimates of PFS at all 3 of the expansion doses. So that will be, I think, very helpful and informative in helping us lay out what our thinking is at that time about the go-forward potential registrational path. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Anupam Rama from JPMorgan. Unknown Analyst: This is Joyce on for Anupam. I understand there's a host of other tumor types outside of colorectal where 2051 could have potentially meaningful benefit. What are your thoughts on which tumor types you're most excited for? And then what should we expect in terms of timing or cadence next year of new proof-of-concept studies in these other tumors? And just how are you balancing that with your development plans in CRC? Sean McCarthy: Yes. Thanks. Great question. And in a similar way to how we like to refer to 2051 as potentially being a pan-CRC drug. It really has pan-tumor potential given the widespread expression of EpCAM on so many solid tumor types. We're eager to get going in additional cancers, and there are many of them, gastric, endometrial, uterine, pancreatic, lung, it's a long list. And so we're enthusiastic to get going. At the same time, we've got so much work to do in colorectal that we need to be thoughtful of timing. But I do anticipate that we'll have updates on the initiation of additional cohorts and additional tumor types in 2026. We are working towards that. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Etzer Darout from Barclays. Etzer Darout: Just a couple of ones for me. On the over enrollment that you're seeing, just wondered if any of the additional enrollment is skewed to any of the 3 doses that you're exploring? And then of sort of this 100 patients or so, are we going to get a breakout maybe of maybe less pretreated patients versus sort of the 4 median prior therapy patients we got in the initial update? Sean McCarthy: Yes. Thanks, Etzer. So in terms of enrollment, I mean, I can say that we're enrolling patients at similar dose levels or within the same dose ranges that we've been expanding. Not quite ready to comment on specifically which doses that we're adding additional patients, but we're really thrilled that with the speed and rate of continued enrollment during Q4, it's going to give us a lot of additional information, important information as we move towards dose selection in the early part of next year. In terms of breaking out less or -- it's a really interesting question, less heavily pretreated or more heavily pretreated. We may look at that, but I can say that the patient population that we're continuing to enroll is pretty consistent with what we saw in the first 20 to 25 patients that we shared in May. So still pretty late-line CRC. So if you're wondering whether we'd have, for example, some initial suggestions of maybe some second-line patients that may have squeezed into the study or a large number of third line. I don't anticipate that to be the case. I think we're really still going to be, at least for now, in the pretty late-line setting. That said, of course, we're -- we always want to try to analyze and squeeze as much information out of every patient and data set as we can. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And the next question comes from the line of Mitchell Kapoor from H.C. Wainwright. Mitchell Kapoor: Congrats on the progress to date. Just wanted to ask if you could elaborate on your interactions with the FDA so far and what they have indicated their feelings are about what would be registrational or positive in the fourth-line setting. Would that -- have they said anything like 20%, 25% ORR and 6 months PFS would be impressive to them? Anything that you could say about what their alignment has been like with you all to date? And what was the last time you spoke with them about the registrational plans? Obviously, there's been a lot of changes with the FDA, but I just want to know when the last communication was and when you plan to meet with them again? Sean McCarthy: Yes. Thanks, Mitch. So obviously, regulatory strategy is something we're going to be super focused on as we move into 2026. We anticipate those discussions to happen next year. Mitchell Kapoor: Okay. Great. And then just secondly, if you could talk about your updated thoughts on BioAtla's EpCAM bispecific. What are the puts and takes there in terms of read-through, but also differentiation where we should think about your strategy in a different way? Sean McCarthy: Yes. We think that it's an interesting strategy as the EpCAM CD3 conditional activation approach. We obviously know that -- all know there's a lot of EpCAM in colorectal cancer and leveraging that particular effective strategy, I think, could make some sense. We feel like -- at CytomX, we really feel like the ADC strategy is the right one. Operator: I'm not showing any further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn it back over to Dr. Sean McCarthy, Chairman and CEO, for closing remarks. Sean McCarthy: Thanks very much, and thanks, everyone, for tuning in today. It's been great to give an update. We're super excited about our progress in 2025 and the direction that CytomX is headed with our clinical programs and our platform overall and our collaboration. So thanks for your time and look forward to following up. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Hello, and welcome to Inseego Corp.'s Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. Please note that today's event is being recorded [Operator Instructions] On the call today are Juho Sarvikas, Chief Executive Officer; and Steven Gatoff, Chief Financial Officer. During this call, certain non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed. A reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is included in the earnings release, which is available on the Investors section of the company's website. An audio replay of this call will also be archived there. Please also be advised that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not historical facts, but rather are based on the company's current expectations and beliefs. For a discussion on factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations, please refer to the risk factors described in the company's Form 10-K, 10-Q and other SEC filings, which are available on the company's website. Please also refer to the cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements section contained in today's press release. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Juho Sarvikas, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead. Juho Sarvikas: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Q3 was another strong quarter for Inseego. We generated revenue of $45.9 million and adjusted EBITDA of $5.8 million, both above guidance and marking our second consecutive quarter of sequential growth in both metrics. Operationally, we continue to execute on the growth strategy I laid out earlier this year. Our strategy focuses on scaling our core FWA and mobile solutions in the enterprise market while also evolving into a solutions company that integrates hardware, network management and software into a single platform, enabling enterprises, carriers, MSOs, MSPs and VARs to build their wireless practice on Inseego. Our progress in executing and advancing these strategic value creation goals this quarter is reflected on 3 key accomplishments. First, we extended our FWA leadership while continuing to drive mobile performance. On FWA, we did this by driving growth with the FX4100 and expanding our portfolio with the announcement of our premium FX4200, which extends our TAM. As we announced on our last call, we also added a third Tier 1 U.S. carrier across both FWA and mobile starting to contribute revenue later in Q4. Second, we advanced the realization of our solution strategy with a major new release of Inseego Connect, expanding our software foundation for growth. And third, we further strengthened our leadership bench with the addition of seasoned C-level executives and 2 new operating experts on our Board of Directors, further enhancing our ability to scale and deliver sustainable, profitable growth. On today's call, I'll walk through these 3 key accomplishments, beginning with FWA. We continue to see strong demand for the FX4100 with T-Mobile, where deployments have scaled meaningfully across key verticals, including retail and utilities. These wins underscore the FX4100's ability to deliver enterprise-grade requirements across a broad spectrum of industries and company sizes. It's clear that our FWA solutions are gaining traction beyond early adopters and becoming a trusted primary option for mission-critical connectivity. In Q3, FWA customer demand exceeded our joint expectations with our partner, T-Mobile. On the supply side, our team executed with precision, ensuring products reach customers quickly and reliably to capture a meaningful amount of upside. This was a direct contributor to our Q3 financial results. Overall, FWA shipment volumes were up more than 50% year-over-year, underscoring the strong and growing enterprise adoption of our FWA solutions and the effectiveness of our go-to-market execution with carriers. Along that line, carrier diversification has also been a key area of progress. As we highlighted on our last call, we secured a new Tier 1 U.S. carrier win during Q3, which will begin selling both our FWA products and soon-to-be announced new WiFi device. With this addition, Inseego is now aligned with 3 major U.S. Tier 1 carriers, broadening our reach and supporting share gains in both FWA and mobile hotspots. Building on this momentum, last week, we introduced the FX4200, the next phase of our FWA growth story, with shipments beginning in Q4. This premium tier enterprise-grade product eliminates the traditional trade-off between capability and ease of use, delivering both advanced performance and simplicity. It creates a higher value tier in our portfolio, broadens use cases and expands our market opportunities while maintaining the reliability and security Inseego is known for. When paired with the X700 mesh access point and our Inseego Connect SaaS platform, the FX4200 becomes a complete enterprise solution, expanding our TAM, creating SaaS attach opportunities and supporting incremental reoccurring revenue growth. Importantly, the FX4200 also enables us to move upmarket into larger enterprise and creates a new path to market via MSOs who can augment their existing networks with cellular capabilities. For enterprises, the need is clear, reliable connectivity that is cost effective and easy to deploy. For carriers, FWA creates new revenue streams and a faster return on network investment. What's been missing is the right solution, one that combines enterprise-grade features with ease of use and strong economics. That's where Inseego comes in. With our FX4200 platform and integrated solution stack, we're uniquely positioned to meet this need and create value for both carriers and enterprises. Together, these factors make FWA a compelling connectivity option and Inseego is well positioned to capitalize by expanding our product portfolio, adding new carriers and deepening our engagement with MSOs, MSPs and VARs. Moving to our mobile business. In Q3, mobile remained a solid revenue contributor, driven primarily by our largest Tier 1 carrier. We are also refreshing our MiFi product lineup and expect to be in market with all 3 carriers in Q1. Collectively, our FWA and mobile businesses are performing well. FWA is gaining momentum with new products and customer wins, while mobile provides a steady revenue base that will expand as our new Tier 1 carrier ramps. Together, these businesses create a stronger and more diversified growth platform as we head into 2026. On our second topic, solutions. In Q3, we advanced one of the 2 key growth vectors of our strategy with a major new release of Inseego Connect, our cloud-native SaaS platform for Inseego FWA and mobile devices and network management. This release elevates Connect from a supporting tool to a core part of our enterprise offering tightly integrated with the FX4100 and the new FX4200. With zero touch provisioning, integrated security and APIs for large-scale deployments, Inseego Connect enables carriers, MSOs, service providers, MSPs and enterprises to deploy and manage 5G edge networks more efficiently. Importantly, it also creates SaaS attach opportunities that expand our TAM and support reoccurring revenue growth. Also on the solutions side, our wireless provider subscriber management platform, Inseego Subscribe, add further value by enabling carriers and service providers to manage users of wireless networks across any device from onboarding and authentication to entitlements, policy controls and billing. In doing so, Subscribe simplifies operations, improves visibility into network usage and creates new monetization opportunities through subscription-based services to lower service providers, customer acquisition cost and operation cost. This overall progress underscores how we're executing on our strategy to evolve into a solutions company. As we scale these solutions and broaden adoption, having the right leadership in place will be critical to sustain this momentum, which brings me to our third topic, further strengthening our leadership team to support our next phase of growth. Along that line, we recently added a proven leader in marketing and a senior technology promotion on the leadership team. Donna Johnson joined as Chief Marketing Officer, bringing more than 20 years of enterprise marketing and channel experience. She most recently served as CMO of Ericsson Enterprise Wireless Solution following its acquisition of Cradlepoint, where she was a founding leader who helped establish the company as a pioneer in enterprise wireless edge solutions. Vishal Donthireddy was promoted to Chief Technology Officer, reflecting his 2 decades of innovation at Inseego. Since joining in 2005, he has led product development from 2G through 5G advanced, spearheading industry firsts and delivering award-winning hardware and cloud-managed solutions. In addition to these management team adds, I'm thrilled to welcome 2 accomplished operating executives to our Board of Directors. Nabil Bukhari, President, AI Platforms and CTO at Extreme Networks has led the company's transformation into an AI and SaaS-driven networking leader. Nabil brings deep expertise in product innovation, subscription models and scaling cloud platforms with a track record of turning advanced technologies into customer-ready solutions. And Stephen Bye, President and CEO of Ookla, who brings more than 30 years of leadership across carriers and broadband providers worldwide, including DISH, EchoStar, Sprint, Cox, AT&T, Telstra and Optus. Stephen has been at the forefront of connectivity evolution from DISH's 5G build-out to the emerging frontiers of 6G and satellite services with extensive operational and strategic expertise in scaling networks. Both Nabil and Stephen are recognized thought leaders whose operating experience in SaaS, AI and carrier strategy will be invaluable as we expand our solutions portfolio and accelerate Inseego's transformation. With these leadership additions, combined with the execution we've delivered through 2025, we are well positioned to build on our momentum as we close the year and move into 2026. Since joining Inseego in January, I've been proud of what the team has accomplished. In less than a year, we've set out a compelling strategy, broadened our customer base, refreshed and expanded our solution portfolio and strengthened our leadership bench, creating a scalable platform for sustainable growth. Looking ahead, our focus is clear: drive sustainable growth, SaaS-enabled solutions, deeper customer partnerships and disciplined execution. With that, I'll turn it over to Steven to review our financial results and outlook in more detail. Over to you, Steven. Steven Gatoff: Thanks, Juho. Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I'd like to cover 3 topics today. First, I'll take you through our Q3 2025 financial results. Second, I'll provide a brief update on our capital structure. And third, I'll share some color on the financial profile of the business and provide guidance for Q4 2025. As we always do, we'll wrap up by opening the call to your questions. Let's start with Q3 results. We delivered our second consecutive quarter of sequential revenue growth, as you just heard Juho highlight. That performance was again paired with strong gross margins and with an efficient spend profile, we also delivered meaningful operating leverage and sequential growth in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin. On the top line, total revenue for Q3 was $45.9 million and was driven by 3 dynamics: one, a particularly strong ramp in our FWA FX4100 product following its Q2 2025 launch, as Juho talked about; two, solid volumes of our MiFi M3100; and three, continued solid contribution from our software services offerings. It's notable to call out that FWA revenue was the second highest in company history and surpassed mobile hotspot revenue again this quarter, which is now the third time that's occurred. That crossover is a tangible data point of our strategy at work, scaling FWA over time, shifting the revenue mix and positioning the company for durable growth. As we've communicated, mobile revenue came in lower year-over-year as expected, reflecting the record carrier promotion in 2024. As a bit of a preview to our guidance, we see mobile revenue growing sequentially in Q4 2025 from a more fulsome contribution from an expanded customer set and products as new programs launch and our product line refresh begins to hit the market. And our software services revenue, which is comprised of our Inseego Connect MDM cloud offerings for Inseego devices and our Inseego Subscribe SaaS offering for mobile subscriber acquisition and management came in at a consistent $12 million as expected and providing stable high-margin revenue and profitability. Non-GAAP gross margin was 41.8% in Q3, reflecting a favorable product mix year-over-year and particular strength in FWA. Non-GAAP operating expenses came in at $15.6 million, reflecting some nonrecurring onetime items in G&A and an increase in D&A on our decided investments in new products that are coming to market. Pulling this all together, Q3 2025 adjusted EBITDA was $5.8 million, up sequentially and at a margin of 12.5%, the third highest in more than a decade. We ended Q3 with a solid $14.6 million in cash and healthy working capital and leverage metrics provide that flexibility as we continue executing on our growth initiatives. We also closed the quarter with a very manageable total debt balance of $40.9 million or approximately 2x LTM adjusted EBITDA. That balance sheet strength is the foundation for how we run the business, and it leads directly to my second topic, our continued capital structure strengthening. Last month, we took the prudent step and filed a universal shelf, a move that we believe enhances our financial flexibility and ensures we remain well positioned to execute on our growth strategy. The shelf complements other actions we've taken to increase financial flexibility, including a $15 million revolving credit facility that we put in place in August and of course, the reduction of more than $130 million in debt over the past year or so. Altogether, these actions strengthen our balance sheet, provide additional flexibility to invest when and where needed to drive growth and support long-term shareholder value. With that context on our capital position, let me now turn to our guidance for Q4 2025. 2025 has been a foundational year as we invested in and scaled new products, advanced our software platforms and won the third Tier 1 carrier customer on both mobile hotspot and FWA. We're starting to see the business evolve along the strategic lines that Juho set out and for 2024 -- for Q4 2025 rather, reflecting those initiatives, we're looking to drive continued sequential revenue growth over Q3. That's particularly notable as our business has been somewhat seasonal with Q4 being marginally lower than Q3 for each of the previous 3 years. And we expect growth in Q4 2025 despite the fact that Q3 was just a record FWA quarter. Q4 2025 mobile revenue is showing particular strength and is expected to generate solid sequential growth in Q4 2025. We're seeing higher volumes at our carrier customers, a nice reflection of our expanded offerings across our customer base. On FWA, while we expect our offerings to deliver a strong quarter in Q4 2025, we also just saw a record quarter in FWA in Q3, and so we're not expecting that same elevated revenue level in back-to-back quarters. And finally, software services revenue is expected to remain consistent at approximately $12 billion. In terms of margins, non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be modestly lower in Q4 2025 on a greater proportion of mobile hotspot revenue, more consistent with historical levels in the high 30s on a percentage basis. One aspect of COGS that we'll talk more about as we move into 2026 is the global dynamic of rising costs in the memory market that is impacting everyone. We don't see a material impact for Q4 2025, but with the large players shifting capacity to cater to AI, along with other buyers across the industry, we're seeing a tightening in the market. We're comfortable with the current dynamics and have fully factored that into our expectations for Q4 2025. We'll keep you posted as we move into 2026. Turning to non-GAAP operating expense. For total OpEx dollars in Q4 2025, we expect an increase in sales and marketing to drive growth and in R&D as we fund new products, as we've discussed. Our robust new product launch are also expected to drive higher levels of capitalized software development costs in Q4. Importantly, we're driving efficiencies across the company and expect G&A to improve as a percentage of revenue going forward. Pulling this all together, we're providing the following guidance for Q4 2025 total revenue in a range of $45 million to $48 million and adjusted EBITDA in a range of $4 million to $5 million. With that, we appreciate your time and support. We're glad to open the call for questions. Operator? Operator: [Operator Instructions] And your first question today will come from Scott Searle with ROTH Capital. Scott Searle: Nice job on the quarter, guys. Steven, maybe to start on Subscribe and Connect. As you started to make some changes in investment, I'm wondering if you could take us through how the monetization changes and how you go to market and access to the channel, how we should be thinking about how that ramps up in '26 and beyond? Juho Sarvikas: So, maybe I'll start with the Inseego Connect part. Today, we have a strong attach with our FWA together with the lead big carrier partner. What we've done and what's really important to understand with the FX4200 launch is that we've graduated Inseego Connect from what you could look at as a support tool to a core part of the enterprise platform. And we're driving usage to the cloud. The FX4200 will do a couple of things for us. It's going to expand our presence with the MSPs and MSOs as well as provide expansion with the carrier channel. So what you can expect to see with the FX4200 and with sequential launches is a richer value capture when it comes to the -- what I would call device cloud. Steven Gatoff: And then good question. On Subscribe, the counterpart on the software services, it's a piece of the business, Scott, that you know and as others know, we've begun to invest in. It's a really compelling part of the portfolio that complements what we do with our carrier customers and our MSOs and all of the strategic service providers that have similar wireless subscriber models. And so we continue to invest in that. We just onboarded and hired 2 executives in that business. And so they're getting up to speed right now. And so 2026 is what we look to be a growth year in that part of the business on the software side. Scott Searle: Very helpful. And maybe looking out into the first quarter, I think you addressed it sequential growth within the fourth quarter. There's typically a little bit of seasonality within that, I think as carriers have historically kind of worked down their inventory levels. But given the new product launches that you're expecting, it sounds like across MiFi in addition to new carrier wins starting to ramp up. Does one -- does the first quarter have different seasonality? Will we see sequential growth starting a little bit higher in the first quarter as we start to progress into '26? Steven Gatoff: Yes, a really good point. And also just to clarify a bit, part of the reason that Q4 is "seasonal" is just fewer selling days and weeks at the risk of stating the obvious with the last 2 weeks of December and the Thanksgiving week is just 3 fewer weeks. And so there's a little bit of math, less so industry dynamics. Whereas what you said in our view, Scott, is that you do see some end of year buying and inventory management so that sometimes January is a slower month. And so Q1, it's been a little bit different year-to-year here, but we are focused on making the most as we go into the year. Juho Sarvikas: And Scott, on your note on this new carrier ramp and broad renewal, I believe we mentioned this in the prepared remarks. But when it comes to MiFi, the new carrier customer will start recurring revenue in Q1. In addition, we're renewing the existing 2 MiFi customers in Q1. What you should expect to see us do is to enter a, I'll call it, a higher velocity price point in the market, drive significant share gains when it comes to volume share and with that, continue to drive MiFi growth. Meanwhile, in FWA, the new carrier, we will start shipping a bit later in Q4. And then, of course, with that, we'll be in full motion with the new carrier with the FX4200 come Q1. Scott Searle: Got you. And if I could, just one last one, Juho, I guess from a higher level conceptual view of the industry, there's been a lot of different dynamics going on, starting with AT&T buying EchoStar Spectrum. So a couple of things. I'm wondering, how are you seeing that kind of play out into 2026 in terms of investment and growth in FWA in general. With the 4200 as well, you put a stake in the ground with more processing power at the edge. And I'm wondering how that's driving not only adoption cycles from a carrier perspective, but also revenue-generating opportunities for Inseego with recurring and otherwise. And then maybe just some thoughts as well in terms of the competitive landscape. It seems like you guys continue to gain share. Just kind of curious as to your high-level thoughts in terms of what you're seeing on the competitive front. Juho Sarvikas: Scott, excellent set of questions. Let me start with the -- with the opportunity when it comes to wireless broadband, you're correct. Like if you look at the addressable market today, I would say that it's heavily constrained by available spectrum, right? Because the carrier needs to make sure that they take care of the high ARPU mobile customers. What happened with the EchoStar transaction with AT&T is that AT&T's mid-band assets dramatically increased. And that's really the sweet spot for FWA deployment. You might have seen there was some new news from FCC this week that they're looking at releasing more upper C-band, I believe it was 150 megahertz. All of this creates significant opportunity for the carrier to drive more FWA deployment. Why I think that we're extremely well positioned to capture on that opportunity is that we operate in the enterprise or in the business segment of the carrier portfolio, which obviously has a higher ARPU for the carrier than the consumer FWA. In addition, if you look at the business FWA or enterprise FWA, it consumes on average 1/8 of the network resource or bandwidth of a consumer household. So I think that trend is going to be extremely favorable for us, and we look forward to being the partner of choice for the carriers with our solution offer, which is really designed to deliver enterprise-grade wireless broadband that's easy to use, easy to deploy, and fits well with the carrier go-to-market motion where we also have significant investment. The opportunity space is huge. And to your point, continues to expand. One of the key things they are becoming spectrum availability. There's competition in the marketplace. But my very simple view here is that I think we have a unique position. On the other end of the spectrum, you have consumer grade, you could call white label FWA. And then you have very heavy complex, high cost of ownership solutions. We want to be that partner that's capable of driving mass scale deployment in strong alignment with the carrier and also starting with the MSOs and the MSPs like we mentioned in the prepared remarks. Operator: And your next question today will come from Christian Schwab with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Christian Schwab: Congrats on the great quarter. As you look to the new customer ramping on both fixed wireless and mobile, can you give us an idea of the range of potential outcomes over the calendar '26 from revenue from this customer? Juho Sarvikas: So if you look at the new customer addition, the hotspot or MiFi market is roughly -- this is not like exact accurate science, but you can think of it as 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 across the 3 carriers. And now what we've done is that we've unlocked the missing 1/3. So we expect to see significant volume growth. There is ASP erosion in the category, but that will be offset by -- that will be offset by the increase in volume. And that gives us good confidence on the MiFi side. On FWA, we have this unique motion with one of the large Tier 1s, T-Mobile today that I was just describing, we're super excited to establish the same partnership on FWA also with our new carrier customer. Christian Schwab: Great. My second question has to do with the software business given the broadening of this customer in particular, but also some of your other Tier 1s, I'm under the impression that a substantial portion of your software revenue comes from T-Mobile. Is there an opportunity at some point in calendar '26 that they would -- that any -- that other Tier 1 customers could adopt the same software platform to manage the network that T-Mobile uses? Steven Gatoff: Yes, Christian, it's a really good question, and it's spot on what we were just talking about a moment ago, which is we do share that view and see a lot of opportunity for Subscribe Inseego. Subscribe is the wireless subscriber IoT device management across -- agnostic across all devices and carriers platform, SaaS platform. And so you may have heard me mention we just onboarded and created new roles, new leadership roles that did not exist at the company. And so the Board, the exec team are investing time, energy, people and capital to build the platform because of what you said. We see a decided opportunity, awesome that we have a large customer at Tier 1, great. No reason in the world why we shouldn't have more. Juho Sarvikas: And if you look at the Inseego Connect, which is the device attached cloud, obviously, the name of the game is installed base. So I'm very happy with the solution that we've built, and now it's a matter of scaling that in the marketplace with a strong FWA attach. So if you take a longer time horizon a couple of years out, that's going to be a meaningful growth trajectory for us as well. Christian Schwab: Great. And if I could just sneak in one last question regarding Scott's question on the market share gains in the competitive environment. Do you see an opportunity as you roll out new products targeted to the distribution channel and potentially less foreign competition? Juho Sarvikas: I'm sorry, can you repeat the last part? I'm not sure if I heard you. Christian Schwab: But potentially, the competitive front and some competitors might not be able to sell here. Is that an opportunity for you or not really? Juho Sarvikas: Yes, yes, definitely. So we're actually uniquely positioned in that we have our engineering team here in San Diego, critical IP created in San Diego. If you look at the latest movement and everything that's being discussed, should there emerge an environment where for national security or for other reasons, U.S. and North America would prefer a domestic supplier is a great opportunity for us, absolutely. Operator: Your next question today will come from Lance Vitanza with Cowen. Lance Vitanza: Can you hear me okay? Juho Sarvikas: Yes. Lance Vitanza: So let me start with just sort of to follow up on the Tier 1 carrier contract. You mentioned that the FWA shipments begin over the next month or so versus mobile shipments beginning early in 2026. And I'm wondering, are we supposed to read anything into that staggered timing? Is FWA definitively a bigger priority either for you or with this customer or for the customer in general? And related to that, as you look out 1 to 2 years from now when sort of the dust is sort of settled, so to speak, how should we think about the volume mix in terms of units between FWA and mobile with this new Tier 1 customer? Juho Sarvikas: Lance, great question. You might remember earlier in the year, what I was saying is that the -- the product development and let's call it, design win cycle is 9 to 12 months. It's a simple matter of when we close on the opportunity and how long it took to develop the solution, the right maturity that we're able to ship. So we're equally excited on both hotspot and FWA. And then if you look at the -- from a mobile to FWA mix perspective, mobile, again, because it's a large market controlled by a couple of large carriers, you will see a significant uptake from a volume standpoint of view when we start shipping with the new customer. But the mobile is also a fairly confined space. So I don't necessarily expect to see significant market growth in mobile. Meanwhile, our thesis is that the FWA enterprise opportunity, be that carrier MSO or MSP, we're only at the early stages of that. And we expect to see market growth and, of course, share gains within that market. Lance Vitanza: That's helpful. And then one other question. There's been action at the FCC against "untrustworthy gear" coming from foreign adversaries. And I'm wondering if this is something you're following. It looks like the FCC voted last week to close loopholes, which could cause network operators to actually go ahead and replace components in their networks. Is this something that could favorably bear on results in 2026 for you? And are you contemplating any of that? Or is this just beyond the scale? Juho Sarvikas: Lance, I think this is a really important opportunity space for Inseego. And again, as a North America is U.S. OEM, we're uniquely positioned to capitalize on that. I think it's very good that the focus is in addition to the infrastructure, the macro network, where actions have already been taken. To me, it makes a whole lot of sense that the focus is now moving into the CPE or the broadband devices, whether that's hotspot or FWA and even looking at a level deeper where the IP is designed in U.S. as opposed to perhaps white labeling Chinese design, Chinese software. So I see this as a significant upside opportunity for us as a company. Operator: And your next question today will come from Nick Rubino with Stifel. Cam Tierney: This is Cam Tierney on behalf of Tore Svanberg at Stifel. Congrats on the quarter. I wanted to drill down a little bit into the Inseego Connect API that you guys rolled out, I believe it was last quarter. I'm curious if you -- what sort of like early read-throughs you guys are seeing from that? Any feedback from customers about how they're using it or whether that's driving service revenue attach rates? Juho Sarvikas: We actually -- Cam, that's a great question. Thanks for joining us. So we just had our Channel Advisory council when it was 2 weeks ago, one of the -- like my biggest takeaway was that the APIs that we spent part of this year in building was a fantastic investment. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Look, we want to be the best partner, whether you're an MSP, MSO or a carrier. And there are instances where it makes sense to consume our Inseego Connect device management to the service provider, a single pane of glass, if you will, so that we can integrate our solution offer as a part of a total solution offer. And that's exactly what the APIs does. The APIs are very important as we extend to MSOs, MSO cellular failover use cases, and it is a requirement when engaging with the MSP community. Cam Tierney: Okay. Awesome. And then second question is, I just wanted to drill down a little bit more into the FWA sort of longer-term view. Obviously, the last couple of quarters, it's sort of exceeded the mobile business significantly. I'm curious if that's sort of more of a longer-term trend that you guys are seeing? And maybe could we expect then into 2026 and beyond? Or is that sort of more short-term chop in the business? Steven Gatoff: Yes. No, good question and a very important clarification to get out there for sure for how you're thinking about it, which is FWA is an important growth driver now and going forward. So we don't see it as chop. And if you go backwards in time, it probably was. It was more kind of one-off for various reasons. But the product portfolio, the technology, the customer breadth is much more diverse now and going forward. And so you're seeing a more steady growth CAM going forward. And so we see that contributing to both dollars and growth rate going forward. Juho Sarvikas: Yes. Maybe to double-click on that, the strong Q3 on FWA was driven by our large carrier customer. In Q4, we diversified both in terms of add incremental revenue streams, both in terms of the new product and also in terms of new channels. So you should absolutely expect to see us further expand our portfolio as well as our market reach in terms of channels and market share as we go into 2026. Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the call back over to Juho for any closing remarks. Juho Sarvikas: Thank you for the insightful questions and for joining our call this afternoon. Steven and I will be attending a few sell-side conferences this month. We will be at the Craig-Hallum, ROTH and Needham conferences in New York in 2 weeks. We're particularly proud to be celebrating Inseego's 25th anniversary as a public company, hosting the closing bell on NASDAQ on Monday, December 8, a meaningful milestone for our employees, shareholders and the company as a whole. Thank you again for your time today, and we look forward to speaking with you soon. Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good day, everyone, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Quebecor Inc. financial results for the third quarter 2025 conference call. I would now like to introduce Hugues Simard, Chief Financial Officer of Quebecor Inc. Please go ahead. Hugues Simard: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this Quebecor conference call. My name is Hugues Simard. I'm the CFO. And joining me to discuss our financial and operating results for the third quarter of 2025 is Pierre Karl Peladeau, our President and Chief Executive Officer. Anyone unable to attend the conference call will be able to access the recorded version by logging on to the webcast available on Quebecor's website until January 5. As usual, I also want to inform you that certain statements made on the call today may be considered forward-looking, and we would refer you to the risk factors outlined in today's press release and reports filed by the corporation with the regulatory authorities. Let me now turn the floor to Pierre Karl. Pierre Péladeau: [Foreign Language] and good morning, everyone. So more than 15 years ago, recognizing a huge opportunity in Quebec and across Canada, Quebecor set out on a growth strategy based on wireless. First, launching as an MVNO, then building our own network and further acquiring Freedom Mobile. We have never wavered in our resolve or direction. We invested wisely and established ourselves as a better alternative to the big 3, a solid market disruptor with the best growth momentum and the strongest balance sheet in the Canadian telecom industry. As proof that our strategy is paying off, we continue to outperform our competitors, and I'm proud to report our strongest quarterly wireless service revenue growth since the acquisition of Freedom Mobile. As well as an impressive loading performance of 114,000 net addition in the quarter with more than 323,000 new lines year-over-year despite a generally softer market. Collectively, Videotron, Freedom and Fizz now have over 4,328,000 mobile active lines, a significant milestone achieved in quite a short time in a competitive market. Each of our 3 brands continue to improve its performance quarter after quarter, resonating more and more with Canadians across the country with innovative and affordable product and services. We have created a healthy competitive environment, giving Canadians more choice, lower prices and a better experience, all the while improving our profitability, growing cash flow and continuing to reduce our leverage to maintain the lowest ratio in the Canadian telecom industry. We will spare no effort as we press on with our strategy of sustainable, profitable wireless market share growth. I will now review our operational results, starting with our telecom segment. So our telecom segment continued to deliver strong operational and financial results both in wireless and broadband, reflecting the disciplined execution of our growth initiatives, the strength of our brand portfolio, and our commitment to provide innovative and reliable services to our customers. Our service revenues are up for a second consecutive quarter at 2%, fueled by a 6.4% increase in mobile and 1.1% in Internet. Our mobile service revenue grew by $27 million in the quarter, surpassing our Q2 performance and our best since we completed the integration cycle of Freedom Mobile results. This results from our adding 323,000 new net line over the last year despite the Canadian market affected by lower immigration levels and organic growth, but also from our effective pricing strategy with a balanced and cohesive positioning of our brand. Our consolidated mobile ARPU continued to improve its performance, recording its best since the acquisition of Freedom Mobile, which bodes well for the next few quarters despite a market that remains unpredictable and highly competitive, especially in Quebec where discounting is comparatively and, in our view, irrationally heavy. At this point, we expect current market conditions to continue through the upcoming holiday season's promotional period, but we intend to maintain our disciplined approach, focusing on the quality of our products while continuing to rapidly improve our network. Specifically, on ARPU, we are very pleased with our second sequential quarterly increase, reaching $0.35 and $0.05 compared to $0.34 and $0.76 last quarter, a $0.29 gained in the 3 months. Our year-over-year performance continued to improve with a $0.66 decrease this quarter compared to a drop of $2.30 in Q2 as compared to the same period last year. Our effective mitigation of the dilutive impact of the prepaid services of Fizz and Freedom was an important contributor. As you will have noticed, we adjusted our wireless subscriber base by 51,000 to eliminate 0 revenue accounts, which translated into an approximately $0.40 ARPU pickup. To be completely transparent and contrary to our competitors, we adjusted our ARPU numbers retroactively. With our ever-improving network quality and stellar customer service, more and more Canadians enjoy the richness and peace of mind of our plans, which continues to strengthen our market position and share. Freedom's marketing plans are honest and transparent without any fake employee purchase program, new customers only or B2B offers. We have been upfront with all Canadians since day 1, offering them better services at everyday best prices. Canadians have clearly embraced our approach as evidenced by our significant churn improvement, ARPU and market share growth. An internal survey even reveals that the global satisfaction score of Freedom customers approaches that of Videotron. We are very proud to have successfully transposed the key contributors of our great success in our own market to the other regions of Canada. In terms of new adds, as I alluded to at the beginning of my address, we delivered 114,000 new net lines to our mobile customer base in the third quarter, a strong growth considering the softer market this year. This performance is also attributable to our effective retention strategy, which kept our consolidated churn among top of the industry and thus helped to defend Videotron's solid market position in Quebec and to continue to improve Freedom performance. In wireline, our service revenues continue to improve as we recorded for a second consecutive quarter our lowest decline in year-over-year. Fueled by Internet revenue growth of $3.3 million and net additions of 10,500 in the quarter, these results are very encouraging as we are only still scratching the surface of the opportunity with new services like Freedom home Internet and Fizz TV. We are also counting on the expansion of our Helix technology-based Internet and television services in new territories where they will complement our wireless services already available. Since the end of the second quarter of 2025, Videotron has announced the expanded coverage of more than 180,000 new households in Drummondville, Magog, Rimouski, Saint-Hyacinthe, Trois-Rivieres, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield and Huntingdon, as well as in many cities in Saguenay–Lac Saint-Jean region. Customers will now be able to benefit from a full complement of telecommunication services in competitive packages. We intend to enter these new markets with a disciplined pricing strategy in line with our pricing elsewhere in Quebec, counting on state-of-the-art Helix solutions and our second to none client experience to make ourselves a strong contenders in this territory. In addition to our wireline footprint, we are also expanding our wireless coverage and services areas in the Haute-Mauricie region in partnership with Ecotel and with the support of the Quebec government. This will significantly improve mobile communications in this region of Quebec, making it possible for more than 10,000 residents to subscribe to Videotron mobile services and enhancing connectivity along several highways. Freedom Mobile is also continuing to increase its service coverage now in the Ontario region of Chatham-Kent, where the resident of this large and growing region can now access our fast and reliable wireless network. These expansions reflect our continued progress in delivering on our ongoing commitment to always give our customers more with state-of-the-art advanced technology. This is but one reason why Videotron was ranked as Quebecor's preferred telecommunication provider in a recent Leger survey. Videotron stands out for its remarkable results, confirming its position as an undisputed leader in customer service among telecommunication providers in Quebec, while being recognized as the most reliable and trustworthy telecommunication company in Quebec. Turning now to our Media segment. TVA Group generated EBITDA of $18.5 million in the third quarter of 2025, an increase of $6 million compared to the same period in 2024. This favorable variance is primarily attributable to the impact of streamlining initiatives undertaken over the past 2 years as well as certain favorable nonrecurring retroactive adjustments. These measures are helping, but are in no way sufficient, to mitigate the impact of the structural crisis threatening the sustainability of Quebec television industry, particularly due to the accelerated decline in advertising revenues compounded by the negative impact on the absence of foreign blockbusters in MELS' studios. Having acted recently and respondly over the years by implementing numerous measures and a number of major restructuring plans to address the crisis, TVA Group has done its part. It is high time for our government to take the necessary action on their end. After countless advocacy efforts, hearings and meetings with successive CRTC chairpersons, Canadian heritage ministers and Quebec culture ministers over the years, we can only repeat yet again that we urgently need real action and long-term solution to protect our industry. It was particularly disappointing that the federal government in its budget deposited this Tuesday completely ignored our industry and turned a blind eye to the crisis that is hitting television broadcasting so hard. There is no tax credit for television journalism, no tax incentive for advertising in Quebec and Canadian media, and no information about when the digital services tax already paid by private broadcaster will be refunded. Furthermore, CBC/Radio-Canada annual funding had been increased by $150 million without any requirement to eliminate advertising on its platform and to curb its unfair commercial competition with Canada private television broadcasters. Regrettably, this new government has missed an opportunity to support an industry facing ever-growing challenges and job losses at an alarming rate. Regarding the Quebec government, we reiterate that it must quickly introduce concrete measures to implement the recommendations in the report of its task force of the future of Quebec audiovisual industry filed in October 2025. I will now let Hugues review our detailed financial results. Hugues Simard: [Foreign Language] On a consolidated basis in the third quarter of 2025, Quebecor recorded revenues of $1.4 billion, up 1%, EBITDA of $628 million, up $34 million or 6%, resulting from improvements across all of the corporation's business segments. Cash flows from operating activities increased $36 million to $582 million or 7% compared to the same quarter last year. In our telecom segment, total revenues grew by 1% or $13 million, a first favorable variance since Q1 of last year when we completed the integration cycle of Freedom Mobile results. This positive delivery is largely attributable to our strongest mobile service revenue growth of 6.4% fueled by a significant customer growth, but also by the favorable improvement of our mobile ARPU in the last quarter, resulting from strategic market positioning of our multiple brands and our pricing strategies. This quarter, mobile revenues were offset by our lowest wireline services revenue declines in more than a year, resulting from our effective strategies and mitigating the impact of organic declines of these services. Combined with rigorous cost management initiatives, our EBITDA reached $602.5 million, increasing by $16.6 million or 2.8%, our highest EBITDA growth since Q1 2024. As a result, our EBITDA margin improved by 0.8%, ending at 49.5% compared to 48.7% in the same period last year. Telecom CapEx spending was up by $13 million in the quarter, regulating the timing difference explained in Q2 for wireless equipment deliveries required for our 5G and 5G-plus network expansions and subscriber equipment rentals. Even with that regulation, we still anticipate higher investment levels in the last quarter to stay on track with our objectives, mainly expanding and improving our mobile network. Accounting for these investments, our quarterly adjusted cash flows from operations increased $3 million or almost 1% due to our solid EBITDA growth. Our Media segment recorded revenues of $152 million or 2% decrease, an EBITDA of $23 million, a $9 million favorable variance compared to the same quarter last year. Our Sports and Entertainment segment revenues increased by 7% to $68 million, and EBITDA was up by 28% to $15 million. We reported a net income attributable to shareholders of $236 million in the quarter or $1.03 per share compared to a net income of $189 million or $0.81 per share reported in the same quarter last year. Adjusted net income, excluding unusual items and losses on valuation of financial instruments came in at $242 million or $1.05 per share compared to an adjusted net income of $192 million or $0.82 per share in the same quarter last year. For the first 9 months, Quebecor's revenues were down by 0.3% to $4.1 billion, and EBITDA was up by $4 million to $1.8 billion, partly impacted by a $44 million increase in stock-based compensation charges. Excluding this factor, EBITDA would have increased by $48 million or 3%. EBITDA from our telecom segment grew 2%, an improvement of $38 million over last year, excluding the impact of stock-based compensation. At the end of the quarter, Quebecor's net debt-to-EBITDA ratio decreased to 3.03x, still the lowest of all our telecom competitors in Canada. We remain committed to further deleveraging in the coming quarters and intend to continue operating in this low 3 range, consistent with our current financial strategy. Our balance sheet remains very strong with available liquidity of over $1 billion at the end of the third quarter. I would also like to highlight the success of our recent refinancing where Videotron issued $800 million of senior notes yielding 3.95%. This demand -- the high demand from investors, it was very strong with a book more than 3x oversubscribed, and we were able to negotiate very favorable conditions, most notably the lowest 7-year credit spread seen in the Canadian telecommunications sector, a convincing testament to the strength of our financial foundation, our disciplined management and our growth prospects. The net proceeds will be used for the redemption of our -- or Videotron's rather 5.125% senior notes maturing on April 15, 2027. During the first 9 months of the year, we also purchased and canceled 3.7 million Class B shares for a total investment of $140 million. We thank you for your attention, and we'll now open the lines for your questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] First, we will hear from Maher Yaghi at Scotiabank bank. Maher Yaghi: [Foreign Language] I would like to first ask you the strong performance in wireless, you mentioned that it came from lower churn and also improved gross loading. Can you maybe dissect a little bit more what drove that strong performance in the quarter? Q3 usually is a strong quarter for Freedom, but how are you thinking about Q4 so far? And which markets -- which submarkets in wireless you still haven't been able to gain market share from that you think over time could provide you more growth down the line? Hugues Simard: Thanks, Maher. So in wireless, yes, I mean, as you said yourself, the Q3 and the back-to-school period is -- has historically been a very strong quarter for us. These are the target markets that we -- that particularly resonate well with us. And again, even though organically and in terms of immigration and all the things we've talked about, the market is a little softer, we've been able to maintain our performance. And why have we been able to maintain our performance? It is because we are increasingly resonating with other cohorts whereas the freedom of the past used to be very strong with first-time buyers and immigrants and people looking for a deal or the cheapest deal. We are now able to attract and retain customers that are willing to -- they want a bit more, that want better performance. We have an increasing number of 5G-plus customers because we have been expanding the access to 5G-plus to many more of our customers. Fizz is also continuing to perform increasingly well quarter after quarter, which should not be a surprise because you will remember us telling you that Fizz was created with a very specific objective -- with very specific objectives in mind, and that was to go after and to target the younger, more urban, more digital savvy generations, which are representing the future. And I think we are showing that we're better than our competitors at reaching out to these people, to these customers. In terms of going forward in the following quarters, I think you will see if you look back that we are very -- not stable, but very consistent in our penetration, in our growth. We are continuing to retain our customers more longer, so churn is down. Our ARPU is going up. So this is really the story in this one. Look at our wireless service revenues, $27 million more in the quarter, which flows down to margin with -- considering our very disciplined cost containment. That's basically how I would call the story of -- the wireless story of the quarter, which bodes, as we said in our -- as Pierre Karl said in his note, bodes very well for the historically competitive Q4, where we intend to continue to perform very well. Pierre Péladeau: That's a pretty good answer, ain't it? Maher Yaghi: It's a very good story for sure, very good story. Maybe just one… Pierre Péladeau: May I add just one thing, is -- well, we all know that when Freedom was under the previous ownership for whatever reason, I mean, historically, the weakness was the network, the quality of the network. And I think it's important to mention that we are investing in the network. And we've been always Videotron an enterprise culture, considering that we need to deliver the best product in our available customers. So we inherit a good brand and certainly also some very good people in this organization. But now I think that we've been doing what is appropriate to improve our product by investing in the network. We will continue to do so and we will continue to do it on a disciplined basis as we've been doing, obviously, in Quebec for the last about almost 15 years now. Maher Yaghi: Yes. And maybe just to touch on the improvement in the cable segment revenue growth rate with the pricing that you passed last December starting to really kick in. But I'm trying to gauge that with Karl's -- your prepared remarks. You specifically called out the very aggressive pricing competition happening in Montreal and Quebec in general on the combo plans, very low prices. Is it easy to pass another price increase this year like you did last year amidst the competition that we're seeing right now in the marketplace? Pierre Péladeau: Well, obviously, you can easily expect that you're going to have an answer for that. But I'll tell you, we're used to that. We've been always in the same kind of environment. So there is nothing new for us. And what we're doing to make sure that we're for this situation is by being as much as disciplined as possible, watching our core cost. And we've always been in that kind of business and we will continue to do so. Historically, pricing between Quebec and all the other areas in Canada for whatever product, it was the same for cable, it's the same for wireless had been lower. So is our competitor, our main competitor, the blue guys have been trying to get market share by having lower prices than elsewhere. They certainly, in the past, being able to benefit from a higher margin elsewhere. Are they using this to compete even more aggressively in Quebec? It's not impossible. But they can do whatever they want. At the end of the day, we're going to continue to be the preferred supplier of Quebecers for many reasons, one of which is that we're offering better customer service and our products are of higher quality. Operator: The next question will be from Stephanie Price at CIBC. Sam Schmidt: It's Sam Schmidt on for Stephanie Price. I wanted to ask a question about ARPU. The declines have been improving sequentially for the last few quarters. How do you think about the timeline to return to positive ARPU growth? And it was strong in this quarter. Any onetime items to call out there? Hugues Simard: I'm sorry, I missed your first name. You're replacing Stephanie, right? Sam Schmidt: Yes. Sorry, it's Sam Schmidt on for Stephanie Price. My first question was just around the ARPU declines that have been improving sequentially for the last few quarters and how you're thinking about a timeline to return to ARPU growth. Hugues Simard: Yes. It's -- you saw our performance. We're very confident. ARPU is turning the corner, and I would expect that corner to be very, very soon. Sam Schmidt: That's helpful. And then just one more for me on mobile equipment revenues. How are you thinking about device financing heading into Black Friday? Hugues Simard: With discipline, how would I say, continued disciplined, reasonable offers. We've said this in the past that Black Friday is a time of the year where we can easily go crazy and lose our shirt, as we say, on equipment device -- on equipment or device subsidies. And we certainly do not intend to do that and to continue to be, as I said, disciplined and reasonable in our equipment offers for the rest of the year. Operator: Next question will be from Matthew Griffiths at Bank of America. Matthew Griffiths: Just on churn, firstly, if I could. It seems as though across the industry, everyone is reporting churn being lower this quarter on a year-over-year basis. I was wondering if you had any comments about how much of your churn benefit in the quarter is just kind of that halo effect of industry churn falling. Or were there things that you were doing that you kind of can see that there's -- that would have been responsible on your side for reducing the churn? And then secondly, if you can make any comments on the kind of decision and how you evaluate the network expansion question. Specifically, you mentioned this quarter expanding the wireless network into the Chatham-Kent area. So if you could share kind of just how you evaluate it, how many more opportunities you see for this going forward, it would just be helpful on our side. Hugues Simard: Matt, thanks for your question, Matt. On churn first, probably a little bit of both, to be fair. Our churn, as you know, started from very high with Freedom, the highest in the industry by far, and is now fairly equal to the lowest of the industry. And that was mostly due to the improvements to our network, its performance, its coverage, its reliability, roaming packages, marketing agility, customer experience. I mean it's a -- who knows -- and bundling opportunities. There are so many factors that collectively contributed to this lowering or this decrease in our churn. Now that it has reached, as I said, a very competitive level, then obviously, it becomes naturally a little bit more affected or more influenced by maybe more market-related metrics. And it is our goal to maintain that churn through the various improvements. I mean we're nowhere done. I mean it's not as if we're at the end of the -- of our plan here in terms of improving everything that I've talked about and going after different cohorts, as we said earlier. And as our experience keeps getting better with our customers, we're very confident on the churn level that we have not only reached the industry's best, but that we will maintain the industry's best. Of course, there are the investments that Pierre Karl talked about that will continue. We're taking this very seriously. When we relaunched -- when we bought and relaunched Freedom, we said very clearly that we went about very diligently about fixing all the pain points and making sure that the experience was quickly very much better. And we still have work to do. This is a never-ending work, and we certainly intend to, as Pierre Karl said, continue to invest in our networks and also in our marketing agility to make sure that we continue to resonate with Canadian customers. As to the network expansion, this is the -- these decisions are made on a -- it's a bit of a -- how would I say, it's a bit of a balance between going after strong and interesting regions with -- and balancing it with the investments needed in these regions. So this is something we have a plan, and we're continuing to be very diligent and very disciplined about our network expansions going forward. Focusing on the MVNO areas where we're starting to resonate well, where we're building the business, you will remember us saying that we're not going to build and hope that people come. We will launch MVNOs and where it will make sense for us, we will prioritize network investments. And I think that's the good business way to do it, and that's still what we intend to continue to do. Operator: Next question will be from Jerome Dubreuil at Desjardins. Jerome Dubreuil: The first one is on the free cash algorithm. We were seeing a bit of EBITDA growth, but also CapEx increases. So I'm wondering if you're seeing a potential for free cash growth in the coming year or if value is going to be created more through deleveraging and buybacks. I appreciate there was the share-based comp situation this year. But essentially, will absolute EBITDA growth outpace CapEx growth in the next few years? Hugues Simard: Thanks Jerome, [Foreign Language]. I think you're seeing it in the numbers. We look at our performance in terms of generating margin, generating cash, which provides us with the opportunity to continue to invest in the network, which we had said we would. And from -- I think you will remember, again, us saying from the beginning of the year or even last year that we were going to maintain very strong, stable cash flow, even though we were intending to invest more in our network. So in terms of buybacks, as you know, we flexed in the past on this, and we will continue to do so. And dividends will be -- we will continue stay true to our dividend increase, reasonable increase that we've had in the past. We're still in the soft in the -- not in the soft, in the best spots that we announced between 30% and 50% of our payout. So we feel pretty comfortable with our continued capability to generate cash, very strong cash flows that then give us the leeway to continue to invest in the network and the -- eventually in the network builds. Jerome Dubreuil: I'm just going to push a little bit on the capital allocation point here. You said in the prepared remarks that you're probably happy with leverage in the low 3s. It seems like you're getting real close to destination here on the balance sheet side. So does that mean that we should be expecting a ramp-up in the buybacks probably? Or is that a fair assumption? Hugues Simard: It's not an unfair assumption, but I wouldn't necessarily agree to it now this morning. Pierre Péladeau: And Jerome, I think that we should say it's a prerogative of the Board of Directors. And look at the sequence previously where we've been changing our balance sheet policies. I guess that we should -- that would be a good example or a good illustration of what we can expect being the situation in the future. Operator: Next question will be from Vince Valentini at TD Cowen. Vince Valentini: Let me spin that free cash flow question just more specifically to the near term. Hugh, you've done $1.06 billion of free cash flow through the first 9 months of the year. In the fourth quarter of last year, you did over $300 million in free cash flow. Is there something material in terms of timing issues we should be thinking about for the fourth quarter? Or are you going to -- like, you're going to smash through $1.2 billion or $1.3 billion of free cash flow for the year? Hugues Simard: Vince, no, we've talked about this, I think, last quarter. There are some timing issues. Our CapEx did increase a little bit in Q3, as you've seen, but there still is some timing ahead of us -- timing issues ahead of us in terms of CapEx, which you should expect to be higher in Q4. So I wouldn't go all out in our expectations of us breaking the bank in terms of cash flow. It will be a very strong cash flow and we will more than deliver what we had said we would deliver, Vince. But yes, there definitely is going to be a catch-up in CapEx towards the end of the year -- between now and the end of the year, yes. Vince Valentini: But you would definitely expect to have positive free cash flow in the fourth quarter? Hugues Simard: For sure. For sure. Yes, yes. Vince Valentini: Okay. The second thing, your Internet adds were a bit better than I expected. Is this in Quebec in your core Videotron business? Or are you starting to see some benefit from Freedom Internet in the rest of the country using TPIA? Hugues Simard: Well, a little bit of both. It is in Quebec, but it is also in Freedom home Internet is performing well. Fizz Internet is performing well. So it's -- we are in a very competitive situation and an ever-increasing competitive situation in Quebec. But we've talked about the quality of our services and network. And so we've been performing well essentially everywhere in terms of broadband. Vince Valentini: Okay. And last one, I don't know if there's any materiality to this, but as you know, I'm a happy customer. These roaming SIM cards that you guys have and people on other carriers are allowed to use them when they're traveling, how are you counting those? Are they being counted as a subscriber in the third quarter sub adds? Hugues Simard: No, no. No, they're not -- if you've turned on that SIM card, as I know for a fact that you were finally successful in doing, Vince… Vince Valentini: Yes, I did. Hugues Simard: After some help, you are not counted as a subscriber, no. Vince Valentini: So that is actually -- it is obviously service revenue. So it's going to be helping your ARPU even more than just the underlying trends in the business going forward? Hugues Simard: Yes. That's correct. And by the way, it's high time that you do become a customer of Vince. We're counting on you. Vince Valentini: I'm waiting for your Black Friday offer. Pierre Péladeau: Thanks for your business, Vince. Operator: Next question will be from Aravinda Galappatthige at Canaccord Genuity. Aravinda Galappatthige: Just a couple of quick ones from me. Hugues, you mentioned that one of the reasons for the success of Freedom sub trends is because you're kind of going into other cohorts that the old Freedom did not. I mean should we translate that comment as suggesting speaking to sort of the prepaid-postpaid mix? Any comment around how that mix has changed as you sort of progressed with gains on the subscriber front? And then secondly, just a small follow-up. The wireless ARPU redefinition, can you just clarify what that was? Hugues Simard: As to your first question, Aravinda, postpaids and prepaids for us, we're continuing to perform well on both. We have -- we're a bit agnostic, to be honest, and have continued to work well. So on all the cohorts that I talked about, I think that was more of a general comment applying to both to both postpaid and prepaid -- not specifically a move from one to the other. But we -- to be quite transparent, we're continuing to perform well on postpaid. And your second question, sorry, I've forgotten was to do with what? Aravinda Galappatthige: The ARPU redefinition. I think it was a small definition change of $0.40. Hugues Simard: Yes. Yes, it's about $0.40. We've restated it. But as those were $0 accounts, you'll see that it's almost consistently $0.40 over the last so many quarters that we restated. Operator: Next question will be from Drew McReynolds at RBC. Drew McReynolds: So a couple for me. Maybe for you, Hugh, on the CapEx trajectory in telecom. It looks like you're running a little hotter than the initial kind of $650 million or so of CapEx. Just wondering, and I think your commentary from Q4 would say you come on above that. Is there any kind of change overall to the kind of medium-term trajectory on CapEx from your perspective? And then just tied to that, we are seeing a pretty efficient kind of cable CapEx intensity come down from -- with some of your cable peers. Just wondering your cable CapEx, how you expect that to trend again through the medium term? Hugues Simard: Thanks, Drew. So on medium-term CapEx, both wireless and wireline, we will -- as I said earlier, we will, in Q4, be a little bit higher. That doesn't necessarily change our midterm -- what we said about the midterm that we are -- and we've said this before, that we're in a -- we're continuing to invest, and we're continuing to improve and ultimately expand as well our networks. And as such, it will be -- you should expect a gradual CapEx increase over the medium term. Nothing -- again, gradual, nothing -- no CapEx wall. I have some of your colleagues unfortunately use the term in the past. I don't think there's anything to be worried about, but just very reasonable and very sensible investments in both of our wireline and wireless network going forward. So no change to our midterm CapEx trajectory. Drew McReynolds: Just in the MD&A, you alluded to some favorable kind of provisioning in Q3 within telecom. I'm assuming the 2.8% year-over-year telecom EBITDA growth ex the provisioning is still a reasonably good growth rate. Can you just comment on quantifying those provisional -- favorable provisions? Hugues Simard: I won't give you the number, obviously, Drew, but it's -- no, I think your statement is fair. There's no -- yes, there was some provision adjustments as we do in a number of quarters and almost all quarters and as everybody does, but it's not material enough to impede or to change the conclusion on our increase in profitability for the quarter. Drew McReynolds: Okay. No, that's great. And last one for me, just the usual fixed wireless impact in Quebec, just how that's kind of contributing to the competitive environment, if at all? And that's it for me. Hugues Simard: To be honest, nothing significant. It is -- and by that, don't misread us. We're not saying that this is something to be dismissed. As we said in the past, fixed wireless is -- we're not saying it's not a thing. It may very well become a thing. And we are certainly in our own shop, looking at opportunities for fixed wireless. But certainly, to your -- in answer to your question, so far the impact on us has been very limited in our home turf of Quebec. But we are definitely -- and we've got the teams already lined up to start reflecting on how we will turn that into an opportunity for us in our various markets outside of Quebec. Aravinda Galappatthige: And congrats on great wireless results. Operator: Our last question will be from Tim Casey at BMO. Tim Casey: Hugh, just one modeling question and a couple of others. Working capital is running very positive so far this year. Should we expect a reversal in Q4 or maybe into Q1 next year? And what's driving that? Is that cash management or is it just timing? Hugues Simard: Tim, no, you should -- the answer your question, there should not be -- I don't see any material difference in Q4 or Q1 of next year in terms of working capital. It is -- to be honest, it is something that we've been focusing on for the past year or so, 1.5 years, where we recognized -- I think sometimes you have to be -- you have to question yourself on various occasions. And we weren't as efficient in working -- in managing our working capital as we should have been in the past. And we've tightened up a lot of things and I think it's showing. But we certainly intend to continue to perform well on working cap. And I wouldn't expect -- I mean, there's no bump either way that you should expect in the next quarters. Tim Casey: Okay. Just 2 for me. On the 50,000 subs you removed out of the base, can you give us any color on why they were $0 subs? Was this an aggressive promotion from the relaunch of Freedom? Were they -- was it an enterprise deal? What was happening there that they were so poor ARPU? And second one, as you think about expanding out of footprint on wireline, do you expect to retain similar type economics maybe on a margin basis? I would -- or should we assume that it will be dilutive to ARPU on the wireline side? Hugues Simard: Tim, to your first question, the 50,000 or 51,000 were $0 accounts. It's basically people who had opened an account but never -- or had a SIM card, mostly from before the acquisition and who never really bought a package. So they -- we had them as an account, but they weren't active and they weren't generating any revenue. So we just took them out. In terms of our out-of-footprint wireline, we -- again, our intent is to remain very disciplined and very -- I think that was your question. If I'm not answering the right question, you can ask me. We certainly -- as we've said in our notes today, both Pierre Karl and I, we intend to -- whether it's out of footprint wireline or eventually fixed wireless, whatever, it is our intent to remain very disciplined. And I think if I may make the point right now, we have been and for quite some time, been very disciplined and very predictable in our approach. We say what we're going to do, and we do what we said we were going to do, which I don't think can be said for everybody in telecom in Canada. But we certainly, in terms of wireline, intend to continue to apply that philosophy, if I can call it that. Pierre Péladeau: So we would like to thank you all attending this conference call and expect the same for our next quarter that will be our year-end. So don't miss Hamilton game, the Alouettes against the Tiger-Cats on Saturday. Hugues Simard: And you should root for the Alouettes, right? Pierre Péladeau: Sure. Thank you very much and have a nice day. Hugues Simard: Thanks, everyone. Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Quebecor Inc.'s financial results for the third quarter 2025 conference call. Thank you for your participation and have a good day.
Operator: Welcome to Chesapeake Utilities Corporation's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Lucia Dempsey, Head of Investor Relations. Lucia Dempsey: Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Today's presentation can be accessed on our website under the Investors page and Events and Presentations subsection. After our prepared remarks, we will open up the call for questions. On Slide 2, we show our typical disclaimers, while I remind you that matters discussed on this conference call may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements and projections could differ materially from our actual results. The safe harbor for forward-looking statements section of our 2024 annual report on Form 10-K and in our third quarter Form 10-Q provide further information on the factors that could cause such statements to differ from our actual results. Additionally, the company evaluates its performance based on certain non-GAAP measures, including adjusted gross margin, adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share, and the information presented today includes the appropriate disclosures in accordance with the SEC's Regulation G. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the related GAAP measures has been provided in the appendix of this presentation, our earnings release and our third quarter Form 10-Q. Here at Chesapeake Utilities, safety is our first priority. We start all meetings with a safety moment, and we'll do so here with a moment on kitchen and fire safety as highlighted on Slide 3. The holidays are coming up, which often means more time gathering together and cooking with friends and family. This makes it a great time to remember safe kitchen practices, particularly as Thanksgiving is the leading day for home cooking fires. Be extra vigilant and aware to keep kids, pets and flammable materials away from heat and open flames, ensure any burned food or materials are completely saturated with water before throwing away and remember to use a metal lid, sheet pan, baking soda, salt or a fire blanket to extinguish grease fires. I'll now introduce our presenters today. Jeff Householder, Chair of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, will provide an update on this quarter's key accomplishments and highlights, our full year guidance metrics and our capital growth program. Jim Moriarty, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Chief Policy and Risk Officer, will provide updates on our regulatory activity, our ongoing business transformation efforts and our stakeholder engagement. And Beth Cooper, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Assistant Corporate Secretary, will discuss our financial results, financing updates and investment highlights. With that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Jeff. Jeffrey Householder: Thank you, Lucia, and good morning. We appreciate you joining our discussion today. The highlights on Slide 5 demonstrate how we've continued to deliver with purpose over the last few months. Our growth trajectory continues, and we've expanded our capital investment program. A number of our 2025 projects are already in service and producing significant margin. We've finalized multiple positive regulatory filings and strengthened our balance sheet in support of future growth. As shown on Slide 6, we reported adjusted earnings per share of $0.82 for the third quarter of 2025 and $4.06 year-to-date, an 8% increase over the same period last year. As you know, the third quarter always contributes the smallest percentage of our full year earnings, so my remarks will focus on our performance in the first 9 months of 2025. Year-to-date, we've achieved double-digit growth in adjusted gross margin, operating income and adjusted net income relative to the same period in 2024. That performance is a testament to our focus on driving growth, effectively working with our regulators and operating efficiently to meet our customers' needs. Our results continue to align with our expectations. So we are reaffirming our full year 2025 EPS guidance of $6.15 to $6.35 per share, as shown on Slide 7. As we've previously indicated, this EPS range does assume we reach a successful outcome for 2025 in the FCG depreciation study proceeding, which Jim will discuss further on today's call. On the capital investment side, we continue to invest capital at a run rate of over $1 million a day with $336 million already invested in the first 9 months of this year, including $123 million invested in the third quarter. Given this pace, we are again increasing our 2025 full year capital expenditure guidance to $425 million to $450 million, a $25 million increase over the top end of our prior range. I'll now shift to Slide 8 to discuss the increase in customer demand for natural gas that's driving our strategic investment in some of the fastest-growing regions of the country. Both of our core service areas generated another quarter of above-average residential customer growth, 4.3% in Delmarva, 3.9% for Florida Public Utilities and 2.1% for Florida City Gas. I'll mention just a couple of examples to illustrate the demand for natural gas across our service areas. We're in the early stages of building out natural gas distribution for an underserved area in Southern Delaware that includes 2,000 new homes in Ellendale, Delaware. We also recently became the natural gas provider for a new community development in Port St. Lucie, Florida, which has begun to construct the first of 6 phases of what will ultimately be a community with hundreds of new homes. Last month, we also expanded propane distribution to a fleet of Greensboro school district buses, which confirms our broader propane growth strategy in North Carolina. We also see additional growth opportunities in Ohio, which has become fifth in the nation for data center potential as ranked by Ohio's Economic Development Corporation. The Ohio opportunity is supported by significant natural gas production in the state and constructive governmental and regulatory frameworks. The opportunities we have to serve increasing customer demand, improve system reliability and operate efficiently are the basis for our overall growth strategy, which in turn drives sustainable earnings. We remain committed to increasing shareholder value by focusing on the 3 pillars of our growth strategy, as shown on Slide 9, prudently deploying capital, proactively managing our regulatory agenda and continually transforming our business operations to enhance safety and customer service and support future growth. Successful execution of these 3 pillars will enable us to maintain top quartile growth and total shareholder return. Slide 10 provides some highlights of our 2025 capital program. Construction projects overall remain on track and on budget and more than 400 gas distribution projects have been placed in service through the first 9 months of this year. Most importantly, this capital investment is generating significant gross margin, $14 million in the third quarter, nearly $34 million in the first 9 months of this year and $50 million expected for full year 2025. Given our pace of investment thus far and our additional opportunities ahead, we are again increasing our full year 2025 capital expenditure guidance, adding $25 million to the top end of our prior range for an updated range of $425 million to $450 million. Approximately $15 million of the increase is related to initial spending on our multiyear enterprise resource planning process and about $10 million is related to recently approved Eastern Shore natural gas system improvements. This updated range reflects capital investment of approximately $800 million between last year and this year, a significant increase that reflects the many growth opportunities across all our businesses. I'll now provide an update on WRU, our LNG storage facility in Bishopville, Maryland, as shown on Slide 11. Construction is well underway. Tanks are in place. We've been pouring a lot of concrete. The system control building has been erected and the majority of the equipment needed to complete the facility is now on site. Last month, we also successfully completed our first PHMSA inspection. This project remains the lowest cost infrastructure option to deliver affordable energy and protect against weather-related disruptions in the southernmost portion of our Delmarva service area. We continue to target bringing the project online in mid-2026, dependent on construction completion and final FERC approval. As shown in detail on Slide 12, all of our major transmission capital projects are advancing as expected with more than half now in service. We forecast these projects to contribute approximately $23 million of gross margin in 2025 and double that amount or $46 million in 2026. Shifting to Slide 13. The capital projects included on this slide support our 5-year capital investment plan of $1.5 billion to $1.8 billion through 2028. At this point, we've identified at least $1.4 billion of the capital plan with a number of projects already in service or under construction. Most importantly, approximately 70% of that investment requires no additional regulatory approval or support. Not yet included in this forecast is the investment in our full ERP project as well as a number of projects that are still under exploration and development, as shown on Slide 14. We continue to explore a number of additional potential expansion opportunities, including serving the space industries in Virginia and Florida, expanding our systems in the southern part of Delmarva and Florida and meeting incremental demand for our Marlin virtual pipeline services to transport RNG, CNG and LNG. In just the last 2 weeks, I met with Florida Governor DeSantis and members of our leadership and external affairs teams have met with the Maryland and Delaware governors and their teams. We continue to partner with local state and federal electric representatives to advance the design and construction of much needed energy infrastructure in those states. Maintaining strong relationships with all stakeholders and actively participating in energy coalitions advocating for a resilient and affordable energy future is key to driving these expansion projects forward to meet growing energy demand for years to come. With that, I'll turn to Jim to discuss our regulatory strategy and business transformation initiatives. James Moriarty: Thank you, Jeff, and good to be with you all this morning. I'll start with Slide 15 as I provide some updates on our regulatory activity. After a great deal of effort, we now have permanent rates in effect for our Delaware, Maryland and Florida electric jurisdictions following successful conclusion of the 3 rate cases that we filed last year. Last month, we also reached settlement on the rate design and tariff-related elements of the Delaware rate case. And on October 15, the Delaware Commission approved that settlement. Altogether, updated rates are driving $13.1 million of margin this year and $18.2 million of margin in 2026, a testament to our proactive strategy, constructive relationships with regulators and our highly diligent and dedicated internal regulatory team. Slide 16 provides an update on the one remaining regulatory filing still outstanding, our traditional depreciation study filing for Florida City Gas. Following unexpected regulatory delays, we agreed to amend the filing from a proposed agency action or PAA proceeding to a standard hearing process. This transition provides for a more structured and traditional process for consideration of the filing and an updated schedule. Under the new schedule, the company submitted testimony in early October, restating our request for a 2-year amortization of the excess depreciation reserve retroactive to January 1, 2025. Per the filing we made earlier this week alongside updated testimony, the excess reserve is now $19 million, primarily reflecting updates to expected useful lives for certain asset classes. On Wednesday, the State of Florida Office of Public Counsel filed testimony objecting to the company's proposal and recommending that the existing depreciation rates remain in effect until the company files a new depreciation study as part of a rate case at a future date. The company will be filing rebuttal testimony later this month to address these arguments. Staff testimony will follow next week, and the hearing is scheduled for December 11. The process is expected to conclude no later than February 2026, but could be completed earlier if all parties are able to reach a settlement. We are focused on securing successful recovery of the excess depreciation to support our 2025 full year results and will provide future updates as available. I'll now turn to Slide 17 to provide an update on our business transformation efforts, which is the third pillar in our growth strategy for a reason. Transformation is the engine that enables technology, systems and processes to evolve in order to maintain our track record of growth as we become a much larger organization. In the last few months, we've continued to make strides with upskilling our team, including attracting additional talent in finance, strategic planning, information technology, change management and human resources. We are completing the final preparation stages of our enterprise resource critical project that will have significant transformational impacts across the organization as we implement improvements in asset management, supply chain, human resources, accounting and finance. We expect to invest approximately $15 million in this project this year, and we'll provide total capital spend for this multiyear project on our next call. Slide 18 provides a couple of updates on our engagement with stakeholders. In September, we were pleased to welcome Lisa Eden as our newest member of the Board of Directors. Lisa brings extensive experience in finance, strategic planning, talent management and information technology, having recently retired as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at TXNM Energy, Inc. We look forward to Lisa's valuable insights and contributions in the years to come. We were also honored to receive several recognitions in the last few months. First, our Delmarva natural gas distribution business and our Sharp Energy propane distribution business were recognized as Stars of Delaware as voted by the Delaware Daily State News readers. Second, Chesapeake Utilities was also named a 2025 Champion of Board Diversity for the third consecutive year by the Forum of Executive Women. And finally, we were named Employer Champion of the Year for Kent County by the Delaware Department of Labor State Rehabilitation Council. These awards reflect our unbroken commitment to excellence and inclusion of all members of our communities as we provide reliable and affordable energy solutions that enable families, businesses and the communities we serve the opportunity to flourish. Our colleagues also continue to support the communities in which they live and work through the contribution of their time and resources. Through September, our teammates have volunteered over 1,500 hours and have contributed over $488,000 in charitable donations and corporate sponsorships, supporting organizations that align with our 4 focus areas of giving: safety and health, community development, education and environmental stewardship. With that, I will turn the call to Beth for a more detailed discussion of our financial results. Beth Cooper: Thanks, Jim, and good morning, everyone. As shown on Slide 19, our financial results for the third quarter of 2025 continue to demonstrate steady growth that supports our full year growth targets. Adjusted gross margin was approximately $137 million, up 12% and adjusted net income was approximately $20 million, up 8% from the third quarter of 2024. We also sustained growth in adjusted earnings per share of $0.82, a 3% increase over the third quarter of last year, which includes an increase of 1 million more shares outstanding compared with a year ago. I'll now provide some additional detail on the key drivers of our third quarter performance as shown on the adjusted EPS bridge on Slide 20. Continued demand for natural gas drove $0.22 of incremental adjusted EPS, including $0.17 related to transmission capital projects and $0.05 of distribution growth across our service areas. Margin from our infrastructure program investments contributed an additional $0.12 per share this quarter and permanent rates from our 3 rate cases added $0.11 in third quarter 2025 adjusted EPS. Our unregulated businesses generated net incremental earnings of $0.09 per share, largely driven by continued growth in our Marlin Virtual Pipeline transportation business. These gains were partially offset by a few factors, including $0.14 per share of increased depreciation and amortization expense, driven by growth in total assets as we actively deploy capital and $0.10 again from the absence of an RSAM benefit recorded in the third quarter of 2024. We also incurred additional operating expenses of $0.12 per share this quarter, driven by incremental facilities, maintenance, insurance and employee-related expenses. However, we continue to drive operational efficiencies, leading to operational expenses at only 34% of adjusted gross margin in the third quarter of 2025 relative to 37% in the same period last year. Our results were also impacted by 15% fewer cooling degree days this quarter relative to the third quarter a year ago, which drove slightly lower consumption in our Florida electric business. Financing activity, including our debt and equity issuances over the last 12 months, reduced adjusted EPS by $0.07 per share. And finally, some changes in our billing accruals also impacted the third quarter of this year from a timing perspective, but will not impact full year results. Shifting to Slide 21. Adjusted gross margin for our Regulated segment was approximately $115 million this quarter, up 12% from the third quarter of last year. This growth continues to be driven by strength in our core business operations, organic natural gas transmission expansions, which are a direct result of distribution growth as well as increased rates following the conclusion of our 3 rate cases. Our focus on cost management enabled similar growth in our regulated operating income, up 11% to approximately $49 million in the third quarter of 2025. Our unregulated Energy segment also demonstrated strong growth relative to the third quarter of last year, as shown on Slide 22, with adjusted gross margin up 13% to approximately $22.5 million. Our Marlin Gas Services business continues to meet the rapid growth in demand for virtual pipeline transportation, driving $3.1 million of additional gross margin when combined with the incremental contribution from Full Circle Dairy in the third quarter of this year. This growth was supported by increased performance from Aspire Energy, but tempered by changes in margins and service fees within our propane operations for the third quarter, leading to an overall gross margin increase of $2.6 million. While higher than the same period a year ago, margins did not fully cover the normal operating costs in the quarter as is typical during the least weather-sensitive quarter of the year. I'll now move to Slide 23 to review our capital structure and financing activities. At September 30, our equity capitalization was 49% with $83.1 million of equity issued through the first 9 months of the year. In the third quarter alone, we issued approximately 126,000 shares with an additional 105,000 shares issued in October 2025. We also completed the previously announced $200 million issuance of new long-term unsecured senior notes in the private placement debt market with $150 million funded in August and $50 million funded in September of this year at a blended 5.04% coupon. These capital raises support our overall financing strategy, which ensures we are committed to superior balance sheet strength. We also continue to maintain strong liquidity and sufficient capacity to support growth with availability of 87% of our total capacity of $755 million between our revolving credit facility and private placement shelf facilities at the end of September 2025. Moving to Slide 24. Alongside our equity and debt plans, our dividend policy continues to be a key component of our capital allocation strategy as we fund growth capital investment to drive earnings growth and overall total shareholder return. Our Board has approved a dividend payout target range of 45% to 50%, allowing us to retain 50% to 55% of earnings, which has been a meaningful part of our financing plan. We also remain committed to consistent dividend growth. Our annualized dividend per share of $2.74 reflects a 7% annual increase from 2024 and supports a long-term dividend CAGR of 9% while still facilitating significant earnings reinvestment. We will continue to support long-term dividend growth while reinvesting significant earnings back into the company, enabling our investors to benefit from both long-term top quartile earnings and strong dividend growth. As we've discussed many times, we are committed to a long-term earnings per share compounded annual growth rate of 8% through 2028 to drive top quartile shareholder returns, as shown on Slide 25. Our third quarter results align with our full year 2025 adjusted EPS guidance range of $6.15 to $6.35 per share, inclusive of a successful outcome on the Florida City Gas depreciation study as both Jeff and Jim have previously discussed. This range represents an EPS growth rate of 14% to 16% over 2024 or on average, approximately 8% to 10% annually over the last 2 years. Before we shift to Q&A, let's review the unique differentiators as shown on Slide 26, that enable us to drive significant shareholder value in 2025 and for years to come. We remain committed to delivering on our promises. We recognize that our consistent track record has driven expectations for continued strong growth, both in terms of performance and valuation. We will continue to execute on our 3 pillars of growth, enabled by continued infrastructure reliability improvements and growing demand for natural gas throughout our service areas and supported by our increased 2025 capital guidance range of $425 million to $450 million. Our disciplined approach to financing, including ensuring balance sheet strength, upholding investment-grade credit metrics and sustaining our target capital structure keep us well positioned to address market volatility as we fund our growth plan. All of these elements drive our ability to reach new heights, both in 2025 and beyond. We look forward to delivering with purpose and driving long-term value for all stakeholders. We sincerely appreciate your continued interest, support and investment in the company. Thank you for joining our call today. With that, we'll take your questions. Operator? Operator: [Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Barclays. Nicholas Campanella: This is Nick Campanella. So I wanted to ask on the depreciation study. Just you kind of show in slides that the decision could be anywhere from December to February. I think you're very clear that this is included in guidance. Just ability to kind of overcome that if you do get a decision, let's say, in January or February? Are you still able to kind of hit the range? Or is it fully predicated on that outcome? And then how would you kind of quantify what's in fiscal '25? Beth Cooper: So we have -- Nick, as we've talked about previously, achieving the guidance range would assume that we do get a successful outcome from that rate -- from that proceeding. And where we actually fall within the range will ultimately be based on where that outcome is, meaning when you look at -- we have filed for a 2-year amortization period. The standard is 5 years. So that will come into play. But as long as there is an outcome from the proceeding from the hearing in December, and we get a final order in time to be able to record it for 2025, that will determine ultimately the timing of the period as well as the amount that would enable us to achieve the guidance range. Nicholas Campanella: And if it doesn't, is it just that you're at the lower end? Or I was just trying to parse through what you were saying there. And just to be completely clear, it's the $19 million that's kind of shown in slides, and I would just take half of that. Beth Cooper: Yes, that is correct. And so achievement of that would enable us to be within the range and enable -- so there's some other factors certainly that we have to -- the reason why we're not saying exactly where it will depend on, again, the period of time, the ultimate conclusion of what gets approved in terms of amount. And then certainly, there's other factors that could impact our results, but that is the clear differentiator to us being within the range or not being within the range. And I would add if for some reason, right, it's much lower than expected, we would anticipate that we're going to be filing a rate case next year anyway. So we see dollars there that need to be part of the final outcome. We're very confident in the numbers that we've filed as being the excess reserve. And so we believe we're well positioned, whether it's through a depreciation study or ultimately, if we have to come back in some form of rate proceeding as well next year. Nicholas Campanella: That's great. Really appreciate that clarity. And then I know Jim just kind of talked about the process overall in the prepared remarks and just brought up the prospects of settlement. But just as you've seen kind of testimonies roll in, just how would you kind of frame the prospects to -- for parties to kind of come to a settlement before December? And are you really trying to achieve an all-party settlement? Or could this be more partial? Beth Cooper: Yes, Jim, please go ahead. James Moriarty: Nick, this is Jim. As you know, it's very difficult to predict the process trying to land a case like this or if the parties will even entertain a potential settlement. We're working very hard if there were to be one. Our preference, of course, would be that it'd be unanimous. So I really can't say more than that, Nick, other than our historical approach would be try and resolve something, if at all possible. Operator: Our next question comes from Tate Sullivan with Maxim Group. Tate Sullivan: First to follow up on a comment from earlier in the call. Jeff, did you say that you had 400 new distribution projects in service in the last 9 months? Or did I mishear that? And if I did not, what does that -- what qualifies as an individual project, please? Jeffrey Householder: Yes, that's sure. Those are of a variety of different sizes. It is 400, just to give you some idea of the significant number of projects that we are moving forward on. Those range from distribution level subdivision projects up into some of the transmission work that we do. So it really is just a compilation of the construction activity that's going on throughout the company. And it's a substantial increase over what we would typically see. And so some of that's reflective of the fact that we now have Florida City Gas in the fold and are doing construction activity on that system. And some of it continues to reflect the very substantial growth, especially in residential projects that we see both in Delmarva and in Florida. So yes, I didn't mean to -- that's not all $1 billion transmission projects, but it's a lot of things that add up to a significant amount of work and a substantial amount of customer growth. Tate Sullivan: Yes. I mean the scale of organizing all that. I mean, the previous year's period of 9 months, I mean, I imagine what, roughly 200 to 300 projects. Would that be fair? I mean just... Jeffrey Householder: Yes, maybe even less. Yes, it's a significant amount of work, and our guys have done a really great job. We've spent a fair amount of time over the last couple of years in that particular area, trying to consolidate our construction teams, trying to make sure that we had different tools and systems that would allow us to track those projects in a better way, improving some of the supply chain issues. I mean all of that has kind of come together intentionally to allow us to be able to actually move through that level of project. Tate Sullivan: And separately, you called out the Ohio data center growth in one of the slides. And just to refresh on the business, your Ohio business is an unregulated business -- energy segment, I believe. And -- can you talk about the type of infrastructure? Is it pipelines to backup generators, pipelines to isolated power plants? Or can you talk about that opportunity? Jeffrey Householder: On the data center side? Tate Sullivan: Yes. Jeffrey Householder: Yes. What we actually have one announced project with AEP in Ohio right now to build a pipeline to serve a data center that AEP is building the project itself. We have a number of other possibilities out there that we're looking at. And I mean, we're in the same boat, I think, with a lot of people across the country. As you well know, there are a lot of data center possibilities out there. Everybody is trying to understand where these things might actually land. We've seen, as we mentioned in the remarks, significant activity in Ohio. It seems to be one of those places where folks like the political regulatory climate. They like the fact that there are in-state gas supplies that are possible and there are transmission opportunities there that can bring that gas to the projects as well as some large electric utilities that seem to be eager to pursue them. So we hope to continue to do business in Ohio with the possibility of adding additional transmission assets there. Tate Sullivan: And that's all of Ohio has been unregulated. Is that correct? Jeffrey Householder: That's correct. I guess we have -- I should probably clarify that -- we have a small transmission pipeline that's sort of quasi-regulated in Ohio. But we don't have regulated distribution assets there in the sense that we do on Delmarva, Florida. Tate Sullivan: Okay. I asked this question because I saw an acquisition in Ohio territory as well recently in the industry and thank you for all the comments. Operator: Our next question comes from Paul Fremont with Ladenburg. Paul Fremont: I guess my first question, Beth, just to clarify, is the cutoff date for a Retroactive treatment of the amortization of the depreciation reserve, is that December 31? Or is that -- is it a different date? Beth Cooper: So basically, Paul, as long as we would have an order that would be in the first week or 2 in February, we would be able -- because it would be a subsequent event and the magnitude of that subsequent event, it could be factored into our 2025 earnings. Paul Fremont: Great. So it could be as late as the second week of February? Beth Cooper: It could be as late as that. When it gets beyond that, it would be very challenging for us at that point. So yes, as long as an order is received, we can go back and we have worked through and evaluated that on the accounting side. Mike Galtman and his team have researched that. We've talked to experts around that. And so yes, it could go back and be included because of the magnitude of that event. Paul Fremont: Great. And then my second question is, can you help us split between the 22 that you had initially filed for and the 19 amended request? Beth Cooper: Yes. So the process, Paul, as we started, and it actually -- it happens for all the parties. When you file that -- when you're filing that initial filing, you are certainly filing that with the thought that it is comprehensive. But as you continue to go through and look at the data, and we're scrubbing the data as we're moving through the process, ultimately, there are positive adjustments or things that you may find and sometimes there are updates that can be downward. And in this particular case, the net effect of the adjustments that we found among the various different asset categories or classes ultimately resulted in a decline. We have had our work papers reviewed by some of the experts that we utilize -- but it happens. And so as we continue to scrub the data within our systems, we feel very good about that $19 million. But it is us just constantly going through and validating the data. Operator: [Operator Instructions] We'll go next to Alex Kania with BTIG. Alexis Kania: Maybe just a question just thinking about the -- maybe the year-end earnings call. Has there been just any kind of change in thinking about what the roll forward, what updates you may end up giving on the CapEx plan? I know there's some discussion just about rolling in some of the projects that were talked a little bit about earlier on the call as well as the, I guess, the ERP or business transformation investments. But do you still consider planning on just keeping kind of the '28 long-term target? Or is there a sense maybe you want to do a more kind of full roll forward? Beth Cooper: Thank you. Great question, Alex. So number one, I think right now, we happen to be in the process where we're working on and finalizing our 2026 budget. And that certainly, that is inclusive of our capital projects. And as we start the year, we have a really good sense and even years prior to that as we're moving through looking at the 5 years, it's a constant updating of CapEx guidance as we're looking at it. So as I think about February, what you will definitely see is you will see us come out with our projection of our capital spend for the year that will be reflective of an updated estimate for our ERP process and plan. And so I think that will be something new that we will include. Our expectation right now is that we will continue to hold to the $1.5 billion to $1.8 billion through 2028. And there is some likelihood in February of 2027 that we will revisit that and decide whether there's just an update or whether there's an extension of guidance from there. But most likely, we don't think it will be next year, but it will likely be the following year. Alexis Kania: Great. And then just a follow-up on kind of the underlying growth of the businesses. It's just very notable that the Delmarva growth is even trending ahead of Florida. year-to-date. Do you -- what's kind of the view about how long that maybe could persist? I mean it's obviously a good thing to see. I'm just kind of curious about what the kind of current views are just in terms of trajectory of, let's say, in the Mid-Atlantic versus the Florida franchises. Beth Cooper: Well, thank you. Great question. I happen to be -- and I'm certainly not saying this statistic is in true. I can't confirm it or deny it, but I happened to be in an event not long ago where the speaker at this particular setting was talking about Sussex County, which is really the county in Delaware where we're seeing the most growth because it's at our resort and beach areas. And they were talking about some of the statistics they had seen, right, show that, that county is one of the fastest-growing counties in the entire country. And I think we're continuing to see that. That's reflected in our numbers. There's a substantial build-out that's occurring that for right now, we continue to see occurring into the foreseeable future. You had Jeff talk about on the call today, actually what I would call more of a bedroom community to the beach areas. We're seeing growth actually start up in some of these small communities that I, as a lifetime resident of the state would not have expected some of these areas to be kind of natural extensions necessarily of the beach area, but the quality of life in the area that's around here, I think, is continuing to bring more people in. So I think for right now, Alex, we're continuing to expect strong growth in that area. I don't think that takes away at all from the strong growth, though that we're also seeing in Florida. And one of the things that you saw us do in this particular release, and we're trying to make sure it stands out is that the areas that our Florida legacy business actually serves have tremendous growth that's also significantly above the industry average. And we're seeing growth with even in Florida City Gas also pick up as well. So we're excited about the growth prospects and continue to be. And hopefully, those, as always, will continue to also result in some additional pipeline -- upstream pipeline capacity needs as well. Operator: This does conclude today's question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the program back over to Jeff Householder for any additional or closing remarks. Jeffrey Householder: Well, thank you for joining our call this morning. We, as always, appreciate your continued interest in Chesapeake Utilities. I have to say that I like where we are this year, less than 2 years from the transformational FCG acquisition, double-digit growth in earnings. We've more than doubled our pre-FCG capital investment, positive results in 3 rate cases, significant progress in our modernization business transformation efforts and really excellent outlooks for 2026. So we look forward to seeing many of you at the EEI Financial Forum in Florida in a couple of days and safe travels if you're headed to Florida. Goodbye. Operator: Thank you. This concludes Chesapeake Utilities Corporation's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Please disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day.
Rebecca Morley: Good morning, and welcome to the Enbridge Inc. Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Rebecca Morley, and I'm the Vice President of Investor Relations and Insurance. Joining me this morning are Greg Ebel, President and CEO; Pat Murray, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and the heads of each of our business units: Colin Gruending, Liquids Pipelines; Cynthia Hansen, Gas Transmission; Michele Harradence, Gas Distribution and Storage; and Matthew Akman, Renewable Power. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference call is being recorded. As per usual, this call is being webcast, and I encourage those listening on the phone to follow along with the supporting slides. We will try to keep the call to roughly 1 hour. And in order to answer as many questions as possible, we will be limiting questions to one plus a single follow-up if necessary. We'll be prioritizing questions from the investment community. So if you are a member of the media, please direct your inquiries to our communications team, who will be happy to respond. As always, our Investor Relations team will be available following the call for any follow-up questions. On to Slide 2, where I will remind you that we'll be referring to forward-looking information in today's presentation and in the Q&A. By its nature, this information contains forecast assumptions and expectations about future outcomes, which are subject to risks and uncertainties outlined here and discussed more fully in our public disclosure filings. We'll also be referring to non-GAAP measures summarized below. And with that, I'll turn it over to Greg Ebel. Gregory Ebel: Well, thanks very much, Rebecca, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us on the call today. Before we start, I'd like to take a moment to congratulate Cynthia, who announced plans to retire at the end of 2026. Her outstanding leadership and dedication to Enbridge over the past 25 years is inspiring, and I'm grateful that she'll be continuing to provide guidance to our executive team through the end of next year. I'd also like to congratulate Matthew, who will transition to President of our GTM business at the end of this year as well as Allen Capps, who has been appointed to succeed Matthew as the Head of our Corporate Strategy Group and President of our Power business. As we've said before, and it remains true today, our investment in people creates a deep bench of executive talent to ensure a smooth transition and strong leadership as we move forward. Now moving on to our agenda for this morning. I'm excited to share another strong quarter and highlight the significant progress we've made throughout all segments of our business. It has been a busy quarter for us with new projects serving a wide range of customers across our core franchises. We're going to start today with an update on our financial performance, execution of our increasing number of secured growth projects and prospects. And I'll also highlight the strong returns and stability our business continues to demonstrate and provide an update on each of our four franchises. Pat will then walk through our financial results and capital allocation priorities. And lastly, I'll close the presentation with a few comments on our First Choice value proposition before we open the line for questions from the investment community. We had another strong quarter of results, including record third quarter adjusted EBITDA. That growth was driven by incremental contributions from a full quarter of U.S. gas utilities and organic growth within our gas transmission business. This keeps us on track to finish the year in the upper half of our EBITDA guidance, and we expect to land around the midpoint of our DCF per share metric. Our debt-to-EBITDA is 4.8x for the quarter and remains within our leverage range of 4.5 to 5x. Our assets remained highly utilized during the quarter with the mainline transporting approximately 3.1 million barrels per day, a third quarter record, thanks to strong demand. We reached positive settlements at both Enbridge Gas North Carolina and Enbridge Gas, Utah, which we expect to drive growth as rates begin to take effect. We're still on track to sanction Mainline optimization Phase 1 this quarter and Phase 2 next year, and we'll get into more details on those projects during the business update. Over the quarter, we added $3 billion of new growth capital to our secured capital program, showcasing continued execution on the commitments we laid out last Enbridge Day. In liquids, we sanctioned the Southern Illinois Connector, adding incremental egress out of Western Canada and providing a new long-term contracted service to Nederland, Texas. In Gas Transmission, we sanctioned expansions of our Egan and Moss Bluff storage facilities to support the LNG build-out along the U.S. Gulf Coast. And in the deepwater Gulf, we're expanding our previously approved Canyon system to provide transportation services for bp's recently sanctioned Tiber Offshore development. And earlier in the quarter, we sanctioned the Algonquin Gas Transmission enhancement project in the U.S. Northeast as well as the Eiger Express gas pipeline out of the Permian. And finally, we have advanced a joint venture with Oxy to develop the Pelican CO2 hub in Louisiana. These projects demonstrate the competitive edge from our all-of-the-above approach and our ability to meet growing energy demand across all parts of our business. Now let's look at our value proposition and recap our year-to-date execution before diving into the business updates. Enbridge's low-risk model continues to deliver superior risk-adjusted returns in all economic cycles. Our cash flows are diversified from over 200 high-quality asset streams and businesses that are underpinned by regulated or take-or-pay frameworks. Over 95% of our customers have investment-grade credit ratings. We have negligible commodity price exposure and the majority of our EBITDA has inflation protection. All of this results in Enbridge's industry-leading total shareholder return while maintaining lower volatility compared to peers and broad index constituents. Looking ahead, Enbridge's utility-like business model remains well-positioned and policy support for new investment in critical projects is improving, creating a business environment that incents coordination, dialogue, and growth. And I'm very pleased with how the team continues to grow the business and excited by the opportunities ahead for Enbridge. With that said, let's jump into the business unit updates, starting with Liquids segment. Mainline volumes had another strong quarter, delivering a record 3.1 million barrels per day on average for Q3. The system was a portion for the entire quarter, reflecting continued strong demand for Canadian crude and the need for reliable egress out of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. Given the continued strong demand for the Mainline this year, we expect to reach the top of the performance color ahead of when we initially anticipated. This is a great sign for us and our shippers. We're achieving the maximum allowable returns under the mainline tolling settlement, delivering competitive value to our shareholders and our alignment with customers incentivizes us to move the increased volumes and provide them with access to the best markets. This leads in well to mainline optimization projects that I'll discuss shortly here, in addition to the previously announced projects like Mainline capital investment. In the U.S., we sanctioned the Southern Illinois Connector project, which is backed by long-term contracts for full path service from Western Canada to Nederland, Texas. Once complete, the new pathway will add 100,000 barrels per day of contracted full path capacity to the U.S. Gulf Coast via a 30,000 barrel increase per day on Express-Platte system, 56 miles of new pipeline between Wood River and Patoka, and utilization of 70,000 barrels per day of existing capacity on the Spearhead Pipeline. Looking ahead at additional egress projects, we are continuing to advance approximately 400,000 barrels per day of incremental capacity to the best refining markets in North America via mainline optimization Phase 1 and 2. MLO1, which will add 150,000 barrels per day of incremental egress is entering the final stages of customer approvals. and we are still on track to make FID this quarter and place the project into service in 2027. MLO2 has made significant progress as well, and that project could now add another 250,000 barrels per day of additional capacity in 2028. This second phase of mainline optimization will utilize capacity on the Dakota Access Pipeline, and we're happy to announce that we're teaming up with Energy Transfer to make that happen. So stay tuned for more on MLO2, including an open season announcement early in the new year. Relative to potential greenfield projects that would require significant energy policy change, these brownfield opportunities offer the quickest and most cost-effective way to adding close to 500,000 barrels a day of capacity to satisfy the near-term production increases forecasted out of the basin. Finally, for liquids, we added the Pelican sequestration hub to our backlog, a project in Louisiana, which will provide transportation and sequestration for 2.3 million tons per year of CO2 and is underpinned by 25-year take-or-pay offtake agreements. We will partner with Occidental Petroleum to advance the hub with Enbridge managing the pipeline infrastructure, while Oxy develops the sequestration facility. Now let's turn to our gas transmission business. This quarter, we've sanctioned an additional capital-efficient connection to our Canyon pipeline system to support bp's Tiber development in the deepwater Gulf. Originally announced last October, the Canyon system will transport both crude oil and natural gas under long-term contracts with the Tiber system expected to cost USD 300 million, taking the total Canyon pipeline development to about USD 1 billion and entering service in 2029. In the U.S. Northeast, the AGT Enhancement will increase capacity of the Algonquin pipeline, providing additional natural gas to the critically undersupplied U.S. Northeast, serving local utility demand and reducing winter price volatility. That project is expected to cost USD 300 million and enter into service in 2029. Switching over to the Permian. The Eiger Express Pipeline is a 2.5 Bcf a day Permian egress development running adjacent to the operating Matterhorn Express system and is now sanctioned and expected to enter into service in 2028. Since our initial 2024 investment in the Whistler joint venture, which holds these pipelines, we have invested $2 billion in operating assets and sanctioned another $1 billion of capital expected to enter service through 2028. Also in the Gulf region, we've sanctioned two natural gas storage expansions to support the market, which continues to tighten due to increased LNG, Mexican exports, and regional power demand. Egan and Moss Bluff storage systems, both salt caverns with exceptional connectivity and withdrawal rates are being expanded to offer a combined 23 Bcf of incremental capacity. We expect to invest approximately $500 million in these facilities at 5 to 6x EBITDA builds and come into service in phases through 2033. It's worth taking a moment to dive a little deeper into the growing North American storage market and how we are positioned to serve our customers. Between Moss Bluff and Egan as well as the expansion of Aitken Creek announced last quarter, Enbridge is now set to add over 60 Bcf of new natural gas storage directly adjacent to the major LNG centers in North America. These expansions will come in a timely manner as there is over 17 Bcf per day of additional LNG-related natural gas demand expected to enter service by 2030. This demand dramatically shifts supply economics and increases the importance of strategically located storage capacity. We are connected to all operating U.S. Gulf Coast LNG terminals and continue to invest heavily in infrastructure to enable the future growth of North American LNG. To date, we have sanctioned over $10 billion in projects with direct adjacency to operating or planned export facilities. There is a growing storage deficit across the U.S. Gulf and British Columbia coasts and having existing assets with the opportunity to execute brownfield expansions is incredibly valuable to our customers and investors. Through acquisitions and expansions, we have positioned ourselves as an industry leader in the storage space. With more than 600 Bcf of storage across our North American businesses, we can strongly support our customers as they continue to build out North America's LNG capacity and navigate the overall power demand growth we are expecting in the future. Now let's spend a few minutes recapping all the work we've done in Gas Transmission segment since Enbridge Day earlier this year. At our Investor Day in March, we shared Enbridge's $23 billion gas transmission opportunity set, noting the potential to FIT up to $5 billion in projects within 18 months. This opportunity set has grown since then. And today, a little over 6 months later, we've already announced over $3 billion of new projects across our footprint, serving all pillars of natural gas demand growth, including reshoring, LNG, coal-to-gas switching and data centers. With over 23 Bcf a day of new gas demand coming online by 2030, critical investment will be needed to ensure reliable service for customers. And with this list here, you can see we are doing our part, deploying capital to meet the significant increase in natural gas demand across North America regardless of the end-use market. Now let's turn to our gas distribution business. The GDS segment is yet another way for us to capitalize on power demand theme. We've seen data center and power gen opportunities continue to be a tailwind for the segment with over 50 opportunities that could serve up to 5 Bcf a day of demand, including almost 1 Bcf per day of demand for already secured projects. During the quarter, we also reached positive rate settlements with two of our U.S. utility regulators, which are currently being reviewed for final approval. In North Carolina, allowed return on equity increased to 9.65% on an equity thickness of 54%, resulting in a revenue requirement increase of some USD 34 million. The settlement also introduces additional rate riders that allows for quick cycle return of capital for our major projects in North Carolina. These rates came into effect on an interim basis on November 1. In Utah, we filed a settlement for a revenue requirement of USD 62 million, which supports continued investment at attractive returns. We are expecting a rate order before the end of the year with rates to come in effect on January 1, 2026. Both these rate cases showcase the importance of natural gas as a safe, reliable source of affordable energy. Now I'll continue with the power demand theme with our Renewables segment. As you can see from this slide, renewable projects have been a great place to invest in the last few years, driven by strong PPA prices, decreasing supply costs, and the associated tax benefits. The four projects on this slide showcase over 2 gigawatts of power backed by agreements with some of the largest technology and data center players in the world, including Amazon and Meta. Fox Squirrel and Orange Grove are currently operational. Sequoia Solar will fully enter service in 2026 and Clear Fork will follow entering service in 2027. Looking ahead, we still have a number of projects in the queue that we're advancing. But as always, we'll remain opportunistic and continue to stand by our strict investment criteria. With that, I'll now pass it to Pat to go over our financial performance. Patrick Murray: Thanks, Greg, and good morning, everyone. It's been another strong quarter across all four business units, thanks to continued high utilization of our assets as well as recent acquisitions. Compared to the third quarter of 2024, adjusted EBITDA is up $66 million, DCF per share is relatively flat and EPS is down from $0.55 to $0.46 per share. The decrease in EPS is primarily due to the profile change associated with our gas utilities, where Q3 tends to be a softer quarter for EPS as EBITDA is seasonally lower, but items such as interest and depreciation remained flat quarter-over-quarter. In Liquids, despite the strong mainline volumes, contributions from the Mid-Con and U.S. Gulf Coast segment are tracking lower due to tighter differentials and strong PADD II refining demand. In Gas Transmission, we experienced a strong third quarter with favorable contracting and rate case outcomes on our U.S. gas transmission assets and contributions from the Venice extension and the Permian joint ventures we added since last year. The Gas Distribution segment is up relative to last year, thanks to a full quarter contribution from Enbridge Gas North Carolina as well as benefit of the quick turn capital we experienced within our Ohio utility. In Renewables, results were up from last year with higher contributions from our wind assets and from the Orange Grove solar facility recently placed into service. Higher financing and maintenance costs from the acquisition of the Enbridge Gas North Carolina assets kept DCF per share relatively flat year-over-year. I'm pleased to once again reaffirm our 2025 guidance and growth outlook across all metrics. Our resilient business model positions us to deliver strong and predictable results through all cycles. We remain confident we will achieve full year EBITDA in the upper half of our guidance range of $19.4 billion to $20 billion, but don't expect to exceed the top of the band. As we mentioned on previous quarterly calls, due to higher interest rates, particularly in the U.S., we continue to expect DCF per share at the midpoint of our $5.50 to $5.90 per share guidance range. Mainline volumes, FX rates, and the acquisition of an interest in the Matterhorn Express Pipeline earlier in the year continue to be the tailwinds to the full year guide. This is partially offset by higher interest rates, along with tight differentials and strong PADD II refining levels, which are expected to continue into the fourth quarter and thus have been reflected as an additional headwind relative to our assumptions heading into the year. Now let's quickly discuss our capital allocation priorities. We remain firmly committed to a thoughtful capital discipline process, remaining within our $9 billion to $10 billion per year annual growth investment capacity as we pursue the wide suite of opportunities ahead. Our highly contracted cash flows support a growing and ratable dividend within our 60% to 70% DCF payout target range, ensuring long-term shareholder returns. We've grown our dividend for 30 consecutive years, a real testament to the stability of our business and the fundamentals that underpin it. On the leverage front, our consolidated net debt to adjusted EBITDA remains comfortably within our target range of 4.5 to 5x. This quarter, we saw $3 billion of newly sanctioned capital advanced. As I've mentioned in the past, I like the fact that we're generating opportunities in all of our businesses, supplementing the next few years with accretive projects while also adding visibility into the back part of the decade with opportunities like our gas storage expansions and our offshore gas transmission projects, which we've announced this quarter. Our capital allocation focus will remain with brownfield, highly strategic and economic projects supported by underlying energy fundamentals, and I'm excited to see this opportunity set materialize into the future. With that, I'll pass it back to Greg to close the presentation. Gregory Ebel: Thanks very much, Pat. It was indeed a busy quarter on the growth capital side, and I'm extremely pleased with the progress we've made since Enbridge Day in March. The North American energy landscape continues to evolve with energy demand driven by LNG development, power generation, data centers and baseload growth. Enbridge will continue to play a pivotal role in that growth within a disciplined framework that delivers consistent long-term shareholder value. Our low-risk utility-like business with predictable cash flows is underpinned by long-term agreements and regulatory mechanisms that has allowed us to increase our dividend for 30 consecutive years across a wide range of economic cycles and conditions. Going forward, we expect to achieve 5% growth through the end of the decade, supported by our $35 billion in secured capital. Our scale offers optionality that few in our industry possess, and we'll continue to evaluate accretive investments across our footprint. Lastly, I'll just point out one housekeeping item. As has been typical, we intend to issue our '26 guidance for investors in early December. So please watch for that announcement on December 3. With that, I'll open the call to questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from the line of Spiro Dounis from Citi. Spiro Dounis: I wanted to start with gas distribution and storage. The release mentioned seeing an acceleration there in commercial activity and it sounds like demand from data centers and power being those initial expectations. So just a multipart question here, but curious what's suddenly driving that acceleration, if there's a particular region where you're seeing it? And how are you thinking about the time frame for when these could start to materialize? Michele Harradence: Sure. So it's Michele Harradence here, Spiro, and happy to discuss that. And I would say we're seeing it across the board. I mean that's the real value of the diversity of the utilities we have. So -- when we look at about the projects that make up that 7 Bcf or so of data center opportunities that we're talking about, we divide that aspect into what I'd call our baseload demand, our data centers itself and the coal to gas. So it's a lot about power generation. It's the electrification tailwind that we've talked about. So you could bucket that, I would say, the baseload demand is there in Ontario, it's there in Ohio, it's there in Utah, data center growth, lots of early-stage developments in Ohio and Utah in particular. I would say we're seeing up to 8 gigawatts between the two of them. And that's some of the early-stage developments we're seeing. And then the mid-stage stuff, we're estimated to be serving over 6 gigawatts in those two jurisdictions alone. And Ontario has a lot of growth as well. And then finally, coal-to-gas conversion, again, to support power generation would be in North Carolina. But really, when we look across all the capital opportunities we have for GDS, that's maybe 20% of what we're looking at is the data center and power generation opportunity. I mean just the good standard core utility growth, leveraging our modernization program, still lots of opportunity there. We're seeing a lot of what I'd call major projects. We just put our Panhandle regional project into service. That's close to $360 million in Southwest Ontario. We have our Moriah Energy Center, the LNG plant in North Carolina. We have 215 Phase 1 and 2 in North Carolina. That's -- those two combined are USD 1.2 billion alone. We're doing a reinforcement project in Ontario up in Ottawa. That's another $200 million. I mean, there's a lot of growth and opportunity going on in the utilities. And then our residential growth, although it softened in Ontario, continues to be strong in places like North Carolina and Utah, where there's a lot of folks coming. And finally, we're looking at our storage opportunities, and there's a good chunk of our capital that continues to go to storage for us. So a good suite of capital there, but hopefully, that answers your question. Gregory Ebel: Yes. Good upside, Spiro, from what we thought when we bought the assets 2 years ago. We didn't -- a lot of the folks hadn't seen the data center, particularly in places like Ohio, we knew Utah and North Carolina would grow nicely. But Ohio, the opportunity there that's happening on the industrial side and the power side and data center related is really great. I think people are kind of forgetting the fact it's not just about power right across the board, not only the secondary benefits, i.e., industrial growth, caterpillars, GEs, et cetera, having to build things and equipment, there's tertiary growth associated with DC and AI, which is really going to drive all these commodities, including oil, as you see, higher GDP, higher industrial growth. Who's building all this stuff? They're using gasoline, they're using diesel, they're using oil. And that -- so I see it right across the entire system. Spiro Dounis: Great. That's helpful color. Second question, maybe just going to Line 5. You all recently received a favorable decision from the Army Corps there. And it sounds like you expect state permits to be confirmed soon. So just curious how you're thinking about starting construction on that segment? And how do the outstanding item in Michigan play into next steps here? Colin Gruending: Sure, Spiro. It's Colin here. So I'll try to abbreviate this answer, sometimes Line 5 questions get a little longer. But I would say that the permitting on both the Wisconsin reroute and the Michigan tunnel are regaining momentum, obviously, with the White House and energy security and just getting things done. So I would say that we are -- in Wisconsin here, we're awaiting the administrative law judges findings on the hearing that we've recently completed should have that soon. And we'd look to complete the Wisconsin reroute in 2027 and the tunnel is a few years behind that. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Aaron MacNeil from TD Cowen. Aaron MacNeil: It's great to see the new disclosure around Mainline optimization Phase 2. Am I right to view this as an acceleration in terms of the cadence that you're planning to offer expanded egress to Canadian producers? And if so, what's driving that expedited timing? Is it customer demand? Is it sort of a race to be first to market? How should we think about it? Gregory Ebel: Well, maybe I'll start with a little context because I think you're right. This is maybe not one some people expected, although I'd say people have always underestimated what we can do with that super system. So remember, first of all, you got customers out there that are in particular Canadian customers looking at from an oil sands perspective, you don't have the type of depletion issues that are going on in some of the shale plays. You've got a strong U.S. dollar, which is critical, driving netbacks. So you got quite a different environment going on, obviously, in Canada and some other jurisdictions that analysts may focus from that perspective. But really the attitude of customers and what we can offer. But Colin, do you want to talk about that super system element of it? Colin Gruending: Yes. I think -- I don't know that it's an acceleration here per se. I think it's being game on here for a while here. And I think the Canadian basin, as Greg was saying, is it turns out relatively advantaged compared to other basins. So maybe we have lost focus on it, but our customers haven't. And we've been all over the fundamentals, we see that 500,000, 600,000 a day of supply growth by the end of the decade. And I think our announcements here line up with what we talked about at Enbridge Day generally. I mean, the team is working hard on this, and I'm very proud of them, the engineering and commercialization of it is very creative and trying to seize the moment. Yes, if there's bigger policy unlocks, there could be much more upside to monetize the trillions of dollars of value up in Northern Alberta. But even under the base case, the 600,000 a day is significant. We have, I think, consistently talked about our southbound playbook. And again, if there is an unlock much bigger, then the West solution can come into focus, kind of a companion to that unlock. But in the base case, South is where it's at. Our customers prefer that direction, integrated business models, lots of big efficient, long-lived refineries that are very competitive and of course, less competition now from Venezuela and Mexico, inbound heavy. So Canadian Oil will gain market share in that basin. I think our solution set is unchanged. We're proud to sanction Southern Illinois Connector. Maybe in baseball terms, that's our leadoff hitter, and it's now on base. We've sanctioned this. This is a dual flow path, 30,000 new egress on Platte and the other 700 coming down our spearhead pipeline existing capacity, and we're going to move that on ETCOP with our -- which we partially own with our partner Energy Transfer. MLO1 is at the plate right now, and we expect to make commercializing announcement here in the next couple of months before year-end. Again, that's 150 a day. I think that's well chronicled. It's capital efficient. permit light using existing pipe in a right of way. And recall, we've already successfully run an open season on the Flanagan South path through Seaway with our partner enterprise products. So that's well advanced. So MLO2, continue the analogy here, I'd say is in the batter's box. And as Pat and Greg mentioned, it's got a bigger bat than we thought we had before. We've upsized that from 150 to 250 a day. And again, similar to MLO1, existing pipe and right of way. And so again, using joint venture partners, this is all coming together nicely, not an acceleration, but I think continuing through here and hopefully get the basis loaded. Gregory Ebel: Yes. I hope -- and obviously, not lost on you, Aaron, but as Colin goes through that, you just tick off all those pipeline systems. And it's not just about the mainline. You got Express-Platte, you got ETCOP, you got DAPL, which we own all of our parts of right through the whole system. So there's multiple ways for us to serve our customers and multiple ways for our investors to win. And that's the pretty exciting part that I don't always feel gets fully valued in the market for sure. Aaron MacNeil: That's a ton of great context. As a related follow-up, a significant portion of the $35 billion of secured capital comes into service in 2027. As we think about all these liquids projects that you just outlined, continued success in GTM, steady growth across the utilities. Do you see sort of a, I guess, what I'll call a high plateau in terms of capital entering into service towards the end of the decade? And do you see any timing or capital sequencing issues to maintain the spend between $9 billion and $10 billion? Gregory Ebel: Maybe Pat will want to add to this, but I don't think so. I mean, we're constantly adding to the back end. Look, I think that's not unusual for companies like ourselves. Just go through the stuff that Colin went through, right? You're talking '27, '28 and then '29, '30, you'll see additional pieces as well. The gas trend deep Gulf stuff is all '29. Storage piece comes in some late '29, '30. So I think it will stay up at that amount. That's what gives us the confidence on 5% growth. It's a bit of a flywheel that's going on right now, which is quite positive. But from a balance sheet perspective, we feel very good about that 9 to 10. Pat? Patrick Murray: Yes, I think so at the end of the day, we've got a pretty fulsome '26 now. We've reserved some capacity for these MLO 1s and 2s. I mean, 1, we'll have some spend in '26; 2, probably not as large as it's a little later, but we'll reserve some capacity given how confident we now are in those moving forward. And then as Greg said, we're really happy to continue to build out the back part of the decade. And hopefully, that's adding a lot of clarity into the growth that the enterprise can have. And I think it's pretty common in our infrastructure business where you got -- you have secured some capital for the next couple of years. It's kind of close to or just below your kind of capacity in any out years you're filling up. And I think the team has done a great job in the last 6 months of doing that. So we're very comfortable. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet from JPMorgan. Jeremy Tonet: Just want to kind of maybe follow up a little bit on the last line of questions there with regards to growth over time and having talked about this 5% EBITDA growth potential over the medium term post '26. And I know you're not going to give us the December update today, but just wondering any foreshadowing you might be able to provide us here or thoughts into how we should be thinking about how that update could unfold? Gregory Ebel: Yes. I'm not sure we are going to give you much of that right now because as you say it's December. But look, I think -- look, you've heard what we've been able to do on the gas side today with announcements. The liquid side, Michele gave you a good tour to tab on that side as well. And despite what some people have looked at, we've even done a number of things on the renewable power side in the last year. So I think it's the benefit of the portfolio. And again, those secondary and tertiary benefits of everything from power demand, from policy changes, from GDP growth that actually give us that confidence, and we see growth right across the system. So if your question is, do we see pullbacks in areas? No. In fact, we see acceleration even the renewable stuff that we have, a lot of that stuff is a long ways down the trail and anything we do sanction would have already been in a good spot from a policy perspective. So -- and as Pat just mentioned, we've got the balance sheet capacity, internally generated cash flow to be able to meet those demands. And obviously, every dollar of EBITDA we add adds another $4 or $5 of capacity. So we're very focused on that. So it's probably where I'd leave it today. I don't know, Pat, would you add anything further? Patrick Murray: Yes. I mean I think our message, if you remember back 6 months ago at Enbridge Days was that the whole goal here was to add clarity into that back end of the decade growth rate. And I think it's fair to say that we're doing a substantial amount of projects that should help to clarify that. So we're confident in the growth rates that we've put forward, and we'll continue to add to this backlog. We know there's more to come in really every business, which is what I like the most about it. We've got a very diverse set of opportunities over what really turns out to be a 5- to 7-year time line now. So yes, we're feeling good about the growth rates. Jeremy Tonet: Fair enough. I figure it's worth a try. Just wanted to dive in a little bit more into Western Canada and gas storage there. With LNG Canada ramping up. Just wondering if you could provide maybe a little bit more color on the tone of customer conversations there. It seems like the market is going to need a lot more logistics. You're expanding gas storage capacity there. Just wondering if you could elaborate any more on how you see this unfolding. It seems like these would be fundamental tailwinds to rates and economics overall, but just wondering what you guys are seeing. Cynthia Hansen: Yes. Thanks, Jeremy. It's Cynthia Hansen. I would agree with you that we are having these tailwinds, particularly when it comes to storage. Of course, in the last quarter, we'd announced our expansion, a significant expansion of our Aitken Creek storage. We are the only storage in that BC area. So we currently have about 77 Bcf of storage there, and we announced another 40 Bcf. So that will -- we'll start construction of that in the first part of next year, and that will be in service in a couple of years following that. When we have the conversations, it was -- when we announced that opportunity, we had 50% of that storage signed up right away in a long-term contract. So -- our customers understand that there is that opportunity and they're willing to back that kind of expansion. As we continue to look at other opportunities, the current discussions about LNG Canada Phase 2, all of that creates an opportunity, not just for our storage, but for the opportunities to expand our West Coast system. We've announced earlier this year the Birch Grove, which is an expansion of T-North that ties into that, too. So strong opportunities, but I would say that we'd like to continue to see that growth of those opportunities for LNG export. That will need the support of the BC and Canadian government as we go forward to make sure that we are positioning those projects to attract the capital they need in the long term to support that opportunity. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Robert Catellier from CIBC Capital Markets. Robert Catellier: I'd like to go back to the Data Center and Power Generation opportunities. Obviously, that's a hot part of the market right now. And I think your own gas distribution business is advancing more than $4 billion of related projects. Can you provide some detail on how you're managing cost risk, in particular, in areas like that, that are hot and where there's a lot of competition, supply chain constraints and customer focus on time to market? Gregory Ebel: Yes. Obviously, several areas there. And as they relate to the gas distribution side, obviously, prudency kicks in. But recall, those are rate base type driven setups, right? So you're getting on a capital structure, call it, 10% return in the U.S. on about 50% equity. So as long as we're being prudent, I'm not feeling too concerned about that. Now that being said, given the size of the company, we are actively and we're out there doing that, making sure that we've got good alliance agreements with various contractors, giving us the best rates, actually going forward and even stockpiling, if you will, compressors and things like that. And remember, on the inflationary side, I'd say about 30% most of these large projects would be CapEx related to equipment and things like that. So those relationships are really critical. And a lot of them, obviously, we're avoiding tariff structures through contract mechanisms as well. So far, so good. The biggest concern I have is on the people side of things and just getting the time and equipment in place. So we're pretty good at that. I think we feel in terms of those long-term relationships with contractors and stuff like that. But Rob, it's something definitely we're watching closely. It's also why I love some of the projects that we announced today that are all relatively small, as Colin said, singles and doubles and quick cycle, relatively speaking, so that you don't have long drawn-out processes. And then the last piece is, as you know, a better attitude with policy around permitting and acceptance of these critical projects. And that takes a risk off the table from a CapEx perspective as well. Robert Catellier: Okay. That's very helpful. And then a bit of a regulatory question here for Colin, and maybe we'll have to take this offline. But I'm curious about the Mainline optimization too and the interplay with the Dakota Access Pipeline, given there's still some lingering permitting issues there. So maybe, Colin, you could walk us through whatever relevant regulatory updates on DAPL that relate to the Mainline optimization too. Colin Gruending: Yes. Sure, Robert. And it's a good question and one we've thought through. So we don't need a new presidential permit across the border. And we're confident that the DAPL EIS will come through in the spirit of energy security and energy dominance. So we're confident in that line of thinking. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Rob Hope from Scotiabank. Robert Hope: You've mentioned a couple of times that the policy environment is getting better for energy infrastructure. In Canada, how are you interfacing with the Canadian major projects office? Enbridge has over, we'll call it, $8 billion of projects in development in BC. You could do more on the liquid side there as well. Is there a way to get incremental support to further derisk these projects? Gregory Ebel: Yes. At this point in time, we haven't put projects through the office. It's great that it's set up. Hopefully, that will be helpful for those national interest projects. But most of the things or all the things we're talking about are short cycle, relatively permit light. And so we haven't seen the need to go down that route. But that being said, we've had several conversations with them. Obviously, Don is well known in the industry and respected and has been very good to don't hesitate if you need some help around permits, et cetera, and working through the lab of the Canadian government. So we won't hesitate. But to date, and I don't see that actually on any of the projects that we have. As you know, we have several billion dollars of projects being done in BC, things Colin's talked about today. But a lot of them are relatively permit light and even not giant CapEx as individual chunks. So I just don't see us using the major project office at this point in time. Robert Hope: Appreciate that color. And then maybe just going back to the Mainline. I appreciate all the details on further expansions, Colin. But maybe to dive in a little deeper, and I know it's early days, but what would an MLO3 look like? And how much more incremental capacity do you think you can get out of the basin without, we'll call it, a good amount of large diameter pipe? Colin Gruending: Robert, you're reading my mind. So we've got some hitters warming up in the dug out. MLO3 and 4 are stretching. Our engineers are looking at that as well because there is a scenario here, right, where Canada and the U.S. do a bigger trade deal and energy is part of it. And the imperative may accelerate further. So we do have some, again, in-corridor in fence line solutions for that. But it's premature for us to probably talk about those. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Manav Gupta from UBS. Manav Gupta: We are actually seeing a lot of resurgence in solar stocks in the U.S., and you actually have a very strong solar portfolio. But because you have everything else, which is also so good, sometimes it's underlooked. So can you talk a little bit about your renewables portfolio and solar in particular and more deals like Clear Fork with Meta, if you could talk on those points, please? Matthew Akman: Sure. Manav, it's Matthew here. Yes, you're quite right. I mean I think investment discipline is the order of the day in renewables, given some of the cross currents in the policy landscape, but we have to keep our eye also on the opportunity here because the customer demand for this remains very, very strong. We are still in the window where we've got interconnection-ready projects that are in fantastic locations with strong local support and great resource while the production tax credit window remains open. And so there's definitely a lot of interest from customers on the data center side around that, in particular, on our solar portfolio. We've talked about Project Cowboy out in Wyoming. We are building a lot of stuff, as you know, you mentioned Clear Fork with Meta and ERCOT. But that Wyoming project has a tremendous amount of interest. and is potentially a very big one and is well advanced. And so again, we're going to be navigating carefully, but there should be win-wins here because customers know that there's this window. And there aren't that many projects that can actually get in into their windows and they need the electrons, and they want it, if possible, lower zero emissions. So I think we're really well positioned. But again, we'll be navigating this and with a very close eye on our risk profile and making sure that we are consistent with our low-risk business model across everything we do. Manav Gupta: Perfect. My quick follow-up is your partner, Energy Transfer, talked about the Southern Illinois connector, exactly the kind of crude that U.S. refiners need. Can you also highlight some of the benefits of this project? And can you confirm if this is probably 2028 start-up, if you could talk a little bit about that? Colin Gruending: Yes. Thanks, Manav. Yes, I agree with your thesis. And what else can I tell you here? This is a new market off our mainline system to Nederland, Texas. And yes, you can imagine we've got a map of all the refineries, and we're trying to feed all of them. We've got about 75% of U.S. refineries connected to our Mainline system. So this isn't a new market for us. technically not super complex using existing capacity on spearhead, just longer hauling that capacity. It used to go to the Patoka area, now that 100 -- of the 200 on Spearhead will go down in Nederland, Texas, and we're expanding the Platte system, I think pretty simple scope there, pump refurbishment. So high confidence execution. And so yes, the time line should work. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Sam Burwell from Jefferies. George Burwell: Some of this has been touched on already, but just a quick one on Southern Illinois and the whole path. So I mean the Mainline optimization seem like they're on the right track and Mainline volumes were 3Q record. But downstream of that, low volumes in 3Q, and it seems like it's going to be a headwind in 4Q as well. So just curious if you have a view on when that could improve? And then is there anything to read into the 100,000 barrels a day capacity on Southern Illinois because I think the open season figure was higher than that, like 200. So just curious on your thoughts on full pass volumes improving over time. Colin Gruending: Sure. I can take that. So I think it's a temporary anomaly here. That path on our liquid system south of Chicago down to the Gulf has been pretty robustly used for a long time. It's been recently weaker, still pretty good, but a little bit weaker as you saw in our disclosures, Pat talked about it. That is due really not the weakness the South per se, but more so that, that demand, that upper PADD II demand has been unusually strong in the last quarter or 2. So higher absorption of that high Mainline throughput, just a bit further North. And so double-click on that, why is that? A couple of reasons. One, our product levels were lower given fuel demand. And so those refiners were running pretty hard, so higher utilizations to replenish those inventories. And secondly, they had I would say, higher than average just uptime. And so the combination of those two factors kept a lot of that mainline oil at home, so to speak, in the upper PADD II market. I think Q4 should be maybe a little better than Pat suggested. We've seen some early quarter improvements here. And then moreover, I think just longer term, we've got a lot of confidence in that path. In fact, we just have successfully run two open seasons for that path, both have been oversubscribed to expand it. So I'd say it's a temporary effect. You also asked about 200 versus 100, yes, pardon me. So yes, we we're pretty happy with the 100 with our partner there. We actually had oversubscription for the 100, but we end up settling it at 100. It's just the most efficient kind of sweet spot on that project for economics overall. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Ben Pham from BMO Capital Markets. Benjamin Pham: I wanted to touch base first on the Woodside LNG project. Could you remind us going forward how the mechanism works on the contract as you close on the in-service dates? Gregory Ebel: Yes, I think you mean Woodfibre. Cynthia can take that, right? You mean... Benjamin Pham: Woodfibre, sorry. Cynthia Hansen: Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yes. So the way our contract works is that we will be setting that final toll closer to the in-service date. So with our contract terms, we will get our return based on that toll structure that's finalized at that date. So we continue to benefit from the delay in that term as the cost increase and that will allow us to actually have limited exposure to some of these cost overruns that we're starting to see on that project. Now -- we are really excited, though, that we're 50% complete overall on the construction, and we believe that there's a really strong path to getting us to the 2027 in-service date. Gregory Ebel: Now the other thing, we'll have to see how it plays out, but the Canadian budget did have some accelerated bonus depreciation for LNG projects that have low emissions. And I think as we've talked about before, this will be amongst, if not the lowest emission LNG project globally given how it's getting its power. So we'll watch for that, which should be helpful from a return perspective as well. Benjamin Pham: Got it. And I have to chuck when I said Woodside because I do have a follow-up question on that partnership more specifically. Just think about your investments in on the BC Coast. And I'm curious just with LNG additions ahead and some of the strategic partnership you've seen with Williams in particular, is there appetite for Enbridge, may not something specifically like that, but maybe just appetite for LNG beyond what we have right now. Gregory Ebel: Yes. Ben, we're not opportunity light. We are opportunity rich. So us taking on -- I can't see us taking on an LNG facility with commodity exposure, which is what some other folks that you mentioned have done. We'll get done the Woodside opportunity here, and then we'll see. Obviously, there's a lot of water still to go under the bridge about getting things built in off the BC Coast. So let's continue with our Woodfibre project. Sorry, I said Woodside. Now you got me saying it. The Woodfibre project before we look at other ones. And Look, you saw us announce today those storage projects are serving LNG on the Gulf Coast. Aitken is going to serve LNG in BC. A lot of the projects that Cynthia mentioned, the pipeline project, that's the stuff we know and know very well and earn solid regulated rates of return on. I think in this environment, that's probably a better setup for us. So we'll always look. We get an opportunity to take a look at everything, but I don't think our investor proposition is open to taking on a bunch of commodity exposure. We don't want to. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Maurice Choy from RBC Capital Markets. Maurice Choy: First question is about your crude oil production growth projections. I remember back in Enbridge Day, you've made a forecast that you may see more than 1 million barrels a day of growth through to 2035. Assuming that projection was made based on the landscape at that point in time, how would you view this growth now given what appears to be a supportive regulatory and political landscape in Canada? Colin Gruending: This is Colin. Yes, great question. And I think our -- I think both of those projections are, I think, internally consistent, and I think our view of that is stable. There is an upside scenario here that if Canadian federal policy comes through on this vision of a global energy superpower, which we believe in strongly. We have a unique perch on that. I think there is upside -- there's for sure upside in that scenario. But it's an if at this point. So we've calibrated our business plan to the base case and are -- to a question a few minutes ago, are generating further solutions if the upside comes to be. Gregory Ebel: You're going to get a good insight on that, I think, as well, Maurice, right? Because if the policy conditions form in Canada that ensure that as a producing nation, it's actually competitive. The first sign of that is going to be our producers and then being more optimistic about production, and then we'll be able to react as capital forms. So -- but at this point in time, we wouldn't change the million by 2035. And the MLOs and the Southern Illinois Connector and our Mainline investment capital is all consistent with how we see that rolling out between now and the end of the decade, all other things being equal. Maurice Choy: That makes sense. If I could finish off with a question on the Pelican CO2 hub. Oftentimes, these types of projects are perceived to have a lower return than the 4 to 6x build multiple that you can deliver within liquids pipeline outside the Mainline. Recognizing that you do have an internal competition for capital among your various businesses, I wonder if you could comment on the returns here or just more broadly about lower carbon opportunities, how do they compete for capital internally? Gregory Ebel: Yes. Look, I think both ourselves and Oxy are pretty darn careful on this front. If this project didn't earn at least the returns that we get from other Liquids projects, as you say, outside the Mainline, it wouldn't have got sanctioned. So obviously, I would even argue there's always some policy risk, so you want to make sure you get this right. So this is very much in that wheelhouse, if not a bit better. And obviously, the tax incentive structures, we've got a lot more clarity on that out of the OBBB bill that came out so that we know exactly what our tax incentives are on that. And it's got a long-term 20-, 25-year contract with offtake player. So I would say returns are at least, if not a little bit better than what we're seeing in this world. Policy support is there where it may not be for some of the other unconventional investments. And we love our partner on this front who has very similar return type parameters. Maurice Choy: I might just add on that. Colin Gruending: I was just going to layer on that it's a very selective investment. We're going to take a crawl, walk, run approach to developing low-carbon infrastructure. I think the pace of it generally is a lot slower than most observed a few years ago. So we're going to take a very careful and disciplined approach here, as Greg mentioned. Maurice Choy: It's great to hear. My -- I guess, all the best to Cynthia on your retirement, and congrats to Matthew in your new role. Cynthia Hansen: Thank you. Matthew Akman: Thank you. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Theresa Chen from Barclays. Theresa Chen: I would also like to congratulate Cynthia on her retirement. Thank you for all your insights over the years, and I'd like to congratulate Matthew as well on his new role. Going back to the discussion around the Mainline expansion. So when it comes to resourceful solutions for moving incremental WCS barrels to the U.S. Gulf Coast, leveraging your JV system with Energy Transfer is certainly a capital-efficient approach. And as the downstream southbound capacity fills up over time, have you or would you also consider partnering with other pipelines such as topline, which also runs from the upper Mid-Continent to the Gulf Coast and currently has available capacity? Colin Gruending: Yes, Theresa. And I think joint ventures are a big part of Enbridge's playbook. Cynthia has got a bunch, Matthew's got a bunch. We've got a bunch in our portfolio, and we're proud to partner with basically everyone in the industry. And I think that's going to be a part of everybody's playbook going forward. We also partner with enterprise products on Seaway. We've gone from 0 barrels a day through that system to what's going to be not far from now, 1 million barrels a day. So I think we've utilized joint ventures extensively. We've got a whole bunch of others across the system as well. So we're open to that. I think teamwork makes the dream work here in an exciting environment. Theresa Chen: Got it. And looking at your medium-term outlook, not asking you to front run the guidance update to come, but just looking at what's already out there, how do you plan to align DCF per share growth with EBITDA growth over time, that 5% -- given that DCF per share has recently trailed EBITDA growth, what are the key drivers in bridging the two over time? Patrick Murray: Yes, it's Pat. Thanks for the question. Yes, I think we have been pretty clear that the reason they kind of disconnected over the last couple of years was primarily related to cash taxes, and we see that plateauing. We've seen some pretty positive tax decisions made in the U.S. There's lots of conversations about things that could happen in Canada. But generally, we just see that the cash taxes are returning to be more in line with -- not having the growth that it had over the last number of years. So that's why those two primarily converge as you move later into the decade. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Praneeth Satish from Wells Fargo. Praneeth Satish: On the Egan and Moss Bluff gas storage expansions, can you break down how much of the 23 Bcf of capacity is already committed under long-term contracts versus any shorter-term contracts or merchant capacity? And then given that you're moving forward with the expansion, I assume pricing is favorable, much higher than historical levels. But can you provide some color on the contract durations? Is it kind of in the typical 3- to 5-year range? Or are you able to get something longer in this environment? And then I guess as a follow-up to that, like how do you think about the trade-off between locking in longer storage term contracts versus keeping them shorter so you could potentially benefit from higher recontracting rates in the future? Cynthia Hansen: Thanks, Praneeth. It's Cynthia. I would say that where we are right now, we have Egan, the first cavern that we're developing there is about 50% contracted and we'll, over a period of time, lag into that. We're managing these assets. It's an existing portfolio. So we're going to manage those contract terms consistently with how we've operated those assets. When we look at the overall contract terms, it is a speed from that 2- to 5-year kind of average overall. We always look for those longer terms as to be part of that portfolio. But as you noted, just with the opportunities right now as we continue to see the demand for storage increase, and we've seen some strong pricing associated with that, that's really supporting this ongoing development that we're doing. We want to try and manage the portfolio to really optimize that structure as we go forward. Gregory Ebel: Yes. And that 3 to 5 years, 2 to 5 years is pretty typical the way that we've done it historically. And look, I think we've got a super high level of confidence in the LNG coming in on the Gulf Coast. So that probably lets us leg into the contracts and we want to. But it depends on the location, right? Like, for example, the Aitken Creek contract, I think we took about half of that and have it under a 10-year contract. So it just depends on the situation, and it's worked extraordinarily well. I'm glad you raised the storage question because we got 600 Bs or so across North America, all with great optionality outside the regulated piece. But we're adding just the announcements in the last 12 months, 10% to that number. So it's a big uptick for us at the right time in the market, and I feel very good, as Cynthia says, the way we'll leg into this. Praneeth Satish: And then I'm sure you saw that Plains recently announced the acquisition of the remaining interest in the EPIC Crude pipeline. They've talked about potentially expanding the pipeline, may or may not do it. But if they do, it seems like it could be a positive for your Ingleside assets. So just curious if you have any thoughts on that deal or just the overall landscape now at Corpus and the puts and takes for your Ingleside and Gray Oak assets. Colin Gruending: Yes, it's Colin here. Yes, and we've observed that, obviously. And we're partners with Plains on Cactus II already. I'm sure there's more work we can do together to the spirit of the question a couple of minutes ago on teaming up. Our franchise is remains a work in progress, but it's still really a good one. Ingleside is the #1 export terminal on the continent. It's poised to grow all the advantages it has, Gray Oak. It's great. So we're pretty confident with our system there and hopefully can do even more with Plains going forward. Operator: And that concludes our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Rebecca Morley for closing remarks. Rebecca Morley: Great. Thank you, and we appreciate your ongoing interest in Enbridge. As always, our Investor Relations team is available following the call for any additional questions that you may have. Once again, thanks so much, and have a great day. Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good morning. My name is Sylvie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Interfor analyst conference call. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you. Mr. Fillinger, you may begin your conference. Ian Fillinger: Thanks, operator, and hello, everyone. With me on the call today are Rick Pozzebon, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Bart Bender, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Thank you for joining us. Before commenting on the quarter, I want to step back and provide some perspective on how Interfor is positioned and how we're addressing the near-term challenges while setting up for long-term success. As you're all aware, we're in the midst of a prolonged down market with several factors creating significant challenges for our industry. These include economic uncertainty and housing affordability concerns, which are weighing directly on building products demand as well as cross-border trade tensions. Combined effect has been a persistently weak price environment. Against that backdrop, our leadership team remains focused on what we can control, driving out costs, reducing risks and positioning our business for success when the market turns. The top of our list is supply discipline. We've led the industry in taking proactive steps to preserve our position today and to prepare for improving conditions ahead. For Q4, we announced reductions of approximately 250 million board feet of lumber, representing about 26% when compared to Q2 volumes. We've consistently acted early from curtailment announcements this year to the divestiture of our Quebec assets and the indefinite curtailment of 2 U.S. sawmills. These decisions reflect our fundamental commitment to maintaining a responsible operating posture across the portfolio. Interfor has a top-performing platform in North American lumber industry, optimized for both tough times like today, but also for better markets when they return. Our second priority is cost discipline. We already delivered top quartile EBITDA margins and that performance continues to drive our team. Our Canadian platform has remained resilient despite difficult markets and punitive duties. We continue to optimize our portfolio for operations that support industry-leading margins and position us to capitalize what markets recover. Fundamentals exist for strengthening lumber markets, particularly owing to the pent-up housing demand. Economic indicators suggest improvements starting in 2026 with continued upward trends in 2027. While that recovery will take time, we believe we're as well positioned as anyone to benefit once it comes. We're moving forward with a solid foundation. We've significantly strengthened our balance sheet through a recent equity raise that was well supported by long-term shareholders. Combined with the renewal of our credit facility, this gives us flexibility to weather the downturn for several years, if necessary. With that backdrop, I will turn to the most recent quarter, where our results reflect the challenging operating environment that I've been speaking about with pricing down across all regions, particularly in the U.S. South. These conditions and our philosophy of adjusting quickly were the catalyst for lumber production adjustments last month. While prices are fine in ground, we've seen similar curtailment announcements across the industry. The market remains in balance. We'll continue to align our production with market realities in a disciplined and proactive way. Looking ahead, these are undeniably tough times. And like others in our industry, our numbers reflect that, but we're confident in our portfolio, balance sheet and our clear plan to manage through the uncertainty and position Interfor to thrive as conditions recover. With that broader perspective, we see considerable opportunity and long-term value in our company, and we're committed to delivering that to our shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Rick for a closer look at this quarter's financial results. Over to you, Rick. Richard Pozzebon: Thank you, Ian, and good morning all. Please refer to cautionary language regarding forward-looking information in our Q3 MD&A. Overall, our financial results for the quarter reflected significant lumber price weakness, especially in Southern Yellow Pine and significantly higher duty rates imposed by the U.S. As Ian alluded to, earnings continued to be constrained by a general oversupply of lumber in the market despite significant production curtailments across the industry since the beginning of 2024. Interfor contributed further to these supply curtailments with recent announcement indicating plans to significantly reduce production across all regions through the end of this year. In August, the U.S. more than doubled the combined rate of antidumping and countervailing duties imposed on lumber shipments from Canada from 14.4% to over 35%. This increased duty rate directly impacts approximately 25% of Interfor's total lumber shipments. With respect to earnings, Interfor generated an adjusted EBITDA loss of $36 million, excluding noncash duty-related adjustments on total revenue of $689 million. Total revenue dropped 12% quarter-over-quarter, driven by a 6% increase in the volume of lumber shipped, a 10% decrease in the average realized lumber price and a slightly weaker U.S. dollar. Decrease in volume reflects production curtailments and lower demand, a portion of which is seasonal. Lumber price declines were led by Southern Yellow Pine, whose benchmark composite average price fell nearly 20% quarter-over-quarter. On the cost side, reported production costs per unit of lumber increased 2% quarter-over-quarter, reflective of the lower shipment volume, partially offset by a slightly weaker U.S. dollar. From an operating cash flow standpoint, $26 million was consumed in the quarter driven by negative cash margins on lumber sales, partially offset by an $18 million reduction in working capital. Beyond operations, we invested $32 million in capital projects and generated $1 million from the sale of assets. Over the remainder of this year and next, we anticipate generating net cash flow from ongoing sale of B.C. Coast forest tenders in the ballpark of $30 million to $35 million. This following quarter end on October 1, Interfor completed a bought deal equity offering, which generated $144 million of gross proceeds. Including this, financial leverage as measured by net debt to invested capital would have been 35.2% at the end of Q3 with available liquidity of $386 million. This equity raise, combined with the credit facility renewal in July have provided Interfor with enhanced financial flexibility to navigate through the ongoing downturn. To wrap up, Interfor's financial results for the third quarter reflect significant lumber price weakness and higher duty rates imposed by the U.S. We anticipate continued lumber market volatility going forward as supply continues to rebalance with demand and trade actions by the U.S., including the Section 232 tariff of 10% implemented in October. Therefore, we'll continue taking actions that position its high-quality and geographically diverse operations to succeed through this volatility and capture the upside when the market returns to strength. That concludes my remarks. I'll now turn the call over to Bart. Barton Bender: Thanks, Rick. Lumber markets remain challenged given the uncertainty we're seeing at both the macroeconomic and geopolitical level, multiyear lows on consumer sentiment, low U.S. home building confidence and elevated mortgage rates all represent headwinds. And that's impacting new home construction, industrial activity and repair and remodel demand. This uncertainty continues to put downward pressure on the demand for lumber, which we expect to see for the balance of this year. Looking ahead to 2026, we anticipate that affordability will begin to improve which should lead to better market conditions. On the supply side, production curtailments are increasing in response to unsustainable pricing in all markets. We expect this to continue until a balance is achieved. Although difficult to be exact, it's our position that end market inventories remain very low, less demand and low lead times have allowed distributors to run comfortably with much lower inventories than normal. The strategy works until it doesn't. Interfor specifically, our diversification of species producing regions and product mix allows for a targeted market approach and access to a broader range of the lumber market, beneficial in times of oversupply. Lastly, Interfor will continue to monitor our customers' needs and adjust our production levels accordingly. With that, back to you, Ian. Ian Fillinger: Thanks, Bart. Operator, we're ready to take any questions at this point. Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Thank you. Your first question will be from Hamir Patel at CIBC Capital Markets. Hamir Patel: And we've seen some more industry capacity closures announced yesterday in British Columbia. How are you feeling about your cost position in the province? And how much additional industry capacity do you think needs to come out? Ian Fillinger: Thanks, Hamir. Yes, our B.C. operations in Adams Lake, Grand Forks and Castlegar as you know, have been modernized over the last number of years and are very competitive on a cost basis and also on a product mix basis, with being much different where some of our competitors are in the North or central interior. So a lot more species variability, product mix that aren't on random length pricing. So in addition to that, all 3 of those operations have extremely high percentage of secure fiber through licenses, et cetera, probably, I would say, in province. So very good opportunity to log from our tenures or if we have to go to an open market, we can be very strategic about that. So very competitive operations in B.C., Hamir. As far as volume goes out, I think the way out of where we're at now is supply. It's the adjustments that industry needs to make to be able to get out of this situation we're in and it's part of our responsibility to do that, and we've been doing that, as you know, usually first and leading in the industry on some of those difficult decisions. Hamir Patel: Great. Thanks, Ian. And Rick, a question for you. I know the company has close to, I believe, $550 million of goodwill on the balance sheet. How should we think about risks of further impairments there? Richard Pozzebon: Our goodwill on our balance sheet is about $500 million today. and that's within the total assets on the balance sheet of about $3.1 billion and a book value per share of about $21 today. So when we think about goodwill testing, it typically happens for us every Q4, it's an annual testing requirement required by IFRS. So the testing, Hamir, involves multiyear discounted cash flow model -- so we're in the process of doing that right now. It would be too early for me to speculate on what the results are. However, I think it's worth noting that the testing uses long-term lumber prices, so long-term trend lumber prices, which haven't really changed year-over-year. And we've made improvements in terms of the quality of our portfolio over the last year, just given some of the asset sales we've made. So I'm feeling good about where we're at with the testing, but it's too early to speculate at this stage. Operator: Next question will be from Matthew McKellar at RBC. Matthew McKellar: In your opening remarks, you talked about continued efforts to drive out cost, are there any recent initiatives you'd highlight or any items on the docket for 2026 that we should be considering? Ian Fillinger: Yes, Matt, kind of in this type of format, we're a little bit reluctant to share the internal plans that we have. We've been running a targeted initiative through the down market each year and readjusting depending upon our outlooks in current conditions. So I would say we're as an executive team, pleased with both the cost side and the product mix side, internal initiatives that we're doing in and I think that's reflective in our benchmarking of our margins compared to our public peers. But yes, it's significant, but would be hesitant to kind of share it in this forum with you, Matt. But I can say that the entire organization whether it's in offices or mills or Woodlands or sales all have very good targets set in place and they're making good progress on all of them. Matthew McKellar: That's very helpful. Last for me, we've seen pretty substantial changes in duties on Canadian lumber new tariffs and significant changes in FX rates this year. With the changes we've seen and I guess reflecting on some of the challenges the European producers are facing as well. How do you expect imports from Europe into North America to trend from here? Ian Fillinger: Yes. Well, we -- as you know, we don't really have operations in Europe to really completely understand that picture. But obviously, with 10% being put on European imports into the U.S. should help North American producers compete against that volume. But yes, we don't really have much more of an insight than you do on that front. Operator: Next question will be from Ketan Mamtora at BMO Capital Markets. Ketan Mamtora: Maybe first question. If I'm looking at this correctly, it looks to me that your lumber production was actually up 1% on a year-over-year basis in Q3. Can you provide some perspective on what is driving that? Richard Pozzebon: Ketan, it's Rick speaking. I think looking at Q3 last year, we had taken significant curtailments a little bit more than we had taken in Q3 this year. And I think that's the main reason. We will expect an increase in curtailments and production reductions in Q4 here based on our announcement that we made in October, Ian referenced in his remarks. Ian Fillinger: Yes. And further supporting what Rick is saying is curtailments, we were winding up a couple of operations in the U.S. South, plus the Quebec mills from last year too where they were at. So -- and we were in that process. So yes, lots of moving parts from last year to this year, Ketan. Ketan Mamtora: Okay. I see. And then recognize that you've announced curtailments for Q4. I'm just curious, given sort of how prolonged this downturn has been and given sort of where lumber prices have been. Can you provide some perspective on how you are thinking about temporary curtailments versus kind of more indefinite or permanent curtailments and sort of what -- how are you all thinking about those 2? Ian Fillinger: Yes, Ketan, we have a model internally where we put in a bunch of obviously factors market being one of them, demand being one of them, inventory levels, pull-throughs on what have you, input costs for logs and conversion costs in that model, which we review on a weekly basis. So we make some of those decisions, which are -- we don't take lightly, obviously, impacts many people, but yes, we do have a robust model that's been built and refined over the last 5 or 6 years. And so to answer your question, we're looking at it every week, we'll make adjustments. We're not shy about doing that. We believe that as difficult as they are, they're needed in these environments. So yes, we're continuing looking at those and ready to make the decision when needed and be proactive about it. Ketan Mamtora: Yes. And Ian, I recognize these are kind of very difficult decisions and to everyone who is affected, I appreciate that. What do you need to see to either kind of make the decision or kind of not make that decision? What factors are we looking at? And recognize it's not just like 1 month or 1 quarter, right? You need to think kind of ahead. But outside of the fact that we've all looked at data around pent-up demand. But outside of that, what are the things that you're looking at to sort of decide this? Ian Fillinger: Yes. Basically, Ketan, the main driver is the lumber demand and lumber price. And so it's a mathematical model on that. But when we do see demand there to support either a shift coming up or a shift or a mill going down. That's a fairly easy decision for us to see with our model. And then on the pricing side, does pricing support at cash breakeven and above? Or does it support cash breakeven and below? And then where those costs inflection points are would drive whether we reduce and curtail or whether we add volume back in. And so we need to see sustained improvement to bring back any kind of production. And on the other side, when it doesn't look great, and we really kind of look out 2 to 3 weeks because that's the best sort of insight and after that, it gets a little bit cloudy. We will make decisions to curtail and it's a real-time model. Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Next, we will hear from Sean Steuart at TD Cowen. Sean Steuart: Ian, another question on the supply response and the thought process that goes into it. And maybe I'm thinking too far ahead here, but is a part of the thinking on the rolling downtime versus permanent or indefinite shuts at this point? We're 3 years plus into an extended trough, which is abnormal. We're probably closer to the end of this than the start, hopefully, at this point. Does the duration of this downturn factor into the decision or the decision against permanent closures at this point, i.e., when things get better, you want to be able to respond. Is that a part of the thought process for the company at all? Ian Fillinger: Well, it is, Sean. I mean these are big decisions when we're talking permanent, and I think that's what your question is driving towards. And so when you look at operations and you kind of see where they're at on the cost curve, product mix and then you look at a trend price. I mean, you kind of got to have that in the back of your mind. But at the same time, the factor for us is our goal has always been to be in the top quartile in any operation we're at. So from the time that you kind of look at a permanent or nonpermanent decision, it also has to factor in what's the time line to move that operation even in a trend market to where we want to be. And so those are the factors that we look at and we got to get comfortable around and then make the appropriate decisions, which, as you've seen, we've done multiple times in the past. Sean Steuart: Yes. Understood on that front. And Ian, can you give us some updated perspective on if it's EBITDA per 1,000 board feet or relative margin metric? I'm not asking for the specifics region by region, but can you give us an idea of how wide the spread is at this point across your platform region to region? Ian Fillinger: Not really, Sean. I think that would be kind of difficult for us to share in this environment. But the one uniqueness and you know this, being in New Brunswick and Ontario and B.C., it really diversifies our Canadian mix. We have an engineered wood product division also, which is helpful and strong and then being in the Pacific Northwest and the U.S. South, as these trade actions against the Canadian lumber continue, we feel that being in Washington and Oregon, is an advantage to maybe some interior BC operations in the Central and North, given our stud production in the Pacific Northwest. So each one of our regions actually is from a product mix, specie and geographical log cost differences really gives us a balanced portfolio, and that's part of our growth strategy over the last 5 years and when the market turns. I think we're in exceptional shape to capitalize. Operator: At this time, I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Fillinger. Ian Fillinger: Okay. Thank you, operator, and thank you, everybody, for attending and your questions, and have a great day, and we'll talk to you next quarter. Thank you. Operator: Thank you sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for attending. At this time, we ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have a good weekend.
Operator: Greetings. Welcome to Doman Building Materials Group Limited Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. At this time, I'll turn the conference over to Ali Mahdavi. Please go ahead, Ali. Ali Mahdavi: [Operator Instructions] joining us this morning for Doman Building Materials Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. Joining us today on today's call are the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Amar Doman; and Chief Financial Officer, James Code. If you have not seen the news release, which was issued after the close of markets yesterday, it is available on the company's website as well as on SEDAR along with our MD&A and financial statements. I would also like to remind you that a replay of this call will be accessible until midnight, November 21. Following the presentation of the third quarter results, we will conduct a Q&A session for analysts only. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to join the queue for questions. Before we begin, we are required to provide the following statements regarding forward-looking information, which is made on behalf of Doman Building Materials Group Limited and all of its representatives on this call. Remarks and answers to your questions today may contain forward-looking information about future events or the company's future performance. This information is subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events or results to differ materially. Any information regarding forward-looking statements is made as of the date of this call, and the company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements. Please read the forward-looking statements and risk factors in the MD&A as these outline the material factors, which could cause or would cause actual results to differ. The company will not provide guidance regarding future earnings during today's call, and management does not anticipate providing guidance in future quarterly or interim communications. I'll now turn the call over to Amar. Amardeip Doman: Thanks, Ali, and good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us. On the back of a very strong first half of the year, the third quarter was similar in terms of our focus on optimizing operational and financial performance on both sides of the border while navigating through continued macroeconomic headwinds stemming primarily from rising interest rates, inflationary pressures, affordability and concerns around the risks of things slowing down. Throughout the third quarter, we worked through the impact of what I would qualify as a very challenging pricing environment. While volumes and general demand have been steadier than the pricing side, we are seeing choppy demand in certain areas of the business due to some of the macro pressures I just mentioned. These trends continue to exist in our day-to-day activities. Overall, the North American market has been shaped by a mix of cooling demand on housing, high mortgage rates and tariff uncertainty, all of which have tempered buying activity. While price volatility remains, we expect modest gains during the remainder of the year if housing activity rebounds and policy conditions, including tariffs and trade measures, stabilize. Despite these external pressures impacting our numbers, our focus remains on what we can control to ensure we maximize margins and free cash flow generation. While we see a cautious tone and sentiment from our customers and how they are managing through some of the same macro headwinds, demand remained steady across all key end markets during the quarter, with volumes in various categories remaining range bound. However, given the lower pricing for construction materials, revenues and margins experienced some pressure in the third quarter when compared to the first and second quarters of the current year. Despite the pricing pressures caused by the various factors I mentioned, I remain pleased and encouraged by the strength of our business model and our ability to perform while ensuring that our first-class level of service remains on point. As a result of our collective efforts, the revenues amounted to $795 million, gross margin remained strong at 15.5% or $123.1 million, EBITDA of $62 million. Net earnings came in at $18.1 million. And lastly, we paid another quarterly dividend totaling $0.14 per share, representing our 62nd consecutive quarter of paying a dividend. I'm also very pleased with our ongoing focus on balance sheet management and optimization. To this point, after 9 years of ownership and planting approximately 10 million new seedlings, we sold the remaining portion of our timberlands during the third quarter, with net proceeds of the sale further strengthening our balance sheet, which Jay will comment on a little bit later. Looking ahead, we remain excited as we work through the macro and pricing-related dynamics while we continue to manage our costs and always look for growth opportunities. As always, we remain confident in our ability to work through volatile markets diligently while serving our customer needs with the highest level of service. We remain excited about our growth profile and the overall prospects of the business. And with that, I'd like Jay Code, our CFO, to take over and provide a review of the company's third quarter 2025 financial results in greater detail, and then we'll open the call up for questions. Jay? James Code: Thank you, Amar. Good morning, everyone. Sales for the 3 months ended September 30, 2025, were $795 million versus $663.1 million in Q3 '24, representing an increase of $132 million or 19.9%. The increase in sales was primarily driven by contributions from Doman Tucker Lumber, which was acquired October 1, 2024, and therefore, did not factor into our results for the comparative third quarter of '24. Our sales this quarter were made up of 79% construction materials, with the remaining balance resulting from specialty and allied products of 17% and other sources of 4%. Gross margin for the quarter was $123.1 million versus $103 million last year, an increase of $20.1 million, again, benefiting from the results achieved by the Doman Tucker Lumber acquisition as well as ongoing focus on the company's margin enhancement and stabilization strategies. This quarter's overall gross margin percentage was 15.5%, which was consistent with the percentage achieved last year. Expenses for the third quarter were $86.1 million compared to $73.5 million, an increase of $12.6 million or 17.1%. And as a percentage of sales, this quarter's expenses were 10.8% compared to 11.1% last year. Distribution, selling and administration expenses increased by $5.5 million or 9.9% to $61 million this quarter from $55.5 million in '24, mainly driven by the addition of expenses related to Doman Tucker Lumber. As a percentage of sales, DS&A was 7.7% this quarter compared to 8.4% last year. And this quarter's EBITDA was $62 million compared to $46.3 million in 2024, an increase of $15.7 million or 34%. Finance costs in Q3 were $18.1 million compared to $11.8 million in Q3 '24, an increase of $6.3 million, largely driven by additional interest costs related to last year's debt financing of the Doman Tucker Lumber acquisition. Doman's net earnings for the quarter were $18.1 million compared to $14.6 million in '24, an increase of $3.5 million. And turning now to the statement of cash flows. Operating activities before noncash working capital changes generated $131.6 million in cash in the first 9 months of 2025 compared to $108.9 million for the same year-to-date period in '24. Operating cash flows during the period were positively impacted by this year's inclusion of the results of Doman Tucker Lumber. Seasonal changes in noncash working capital generated $15.4 million this period compared to $12.2 million in the first 9 months of last year. Overall, financing activities reflected significant reductions in debt during the first 9 months of this year. 2025 year-to-date net repayments of our revolving loan facility totaled $150 million, driven by strong operating cash flow as well as the proceeds from the sale of the company's timberlands, to be discussed further later. This reduction in debt provides the company with available liquidity of $397 million at September 30, 2025, compared to $163 million at December 31, 2024. We also note that in the comparative period in '24, the company completed the issuance of our 2029 unsecured notes. resulting in gross receipts of $265 million, with partial proceeds used to repurchase a portion of the company's 2026 unsecured notes in the amount of $52.3 million, with the balance allocated to reduce the company's revolving loan balance last year. Dividends this year returned $36.7 million to shareholders, largely in line with 2024 dividend amounts and payment of lease liabilities, including interest, consumed $24.1 million of cash compared to $21.3 million in '24. The company's lease obligations are -- generally require monthly installments, and these payments are entirely current. We also note the company was not in breach of any of its lending covenants during the 9 months ended September 30, 2025. Overall, investing activities generated $59.9 million of cash in the first 9 months of '25 compared to consuming $71.4 million in '24. Investing activities this year include the sale of the company's Southeast BC timberlands for cash proceeds of $75.2 million as well as an investment in a small electrical distributor in Southern California in September 2025. The first 9 months of 2024 included the Southeast lumber acquisition for total cash consideration of $62.3 million. Additionally, the company invested $14.7 million in new property, plant and equipment this year compared to $9.5 million in 2024. This concludes our formal commentary, and we're now happy to respond to any questions that you may have. Thank you. Operator? Operator: [Operator Instructions] And the first question is from the line of Kasia Kopytek with TD Cowen. Kasia Trzaski Kopytek: Amar, I think, buyers like Home Depot and Lowe's comfortable holding less inventory now than they would be in prior cycles, in your opinion? Amardeip Doman: Yes, definitely. I wouldn't say it's just lumber. I would say across all categories. This started probably a year ago where a lot of the big-box stores and other retailers are very much a little bit compressing their working capital down and trying to push their inventory turns up. We obviously play a part in that. It's keeping us closer to the markets, though, and turning our inventories faster as well. So all the way down the pipe, I don't think it's a big impact on our final sales numbers. Kasia Trzaski Kopytek: Okay. And we've seen lumber prices move a bit here in the recent months or so. How much of that do you think is a reflection of the industry realizing that sawmill cash burn has gotten extreme here and that there will have to be cuts? West Fraser just announced last night. And how much of that is just the supply chain trying to get ahead of any more supply cuts that may be coming down the line? Amardeip Doman: Yes. I don't think there's any panic, to be honest with you. There's two things going on in the market. One, what you read in random lengths is one thing, what's happening is another. So the cash markets are very soft, very weak. The mills have a lot of inventory, both sides of the border, it's not good. So this little uptick is kind of just coming off the bottom. I wouldn't say there's any deliberate attempt for anyone to start piling down lumber, but the activity and the takeaway just isn't strong. So it's just not a good period. So it is nice to see it stabilize with some of the curtailments and see a little bit of uptick, but I wouldn't [ write ] home about it just yet. Kasia Trzaski Kopytek: Yes, that's probably fair. And just back to the 2-tiered market that you referenced, we know what the price for U.S.-bound lumber is. How much of a discount are you seeing right now versus the random length print for Canadian-bound lumber? Amardeip Doman: Yes, it's all over the map, Kasia. I couldn't tell you exact numbers. But if you're a buyer, you still got the leverage today on lumber. And if you're showing up ready to buy carloads or truckloads in any sort of volume, you're just going to make your price today. It's -- we need more curtailments to adjust to the slow takeaway that's happening. And we hope that things get better next year with more interest rate cuts, and we start to see more takeaway. But right now, it's sort of make your bid and set your price. Kasia Trzaski Kopytek: Right. And Amar, I think the general consensus is that something north of 1 billion board feet of lumber capacity has to come out. When would the distribution channel kind of start to get a little bit more incentivized to start positioning themselves if we get kind of 500 cumulative? Like what's the number you think? Amardeip Doman: I would say, over the next few months, if we see some more curtailments happen and again, get closer to the takeaway numbers that are out there that are still stubbornly weak, it's just sort of a flat market. So I couldn't tell you exactly when, but I can tell you that we're moving in the right direction for pricing upswing. I just don't see it tomorrow morning. But directionally, we are starting to see lumber come off, like you mentioned the West Fraser curtailments. And there'll be some others, I think, happening and some smaller sawmills just can't make it probably through this. And if they've got a bad balance sheet, it's going to be difficult, so they're going to have to shut down. So I think directionally, we've bottomed, but I just don't see a big torque tomorrow morning. Kasia Trzaski Kopytek: Yes, that's fair. And then stepping back a bit, I imagine now is the time when you're starting to have discussions about new programs for 2026. Any early indications about the tone of those discussions? Amardeip Doman: We have started some of that. I think the business will be steady through 2026, which we're happy with. We're very happy with how this fall shaped up. September and October were good for volumes. Obviously, pricing has been in the tank. But for our volumes, things have been decent. So wood is moving on our end, which is good. Repair and remodel has not died. It's doing fine. So it's nice to see that for our end takeaways. And I think rolling into '26, if we can have volumes that were the same as '25, Doman will make a lot of money, and we will, I think, continue to just work on our balance sheet and get our debt down even further than we just did. So I think we'll be in good shape in '26. Operator: The next questions are from the line of Frederic Tremblay with Desjardins Capital Markets. Frederic Tremblay: You spoke about the leverage a little bit there. I wanted to maybe tie that into potential M&A activity. Just wondering if you had any comments on the pipeline of opportunities that you're seeing and if you'd be comfortable transacting in the near term if the right opportunity was available, considering the positive evolution of your leverage position lately. Amardeip Doman: Thanks, Frederic. I'll answer the latter part of the question, and I'll let Jay discuss where our liquidity is today and the debt reduction that's moving in the right direction. The M&A activity, we've got certainly our eyes open and in discussions all the time with certain companies that we'd like to acquire that fit our strategy. The balance sheet is now back to more than ready to move on some things if we feel like the valuation is right. So certainly, we're not hamstrung by any means, and the liquidity opening up here has been excellent. So we can think very clearly and be disciplined as we always have on our acquisitions. And hopefully, in '26, we'll see 1 or 2 come down the pipe. So maybe, Jay, you can answer on the leverage. James Code: Yes. Sure. Thanks, Amar. Frederic, yes, as you pointed out, the leverage has come down, sitting at about 3.8x at the end of September. down significantly from recent peaks for financing the Tucker acquisition in Q4 of '24. So we'll expect that to continue to drop through to the end of '26 at least, given market conditions, we expect to generate -- continue to generate significant debt reductions going forward. Frederic Tremblay: Great. That's helpful. And maybe switching just to margins, some nice margin protection in Q3, despite the lumber price headwinds in the U.S. Should we think about Q4 margins in a similar fashion, i.e., not at the very top of the 14% to 16% gross margin range, but somewhere in there? Amardeip Doman: Yes, Frederic, I would say so. I think that the bottoming of lumber has happened. So we're starting to see, as we just talked about in the last couple of questions there, we're seeing stable to a little bit of an uptick. It's still soft in the cash markets. But certainly, I think the margin stabilization should start to trend a little bit better as we go into the fourth and first quarter and the lumber slide has finished going down. So hopefully, that will perk us up a little bit on margin and hopefully, the volumes will continue. And just to finalize on the liquidity, I believe now with our revolver and combined full liquidity, we've got over $400 million of liquidity right now. So we're in very good shape to take care of some M&A. Operator: The next question is from the line of Zachary Evershed with National Bank Capital Markets. Zachary Evershed: Congrats on the quarter. With the larger acquisitions now playing on your team for some time now, do you think you've reached a level where your distribution S&A in dollar terms should remain roughly flat or in line with inflation? Amardeip Doman: Yes, I would say so. I think inflation or wage inflation, obviously, we take care of our team members, and there's always that push up on wages, et cetera. But yes, I think we'd be in line there. And also, we're consolidating and -- we don't have huge numbers to report or anything, but we're consolidating a lot of our SG&A in the U.S. into Plano, Texas into our office there. So that's going to bring some operating leverage to the system as we continue to lever up and organize all of our computer systems in the states, and that's going to drive some good synergies and cost savings as well. Zachary Evershed: Got you. And then the latest acquisition does look pretty small, but maybe you could tell us a bit more about it. Any expected synergies and what you like about it? Amardeip Doman: Yes. It's a strategic acquisition that came through one of our business leaders, and it's very small, but putting our toe in the water in Southern California to assist our Alpha electrical division that's out in Hawaii. This will help some buying synergies. It will also put us on the map on the mainland and electrical, and we'll continue to grow. It's a smaller business for us, but certainly very strategic. And we're excited about Temecula Electric being in our fold now. Zachary Evershed: Excellent. With your customer concentration up since the acquisition of Tucker, how are you feeling about it? Do you view it as a risk? Amardeip Doman: Sorry, Zach, could you say that again? Zachary Evershed: How are you feeling about your customer concentration these days? Do you view it as risk? Amardeip Doman: No, certainly not. We're very close to our large customers. And of course, we work hard every day to maintain those relationships. It's our business to lose. So we got to work on that every day. And our team members do that. So I think our customer relationships are in very, very good shape. We work hard at it. I think we're one of the best as far as having relationships with the folks that issue us purchase orders, which we thank them for every day. But I think our customer concentration is not any issue, as far as the Tucker acquisition went. It's helped broaden our base with one of our largest strategic customers, and we continue to grow with all of our customers. So things are in good shape there. Operator: The next question is from the line of Nikolai Goroupitch with CIBC Capital. Nikolai Goroupitch: Considering the shopping demand you're seeing, could you maybe highlight some pockets of strength and weakness in the business? Amardeip Doman: Yes. The R&R business, repair and remodel, has been surprisingly steady to up in the fall after a soft summer of takeaway. So we're pleasantly surprised to see that consumers are still spending despite, I think if we read the headlines, we all want to kill ourselves and it feels like the world is coming to an end, it's not. Things are going on. And frankly, consumers have money. We're not seeing mass, mass layoffs in the U.S. Consumer is good there. And in Canada, we're having a nice fall on all building materials. So we've had a nice pickup in our distribution system in Canada, starting kind of late August, early September, and it continues into October here and into November. So a nice pickup later in the year. So we're surprised at these trends. A lot of it is R&R. Obviously, new homes, construction is flat to soft. So the R&R business has been good. Nikolai Goroupitch: I see. And then maybe looking into next year, respective of commodity prices, what sort of main projects or initiatives are you looking at that could potentially provide some gross margin uplift? Amardeip Doman: Yes. We're going to -- well, we are, I should say, we're upgrading our Gilmer, Texas production line and fencing. We produce a lot of fencing in the states, and we're going to continue to invest in our mills and upgrade them, reduce labor and modernize and optimize. So we're working on that. If that works, we'll roll it across all of our sawmills, and we're looking at planting a flag in the East Coast as well as far as producing fencing on the East Coast. There's a lot of tariffs and things that are happening with South America, which is squeezing production coming north. And we want to take advantage of that opportunity, not for the short term, but for the long term and establish ourselves as a large fencing player on the East Coast of the United States as well. So you're going to see some pretty good exciting things come from us on the sawmill side in specialty. Operator: We have a question from the line of Amit Prasad with RBC. Amit Prasad: It's Amit on for Matt. Just a quick follow-up on the last one. You called out some benefits to the Canadian distribution side. Just wondering if you've seen any changes to the competitive environment on the U.S. side. Amardeip Doman: Yes. Yes, the strength in Canada has been nice. It's not robust or crazy, but it's certainly picked up from where it was, where it was looking very dire most of the year. And we've caught up to our budgets, and it's nice to see that. The team has worked hard at that for sure. As far as the U.S. goes on the competitive landscape, I haven't seen or saw, I should say, in our kind of runway or our space too much activity as far as M&A goes. We've seen it kind of in the pro dealer with Lowe's and Home Depot doing a lot of acquisitions like FBM, [ Accestra ], and SRS. Those acquisitions are large, but they're not really in our space. Those are different product lines that Doman doesn't participate in. So really kind of a nothing burger as far as what's going on with kind of LBM and what we're up to. Operator: At this time, I'd like to turn the floor back to management for closing comments. Ali Mahdavi: Once again, thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning for the quarterly call. If you have any follow-up questions, by all means, please feel free to reach out to myself. We look forward to speaking with you again on our next earnings call, which will be in the new year. That concludes today's call. Wishing you all a great weekend. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. Please disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.
Operator: Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the ePlus Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2026 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Amanda Dupree, Associate General Counsel. You may begin. Amanda Dupree: Thank you for joining us today. On the call is Mark Marron, CEO and President; Darren Raiguel, COO and President of ePlus Technology; and Elaine Marion, CFO. I want to take a moment to remind you that the statements we make this afternoon that are not historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking statements and are based on management's current plans, estimates and projections. Actual and anticipated future results may vary materially due to certain risks and uncertainties detailed in the earnings release we issued this afternoon and our periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and in other documents that we file with the SEC. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of which the statement is made, and the company undertakes no responsibility to update any of these forward-looking statements in light of new information, future events or otherwise. In addition, we will use certain non-GAAP measures during the call. We have included a GAAP financial reconciliation in our earnings release, which is posted on the Investor Information section of our website at www.eplus.com. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mark Marron. Mark? Mark Marron: Thank you, Amanda. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our second quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call. This quarter represents a significant milestone for ePlus as we delivered the first quarter in our history with over $1 billion of gross billings, underscoring the momentum across our business and the strength of our diversified model. Our performance this quarter again reflects our unrelenting focus on delivering the products and services our customers require in today's market. We are seeing this growth not only in the quarter, but in our year-to-date results as well, with revenue up over 20% and total gross billings of almost $2 billion in the 6-month period. I want to highlight 4 key messages. First, as I mentioned, our record $1 billion in gross billings in the quarter underscores strong and broad-based demand across our portfolio, customer segments and verticals. Notably, most of the growth was organic with acquisitions accounting for only 10%. Second, our consolidated net sales for the quarter grew 23.4%, but adjusted EBITDA grew at a rate that is more than twice that of net sales as operating leverage continues to shine through. This was supported by increased demand for our products and services, underscoring the resilience in our strategy and internal automation initiatives. Third, we continue to invest and align our resources in higher-growth areas of AI, security and cloud to deliver value-added products and solutions, enabling us to both grow our customer base and increase sales to existing customers. And fourth, our balance sheet remains strong, closing the quarter with over $400 million in cash, giving us flexibility to continue investing organically and inorganically while returning capital to shareholders. Let me start with a brief overview of the quarter's financial results. As a reminder, we completed the sale of our domestic financing business on June 30, 2025, which is now accounted for as a discontinued operations. During the quarter, we had solid execution across the board, delivering strong financial results with most of the growth organic. Net sales increased 23.4% year-over-year with broad-based growth across products, professional services and managed services. Additionally, growth was across all customer sizes and industries with notable performance in the mid-market and enterprise segments. Lastly, we saw especially strong performance across almost every vertical, except state and local government, where budget constraints persisted. Let me talk about some additional drivers of this robust performance as it relates to fast-growing areas. Security continues to be a standout performer with gross billings of security products and services up 52% year-over-year, now representing 24% of trailing 12-month gross billings, up from 21% last year. Networking posted its second consecutive quarter of sequential growth, which we believe is being fueled by AI-driven infrastructure investments. And in Data Center and Cloud, net sales grew nearly 30% year-to-date, reflecting customer modernization initiatives tied to AI deployments. Shifting to profitability. Second quarter adjusted EBITDA increased 62% and the 6-month adjusted EBITDA was 40% higher than the same period of the prior year. The operating leverage reflects our strategic alignment of headcount towards high-growth focus areas of AI, data center and cloud, security and networking. We have also leveraged AI internally to provide faster incident resolution and closure, leading to a better customer experience. Although we have grown through automation, we have been able to maintain headcount in parts of our internal and external services teams over the last couple of years. These actions provide a solid platform to build upon. Now let's turn next to AI, an area that continues to accelerate across our customer base and within ePlus itself. Our recently released AI industry pulse poll revealed that nearly 3/4 of IT and business leaders now view AI primarily as a driver of revenue growth, surpassing cost savings and customer satisfaction. This marks a significant shift in how organizations approach AI from efficiency to expansion. At the same time, the survey showed that 81% of leaders are concerned about whether their infrastructure can support advanced AI applications, underscoring the opportunity for ePlus to help customers scale securely and effectively. During the quarter, we acquired Realwave, a cloud-based AI-powered software that integrates video, Internet of Things and sensor data to detect events, make decisions and trigger automated actions, expanding our ability to deliver real-time AI-driven insights to customers. Shifting to our balance sheet and capital allocation. We have a healthy balance sheet with over $400 million in cash, enabling disciplined capital allocation, both organically and through M&A that can fuel long-term growth. In summary, our second quarter results reflect continued progress across our segments. We remain focused on driving growth, optimizing margins and deploying capital to maximize shareholder value over time. I want to close by thanking all of our ePlus teammates for their efforts in delivering a strong quarter and first half for ePlus and our shareholders. I will now turn the call over to Elaine. Elaine? Elaine Marion: Thank you, Mark, and thank you, everyone, for joining us. I will review our financial performance in the second quarter of fiscal 2026. Continued momentum across our business led to another quarter of double-digit increases in our key financial metrics. Consolidated net sales totaled $608.8 million, up 23.4% year-over-year, driven by sustained demand across our focus areas of security, networking and cloud. As Mark mentioned, we continue to see demand across all customer sizes with particular strength in the mid-market and enterprise segments. As you may recall from our last earnings call, enterprise customers resumed purchasing in the first quarter following a period of product digestion, and we saw a continuation of this trend in the second quarter. Gross billings of $1.02 billion in the quarter represented a 26.5% increase in year-over-year with the majority of this growth being organic. This milestone underscores the strength of our diversified business model and our strategic focus on high-growth areas, including offerings that enable AI consumption. Product sales in the quarter totaled $485.1 million, up 24.5% from the prior year, led by robust demand in networking and security solutions, aided by increased AI adoption as well as growth in data center and cloud. Service revenue reached $123.8 million in the quarter, representing growth of 19.4% year-over-year. Professional Services grew 23.3%, led by the addition of Bailiwick in August of 2024, while managed services increased 13.5%, led by the strength in enhanced maintenance support and cloud offerings. Services remain a strategic focal point for ePlus, and we remain committed to add to our capabilities in this segment to build out our strong recurring revenue base over the long term. Taking a look at our customer verticals, Sales remained broad-based. Telecom, Media and Entertainment and SLED, our 2 largest verticals accounted for 27% and 14%, respectively, of net sales on a trailing 12-month basis. Health Care, Technology and Financial services represented 13%, 13% and 9%, respectively, with the remaining 24% divided among other end markets. Second quarter gross profit totaled $162.1 million, up 27.4% from the prior year quarter. This represents a consolidated gross margin of 26.6%, up 80 basis points from 25.8% last year, driven by increased product margins. Product gross margin expanded 160 basis points to 24.5%, reflecting a favorable mix as we sold a higher proportion of third-party maintenance and services in the quarter, which are recorded on a net basis. Professional Services' gross margin was 38.2% compared to 41.3% a year ago. This change was due to the acquisition of Bailiwick, which had lower gross margin than our legacy Professional Services. Managed Services gross margin was 29.5%, in line with the prior year quarter. Consolidated operating expenses increased 12.9% to $113.3 million, reflecting higher salaries and benefits, primarily from a full quarter of Bailiwick and additional variable compensation due to the increased gross profit generated in the quarter. Headcount from continuing operations at quarter end was 2,138, down 6% from the prior year quarter as we focus on roles in high-growth areas, including AI, cloud, security and networking. Operating income rose 80.9% to $48.8 million, significantly outpacing the increase in operating expenses, demonstrating meaningful operating leverage. Earnings before taxes increased to $54 million from $27.3 million in the prior year quarter. Other income was $5.2 million, which includes $4.5 million in interest income and foreign exchange gains of $700,000. Our effective tax rate for the quarter was 29.3% versus 27.5% in the second quarter of fiscal 2025. Consolidated net earnings from continuing operations were $38.2 million, above net earnings of $19.8 million in the prior year quarter, and net earnings from continuing operations per diluted share was $1.45 compared to $0.74 in the prior year quarter. Discontinued operations net loss was $3.3 million compared to net earnings of $11.5 million in last year's quarter. Diluted loss per share from discontinued operations was $0.13 compared with earnings per share of $0.43 last year. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share for continuing operations was $1.53, up from $0.94 in the prior year. Our weighted average diluted share count was 26.4 million compared to $26.7 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2025. Adjusted EBITDA totaled $58.7 million, up 61.6% from $36.3 million a year ago. Adjusted EBITDA grew more than twice as fast as net sales, underscoring the operating leverage inherent in our business model. Moving to our results for the 6 months ended September 30, 2025. Consolidated net sales totaled $1.25 billion, up 21.1% from $1.03 billion in the first half of fiscal 2025, driven by an 18.8% increase in product sales and a 32% increase in services revenue. Year-to-date gross billings totaled $1.98 billion, an increase of 20.3% year-over-year. Consolidated gross profit for the first 6 months was $310.3 million, 22.1% above the $254.2 million in the first half of fiscal 2025. Gross margin expanded 20 basis points to 24.9%, led by an increase in product margins. Year-to-date consolidated net earnings from continuing operations were $65.3 million or $2.47 per diluted share compared to $44 million or $1.64 per diluted share in the first half of fiscal 2025. Discontinued operations net earnings for the first 6 months was $7.3 million versus $14.7 million in the first 6 months of fiscal 2025. Diluted EPS from discontinued operations was $0.28 compared to $0.55 in the comparable period last year. Non-GAAP earnings per share from continuing operations were $2.79, up 42.3% versus $1.96 in the prior year period. Turning to our balance sheet. Cash and cash equivalents at quarter end totaled $402.2 million, up from $389.4 million at the end of the last fiscal year. Our cash position remains robust, providing us with significant flexibility to continue investing in both organic and inorganic growth initiatives as we support our capital allocation strategy. Inventory at quarter end was $154.1 million, up from $120 million at the end of fiscal 2025. Inventory days outstanding were 15 days, slightly above 14 days in the prior sequential quarter and 12 days in the prior year. Despite the slight uptick of inventory days outstanding, our cash conversion improved to 30 days from 32 days in the prior year period. Our capital allocation strategy remains focused on 4 priorities: strategic acquisitions that complement our capabilities, organic investments in high-growth areas, quarterly dividends and opportunistic share repurchases. Consistent with these priorities, we repurchased 60,000 shares during the quarter after our stock repurchase plan authorization began on August 11, 2025. In addition, we are continuing to deliver shareholder value with the announcement of our second quarterly dividend of $0.25 per common share payable on December 17, 2025, to shareholders of record on November 25, 2025. In summary, we delivered strong second quarter and first half results, demonstrating superb execution by our employees, momentum in our business and the success of our strategic initiatives. Now I will turn the call back over to Mark. Mark? Mark Marron: Thank you, Elaine. The second quarter and year-to-date growth reflects momentum in the business and is aligned with our focus on high-growth areas. Underlying end market demand is healthy across much of the portfolio, and we continue to be pleased with our current positioning. Reflecting the strong financial performance to date and momentum we expect to continue, we are increasing our fiscal year 2026 net sales, gross profit and adjusted EBITDA guidance. Net sales growth over the prior fiscal year is now expected to grow at a rate in the mid-teens from fiscal year 2025's $2.01 billion from continuing operations. Gross profit is also expected to grow at a rate in the mid-teens from fiscal year 2025's $515.5 million from continuing operations. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to increase from fiscal year 2025's $140 million at approximately twice the rate of net sales growth for fiscal year 2026 as continuing operation results are expected to benefit from operating leverage. We also announced today our quarterly dividend of $0.25 per common share, which will be paid on December 17, 2025, to shareholders of record on November 25, 2025. Our solid cash balance positions us well to allocate capital to growth while returning capital to our shareholders. It was a significant quarter and first half for ePlus with double-digit growth across all key metrics. The sale of our domestic financing business has simplified our business model and allowed us to focus on being a pure technology player. It also gives us the financial flexibility to expand our footprint and customer base, both organically and through acquisitions while continuing to expand and enhance our solutions and service offerings. We are well positioned to build on our momentum, capitalize on new opportunities and deliver value to stakeholders over the long term. Thank you for joining us today. We will now open it up for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Maggie Nolan with William Blair. Margaret Nolan: Congratulations on the results. I'm hoping that you can double-click for me on the strength in security. It was a pretty impressive numbers that you shared there. So what is driving the strength in that offering? Mark Marron: Well, a couple of different things, Maggie. So Security was up 56% in terms of gross billings. Overall trailing 12 months, it's up nicely as well. What we're starting to see is a lot of the AI initiatives with customers making investments, looking at data classification, data cleanliness and projects along those lines. And then just the normal network security and all the other things that we've done over time. We are starting to see an uptick in, I'll say, AI-related deals across compute, storage and security. And that's part of the reason we had a nice quarter in those areas. Networking, by the way, I know you didn't ask for it, but Networking was up nicely. So that also contributed nicely to the quarter. And if you remember, a few quarters back, it was actually down due to the supply chain issue with the digesting of product that Elaine talked about. That's actually starting to pick up as customers look to modernize their networks to be ready for AI. Margaret Nolan: Okay. Great. And maybe to round it out, can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing by customer end market as well? There seem to be some variability in strength and weakness across your different end markets. Mark Marron: Yes. In terms of -- well, let me touch on 2 things, make sure -- as it relates to the verticals, we had a strong quarter across almost every vertical. The only thing that was down was our state and local, which I think had to do with a lot of what's going on in the government and funding and things along those lines. Otherwise, all the verticals were up. And as it relates to our customer size segments, Maggie, the mid, the 500 to 10,000 and the 10,000 and above, which we consider to be enterprise was up real nice. So across, I'd say, all 3 of our segments, product, professional services, managed services, across all the verticals, except for the state and local in the SLED space, and then across all the different product areas, we were up significantly, except for collab -- collaboration, I should say. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Gregory Burns with Sidoti & Company. Gregory Burns: It's good to see the AI starting to now translate into some order flow for you. Could you just talk about maybe how the pipeline looks? What gives you confidence in kind of the raised outlook for the year? Any kind of color you can give on preorder or demand activity and pipeline, how the pipeline is shaping up? Mark Marron: Yes, Greg. So a couple of different things. So as it relates first to the quarter, really proud of the team in terms of the execution, especially in a kind of an uncertain economic market with what's going on with the government shutdown, tariffs and inflation up or down, right? So team really did a nice job in the first half. We also -- as we talked about on previous calls, we do a nice job of tracking the pipeline and opportunities that are in there. We did have a couple of nice large deals that fell in Q2. But as you can see, based on our guidance, we're still very optimistic about the rest of this year. And I think that kind of shows in our guidance. Gregory Burns: Okay. And then the leverage, obviously coming through really nicely now. How should we think about leverage versus need to invest. Obviously, there's a lot of growth opportunities out there for you, particularly maybe now with AI becoming more of a meaningful driver. So how should we think about leverage and how much the margins could expand from, I guess, where you're guiding to for this year? Mark Marron: Yes. So 2 things there, Greg. One, I think you can expect operating leverage for a little period of time here. But as we've talked about on previous calls, we're a growth company. We're in -- after selling a finance, we're in a pretty strong, I'll say, cash position that we have a lot of flexibility in terms of how we can go grab market share, expand our footprint, our customer base, and that could be through organic hires, which we will be making to kind of build out our services and AI capabilities and also through acquisitions. So short term, I think you continue to see some operating leverage, but we're still going to be active in looking at where we can build out our footprint and customer base, both organically and inorganically. Operator: That is all the questions that we have. I would like to turn it back over to Mark Marron for closing remarks. Mark Marron: Okay. Thank you, operator. Everybody, thank you for joining us on the call today. Once again, we feel good about what the team put up this quarter and for the first half and want to thank you for joining us on this call. Take care, and have a great holiday season, if you can. Take care. Operator: This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect.
Operator: Welcome to the Crinetics Pharmaceuticals Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. I would now like to turn the call over to Gayathri Diwakar, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Gayathri Diwakar: Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss the third quarter 2025 results. Today on the call, we have Dr. Scott Struthers, Founder and Chief Executive Officer; Isabel Kalofonos, Chief Commercial Officer; and Toby Schilke, Chief Financial Officer. Also joining for the Q&A portion will be Dr. Steve Betz, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer; Dr. Dana Pizzuti, Chief Medical and Development Officer; and Dr. Alan Krasner, Chief Endocrinologist. Please note there's a slide deck for today's presentation, which is in the Events and Presentations section of the Investors page on the Crinetics website. In addition, a press release was issued earlier today and is also available on the corporate website. Slide 2. As a reminder, we'll be making forward-looking statements, and I invite you to learn more about the risks and uncertainties associated with these statements as disclosed in our SEC filings. Such forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of performance, and the company's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied in such statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with the company's business. In particular, today, we will be reviewing launch progress to date, our commercialization plans as well as estimates relating to market size, future performance and other data about the acromegaly market, which are all necessarily subject to a high degree of uncertainty and risk. These forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements contained in today's news release, the company's other news releases and Crinetics’ SEC filings, including its annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. I would also like to specify that the content of this conference call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of this live broadcast. Crinetics takes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this conference call. With that, I'll hand the call over to Scott. R. Struthers: Thank you, Gayathri, and thank you to everyone joining us on today's call. This is a landmark year for Crinetics. It's a rare privilege to be part of a team that has taken a molecule conceived in our own labs, developed with our own global clinical trials and is now bringing it to patients as a commercial stage biotech. With PALSONIFY, we are now redefining efficacy in acromegaly as both biochemical and symptom control. When you think about it, the last time you know of someone who made an appointment with their HCP to complain about their lab results. On Slide 5 are pictures of people we've gotten to know, people who have acromegaly, carcinoid syndrome, CAH and have helped guide the vision for PALSONIFY and Atumelnant. We've worked with the acromegaly community for over a decade. We've listened to their stories and hopes, stories from Ellen about the frustration of symptoms that injections don't fully control or from Wendy about the simple desire to feel like yourself again. We recently observed acromegaly awareness Day and utilized this important moment in time to both drive broader consumer awareness of the disease and advance our patient engagement strategy. Our own Chief Endocrinologist, Dr. Alan Krasner, and acromegaly patient Tony, were featured in numerous broadcast media interviews across key PALSONIFY markets. These broadcasts will continue throughout the month of November, pointing viewers and listeners to acromegalyreality.com. I am proud we can help them and many, many others struggling with acromegaly enter a new era of therapy with PALSONIFY. My hope is that PALSONIFY brings them freedom, freedom from the symptoms and freedom from the burdens of managing their disease. I hope they can focus on their lives while PALSONIFY fades into the background as just another pill that they take in the morning. PALSONIFY is just the beginning. We've proven that we can discover important new drugs, proven that we can conduct high-quality global clinical development and are now in the early stages of proving that we can bring them to people struggling with acromegaly as a commercial company. We plan to apply that same focus intensity to carcinoid syndrome and CAH and the other serious endocrine diseases in our pipeline. We're just getting started. With Slide 6, I'm excited to share that the launch of PALSONIFY is going very well. Isabel will share more details. Our goal is to make PALSONIFY the first-line treatment of choice for acromegaly. In the initial 31-week days since approval, we've already made significant progress, and the team is executing seamlessly. The first patients received their bottles of PALSONIFY only 11 days after the PDUFA date. All U.S. patients in our open-label extension studies are in the process of transitioning to commercial supplies. As expected, the bulk of our initial patients are those switching to PALSONIFY from other therapies. However, we're also pleased to see a number of patients who are newly diagnosed starting with PALSONIFY as their first medical therapy. We are making headway activating the pituitary centers and have had very good reception from community endocrinologists, some of whom are proactively calling their patients to have them come in to talk about PALSONIFY. I've spent a lot of time in the past few weeks with our field force and their enthusiasm and knowledge of the practitioners and offices in their territories is impressive, but we aren't relying on just the sales force. It's our entire field team, MSLs, field reimbursement specialists, nurse educators, our clinical development team and executives. We're all out there trying to help improve the care of people with acromegaly. I'm also pleased that our early experience indicates that payers also recognize the value of PALSONIFY. Prior authorizations have been mostly straightforward and in some cases, reimbursement has been approved for up to 12-month supplies even before we've secured formulary coverage. Because of our proactive work with payers, we're seeing meaningful numbers of patients starting on reimbursed PALSONIFY. I look forward to January when we'll have a full quarter's worth of launch metrics to share with you. At that time, we will update on revenue, new patient starts, number of unique prescribers and further characterize what we're seeing on the payer reimbursement side of the business. We are currently in the earliest days of Phase 1 of our 3-phase strategy illustrated on Slide 7 to help more people with acromegaly get the care they need. The focus of Phase 1 is to concentrate on switching patients already on injectable SRL depots and other therapies to PALSONIFY. This is a readily identifiable population regularly visiting their HCP offices. In this phase, we also think that PALSONIFY's rapid onset of action will make it the medical therapy of choice to treat newly diagnosed patients. Looking ahead to next year, while we continue to serve both switching and naive patients, we will also begin additional efforts towards returning previously diagnosed patients back to care. There are multiple reasons why these 1,700 patients have discontinued medical therapy recently. We hope that PALSONIFY will provide a path for them to return to the care they need. From there, we will extend our efforts to reach the approximately 7,500 patients who have unfortunately been lost to follow-up after diagnosis and returning them to medical care. There can be multiple reasons why these patients have discontinued medical therapy. It won't be easy and it will take time, but we believe that PALSONIFY will offer these patients a path back to care as well. The third and final phase will be to improve the time to diagnosis of acromegaly. Diagnosing acromegaly is easy once you suspect it, but suspecting it can be challenging even for experienced providers. We anticipate launching specific initiatives later next year and our general efforts to improve acromegaly awareness and its treatment options should start making a difference sooner. The story of Crinetics is not just the acromegaly launch, it's about our execution across the entire pipeline shown on Slide 8. I want to emphasize the strength and depth of what we've built through our internal discovery and development efforts. On the discovery front, we remain committed to holding our clinical candidates to the highest possible standards. Unfortunately, during IND-enabling tox studies, we identified weaknesses in our lead TSH candidate for Graves' disease. Therefore, we're delaying the IND time lines as we prioritize and activate the best of the backup molecules. We're also delaying the time lines for our SST3 agonist program for ADPKD as we conduct follow-ups to the core IND-enabling studies. Given the launch of PALSONIFY and acromegaly and the multiple late-stage programs in development, we will no longer provide regular updates on the timing of preclinical programs until those programs dose their first patient in a Phase 1 study, but rest assured, we are committed to not only advancing the late-stage pipeline, but also to expanding the clinical pipeline and our discovery activities continue unabated. We expect the clinical pipeline to continue to expand in 2026 and the years to come. Moving to the top of the pipeline. carcinoid syndrome is the second indication in development for paltusotine. People with carcinoid syndrome struggle with debilitating and frequent flushing and bowel movement episodes. Like in acromegaly, standard of care for these patients is painful monthly depot injectable SRLs. Based on our Phase 2 data, we believe paltusotine could offer consistent daily control of these in an oral formulation. Our Phase 3 study shown here on Slide 9 is designed to evaluate its efficacy and safety in both naive and switch patients and the OLE study will also evaluate control of the underlying neuroendocrine tumors. More than 20 clinical sites have been activated and are currently screening patients for this study. Complementing paltusotine is CRN09682, the first candidate from the non-peptide drug conjugate program. 9682 is comprised of a novel ligand targeting SST2 to drive internalization into tumor cells, a novel linker that is cleaved only in the tumor cell and a payload to be delivered, in this case, MMAE. We believe 9682 will be differentiated from other current modalities, and as shown on Slide 10, we are studying it in the BRAVESST2 Phase 1/2 basket study in patients with SST2-expressing tumors. This includes neuroendocrine tumors as well as other types of tumors that overexpress SST2. The first 6 sites in this study have been activated and are actively screening patients. The enthusiasm for this study from both investigators and potential participants has been high. This is an important study for Crinetics. It's designed to provide the first human proof of concept for our entire NDC platform, and we're thrilled for it to be underway. Moving on to Atumelnant on Slide 11. In the first 3 cohorts of our Phase 2 ICANS trial for congenital adrenal hyperplasia, or CAH, Atumelnant showed a remarkable ability to highly suppress adrenal androgens in these patients. As you know, we added a fourth cohort to look at morning dosing instead of evening dosing as well as the ability to lower adrenal androgens while simultaneously reducing glucocorticoid therapy towards physiologic levels. Patients in this fourth cohort have recently completed their 12-week treatment period, and we continue to see favorable benefit risk profile. I look forward to sharing the data from Cohort 4 in January once our analysis is completed, along with initial data from a handful of patients from prior cohorts who have now reached the 13-week assessment in the open-label extension study. Now moving on to the design of our global Phase 3 CALM-CAH trial of Atumelnant in adults with CAH. The study shown on Slide 12 builds on the strong top line results from the first 3 cohorts of our Phase 2 study. It's designed to provide a novel therapeutic paradigm for CAH, where atumelnant is used to treat the disease itself and glucocorticoids are only needed for physiologic replacement. People with CAH deserve physiologic levels of both, and that is why we are utilizing a novel uncompromising primary endpoint that combines both goals. This is a very high bar, but appropriate for the level of efficacy we expect from Atamelin. I'm pleased to report that the first sites for the CALM-CAH trial have been activated. Screening is underway, and we expect the first patients to be randomized before the end of the year. Moving on to Slide 13, which shows our BALANCE-CAH study for pediatric patients in more detail. We believe it is crucial to address both high androgen and glucocorticoid levels in pediatric patients because each can cause significant clinical sequelae, and we designed our clinical program with that goal in mind. This study is operationally seamless Phase 2/3 design with a Phase 2 dose selection during which glucocorticoids remain stable, followed by a Phase 3 portion in which new patients will be randomized and have the opportunity to taper glucocorticoids. Eligible patients from both phases will have the opportunity to enroll in an open-label extension. We look forward to enrolling the first patient before the end of the year. With that, let me turn the call over to Isabel to provide additional color on the launch of PALSONIFY for acromegaly. Isabel? Isabel Kalofonos: Thank you, Scott. Turning to Slide 16. Based on our strong label, our strategy is to establish PALSONIFY as the foundational care for acromegaly. To that end, I'm pleased to share the launch is off to a very good start. Since the approval, our team has been engaging with stakeholders and executing across all aspects of the launch. Our field team is reaching patients, physicians in the community and in academic setting and payers, and we are hearing encouraging feedback. Starting with the patient on Slide 16. Our strategy is to activate both switch and naive patients by reinforcing PALSONIFY's consistent IGF-1 and symptom control in a once-daily order. It has been exciting to see that our omnichannel marketing and messages are resonating, and we are beginning to see enrollment forms that from patients who requested PALSONIFY specifically. We're also encouraged by the fact that all of the 22 U.S. patients in the OLE are in the process of transitioning on to commercial product. As expected this early in the launch, 95% of our filled prescriptions are from switch patients, reflecting the demographic to the acromegaly population. However, it is encouraging that we are already starting to see enrollments from treatment-naive patients. This supports our thesis about the significant unmet need in both of these patient segments and represents a good start to Phase 1 of our overall strategy. Moving into to healthcare providers on Slide 17. Even 1 month prior to approval, PALSONIFY had high levels of awareness among academic and community physicians. Building on this foundation, our field teams had called on more than 95% of our highest priority prescriber targets, most of whom are in academic centers. We are leveraging PALSONIFY's unique label, which includes symptom control to engage with healthcare professionals. We believe our efficacy-first messaging is resonating with providers because they prioritize both symptom and IGF-1 control alongside ease of administration. Our sales force is using these messages in the priority PTC centers and high-volume community practices, while targeted marketing extends our reach to the broader community. At this point, we are seeing about 70% of prescribers coming from the community setting and 30% of prescribers coming from PTCs. This is encouraging because it demonstrates that PALSONIFY is also attractive to community-based prescribing physicians. In the PTC setting, our broader field-facing team is working through the typical administrative processes to support uptake. This includes taking a comprehensive approach by engaging both endocrinologists and nurses as well as pharmacists and support staff. Finally, turning to payers on Slide 18. Our payer simple launch engagement work has positioned us well to understand the payers' coverage landscape. So far, we have had follow-up meetings with plans covering majority of lives and the feedback in our broad label and overall value proposition remains consistently favorable. We are pleased to see coverage approvals coming across commercial, Medicare and Medicaid plans. For those that are approved, prior authorization decisions are taking only a few days, and we are encouraged to see some approvals for up to 12 months even in the early days of the launch. Medicare patient support program and field teams are helping patients navigate their treatment journey. We are seeing a balanced mix of reimbursed patients and those on our Quick Start program. Our team is actively working with plans to transition quickest start patients on to reimbursed product. As expected, we anticipate the full formulary process will still take the standard 6 to 9 months. Overall, our commercial team is doing an excellent job executing against our plan. We look forward to providing launch metrics in the first quarter once we have had a full quarter of experience behind us. As Scott mentioned it, in addition to revenue, we will provide the number of new patient starts, the number of [GE] prescribing physicians and updates on our progress with payers. Our goal remains to make PALSONIFY the first treatment of choice for all acromegaly patients, and we are perfectly on pace relatively to our expectations. With that, I will hand the call to Toby for our financial update. Tobin Schilke: Thank you, Isabel. Turning to Slide 20. Our financial results for the third quarter of 2025 reflect our continued disciplined execution and strategic investment in advancing our pipeline and commercialization of PALSONIFY. In the third quarter, we recognized $0.1 million in revenue from our licensing agreement with our Japanese partner, SKK. As expected, we did not recognize any revenue related to the launch of PALSONIFY in the third quarter due to the timing of approval, which was close to the end of the quarter. Under GAAP, we recognize PALSONIFY revenue upon delivery of product to our specialty distributor and specialty pharmacies. Product was shipped in the first few days of the fourth quarter, as Isabella stated, so we have recognized revenue in the fourth quarter. Our research and development expenses for the third quarter were $90.5 million compared to $80.3 million in the second quarter. This increase reflects our continued investment in our clinical programs, including start-up costs for our late-stage clinical trials and ongoing advancement of CRN09682, the first candidate from our novel non-peptide drug conjugate or NDC platform in early-stage clinical studies. Selling, general and administrative expenses were $52.3 million for the third quarter compared to $49.8 million in the second quarter. This increase reflects our investments to drive the successful execution of PALSONIFY's launch, including onboarding and deploying our field force, strategic marketing initiatives and the growth of corporate functions to support our commercial team. We used $110.7 million of cash in operations during the quarter, reflecting continued clinical development and launch preparation activities. Cash used in operations was slightly higher than anticipated this quarter, primarily due to timing of payables. We ended the quarter with $1.1 billion in cash, cash equivalents and investments. As of October 28, 2025, we had approximately 94.9 million shares of common stock outstanding. On a fully diluted basis, we had 111.9 million shares outstanding. This includes our outstanding options, unvested restricted stock units and shares expected to be purchased under our employee stock purchase plan. Moving to Slide 21. We are maintaining our guidance for net cash used in operations in 2025 and continue to expect that we use between $340 million and $370 million. Based on our current operating plans and cash position, we maintain our guidance that existing cash and investments will be sufficient to fund our operations into 2029. This provides us with significant runway to execute on multiple value-creating milestones, including the U.S. commercialization of PALSONIFY and the advancement of the rest of our pipeline. I will now turn the call back to Scott for some closing remarks. R. Struthers: Thank you, Toby. Slide 23 lays out the major commercial and clinical catalysts that we expect to drive significant value starting early next year and continuing over the next 18 to 24 months. Commercially, our entire focus is on executing a strong U.S. launch trajectory for PALSONIFY. We're already seeing the validation of our strategy with prescriptions coming from both community endocrinologists and the major pituitary centers. Initial feedback from patients, physicians and payers is positive. As I mentioned, we'll provide detailed launch metrics from the full Q4 results in January. We also have a great deal of momentum in the clinical pipeline. We have a key near-term data readout for the T2CANS study, which will include data from Cohort 4 and the initial open-label extension patients from prior cohorts. Beyond that, we have a robust set of late-stage programs advancing. We expect them to produce key data readouts, including from our CALM-CAH adult Phase 3 trial, the BALANCE-CAH Phase 2 pediatric study and our CAREFNDR Phase 3 trial in carcinoid syndrome. At the same time, our BRAVESST2 study for CRN-9682 is underway, and we anticipate initial data from dose escalation and expansion cohorts from this. Our Phase 2/III program for Cushing's disease is also kicking off soon. Behind all this, our discovery engine remains our foundation. We expect new internally discovered candidates to enter the clinic and provide their first early readouts during this period. In summary, we have a deep pipeline, a strong balance sheet and a clear path to continued value creation. We are executing on all fronts and look forward to updating you as we achieve these important milestones. Thank you for joining us today. We're now happy to take your questions. Operator? Operator: [Operator Instructions] First question comes from Catherine Novack with JonesTrading. Catherine Novack: I just want to ask a little bit maybe about some of the data that you showed at NANETS last week. I'm very interesting to see the PFS data in the NET patients with paltusotine that is. Can you tell us what the evidence is for somatostatin receptor ligands in this setting? Will you ever want to conduct survival studies with paltusotine alone? R. Struthers: Thanks, Catherine. Somatostatin receptor ligands are known to be slowing of the growth of neuroendocrine tumors, and that was proven in the CLARINET study with lanreotide. Mechanistically, we expect the same thing out of paltusotine, which is why we're monitoring this in the open-label extensions of the carcinoid Phase 2 and then soon the carcinoid Phase 3, but maybe, Alan, do you want to comment a little bit more on that to clarify what we see and what we're hoping to see. Alan Krasner: Sure. Yes, Catherine, so as Scott said, the SRLs have a known cytostatic kind of effect, improving progression-free survival in neuroendocrine tumors in general. We recently presented at NANETS, our exploratory data from our Phase 2 trial open-label extension patients, a small cohort of patients. In general, the PFS in that cohort looks comparable to what you would expect in a long-term trial in neuroendocrine tumors. Neuroendocrine tumors are very, very slow growing and advancing. In general, the time it would take to do objective response kind of trial, survival kind of trials is sort of out of bounds. It would be very, very long. PFS is usually used as the surrogate of those kinds of outcomes in this tumor type. In general, we're seeing an uncontrolled data, what we would expect to see, and we'll have a lot more data coming from the long-term Phase 3 cohorts as well. Catherine Novack: Then just it's disappointing to hear about the Graves' disease candidate, but glad that you were able to catch it early. Any clarity on what model you saw the tox signals? Was it an on-target toxicity? Or do you find that you're hitting a receptor that was unexpected? Any information? R. Struthers: No. It's idiosyncratic finding that really was driving the decision, nothing related to on-target activity. I think we have a very good understanding of the mechanistic biology of the TSH receptor, so that's never something we've worried about. Operator: We now turn to Cory Jubinville with LifeSci Capital. Cory Jubinville: You mentioned that the sales force has called on greater than 95% of top priority prescribers. Can you just remind us, one, how many prescribers that specifically includes? Two, the concentration of the immediately addressable, call it, 10,000 acromegaly patients that are at those top priority prescriber centers? Three, can you speak directly -- as you speak directly with these centers, what was the initial perception from those docs on PALSONIFY? How many of them have converted to actual prescribers or are actively working to make it part of their practice in the long term? R. Struthers: Yes. Thanks, Cory. Maybe before I hand it to Isabel to answer in a little more detail, just a reminder that we're deeply part of the pituitary community and the endocrinology community more broadly. It's great that our field force has been out there talking now at that level, but they've been out there with warm introductions from those of us who know these people for these prescribers for a long time. I'm really glad to see the response from the community, which has been quite favorable by all comments from all across our field force and directly that I've been hearing from them. We're still working our way through some of the administrative aspects of the pituitary centers, but I think that's well underway. Maybe you want to answer in more detail, Isabel, some of the more specifics that Cory was asking about. Isabel Kalofonos: Yes, absolutely. Thank you. First of all, I want to start with your second question. We are delighted that the treatment is very well received by the healthcare professionals, the patients and the payers. With healthcare professionals, they are responding really well to our very simple powerful message on first line of treatment, fast onset of action, fewer symptoms in finally on a pill. It's a very simple message, but it resonates because it really encompasses everything that they were looking for in a better treatment in a new standard of care. The response has been positive, and that has led to initial prescriptions from both, as Scott alluded to, PTC centers, but also community, where we see 70% of the prescriptions coming from community prescribers and 30% from PTC centers. We're encouraged by the community because many times, community tends to follow PTCs. The fact that both segments are adopting is a really good signal for us on the launch trajectory. When you look at our prescriber base, we have approximately 110 total prescribers, and the 95% doesn't refer to all of those 110 prescribers, but that the initial prescriptions, many of them are coming from members of that list. Cory Jubinville: I mean, it's interesting, building off that point, it's interesting to see that 70% of scripts are coming from community docs. Can you just help us better understand that dynamic a little bit more? I guess, why are some of these PTC centers, for lack of a better term, lagging behind? Is it just small sample size because we're early in the launch? Or are these community practices just a bit more nimble and you're dealing with some of the bureaucracy at these centers? Or yes, just curious to hear more about your strategy of how to activate centers. R. Struthers: Well, I think that we've seen in some of the other launches that have happened this year and recently, how important it is to think about the community upfront. That's how Isabel designed the whole field force as we were going into it. We deployed out to the community and to the centers in parallel. I think the thing that we've seen with the community, which is I don't know, very rewarding is that they are a little bit more nimble and more willing to reach out directly to patients and call them in and not just wait for the next appointment. If we think about the centers, I think they are more waiting for the patients to come in for their next appointment. The other thing that we're working with, with the centers, which is pretty much taken care of now, but it takes a little while to get the electronic medical systems so that they have one push button prescribing. It took a little bit to get the pharmacies activated at many of the centers. These are kind of normal administrative things that we've worked through. In no way do we see the centers as being slow. We just are pleasantly surprised at how nicely the communities responded. Operator: We now turn to Yasmeen Rahimi with Piper Sandler. Yasmeen Rahimi: Congrats to a great start, and thank you for sharing all the color. Maybe one question for the commercially related. I appreciate if you could kind of tell us about how you're thinking about providing free drug while getting reimbursement and how do you make those decisions? Then very excited to look forward to the CAH open-label data early 2026. Help us understand sort of in early 2026, whether you would be able to get to all 10 patients and what you hope to show in that data set? Then I'll jump back in the queue. R. Struthers: Yes. Let me take the second part first, and then Isabel, maybe you can take the first part about -- on the acromegaly side of things. Look, in addition to Cohort 4, patients have been rolling on to the open-label extension. That one has a relatively infrequent sampling, and so the first sampling there is 13 weeks. By the time we get to the early part of the year, we'll then have data from the Cohort 4 patients, plus a handful of patients who've gotten to 13 weeks from Cohorts 1 to 3 in the open-label extension. Now it's still a relatively small sample size, but we'll start to give a sense of what -- how this is behaving in a real -- more real-world setting where physicians can both reduce glucocorticoids and see what's happening with adrenal androgens. Isabel, sorry, I wanted to take care of that part. Maybe you want to talk about the question she had on acromegaly. Isabel Kalofonos: Yes, of course. Our market access team is executing with excellence. Our goal is to partner with our specialty pharmacies. When we get an enrollment form, our specialty pharmacies file the prior authorization to ensure that the claim is reimbursed. That's our first step. That's why we are very pleased that 50% of the claims has been reimbursed. Then if there is a challenge to the prior authorization, we send the Quick Start program because we want to make sure that while we do benefit verification and we complement any gaps that they have had, either adding some of the clinical records or putting the correct IGF-1 test in the file that we are able to process that in the background while the patients are on drug. We are ready to go with the Quick Start program as soon as possible, but we first give the opportunity to our specialty pharmacies to process the claims. Operator: We now turn to Douglas Tsao with H.C. Wainwright. Douglas Tsao: Again on all the progress. I guess maybe just feeding off the question in terms of where you're initially seeing demand in the community versus the centers of excellence. I'm just curious to the extent that you get a sense that this is -- there's awareness within the acromegaly community, who I know has a very active patient group and how much is sort of coming from the ground up versus prescription written by clinicians who as they see their patients are sort of recommending a switch or offering that choice to patients. R. Struthers: Yes. Thanks, Doug. I think it's still very early days, so it's very anecdotal, but we're hearing both, right? We're hearing physicians who talk to patients and tell them about something they hadn't heard of and are ending up switching to PALSONIFY. We're hearing about patients going in asking their doc for PALSONIFY. That's kind of cool, actually. I think it's a mix of both, but it's too early to start putting any sort of numbers to that. Isabel Kalofonos: I was just going to say that we have a very experienced dedicated team that had also connections in the community, which is also really helpful, right? They wanted to make sure that across the board, we are nimble, we're executing, and we make sure that -- those physicians that are ready to prescribe has the opportunity to do so. As Scott said, we are seeing prescriptions that are primarily coming from the prescribers, but we also see prescriptions that are coming from awareness that we have built through our marketing team and advocacy from the patients. Regardless, whichever prescription is done is because both of them agree that it's the best choice for the patients, so both the patient and the physician have to be informed. We are working across the board with those 2 audiences. Douglas Tsao: I'm just curious, and I know it's anecdotal, but I'm just curious in terms of prescribers as well as patients, what is interesting them? Is it the convenience of an oral therapy? Or is it really just the standout efficacy that were shown in PATHFNDR-1 and PATHFNDR-2 as a better treatment option for patients? R. Struthers: Go ahead, Isabel. Isabel Kalofonos: We have a mix actually. It's very interesting. Some of the doctors are very intrigued by the fast onset of action of the treatment and the fact that it's a reliable disease control. They see that also as the first treatment choice for some of the switching patients, but also naive patients. For example, we have a naive patient that has surgery but had a residual tumor. The patient now has reached 3 weeks on treatment. The physician did a second IGF-1 test, and he was really pleased to see that the patient was controlled, less than upper limit of normal in the IGF-1 test, but also saw an improvement on symptoms like swelling. That kind of experience is going to motivate that physician to put more patients on treatment as well as that patient is going to also share that experience later on with patients. We are very encouraged by that. We also see some patients that want to travel. We have -- or that their job description requires that they are free from the burden of the injections. That is also resonating, for instance, we have a firefighter that, of course, didn't want to come every month to the appointment. In addition to having -- not wanted to have the painful injection, had lots of breakthrough symptoms. Both the efficacy and the ease of use were important to him and the physician, so that's the kind of experience we're hearing from the field. R. Struthers: Yes. The other one that I was told about is an ER doc, Doug, who got just burned out on the injection, so reached out to his doc to switch. Again, these are just -- these are anecdotes, but they're very heartwarming, honestly. Douglas Tsao: That's really helpful to hear, and it's good to hear that feedback around the sort of broader value proposition of the product. Operator: We now turn to Maxwell Skor with Morgan Stanley. Selena Zhang: This is Selena on for Max. Has the timing of benefit verification for the Quick Start program met your expectations? When do you expect to have clear visibility into the breadth and depth of prescribing trends? R. Struthers: Well, I think the prescribing trends will update you further in the -- as we finish out the quarter, and we'll see and gain experience with that over time. Isabel, maybe you want to talk about the Quick Start program. Isabel Kalofonos: Yes. Of course, at the moment that we send the Quick Start program, benefit verification is happening in the background. Some of them are issues that are easy to resolve, like there was missing IGF-1 test or is missing clinical data. Other plans are requiring a little bit more. On average, in rare diseases, it takes around 57 days to be on Quick Start program, and we are trying to be below that number. R. Struthers: Yes. That's -- and then to kind of add to that, that's why we were pleased that we're already seeing patients getting on reimbursed PALSONIFY before we even have to give them the quick start program. That's been good to see. Not all of them, but some. Isabel Kalofonos: Yes, 50-50, which is really good results early in the launch. Because what we're seeing actually that is really encouraging is that payers are reimbursing to label as we had anticipated. We are also seeing that once it's approved, those approvals are coming for 6 to 12 months. The patient will continue on drug before any additional documentation is required. Operator: We now turn to Richard Law with Goldman Sachs. Jin Law: Congrats on the results so far. Based on your launch experience with PALSONIFY so far, what has been going well for you? Where can you see improvements? It would be great if you can talk about it in context of like commercial, Medicare and Medicaid segments. I don't know if it's too early because I assume most of these patients are coming from commercial. Yes, it would be great to hear how you things going well across these segments and where you can do better. I have a couple of follow-ups. R. Struthers: Yes. I mean, broadly, I'm super pleased with the way the team is out there performing and the response to the community. Any improvements are really incremental, but maybe you want to comment on some of your favorite pieces, Isabel? Isabel Kalofonos: Yes. Well, I was very pleased we have Dragon channel very early in the process. I believe that the team is executing with excellence across the board. Our sales team, our marketing team, our market access team and also commercial operations having the right tool. We know who to target and where the physicians are and where the patients are. So going very well, our CRM activation, our omnichannel strategy to create awareness, both with physicians and patients, our sales team executing and having great success in getting access with both community and PTC centers. and really delivering very powerful and simple messages. That is going really well and is resonating very well. We also had a successful initial advisory boards, and we're continuously getting feedback from the doctors as to what resonates with them and what else they would like to see in the future. That's also shaping our communication plan for [indiscernible] next year. We want to continue to create urgency. Some of those physicians are following the appointment cycles, waiting for the patient to come. A lot of what we want to continue to do is to create that sense of urgency. Those early positive experiences that we are seeing, that the physicians are seeing and the patients are seeing are very important for us, and we'll continue to translate them as testimonials in the future to continue to drive the uptake of the drug to our final goal, which is making PALSONIFY the new standard of care and continue to expand the acromegaly market. Jin Law: Then what about the insight to the segments? Are these mostly commercial so far? Then maybe comment on Medicare and Medicaid segments. Isabel Kalofonos: Interesting. There is a mix. We have commercial patients, Medicare patients and Medicaid patients, and we had claims approved for all 3 segments. One last point. is following the market trend, basically, the majority of them are commercial claims, but basically very similar to the actual payer mix. Jin Law: Then what is the turnaround time and that range of that for payers to approve PALSONIFY, assuming that patients already met the prior authorization requirements, including step edits. What's that turnaround time for payers to approve? R. Struthers: Let's get a little larger sample size before we start doing calculations like that, right? Still a little too small to -- a little early in the launch to do that. Jin Law: Then just one more. In terms of the payer rebate, I know you guys are not doing payer rebate for commercial. Is that still the case? R. Struthers: That's correct. Isabel Kalofonos: That's correct. We are not planning to do that. R. Struthers: Reminder folks, let's try and keep to one part question. We got a bunch more people waiting in line. Operator: We now turn to Tyler Van Buren with TD Cowen. Nick Lorusso: This is Nick on for Tyler. Congrats on the progress so far in this launch. My question is you reported that 95% of filled prescriptions today are from switch patients, which we've talked about a little bit now. What's the plan to reach additional treatment-naive patients? Which do you expect will be the largest drivers of long-term growth? R. Struthers: Yes. I think if you look at the -- what we've said in the past, there's roughly 500 patients a year coming on to medical therapy. It's kind of a trickle of those new patients. The fact that we're starting to pick those up, I think, goes very much to the profile of the drug, like this one patient that's already controlled 3 weeks in. I mean that's awesome. I think the bigger challenge then is, as we talked about this phase -- 3-phase strategy is getting to those patients who, for whatever reason, are not on medical therapy, but should be. There's roughly 4,500 treatment naive. Some of these are patients who probably are not at the level of control that they should be, and so we're digging into that. I think like many rare disease therapies, once you start getting the word out there that there's a new therapy that's not the burden that you have with the depots that we'll start to get people back. Those are the ones -- those first ones in Phase 1 are just the tip of the iceberg because the next part are these patients who've discontinued therapy and/or have been lost to follow-up and bringing those back in is another very significant group. Then, of course, the big aim is to really start to improve awareness and find better ways of getting people to suspect acromegaly so that you can do an IGF-1 test and diagnose it. there's 17,000 people out there that the best we can tell that have yet to be diagnosed, but they're getting damaged to their joints, their heart every day. We'll be launching a variety of different efforts to do that more specifically next year. I think even these awareness things that we're doing like Alan's interviews with Tony, I think that's going to start helping sooner rather than later. Isabel Kalofonos: I have been in the field together with our sales team, and I was having a conversation with one of our key prescribers in a key center. He answered the way I think about this, who is not the right patient for PALSONIFY. Early on, of course, we're going for the switch and naive patients. but we believe that this treatment will help us expand the market over time. Operator: We now turn to Andy Chen with Wolfe Research. Brandon Frith: This is Brendan on for Andy. In the opening remarks, you mentioned aiming to position PALSONIFY as a first-line therapy. We're curious to know how you expect to do that with generics currently on the market. R. Struthers: Well, that's an easy one. I mean, if you look at the label, it's indicated for the treatment of acromegaly in-patients who have not had adequate response to surgery or for whose surgery isn't indicated or appropriate. The biggest reason why you want to go on to PALSONIFY in that situation for the new patients is like that one I mentioned, they're controlled in 3 weeks. We got great data from PATHFNDR-2 showing 2 to 4 weeks to get people controlled, whereas in the depots, your first dose adjustment isn't for 3 months. You don't even know if that first dose works after 3 months, and then you go to the second dose, so you wait until 6 months. Then you may need the highest dose until you're 9 months out before you know whether it works. That's not the right medicine, so PALSONIFY is really the best option for somebody newly diagnosed. I don't see an argument that whether it's generic or not matters. Isabel Kalofonos: Yes, we are not seeing that kind of pushback from payers also. We see that the value proposition is resonating really well with them, and they understand the value of the treatment. The reduction of waste applies whether it's generic or not generic. The fact that patients continue to have -- is irrelevant to whether it's generic or not. Also, as you know, generics don't have the support services that we are able to offer like a Quick Start program, the co-pay for the patients, 0 co-pay for commercial patients and all the support that they will get. Operator: We now turn to John Wolleben with Citizens. Jonathan Wolleben: Congrats on the progress. Scott, you kind of discussed the 3 phases of PALSONIFY 's launch. I was hoping you could talk a little bit about the timing of the sequence and how you think about moving from one phase to the next, if there's benchmarks you want to hit in each one or if it's going to be more of a continuum. Just wondering how to think about you guys tackling these different buckets of patients. R. Struthers: Yes. I don't mean to imply it's a sequence, but it's a sequence of enhanced efforts. I really want the group out there in the field focusing on those patients in the first phase and getting the word out so that we have broad prescriber base. I think you're seeing that already with the response of the community. Then, in addition, because it will take some time to work our way through all those Phase 1 patients. Before we're done with that, then we also would start getting more active in finding ways to bring patients back to care. That may be -- that may take a variety of different forms. It's really just about how we layer on our efforts rather than go from one phase to the next, if that makes sense. Jonathan Wolleben: Do you think the current sales force is rightsized to handle that expansion over time? R. Struthers: Yes, absolutely. I think we're doing very good in the coverage. It's a fairly concentrated prescriber base. We were planning for the community from the start. I think it's more about the types of activities that we do to try and help find these patients who need to come back to care, improve diagnosis rather than just switching efforts from one thing to another. Operator: We now turn to Jessica Fye with JPMorgan. Jessica Fye: I wanted to follow-up on one of the earlier questions. What should we be most focused on when we take a look at the Cohort 4 data for Atumelnant? What are you going to be watching for similarly in that Phase 2 OLE data? I guess, stepping back, how much of a read is Cohort 4 or these initial OLE patients going to give us into the potential steroid reductions that we could expect in Phase 3? R. Struthers: Yes. Well, a couple of things. One, I'll just put some caveats. It's still relatively small numbers of patients. It allows the chance for physicians to begin to do steroid reductions in the actual treatment period of 12 weeks, that's pretty fast, right? I think that, together with the open-label extension data where there's a little more time. Generally, I think it will give the directionality, but I wouldn't start doing power calculations or things based on it. That makes sense. I think there's been a lot of interest in this Cohort 4 data, and it's interesting, but again, it's relatively small numbers. Jessica Fye: When should we expect the preliminary Phase 2 data for Atumelnant in peds? R. Struthers: I don't have exact timing on that, but that will come out in some phases because we're starting with older adolescents and then working our way down the age groups, right? We'll start expanding those populations into the Phase 3 portion as the age groups get the dose validation that we need. Operator: We now turn to Alex Thompson with Stifel. Patrick Ho: This is Patrick Ho on for Alex. I guess on the naive patients, are you guys seeing different dynamics here from payers? Or is it similar to the switch patients? Isabel Kalofonos: Similar dynamics. We had some reimbursed claims and some that we are processing through the Quick Start, so similar in both cases. R. Struthers: Again, early days. Operator: We now turn to Joe Schwartz with Leerink Partners. Joseph Schwartz: How does the traction you're getting at this early Phase 1n the PALSONIFY launch compared to the market research you've done in terms of willingness to prescribe or any other factors you consider important? R. Struthers: Thanks, Joe. I think we have not had any real pushback from prescribers about use of PALSONIFY, as was mentioned earlier by Isabel, who shouldn't get PALSONIFY. I think it's just the normal -- we're observing the things that are basically in line with our expectations. We're building momentum and working through a little bit of inertia in the system, but the patients are starting to come in. As they come in, I think they'll be best served with PALSONIFY. There's really not much pushback. Joseph Schwartz: How much of a continuum is there in terms of running from inertia to excitement given providers are encountering a new treatment option, but they've been quite used to using legacy treatments for quite some time? R. Struthers: Maybe you want to take that, Isabel. I don't think it's the legacy of use that is anything that's really in the way. I think they see the benefits of PALSONIFY. Go ahead, Isabel. Isabel Kalofonos: Yes. We see a lot of excitement in the prescriber community. When they look at the data, they really understand the value proposition with the efficacy, the fast and of action finally on a -- the inertia that Scott was referring to is more the normal cycle that takes place in rare diseases where appointments take place every 6 months to a year and physicians are not necessarily always having the support system to start calling the patients, but they will go with the flow of the appointments and wait to offer this new option to patients when the patients have their next appointment. We see that narrowing down the story to a particular patient for that physician where urgency is higher is helping, but we know that there will be a cycle similar to all rare disease launches. Operator: We now turn to Dennis Ding with Jefferies. Anthea Li: This is Anthea on for Dennis. Just 2 quick ones. On PALSONIFY, could you elaborate on just how many patients in the open label are now transitioning to commercial supply and the time lines there? Just curious if we would see all of that contribution in Q4 or later in 2026. Then on the pipeline, any updates on the progress for the GLP programs? I think there was previous talk of candidate selection in '25, so just curious on progress there. R. Struthers: Yes. Just on the open-label extension patients, all 22 are in various stages of enrollment. They've all enrolled for commercial supplies, but they have to wait until their final follow-up visit as part of the open-label extension so that we can finish all the monitoring as part of that. I think most of those are through -- are completed by the end of the year, but I don't know the exact numbers at this point. Then the GLP-1s, obviously and other obesity things we're working on, obviously, a very interesting space, especially today. I think we're going to stop talking as much about our early-stage programs now that we're really concentrated on the launch and our late-stage clinical development. I think it's just more appropriate that we -- when we're in the clinic, we'll let you guys know, but we're thinking hard about it, working hard on it, and you're going to see a lot of new things come out of the Discovery Group and not just soon, but for years to come. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, we have no further questions. This concludes our Q&A and today's conference call. We'd like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.
Operator: Welcome to BCP Investment Corporation Third Quarter Ended September 30, 2025 Earnings Conference Call. An earnings press release was distributed yesterday November 6, after market closed. A copy of release along the earnings presentation is available on the company's website at www.bcpinvestmentcorporation.com in the Investor Relations section and should be reviewed in conjunction with the company's Form 10-Q filed yesterday with the SEC. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded for replay purposes. Please note that today's conference call may contain forward-looking statements, which are not that guarantees of future performance or results and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including those described in the company's filings with the SEC. BCP Investment Corporation assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements unless required by law. Speaking on today's call will be Ted Goldthorpe Chief Executive Officer, President and Director of BCP Investment Corporation; Brandon Satoren, Chief Financial Officer; and Patrick Schafer, Chief Investment Officer. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Ted Goldfarb, Chief Executive Officer of BCP Investment Corp. Please go ahead, Ted. Edward Goldthorpe: Good morning. Welcome to our third quarter 2025 earnings call. I'm joined today by our Chief Financial Officer, Brandon Satoren, and our Chief Investment Officer, Patrick Schafer. Following my opening remarks on the company's performance and activities during the third quarter, Patrick will provide commentary on our investment portfolio and our markets, and Brandon will discuss our operating results and financial condition in greater detail. We are pleased to report strong results for the third quarter our first earnings as a combined company on the completion of our merger with Logan Ridge on July 15, 2025. This milestone marks the beginning of a new chapter for BCIC, as we continue to leverage our expanded scale, broader portfolio diversification and enhanced operating efficiency to drive long-term value for shareholders. I'm pleased to report meaningful progress on the value creation initiatives we announced in June 2025. Notably, consistent with our previously stated intentions, the company plans to commence a modified Dutch auction tender approximately $9 million combined with the daily share repurchases executed by the company under the buyback program as well as open market purchases by management, the adviser and its affiliates. We anticipate total repurchases when combined with managements, advisers and its affiliates ownership of BCIC's outstanding stock can approximate 10% by year-end. These actions underscore our continued focus on driving shareholder value and narrowing the discount to NAV. During the quarter, we generated net investment income of $8.8 million or $0.71 per share compared with $4.6 million or $0.50 per share in the prior quarter. We expect to realize further benefits of our expanded scale and broader investment platform. For the fourth quarter of 2025, the Board of Directors approved a base distribution of $0.47 per share, which been annualized based on November 6, 2025 closing price of $12.13 per share represents a yield of 15.5%. Before handing over the call, I'd like to take a moment to address recent commentary in the broader private credit markets. While recent high-profile collapses of certain borrowers understandably drawn market attention, we firmly believe the full scale of concern for the overall private credit market is unwarranted. Echoing sentiment from other leaders in our industry, in the case of First Brands, for example, only 2% of its nearly $12 billion balance sheet was linked to private credit highlighting that events like this aren't signs of systemic weakness, if the sector has been subject to disproportionately heightened scrutiny despite its limited involvement in these high-profile bankruptcies. Looking ahead, our focus remains on disciplined capital allocation, maintaining a high-quality portfolio and delivering attractive risk-adjusted returns to our shareholders. With a larger, more diversified platform, and a stronger balance sheet, we believe we are well positioned to drive continued earnings growth and long-term value creation. With that, I will turn the call over to Patrick Schafer, our Chief Investment Officer, for a review of our investment activity. Patrick Schafer: Thanks, Ted. Overall M&A activity in our core markets continued to increase during the quarter as a combination of easing benchmark rates and more settled tariff framework gave sponsors more confidence in the macro environment. To illustrate this, over 80% of our new fundings during the quarter -- we're a new borrowers, a significantly higher percentage than what has historically been over the last several quarters. With the renewed activity has also come renewed competition on deals and overall tightening of spreads. As we've noted in the past, our focus on companies with less than $50 million of EBITDA and our sourcing of nonsponsor-backed companies provides some inflation to these trends. We continue to be selective from a credit quality perspective and are focused on maximizing risk-adjusted returns for our shareholders. Turning to Slide 10. Originations for the third quarter were $14.2 million and repayments of sales were $43.8 million, resulting in net repayments and sales of approximately $29.6 million. Overall yield on par of the new debt investments during the quarter was 12.5%. This compares to a 13.8% weighted average annualized yield, excluding income from nonaccruals and collateralized loan obligations, as of September 30, 2025. Excluding the impact of purchase discount accounting, the weighted average annualized yield, excluding income from non-accruals and collateralized loan applications, was approximately 10.3% as of September 30, 2025. Our investment portfolio at year-end remained highly diversified. We ended the third quarter with a debt investment portfolio, when excluding our investments in CLO funds, equities and joint ventures, spread across 79 different portfolio companies and 28 different industries, with an average par balance of $3.2 million per entity. Turning to Slide 11. At the end of the third quarter of 2025, we had 10 investments on nonaccrual status, representing 3.8% and 6.3% of the portfolio at fair value and cost, respectively. This compares to 6 investments on nonaccrual status as of June 30, 2025, representing 2.1% and 4.8% of the portfolio at fair value and cost, respectively. I would note that the quarter-over-quarter increase does include investments acquired through the Logan Ridge transaction that were on nonaccrual at the time of that transaction. It's further worth noting that 2 of the investments currently on nonaccrual status, we continue to recognize interest income on a cash basis, but is only when payments are actually received. On Slide 12, excluding our nonaccrual investments, we have an aggregate debt investment portfolio of $429.5 million at fair value, which represents a blended price of 93.1% of par value and is 84.4% comprised of first-lien loans at par value. Assuming the par recovery, our September 30, 2025 fair values reflect a potential of $31.2 million of incremental net value or a 13.7% increase to NAV. But applying an illustrative 10% default rate and 7% recovery rate, our debt portfolio would generate an incremental $1.36 per share of NAV or a 7.8% increase as of our [indiscernible]. I'll now turn the call over to Brandon to further discuss our financial results for the quarter. Brandon Satoren: Thanks, Patrick. For the quarter ended September 30, 2025, the company generated $18.9 million in investment income an increase of $6.3 million compared to $12.6 million reported for the quarter ended June 30, 2025. Core income for the same period periods was $15.3 million and $12.6 million, respectively. The increase in investment income from the prior quarter was primarily driven by the Logan Ridge acquisition, which contributed $7.4 million of GAAP income and $3.8 million of core. For the quarter ended September 30, 2025 gross expenses were $10.3 million and net expenses were $10.1 million, which includes the $0.2 million performance-based incentive fee waiver. This represents a $2 million increase compared to $8.1 million for the prior quarter. The increase in expenses compared to the prior quarter reflects the larger combined company. Accordingly, our net investment income for the quarter ended September -- for the third quarter of 2025 was $8.8 million or $0.71 per share, which constitutes an increase of $4.3 million or $0.21 per share from $4.6 million or $0.50 per share for the second quarter of 2025. Core net investment income for the third quarter of 2025 was $5.3 million or $0.42 per share compared to $4.6 million or $0.50 per share for the second quarter of 2025. As of September 30, 2025, our net asset value totaled $231.3 million, an increase of $66.6 million from the prior quarter's NAV of $164.7 million. The increase in total NAV on a gross dollar basis was primarily driven by net realized and unrealized gains of $14.8 million, the $49.6 million impact on a GAAP basis of the Logan Ridge acquisition, partially offset by the third quarter distribution exceeding core net investment income for the prior -- compared to the prior quarter's distribution of $1.1 million. On a per share basis, NAV was $17.55 per share as of September 30, 2025, representing a $0.34 decrease compared to $17.89 as of June 30, 2025. The decline in NAV per share was primarily due to core net investment income, which excludes purchase discount accretion, not fully covering the dividend for the quarter and approximately $4 million of mark-to-market losses across the portfolio. As of September 30, 2025, our gross and net leverage ratios were 1.4x and 1.3x, respectively, compared to 1.6x and 1.4x, respectively, in the prior quarter. Specifically, as of September 30, 2025, we had a total of $324.6 million of borrowings outstanding with a current weighted average contractual interest rate of 6.1%. This compares to $255.4 million of borrowings outstanding as of the prior quarter with a weighted average contractual interest rate 6%. The company finished the quarter with $110 million of available borrowing capacity under the senior secured revolving credit facilities subject to borrowing base restrictions. Consistent with our long-term capital approach, we proactively extended and laddered our unsecured debt maturities, issuing a $75 million, a 7.75% note that is due in October 2030 and a $35 million, 7.5% note due October 2028, while at the same time, initiating the redemption of our 4.875% notes due in April 2026 expected to be completed on or about November 13. These actions diversify funding reduce near-term refinancing risk and enhance financial flexibility. With that, I will now turn the call back over to Ted. Edward Goldthorpe: Thanks, Brandon. Other questions, I'd like to reemphasize how excited we are about the opportunities. The newly combined company are already creating. As we move forward, our focus remains on disciplined capital allocation, maintaining a high-quality portfolio and delivering attractive risk-adjusted returns for our shareholders. With a more diversified platform and a strengthened balance sheet, we believe we are well positioned to drive the continued earnings growth and value creation and the earnings in the quarters ahead. Thank you once again to all of our shareholders for your ongoing support. This concludes our prepared remarks, and I'll turn over the call for any questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your question comes from the line of Erik Zwick with Lucid Capital Markets. Erik Zwick: To start first -- I wanted to start first in terms of -- with your kind of announcement of potentially repurchasing 10% of the share. Just want to make sure, is that relative to the 9.30 million outstanding balance of about 13.96 million? Brandon Satoren: It's relative to the transaction closing shares, which was about 13.2 million off the top of my head. Let me... Edward Goldthorpe: Yes, when we announced -- when we closed the transaction, we committed to shareholders that we buyback a bunch of stock between like as soon as practically possible. And obviously, we were in a blackout period until today. So the intention is to buyback 10% of the closing amount of shares. Patrick Schafer: But Erik, the short answer is there were not a lot of days in Q3 that we could do anything because of some of the rules around 6-day pulling off period, things like that. So it's off of a slightly higher number than the September 30, but that's going to be a decent approximation. Brandon Satoren: That's right. If you recall, we had -- I was going to say, Erik, we had to wait 60 days until after closing before we could turn the buyback back on, but we did provide some color on post quarter end. Daily repurchases in our subsequent events, which was about $1.2 million. Erik Zwick: Actually, yes, I did see that, too. So great. Yes. That's helpful. And then secondly, looking at Slide 11 and just noticing the quarter-over-quarter improvement in your internal ratings performing versus underperforming. Was the majority of that change from June 30 to September 30, the result of the combination as well? Or is there any additional kind of upgrades going on within the combined portfolio? Patrick Schafer: Yes. I mean the short answer is like both. I mean, there were certain upgrades going into the portfolio, but the reality is we added a significant chunk through the Logan and kind of using those internal ratings kind of gives you that. So again, it's a little bit of both, but my hunch is the -- without giving the specifics like the -- it's probably the assets from Logan coming on to the balance sheet in those ratings as opposed to a broad swath of increases. Edward Goldthorpe: Yes, probably like the biggest surprise for us over the last 6 months is we really haven't had a lot of negative portfolio surprises. And we've had a bunch of positive portfolio surprises. And again, our LPs and our shareholders are a little rattled by some of the recent headlines out there around First Brands, Tricolor, this telecom name last week. The reality is a lot of those are really idiosyncratic. I mean a lot of them are related to fraud, #1. But #2 is a lot of the underperformance has been in their asset-based parts of their business as opposed to their cash flow-based parts of their business. So this BDC sell-off, we think, is probably overdone. It's beginning to correct a little bit, but we're not seeing broad-based weakness in our portfolio. Erik Zwick: I appreciate the commentary there. And I would echo that sentiment just from the number of portfolios I've reviewed so far this earnings season. And just with respect to the 10 credits that are on nonaccrual at this point. Could you just kind of maybe walk through your strategy and methodology for resolving those, if there's any potential for restructurings or sales or resolutions in the near term for any of those? Patrick Schafer: Yes, Erik, I mean, the short answer is they're all very like company specific. So there's 1 name that we're in the process of restructuring and that hopefully is going to get resolved in Q4, it maybe it flips into Q1, but that's a kind of relatively near-term thing that we'll get resolved out. There's one of them that is sort of for sale in the market and hopefully, they have a couple of provisions and hopefully some are all that get resolved in Q4 and then -- but other than that, the rest of them is, again, continuing to optimize what's the best return, whether that is putting a little bit more capital to growing the businesses, whether it's looking for restructuring the balance sheet or just kind of an outright sale, each of the opportunities are sort of like one-off and have their own kind of crossing path. But there are, again, probably 2 or 3 companies that we would hope to have a near-term resolution on. Edward Goldthorpe: Erik, it's worth highlighting. Last quarter, you may have noticed there were 2 assets we put on cash basis income recognition, that's generally a good indicator when you start recognizing some income on the assets. And again, when those assets are current on the debt and paying their coupon interest. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Steven Martin with Slater Capital. Steven Martin: Congratulations on getting the deal done and cleaning -- starting the cleanup process. With respect to the buyback, which you know we applaud, how is that going to affect your ability to continue to do deals going forward? And can you also talk about what the Q4 activity level looks like? Edward Goldthorpe: Yes, I'll answer the first comment. I mean, if you look this quarter, we obviously came into the quarter with a lot of cash because we were just kind of gearing up for this, again, when you take huge step back, if you look at where spreads are in the middle market, versus where our stock trades, it's still accretive for us to buyback stock. So we aren't seeing -- there's a massive pipeline that I should really defer to Patrick on this, but we have a massive pipeline of what I would call generic sponsored finance. The ability to get premium pricing, I would say, or wider spreads. Our pipeline in that area is probably not as robust -- so we've a limited amount of supply like L475, L500 kind of thing. We're not seeing a lot of like much wider spread and stuff that we like right now. I don't know, Patrick, if you approve that. Patrick Schafer: No, those are right. I've kind of said this several times on our calls. But from our perspective, it's around getting the right pipeline in the portfolio as opposed to, as I said, that we could load up on S475, S500 (sic) [ L475, L500 ] unitranches. I'm not sure that, that ultimately spits out the right ROE for our shareholders. So we're being careful and judicious with how we actually deploy our capital, but we do have a very, very large pipeline of opportunities to the extent that sort of we feel like the credit and the pricing align with each other. Steven Martin: [indiscernible] your investing in your own stock at the -- where your own stock trades? Patrick Schafer: Yes, that's right. So again, we run the math every single quarter for our board and we show the math of doing a new investment versus the buyback and buybacks generally. They're kind of fairly similar, to be honest, depending on what you see on pricing, but buybacks over guaranteed return. And we feel like it's pretty shareholder friendly and we're supportive of making the right capital allocation decisions for our shareholders. Edward Goldthorpe: Yes. And I think it's worth noting, Steve, that, just to sort of reinforcing the point that we think it's important to do for shareholders at these prices, especially because of the day 1 have impact. However, it is hard to buyback large swaths of our equity and maintain prudent leverage ratios. So you'll note the fund is going to buyback $7.5 million. Management is going to come in and fill out the rest of the order flows for the buyback. So recognizing exactly what you're heading at. Steven Martin: Yes. No, look, we applaud both and we have been a proponent of management increasing its stake as well. Just out of a curiosity, has there been any further realizations. I assume most of what's in the legacy LRFC portfolio is still a lot of equity? Patrick Schafer: No, I don't think that's a fair statement. I don't have the number off the top of my head to be honest, Steve. But it's probably disproportionate relative to the rest of our book. But I would have to run the math, but I'd -- I mean, maybe it's 1/3 to 1/2 of it, $20 million or so of equity. But I would not say it's the majority of it. Steven Martin: Okay. On that same page, just out of curiosity on Page 10, the weighted average yield on debt investments at par is 13.8%, does that have something to do with the purchase accounting because it jumped up from 10.7% to 13.8%? Edward Goldthorpe: Yes, that's exactly right. So on a core basis, it's about 10.3%, Steve. But that is the impact of purchase accounting accretion you may note when you do an asset acquisition, the Board negotiates everything on a NAV-for-NAV basis, but the actual accounting for it, when you issue the equity, it actually is issued at the market price or closing stock price on the issuance date. So because of the discount to NAV on the issuance date, that creates a large disconnect between the NAV you're bringing on. And the dollar value of the purchase reflected in your financials, which creates an unrealized gain that's allocated to the cost basis of your investment portfolio, which is accretive... Steven Martin: I got that. You might want to consider either footnoting that or putting a second number there? Patrick Schafer: Yes, good call. Again, putting the 2 portfolios together was slightly dilutive on a yield at par basis. But as I mentioned on the call, our new origination was about 12.5% yield. So obviously, we're -- we're being thoughtful and selective about our new investments to kind of work on increasing that yield despite sort of where kind of spreads are going in the market in general. Steven Martin: Okay. Can you talk about PIK this quarter? It didn't move too much and what's going on, on the PIK side of the portfolio? Brandon Satoren: Steve, it actually did come down quite a bit as a percentage of the book. It's down to about 14.3% and it was pulling up what it was last quarter, but it was quite a bit higher, north of 20%, I believe. Yes, 19.5%. Steven Martin: As a percentage of the current quarter's income. Edward Goldthorpe: Yes, that's right. Yes, I mean, it's come down quite materially, Steve. It's got its come down on a combined basis by a quarter. Patrick Schafer: Yes, by 5 points. And again, we're -- as I said, like , but part of our strategy is a good amount, but -- not good amount, but we have securities on our book to have a mix of cash and cash and PIK, we have investments that we do that we look at a first-lien and a preferred equity investment together for the same company, and that preferred is PIK and the first lien is cash. So again, as you've kind of noted before, not all PIK are bad PIK, but we are certainly actively working to reduce that number and are conscious of market perception of that and are being careful as we think about new deals and how we think about allocating to kind of make sure that we are overweighting cash opportunities versus things that have a blend of cash impact... Steven Martin: Okay. Brandon overhead expenses and the expense side of the income statement. Is this quarter exemplary -- or is there -- does this quarter still have merger-related costs that are going to come out? Brandon Satoren: So this is actually a pretty decent run rate. Most of the transaction costs don't flow through the income statement here, they hit NAV on the closing date. There were some elevated expenses, obviously, for time spent integrating the portfolios, et cetera. However, we closed on July 15. So there's next quarter we'll have 15 days of extra expenses. However, we think that $1.9 million, $1.8 million number is a reasonable run rate for the combined. Steven Martin: Got it. Professional fees were elevated. Is that still residual? Brandon Satoren: Yes, exactly. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Christopher Nolan with Ladenburg. Christopher Nolan: Steve, just asked all my questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Erik Zwick with Lucid Capital Markets. Erik Zwick: Just a quick follow-up. On the topic of the purchasing accounting accretion, was all of the discount recorded in 3Q? Or I suspect there may still be potentially more so what is that balance and over what kind of time period will the remaining amount be recognized? Brandon Satoren: Yes. Brandon, but it's generally recognized over the duration of the underlying assets themselves -- so it's tough to tell you exactly in what that would be, the decline curve, if you will, is going to be based on how those assets get monetized and what their maturity dates are, et cetera. Erik Zwick: In terms of -- go ahead. Brandon Satoren: I was going to say, Erik, there was about just north of $21 million of purchase accounting accretion. There's about $18 million left. So I would just say, generally speaking, the a lot of the purchase accounting increase in tends to work its way through the book in the first couple of quarters after closing. It is recognized over time, but obviously, you have assets with shorter maturities, things like that and natural portfolio rotation as a result of the integration that again, this quarter, we had $3.6 million on effectively a stub quarter, so. Erik Zwick: Yes. Okay. So a greater amount up front end and it will kind of trail off as that portfolio kind of matures and pay down over time. That's very helpful. Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Ted Goldthorpe for closing remarks. Edward Goldthorpe: Thank you all for attending our call. As always, please reach out to us with any questions, which we're happy to discuss. We look forward to speaking to you again in March when we announce our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. Have a good weekend, and thank you very much. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good morning, and welcome to Fairfax's 2025 Third Quarter Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Your host for today's call is Peter Clarke with opening remarks from Derek Bulas. Derek, please begin. Derek Bulas: Good morning, and welcome to our call to discuss Fairfax's 2025 third quarter results. This call may include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ perhaps materially from those contained in such forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of uncertainties and risk factors, the most foreseeable of which are set out under Risk Factors in our base shelf prospectus, which has been filed with Canadian securities regulators and is available on SEDAR+. Fairfax disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable securities law. I'll now turn the call over to our President and COO, Peter Clarke. Peter Clarke: Thank you, Derek. Good morning, and welcome to Fairfax's 2025 Third Quarter Conference Call. I plan to give you some highlights and then pass the call to Wade Burton, our President and Chief Investment Officer of Hamblin Watsa, to comment on investments; and Amy Sherk, our Chief Financial Officer, to provide some additional financial details. We had an excellent third quarter with net earnings of $1.2 billion, up from $1 billion in the third quarter of 2024. This gives us net earnings of $3.5 billion for the first 9 months of 2025. Operating income from our insurance and reinsurance companies adjusted to an undiscounted basis and before risk margin was $1.3 billion in the third quarter, up from $1.1 billion in the third quarter of 2024. Our interest and dividend income was $655 million. Underwriting income was very strong in the quarter at $540 million, while our share of profits in associates was $305 million. We had strong operating income from our noninsurance consolidated companies at $211 million and net gains on investments in the quarter were again very healthy at $426 million. All in, our book value per share increased to $1,204, up 15.1% for the first 9 months of the year, adjusted for our $15 dividend. Now some additional comments on our insurance operations. Underwriting results in the quarter, as I said before, were very strong with a combined ratio of 92%, producing an underwriting profit of $540 million. We've only had 2 quarters with a higher underwriting profit, and those were the fourth quarters in both the last 2 years, both of which we benefited from reserve releases following the full reviews conducted in the fourth quarter. All our insurance segments continue to produce underwriting profit. We benefited from a lower level of catastrophe losses in the quarter with the third quarter historically being more volatile quarter from catastrophes. Our global insurers and reinsurers had a combined ratio of 91.3% and underwriting profit of $326 million in the quarter. Allied World had an excellent quarter with a combined ratio of 88.9%, Odyssey Group, 91.2%. Brit's combined ratio was 92.1% and Ki had an elevated combined ratio in the quarter of 105.4%, primarily due to costs from the separation from Brit. As we previously mentioned, in 2025, Ki began operating as its own separate company. Excluding separation costs, Ki's combined ratio year-to-date is 95%. After a difficult first quarter due to the significant catastrophe losses from the California wildfires, our global insurers and reinsurers have produced underwriting profit of $606 million year-to-date. Our North American insurers had a combined ratio of 93% for the third quarter, led by Northbridge with a very strong combined ratio of 86.9% Crum & Forster had underwriting income of $60 million or a combined ratio of 94.8%, while Zenith, our workers' compensation specialist, after a number of quarters with a combined ratio above 100 came in at 99.7%. Zenith has been dealing with multiple years of rate decreases in the workers' compensation space, but we are happy to say rates have now begun to stabilize and Zenith are pleased to see some premium increases coming its way. Our international operations delivered a very good quarter with a combined ratio of 92.4%. Bryte, who has been taking underwriting actions the last number of years are seeing it come through in their results. They had a combined ratio of 93.8%. Latin America posted a combined ratio of 94%. Central and Eastern Europe was at 94.5% and Fairfax Asia posted a 94.5% combined ratio as well. Eurolife General Insurance had a great quarter at 91.2%, benefiting from favorable reserve development and Gulf Insurance, the largest company in our international operations, had an excellent combined ratio of 90.5%, also benefiting from favorable reserve development. Gulf's combined ratio has been trending positively after being elevated in 2024, normalizing to its historical combined ratio levels. The strong results of our insurance operations have not gone unnoticed by the rating agencies. In the second quarter, Standard & Poor's upgraded the financial strength rating of our core operating companies to AA-. A.M. Best also upgraded Allied World, Crum & Forster and Northbridge's financial strength ratings to A+. Odyssey was already at the A+ level. In the third quarter, we wrote $8.2 billion of gross premium, down slightly from the third quarter of 2024. If you exclude Gulf Insurance, our premiums were up 3.1%. Our global insurer and reinsurer segment was up 3.2%, with gross premiums of $4.2 billion in the third quarter, reflecting growth across all our companies in this segment. Brit's gross premium was $720 million in the quarter, up 4% year-over-year, with growth in its programs and facilities business as well on the reinsurance side through its Bermuda reinsurer, Brit Re. In the third quarter 2025, Ki wrote $226 million of premium, up 15% from the third quarter of 2024, principally in property treaty, marine and energy lines of business. Odyssey Group's premiums were up 3% in the quarter with gross premium written of $1.6 billion. Its insurance business was the driver of the growth at both Nine and Hudson, while its reinsurance business was relatively flat. Allied World premium increased 1.7% in the quarter with gross premiums of $1.7 billion. Insurance was up 1.6%, driven by their Global Markets division and their Reinsurance segment was up 2.3%. Our North American Insurance segment wrote gross premiums of $2.4 billion in the third quarter, approximately flat over the third quarter of 2024. Zenith premium was up 10%, reflecting new workers' comp business and price increases in its agribusiness book. Crum & Forster premium was 1.4%, driven by its Accident & Health business and Surplus and Specialty segment, offset by credit insurance, and Northbridge's gross premium was down 4% in Canadian dollar terms compared to the third quarter of 2024. The decrease at Northbridge reflects moderating rates for commercial lines in Canada. The international insurance and reinsurance operations gross premiums were $1.5 billion, down 11.6% in the third quarter of 2025 versus the third quarter of 2024. Excluding Gulf Insurance, the international premium was up 10%. Bryte in South Africa had strong growth across its distribution channels with premium of $128 million in the quarter, up 20%. Our Central and Eastern European business led by Colonnade continues to grow profitably, writing $200 million of premium in the quarter, up 11.7%. Fairfax Asia was up 13% with strong growth across all its companies. And in Latin America, premium was up 6.1%. As I mentioned earlier, offsetting the growth in our International segment was Gulf Insurance, whose net premium was down 13%, principally due to timing. This will normalize in the fourth quarter. Our international operations now make up 20% of our total gross premiums and the long-term prospects of our international operations are excellent and will be a significant source of growth over time, driven by excellent management teams that are more and more collaborating among themselves and leveraging the strengths of the group within our decentralized structure. In the third quarter, our insurance and reinsurance companies recorded favorable reserve development of $111 million or a benefit of 1.6 combined ratio points on our combined ratio. Each of our major segments recorded favorable reserve development with releases coming primarily on short-tail lines of business. Our companies performed full actuarial reserve reviews in the fourth quarter and are in that process now. In the fourth quarter of 2024, we benefited from reserve releases of $301 million. Our overall reserve position remains strong. Through our decentralized operations, our insurance and reinsurance companies continue to produce outstanding results, writing over $33 billion in annualized gross premium with healthy underlying margins. While the general trends in the market are softening, we do not believe we are yet in a soft market. The wide variety of markets and segments our companies participate in allow us to grow in more attractive areas while curtailing our activity in less attractive ones. We also benefit greatly from our team of long-standing presidents running our companies. Our experienced teams have managed effectively through the insurance cycles in the past, both hard and soft. As the market turns, we will maintain underwriting discipline through quality risk selection and price adequacy with a laser focus on the bottom line. The company's robust capital position, strong reserve base, margins in our existing business and the scale and diversification of our operations will allow us to be patient for opportunities to arise. I will now give you some additional detail on our investment earnings for the quarter. Our consolidated investment return was solid in the third quarter with a quarterly return of 1.9%. Consolidated interest and dividend income of $655 million was up 7.5% year-over-year benefiting from a growing investment portfolio and increased dividend income in the quarter. Profits of associates was strong at $305 million, up by $45 million compared to the third quarter of 2024. Profits of associates continue to be driven by Eurobank and Poseidon Corp. In the quarter, we had net gains on investments of $426 million, driven by gains on our equity exposures of $525 million, offset by losses on our bond portfolio of $44 million, primarily from government bonds and losses on other investments of $54 million, primarily reflecting unrealized losses on our preferred shares in Digit Insurance. Net gains of $525 million on our equity and equity-related holdings were driven principally by unrealized gains on Orla Mining, Commercial International Bank and [ Forum ]. We have always said, and please remember, our net gains or losses on investments only make sense over the long term and will fluctuate from quarter-to-quarter or for that matter, year-to-year. More on investments from Wade. As mentioned in previous quarters, our book value per share of $1,204 does not include unrealized gains or losses in our equity accounted investments and our consolidated investments, which are not mark-to-market. At the end of the third quarter, the fair value of these securities is in excess of carrying value by $2.5 billion, an unrealized gain position or $117 per share on a pretax basis, an increase of approximately $1 billion for the year, primarily driven by Eurobank. In October, we announced an agreement to sell our 80% interest in Eurolife's life insurance operations for approximately $940 million to Eurobank. At the same time, Fairfax will purchase a 45% interest in Eurobank's property and casualty company in Cyprus, ERB Insurance for approximately $68 million. We are pleased to be able to maintain focus of our insurance operations on property and casualty insurance and reinsurance while still benefiting from the continued success of Eurolife's life business through our ownership stake in the bank. We wish the very best to Nikos, Delendas and the entire team that will be moving under the ownership of Eurobank. We expect a pretax gain of approximately $250 million on the transaction that will be trued up and accounted for on closing of the transaction, which is expected in the first quarter of 2026. We are also happy to announce that Alex Sarrigeorgiou, the current CEO of Eurolife, will transition to become Executive Chairman of Eurolife's General P&C Insurance operation and Chairman of our new Cyprus company. Vassilis Nikiforakis, currently CFO of Eurolife, will become Managing Director and CEO of the General Insurance business. Vassilis has been with Eurolife for 18 years and is another great example of the internal transactions that we like to make within our organization. Earlier this week, Fairfax and Bill McMorrow, Chairman and CEO of Kennedy-Wilson, issued a take-private offer to the Board of Directors of Kennedy-Wilson for $10.25 per share, a premium of approximately 38% of the closing stock that day. Their Board has formed a special committee to evaluate the proposal and its options. We do not plan to provide any updates on last and until we enter into a definitive agreement regarding the proposed transaction. There have been some questions recently regarding share ownership of our executives. I wanted to highlight that all our senior executives receive a significant amount of their annual compensation in Fairfax shares with the shares vesting over time. It is not often, but there are times when some executives may sell shares for personal reasons such as estate planning or general tax purposes. We don't generally comment on the specific personal circumstances of any reporting insider, but we can say that it's important to us that all members of our executive team maintain meaningful significant proportions of their personal wealth and Fairfax shares, which is the case today, especially due to the long-term tenor of our officers and executives. As an insider and Hamblin Watsa executive, it was reported in the quarter that Wade Burton had sold some Fairfax shares for family and estate planning. After the sale, he continues to hold 80% of his original position. Fairfax bought the shares sold by Wade in the open market. And as we mentioned in our press release, Fairfax continued to buy back shares in the third quarter and in the fourth quarter as well under our share buyback plan. We view this as a great long-term investment for the company. We continue to benefit from a stable base of annual operating income of approximately $5 billion. And we expect, of course, no guarantees, it is sustainable for the next 3 to 4 years, with $2.5 billion from interest and dividend income, $1.5 billion from underwriting profit with normalized catastrophe losses and $1 billion from associates and noninsurance companies. Fluctuations in stock and bond prices will be on top of that, but this only really matters over the long term. I will now pass the call to Wade Burton, our President and Chief Investment Officer of Hamblin Watsa, to comment on our investment. Wade Burton: Thank you, Peter, and good morning. We continue to be in excellent shape on the investment side at Fairfax. Just as a reminder, our portfolio is roughly broken into 3 categories: fixed income to support the reserves, public mark-to-market common stocks and preferred investments and equity accounted associates and privately owned companies. Our fixed income investments ended the quarter at $50.9 billion with an average yield of 5.1%. The fixed income investments are conservatively positioned with low duration and very little credit risk. What we do take on for credit risk like our mortgage portfolio is stringently underwritten credit by credit. Our team spends a lot of effort analyzing the credit quality on anything not backed by government. Over the years, our performance on this class of fixed income has been outstanding. Our common stock and preferred investments ended Q3 at $14.2 billion. Outside of the Fairfax TRS, which we see as excellent value, the biggest investments are Metlen Energy and Metals, Orla Mining, CIB Bank in Egypt, Strathcona Energy and Strathcona Energy, a Western Canadian oil company capably run by Adam Waterous. We know all of these investments well. Management in all cases is outstanding, all are well financed and cheap. And from an underlying business standpoint, it's easy to see the path to compounding our investment dollars on each one. The equity accounted associates and privately owned companies ended Q3 at $11.8 billion, led by Eurobank, Poseidon and Recipe, but now also including Sleep Country, Peak Achievement and Meadow, all are in outstanding shape, and most are having a strong 2025 so far. In all our controlled investee companies, operations are decentralized. The presidents run their businesses. Fairfax is in charge of the capital decisions, the President is in charge of operations. We also get involved in succession to make sure any transitions are seamless. While we hope our presidents live forever, sometimes it's not the case, and we work to ensure the companies continue in the Fairfax mold. Lastly, given it's a quiet quarter on the investment side, I thought I'd touch on our investment team. In the beginning and for many years, it was Prem, Roger and Brian, the founding group, who really ran the investments. Over the last 15 years or so, we have added a lot of outstanding talent, and it's really exciting to see how well the team is working together with the founding group. The team is a big part of why I'm so optimistic and confident about the investment side of Fairfax. It's a sensible, accountable and experienced group focused on the right things for shareholders and really working well together. With that, I'll pass it over to Amy Sherk, our CFO. Amy Sherk: Thank you, Wade. I'll begin my comments by discussing our noninsurance company results in the third quarter of 2025. Noninsurance companies reported operating income of $211 million in the third quarter of 2025 compared to $49 million in the third quarter of 2024, primarily reflecting the acquisition of Sleep Country on October 1, 2024, and the consolidation of Peak Achievement on December 20, 2024, which recorded operating earnings of $34 million and $53 million, respectively, in the third quarter of 2025. Additionally, operating income for the third quarter of 2025 benefited from higher margins at AGT and higher business volumes at Grivalia Hospitality. Our noninsurance company segment also include our consolidated holdings in Recipe, Fairfax India, Dexterra, Sporting Life, Thomas Cook and Meadow Foods. As Wade mentioned, all of these companies have continued to perform well in the first 9 months of 2025. Looking at our share of profit from investments and associates in the third quarter of 2025, consolidated share of profit of associates of $305 million in the third quarter of 2025 principally reflected our share of profit of $141 million from Eurobank, $68 million from Poseidon and $39 million from EXCO. A few comments on transactions within the quarter. On August 13, 2025, the company acquired all of the units of the Keg Royalties Income Fund that it did not already own for purchase consideration of $150 million or CAD 207 million. and subsequently completed a reorganization to amalgamate its wholly owned subsidiary, Keg Restaurants Limited with the Keg Fund. The company then partnered with LSG Growth Partners led by Mr. Richard Jaffray and on September 25, 2025, deconsolidated the assets and liabilities of the Keg from Recipe and its noninsurance reporting segment and has recorded its retained interest in the Keg as an investment in associates. On August 1, 2025, Blue Ant Media became a public company via reverse takeover of Boat Rocker, which was then renamed Blue Ant Media Corporation. The company deconsolidated the assets and liabilities of Blue Ant Media from its noninsurance reporting segment and recorded its retained interest in Blue Ant Media at fair value through profit and loss within portfolio investments. Subsequent to September 30, 2025, the company has purchased 107,525 of its subordinate voting shares for cancellation at an aggregate cost of $178 million or $1,659 per share. The company's consolidated statement of earnings in the third quarter and first 9 months of 2025 were also impacted by changes in interest rates and specifically the effects they had on discounting on prior year net losses on claims and our fixed income portfolio. Net earnings of $1.2 billion in the third quarter of 2025 included a net loss of $308 million, reflecting the effect of changes in interest rates during the quarter, comprised of a net loss on insurance contracts and reinsurance contracts held of $263 million and net losses on bonds of $44 million. We generally expect that a decrease in interest rates will result in an increase to the carrying values of the company's fixed income portfolio and its liability for incurred claims, net of reinsurance, resulting in the partial mitigation of interest rate risk. In the current quarter, however, we recorded net losses on both. Net losses on bonds were disproportionately impacted by unrealized losses on certain other government bonds that experienced an increase in yield during the quarter, which outweighed gains on U.S. treasuries and other bonds that benefited from declining yields, while the net loss on insurance contracts and reinsurance contract assets held primarily reflected decreased short-term discount rates. Comparatively, net earnings of $1 billion in the third quarter of 2024 included a net benefit of $64 million, reflecting the effect of changes of interest rates comprised of net gains on bonds of $829 million, partially offset by net losses on insurance contracts and reinsurance contract assets held of $765 million. When you compare the year-over-year change on a pretax basis, the changes in interest rates resulted in an approximate $371 million movement in our pretax earnings. Despite the unusual results in the third quarter of 2025, on a year-to-date basis, the company recorded a net loss on insurance contracts and reinsurance contracts held of $486 million and net gains on bonds of $419 million, which aligned with our general expectation for the partial mitigation of interest rate risk. Please refer to Page 37 of our MD&A within the company's interim consolidated financial statements for the third quarter of 2025, for a table that presents the company's total effects of discounting and risk adjustment on our net insurance liabilities and the effects of changes in interest rates on the company's fixed income portfolio set out in a format that the company believes assists in understanding our net exposure to interest rate risk. I will close with a few comments on our financial condition. Maintaining an emphasis on financial soundness at September 30, 2025, the company held $2.8 billion of cash and investments at the holding company, has access to our fully undrawn $2 billion unsecured revolving credit facility and an additional $1.9 billion at fair value of investments in associates and consolidated noninsurance companies owned by the holding company. Holding company cash and investments support the company's decentralized structure and enable the company to deploy capital efficiently to its insurance and reinsurance companies. On August 14, 2025, the company opportunistically completed offerings of $290 million or CAD 400 million and $218 million or CAD 300 million principal amounts of 4.45% and 5.1% unsecured senior notes due in 2035 and 2055 for net proceeds of $288 million and $216 million, respectively, after discount commissions and expenses. At September 30, the excess of fair value over carrying value of investments in noninsurance associates and market traded consolidated noninsurance subsidiaries was $2.5 billion compared to $1.5 billion at December 31, 2024. The pretax excess of $2.5 billion is not reflected in the company's book value per basic share but is regularly reviewed by management as an indicator of investment performance. The company's total debt to total capital ratio, excluding noninsurance companies, increased to 26.5% at September 30, 2025, compared to 24.8% at December 31, 2024, primarily reflecting increased total debt and redemptions of the company's Series E, F, G, H and M preferred shares partially offset by increased common shareholders' equity. The company's total debt to total capital ratio remains within the company's internal targets. Common shareholders' equity increased by approximately $2.7 billion to $25.7 billion at September 30, 2025, up from $23 billion at December 31, 2024, primarily reflecting net earnings attributable to shareholders of Fairfax of $3.5 billion, other comprehensive income of $372 million, primarily related to unrealized foreign currency translation gains, net of hedges as a result of the strengthening of foreign currencies against the U.S. dollar, partially offset by purchases of 541,794 subordinate voting shares for cancellation for cash consideration of $857 million or $1,581 per share and payments of common and preferred share dividends totaling $364 million. In closing, book value per basic share was $1,204 at September 30, 2025, compared to $1,060 at December 31, 2024, representing an increase per basic share in the first 9 months of 2025 of 15.1% adjusted to include the $15 per share common dividend paid in the first quarter of 2025. That concludes my remarks, and I will now turn the call back to Peter. Thank you. Peter Clarke: Thank you, Amy. Denise, we are now happy to take any questions you might have. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Stephen Boland with Raymond James. Stephen Boland: First. You mentioned some pockets of softness and that you're able to be a little bit more nimble, growing in the areas that are not soft, curtailing premium in some of the other areas. I'm just wondering if you could give a little bit more detail where you're seeing some of that softness? Is it geography? Is it certain business lines? If you could provide a little more detail, that would be great. Peter Clarke: Sure. Yes. Like I said in the prepared remarks, we benefit greatly from our diversified operations. We write right across the world. We write about $33 billion of premium today. And as I said, that the markets -- we do see softening in the market, but it's not a soft market. And to highlight as well that the underlying margins in the business, we continue to see to be very strong. And on the pricing side, we're getting single-digit price increases. On the casualty side, it tends to be much higher, property side, lower and especially on the property cat business, reinsurance, in particular, we're seeing pricing pressure. For that, that's not necessarily a bad thing as about 20% of our business is reinsurance. The other 80%, we buy reinsurance on that. So overall, our premiums continue to grow, but we're very focused on when pricing is coming down, we're focused on the bottom line. Operator: The next question comes from Jaeme Gloyn with National Bank Capital Markets. Jaeme Gloyn: Yes. I guess if I can ask a couple of questions here in one shot before I get cut off. First, I may have missed it, but can you talk about the strategic exited line in Canada? And then second, on the investment side of the equation, can you give us your thoughts around what are -- what's the strategy for the total return swap and using excess cash and capital to invest in businesses similar to the KW transaction, Peak transaction in businesses that you own. Is that a more likely use of capital in the near term? Peter Clarke: Sure. Thanks, Jaeme. And could you repeat your first question? Jaeme Gloyn: There was a strategic exited line at Northbridge. Peter Clarke: I'm not exactly sure of the strategic exit unless you're talking about their TruShield business, that might be what you're thinking of, and that was just a small book of business they wrote on small businesses. They did exit that, but it wasn't significant for the company. On your TRS, Fairfax TRS, we continue to hold the position. As we said in the past, it's an investment position for us, and we continue to see good value for that. And then on the private side, yes, no, if there's companies we know really well with strong management positions and there's minority interest -- if value is there, we'll continue to look at allocating capital to that. But it's all part of the bigger picture really. First is our financial strength we're focused on. Second, capital in our insurance companies, maintaining that, buying back our own shares. We have minority interest in our own insurance companies as well that we'd like to buy back over time. And then we can invest any excess capital in whichever way Hamblin Watsa thinks where the value is. So thank you for your question. And next question, please. Operator: [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Tom MacKinnon with BMO Capital. Tom MacKinnon: I'm going to follow James' strategy of trying to get in with 2. The first is just with respect to the noninsurance companies, some pretty good lift in terms of their contribution. A lot of it's embedded in align, that's other. You've got Grivalia Hospitality, maybe AGT in there, some other companies. If you can give us a little bit more color what you're seeing there, if there's anything unusual in the quarter? And then the other is about the cash component of your investment portfolio. It's 17% now, and I think it was 15% in the second quarter. Any comments about why that may have increased and what you're thinking about there? Peter Clarke: Sure. Thanks, Tom. Just on our noninsurance consolidated investments, you're exactly right, it's performing very well. Eurobank and Poseidon continue to drive the results. And if you look at both of those companies, the largest companies in that group, continue to perform very, very well. We think there's still good value in both of the companies. They're trading at maybe around 8x earnings. And so with the management teams at both of those, we're very excited about the future. And then adding in that bucket, we have Fairfax India. We have Recipe, Meadows, Peak. So a lot of good companies there that have strong earnings, and we're very excited about the future for these noninsurance consolidated investments. Your second question on the cash position. You're exactly right. It's been building over time. It's about 17% of the portfolio. With the markets where they are today, we want to keep our portfolio as conservative as possible and with investment flexibility. That's why we have a large cash position. We have a large government bond position. And in the meantime, we're earning a nice return on that. And we can wait for opportunities to come our way and react accordingly. So thank you for your question, Tom. Operator: That comes from Daniel Baldini with Oberon Asset Management. Daniel Baldini: Wonderful results once again. So my question is about prediction markets. And I noticed a couple of months ago a little article on a website called Risk Market News entitled the Prediction Markets Are Coming for Risk Markets and Insurance. And there were a couple of lines in there that I'll read quickly. So weather prediction markets now handle trades reaching tens of thousands of dollars with institutional participation growing rapidly as firms explore parametric hedging outside traditional insurance structures. The implications are profound, where insurers traditionally relied on cat models and broker negotiations, prediction markets offer instant liquid pricing for weather-related exposures, and it goes on and on. Anyway, the volumes clearly are very small, but ICE just announced a $2 billion investment in Polymarket. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you might position Fairfax to avoid being disrupted by prediction markets. Peter Clarke: No, thank you for the question. No, and it's a good question. We're always looking at the future of insurance and insurtech and how it could disrupt our business going forward and especially with AI, we have a group of a team at Fairfax made up from all our companies that are focusing on AI. And in particular, on the weather-related and cat side, we still just -- we traditionally -- we just focus on the reinsurance side. We don't participate on a lot of the models -- I mean, the index models and writing that types of business. But it isn't a risk to our industry. And we look at it carefully. We analyze it. All our companies are on top of it. But for now, we're happy where we are. We're not really participating in that, and we'll see how it goes over time. So thank you for your question. Operator: The next question comes from [ Josh Donfeld ] with [ Greenland ]. Unknown Analyst: I want to ask you about how you're looking at some of the bank privatizations and potential M&A in India. Peter Clarke: Yes. No, our -- we have -- as you know, we have a significant investment in India, primarily through Fairfax India, and we have a long history of investing there, and we have a team on the ground that has done an outstanding job. So we'll continue to look at India. We're very high on it as we have some significant holdings such as the Bangalore International Airport, CSB Bank, IIFL Holdings, all within Fairfax India. Outside of that, we have Thomas Cook, Quess and Digit Insurance, our P&C insurance company within India. On the banking side, currently, CSB is our largest banking position. On privatization, there's really nothing that we would comment on at this time. Thank you for your question. Operator: There are currently no further questions. Peter Clarke: Well, thank you, Denise. If there are no further questions then, thank you for joining us on our third quarter 2025 conference call. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. That does conclude today's conference. Thank you for dialing in. We appreciate your participation. Have a great rest of your day, and you may disconnect.
Operator: Hello, and welcome to the Proximus Q3 2025 Results Conference Call. My name is Sergey, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note, this conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand you over to your host, Nancy Goossens, Investor Relations lead, to begin today's conference. Thank you. Nancy Goossens: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Proximus Third Quarter Results Webcast. We will begin with our presentation, and it is my pleasure to introduce our new CEO, Stijn Bijnens, who will walk you through today's highlights. Our CFO, Mark Reid, will then present the financial results. A Q&A session will follow with Jim Casteele, the consumer market lead also participating. Handing over now to Stijn for the highlights. Please go ahead. Stijn Bijnens: Also, welcome from my side. I'm honored to present my first round of Proximus results to you today. As you have seen in our published report this morning, Proximus continued its robust domestic performance despite the intense competitive environment. This is reflected in both another strong financial and operational quarter. Network leadership remains at the core of the success with 5G coverage now over 85% and fiber in the street covering more than 47% of the Belgian homes and businesses. We're pleased that the Belgian Competition Authority announced the launch of the market test and our proposed gigabit network collaboration in Flanders, while the negotiations in Wallonia are ongoing. The Proximus Global segment continues to experience challenges related to SMS CPaaS and integration issues, prompting a reassessment of ambitions, which will be addressed later in this presentation. And finally, we concluded the sale of Be-Mobile, keeping us well on track to realize the EUR 600 million asset sales program. Based on the results and current projections, we've updated our outlook, which I'll discuss shortly. Moving to our key financial results now. For the Domestic segment, we closed the third quarter with stable services revenues. Thanks to a favorable revenue mix, driving higher margins and costs turning stable year-on-year, we closed Q3 with a domestic EBITDA growing 1.8%. For the Global segment, the direct margin was down by 12.2% at constant currency, caused by the headwinds previously mentioned. This resulted in an EBITDA decline of 22.3% despite cost synergy realizations. This brings our group EBITDA to EUR 475 million for the third quarter, a decline by 1%. Our CapEx for the first 9 months was EUR 826 million. And the free cash flow, we ended the first 9 months with EUR 428 million in total. Excluding the proceeds from asset sales, our organic free cash flow was EUR 159 million, a strong improvement year-on-year. Let's have a look now at the operational results. Despite the intense competition, the operational performance was very strong with mobile postpaid adding 45,000 cards and our Internet subscriber base growing by 12,000 lines. Our convergent base continued its steady growth, adding 12,000 residential customers in the third quarter. The solid commercial performance was supported by the portfolio changes of the Proximus brands, attractive mobile joint offers and the ongoing convergence strategy. We also continued focusing on innovation and optimizing the customer journey as we launched our new features to help customers onboard via eSIM. Regarding the B2B unit, which closely aligns with my professional background, Proximus holds a robust position in the market today, and we are developing strategies to capture growth opportunities. I'm committed to shape Proximus B2B future and to drive growth, leveraging the strong network assets of Proximus while exploring new layers of innovation. Our focus is on sovereignty and next-generation AI opportunities. To make this happen, we will be collaborating with leading technology partners to validate impactful use cases. We will elaborate on this during the Capital Markets Day in February. As previously mentioned, the high-quality network is an essential contributor to the success of Proximus. Across Belgium, we have now a total of almost 2.5 million fiber homes, meaning a population coverage of over 41% and including fiber in the Street, we are at 47% coverage. The fiber network filling rate progressed to 33%, up from 30% 1 year back. At the end of September, the base of active fiber customers totaled 684,000, including 39,000 added over the third quarter. We are pleased with the announcement of the Belgium regulators on the start of a market test assessing our proposed gigabit network collaboration between wire, Telenet and Proximus in France. The market test will conclude on Friday, November 21. At the same time, fiber negotiations in the South are ongoing. As a last point on the domestic side, I would like to highlight the progress made on the disposal program of noncore assets. As was announced at closing, the sale of Be-Mobile was completed early October and leaves us very much on track for the EUR 600 million ambition that we have set for the end of '27. Turning to the full year guidance. For domestic, we reiterate our outlook given end of July with domestic EBITDA expected to grow up to 2%. This despite the impact of the Be-Mobile divestment and not having renewed the football broadcasting contract with DAZN. Taking into account the ongoing headwinds regarding the Proximus Global segment, we expect the EBITDA of Global to be lower year-on-year by around minus 10%. We have lowered this year's guidance for accrued CapEx to approximately EUR 1.250 billion. This is because the integration of Fiberklaar is leading to more effective and efficient fiber rollout some lower project-related CapEx and less investment needs for Global. This, combined with not having renewed the Belgian football contract leads to organic free cash flow expected to land to around EUR 100 million. And finally, the projected 2025 net debt-to-EBITDA ratio improved to around 2.8. We also confirm our intention to return an interim dividend of EUR 0.30 per share payable on December 5, post final approval of the Board scheduled later this month. For Global specifically, we have reassessed our growth projections for the coming year. While new growth initiatives have been launched and cost synergy delivery is progressing, high exposure to the legacy P2P voice and messaging and as well as SMS CPaaS is expected to continue having a significant impact. Therefore, the '26 Global ambition is being adjusted. The preliminary review for 2026 indicates Proximus Global EBITDA will be in the range of EUR 100 million to EUR 130 million. In collaboration with Seckin Arikan, the new global CEO, a strategic plan is being developed with the objective of resuming growth from 2027 onwards. An update on the plan for Proximus Global will be provided at the Capital Markets Day. I hand over to Mark now for the detailed financial results. Mark Reid: Thank you, Stijn. Let me start by taking you through the financial sections of the domestic business. Starting with our domestic revenue, as illustrated on the chart, services revenue grew slightly. And when including revenue from Terminals and IT hardware, the total revenue remained broadly stable year-over-year. The third quarter growth was mainly driven by continued increase in the Services revenue of the residential unit. This -- thanks to the January 2025 price indexation and ongoing convergent customer growth. Revenue from Terminals was only slightly lower year-on-year in contrast to the previous 2 quarters. The most valuable part of the residential revenue, customer services revenue is growing by 1.8% with convergent revenue up by 4.5 percentage points year-on-year. The ARPC continued to show a positive evolution, growing 1.2%, including the price indexation effect and the benefit of a continued increase in convergent customers and fiber upselling. Turning to the business unit. The B2B, the total revenue declined by negative 0.8%, essentially due to a decrease in service revenue of 1.1%, which resulted from the continued headwinds in fixed voice and moderate decline in mobile services. The decrease is partially offset by a 1.5 percentage increase in products revenue. Taking a closer look at the B2B revenue from services, the third quarter included higher revenue from IT services growing 2.8% year-over-year, driven by growth in recurring services. Fixed data revenue recorded a limited decrease of negative 0.9% year-over-year. This resulted from the decline in traditional data connectivity services, nearly offset by continued strong revenue growth from Internet services. Despite the competitive intensity, the B2B unit maintains a solid mobile base and sees the mobile revenue decline sequentially stabilizing to 2.1% negative year-over-year. Fixed voice continued its steady decline due to a lower customer base, while value managed through price increases resulted in a sustained positive ARPU trend. The wholesale business posted a revenue decline of 11.8% due to the ongoing innovation of Interconnect revenue with no margin impact and a decline in Wholesale services revenue by 4.6% from an exceptionally high comparable base from revenue in the prior year. Moving to Domestic OpEx, which, as you can see, illustrated on the graph, continued its favorable trend and for the first time since several quarters, ended the quarter stable on a year-over-year basis. For the third quarter, inflationary and other cost increases were fully offset by our cost efficiency program. With OpEx stable and direct margin growth, the domestic EBITDA rose by 1.8% in the third quarter. Turning now to Proximus Global, for which we closed the third quarter with direct margin down 12.2% on a constant currency basis. The product group communications and data was impacted by the ongoing decline in the CPaaS SMS market, especially in the onetime password domain. Moreover, the margin from P2P voice messaging was down, reflecting structural trends in the legacy market. Whereas synergy delivery for Go-to-Market is delayed, we have realized cost synergies successfully, improving the OpEx for Global by 8.4%, again on a year-over-year basis. This could only partially offset the pressure on direct margin and led to a decrease in EBITDA for the Global segment by 22.3% on a constant currency basis. Turning to Group CapEx, we closed the first 9 months of the year with EUR 826 million compared to the same period last year. CapEx was lower mainly due to reduced customer-related CapEx as a result of, among other things, higher refurbishment rates, increased self-installation rates and improvements in operational processes. Fiber-related expenditures were slightly up with the rollout in dense areas coming down, while Fiberklaar continued expansion in the mid-dense areas. This brings me to the free cash flow for the first 9 months of the year. As illustrated on the graph, the organic free cash flow for the first 9 months of 2025 was EUR 159 million, strongly improving from 1 year back, thanks to lower cash CapEx and growing EBITDA. Our reported free cash flow of EUR 428 million includes the net proceeds from the sales of our data center business and the Luxembourg Mobile Towers. I'll now turn over to Stijn for the conclusion. Stijn Bijnens: Thanks, Mark. Just five things to conclude. Being just over 2 months in the company, it's clear for me that we have a strongly performing domestic segment, especially the residential unit is in very good shape, considering the changed market structure. Proximus maintains a solid B2B position, but there's still growth potential, and we are developing strategies to capture it. Secondly, Proximus has incredibly well-performing networks and the expanding fiber network provides Proximus a strong head start. Thirdly, we've been successful in realizing CapEx efficiencies for this year, which is supportive for an improved estimated for the Group organic free cash flow. Fourth, in contrast to the successes domestically, it is clear we have challenges with the global segment and with ongoing pressures anticipated, we have reset as a result, our targets for 2026. And as a final point, we will present our new strategic cycle for the Proximus Group together with the full year results on February 27. I'm sure you understand that given this context, I'm unable to share insights regarding the strategy at this time. However, we welcome any other questions you might have and are pleased to address them now. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Ganesha Nagesha from Barclays. Ganesha Nagesha: A couple of questions from my side. The first one on the global division. So following the recent downward revision to the global segment EBITDA guidance, so could you share like what factors give you confidence in the stability of this outlook going forward? And could you also provide some color on what specific integration challenges that still remain, which impacting the realization of the expected margin synergies? And my second question on the CapEx guidance. So your CapEx guidance for the current year implies like EUR 50 million savings achieved in the current year. You earlier indicated that the CapEx would remain stable around EUR 1.3 billion over '25 to '27. So do you still see a potential for further savings in '26, '27 as well? Or is this just one-off CapEx savings in the 2025? Stijn Bijnens: Well, thank you for the question. I'll take the first one and give the CapEx question to Mark. About Global, as an initial outcome for a broader planning process, we have done a new estimate for 2026. That has been a bottom-up exercise on a product line basis. So there are product lines that grow, as you know, and other product lines that declined. And in absolute terms, the growing business lines are still smaller than the declining business lines. So at the moment, we think and believe in 2027, there will be an inflection point of that the current smaller business lines that are growing offset the decline. So the business lines that are declining are A2P SMS, B2B voice, and it's offset by business lines that grow like cloud, omnichannel, IoT, travel SIM and digital identity. So we've done that exercise, and that's currently the best estimate we have on the business. Mark Reid: Ganesha, thank you for your question. And on 2025, look, we're pleased with the ability to have kind of taken those CapEx savings and the effect that had on our '25 free cash flow. I think as you -- as Stijn said in the presentation, we're all in the process of co-creating our strategy, and then we'll come back at the Capital Markets Day with the future outlook on CapEx. So I think unfortunately, we have to answer that today. Stijn, do you want to add to that? Stijn Bijnens: Yes. The second part of the first question, on integration issues, it's at different levels, so we had some churn of executive leadership. We strongly believe we have a strong CEO now who comes from the CPaaS market, Seckin. He knows the business. So integration issues are on the one hand in the Go-to-Market, and we're fixing that. Also in the product portfolio, we do understand the challenges are actively improving the operations and the operating model to handle these challenges. Operator: We will now take our next question from Paul Sidney from Berenberg. Paul Sidney: I also had two, please. Just firstly, on Global, you've chosen to give the Global guidance for full year '26 today. Should we view this decision as in your intention to set a floor for Global profitability ahead of the February strategic update as you sort of think about how the business looks beyond 2026? And then secondly, on domestic and Digi appears to be having a little impact in the Belgian mobile market even at the extremely low price points that they've come in at. What are you seeing in the market in terms of Digi maybe revamping their offers or doing something different? And do you expect the other operators also to do anything different going forward? Mark Reid: Paul, thank you for the question. On Global for 2026, clearly, we've done an estimate. We were conscious of the market consensus was higher than what we disclosed today. And therefore, with Stijn and Seckin arriving, we accelerated that kind of bottom-up planning process for that period of '26 and the start of '27. And so that's our estimation, and we're confident with it. It is a fairly wide range at this point, but that's what we wanted to inform the market today. So that's how we thought about updating that specific number. Jim, do you want to take the question? Jim Casteele: Yes. So indeed, on Digi, they're in the market with quite aggressive offers. For the moment, I would say that the visibility on their market campaigns is rather limited. That said, the Belgium market since the arrival of Digi has been very competitive with the B brands of the competitors also being active with assertive promotions. So in that sense, I'm really happy to see that our multi-brand strategy with Mobile Viking, Scarlet and Proximus addressing the different price points in the market is delivering on our strategy, not only allowing us to realize again very strong commercial results, but at the same time, also keeping value in the way that we do that, as you have seen in the further growth of our service revenues. Paul Sidney: Mark, can I just have a quick follow-up. In terms of when you say growth, returning to growth within Global in 2027, just to clarify, is that revenue, EBITDA, free cash flow or all of the above? Jim Casteele: It's at the level of EBITDA. Operator: We will now move to our next question from Roshan Ranjit from Deutsche Bank. Roshan Ranjit: I've got two questions, please. Maybe just touching on the domestic point. Stijn, you mentioned the good performance that you've had and if we look at the KPIs, coupled with the fact that you announced a price increase for ’26, how should we think about kind of the future evolution of your product revamp, sorry? You've been quite successful over the last, I guess, 2 years on those campaigns. What made you kind of choose the products where you have allocated those price increases to? Is that a case of trying to migrate customers away from the legacy products? Or are you still kind of running with those multi-brand options within the Proximus bundle, so the different packs within Proximus. And as an aside, you've got the Scarlet and Mobile Vikings, as you said? And secondly, we're obviously getting to the end now of the collaboration -- finalization of collaboration in Flanders. Has that given you more confidence or any insights on how the discussions with Orange Belgium in Wallonia is going as well, please? Anything you could say there, very helpful. Jim Casteele: So thank you for the question. So I will start with the price increase. So indeed, we continue to do price increases also in January next year. The way we do that is, on the one hand, trying to understand where are the products where price sensitivity is a bit lower. Next to that, of course, we recently launched our Flex+ new convergent offer in April. And then, of course, when you launch a new offer, you put it at a price point that you think is going to last for a longer period in time. So it's obvious that those tariff plans are not part of a price increase 8 months after launch. I would say, at the same time, what we do is when we do price increases, we also try to do a more-for-more approach, not necessarily always at the same time, but definitely in a short period before or after, depending on market conditions, of course. And so that's how we've been able to manage our price increases over time while keeping our customers satisfied. Of course, also always looking at the level of inflation as a sort of reference point for those price increases. It's true that we also look at management of the back prices and trying to see if we can leverage price evolutions to move people from older products to newer products, which helps them to simplify your IT systems, but also operationally makes life easier for our salespeople. And then in terms of future portfolio evolutions, as always, we look at the market to make sure that we stay competitive. As I mentioned also in my previous answer, we do this from a very value-based perspective. So if you see, for instance, October 1, we updated the midrange of the Proximus mobile offer because by doing that, we also anticipate that we can create additional value for the company. And we always look at how the 3 brands are positioned in terms of segments and price points. So that's a bit the pricing strategy that we've been executing on over the last years. And I'm happy to hear that you think this has been successful. So thank you for that. Stijn Bijnens: About your second question about the fiber rollout in Belgium. So the North and the South. In the North, in a few weeks, we will have the outcome of the market test. We're confident in that and that once the black box gets open, we can make a detailed CapEx plan and rollout. In the South, it's kind of 3 months behind that cycle. It's the same cycle where we need to go through. We first need to finalize the agreement with Orange and then go to the market authorities to do that. But we're fully confident that all these deals are on track at the moment with the different timings that I just mentioned. Operator: We'll now move to our next question from Kris Kippers from Degroof Petercam. Kris Kippers: Firstly, just going back to Global again. I haven't heard the mentioning of the EUR 100 million improvement in synergies that initially was communicated. Is that a number that could alter now that the scale has changed? Or what should we see in that? And then secondly, classical one perhaps, but I'm quite pleased to see indeed that also on the domestic side, the workforce expenses have been declining. Is this something we should continue -- keep continuing in the quarters ahead? How -- could you guide us a bit more on the reduction in FTEs? Mark Reid: Thanks for the question on Global. So first of all, on Global, I think, again, you've seen from our disclosure today, we -- the operating costs continue to kind of deliver probably a bit ahead of plan. So in terms of our operating cost synergies and our direct COG synergies there kind of as we've said before, I think the cross-sell, upsell synergies that are Go-to-Market related are really alluded to in terms of our integration phasing and that taking a bit longer. Look, I think we'll come back in the Capital Markets Day and allude to that as Seckin kind of gets the grip with what the phasing of that looks like. So I think that's where we are today. But as I said, we're very pleased with the cost synergies there fully on track. The Go-to-Market ones will come as part of the strategy update when we get there. Stijn Bijnens: Regarding the second question on workforce. So we're very pleased about this quarter that OpEx stays flat. We have a strategic workforce planning and management is executing well on that plan. We're currently reviewing things, and I'll come back on that in -- on the Capital Markets Day once we have our strategy crystallized and then we will also give more guidance on that part of our business. Kris Kippers: Okay. And then if I just may, just a small follow-up regarding the fiber communication. When the market test would be finished on November 21, do you intend to communicate direct to the market at that day? Or what is the -- what should be the time frame for that? And regarding when, do you provide an update as well? Stijn Bijnens: So when the market test ends on November 21, it's actually the competition authority that has to assess it and analyze it, and they will come with a communication. Once that's done, we can move forward. So it's in their hands regarding communication. And it will be the same process in the South as it are the same people at the authority level. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Michiel Declercq from KBC Securities. Michiel Declercq: My first one would be on the Global business. So you mentioned that, of course, we have the SMS part that is declining and then I assume the OTT and Digital Identity is growing. Can you maybe remind us what the split of revenue is here or in terms of profitability, given that you mentioned an inflection point in 2027? And as a follow-up on this, of course, the non-SMS business is growing. Can you maybe elaborate a bit on how this compares to competition? Because I see that competitors are also growing. But in terms of market share, are you improving here? Or are you losing customers? And then the second one is maybe for Spain specifically. You recently joined, of course, from Cegeka, an IT group, of course. But what experience can you bring? And in the beginning, you also elaborated a bit on the opportunities that you see within the B2B. Can you maybe explain a bit what opportunities there are here for to unlock? Mark Reid: Michiel, thank you for that. So I think if you look at our disclosures, you kind of see a little bit about our kind of split of the overall direct margin revenue split between B2B is kind of our legacy voice and messaging business and then CPaaS and data, which is effectively a mixture of traditional CPaaS A2P, omnichannel where you can think of kind of RCS, WhatsApp, Viber, e-mail type products and then Digital Identity, which is more kind of our fraud prevention products. We don't disclose the mix of that. But clearly, the A2P SMS part of that business is the majority. And as we said, the element that we've been exposed to is we do a lot of international OTP traffic there. The rate of change of that business towards omnichannel was a little quicker than we expected but Proximus Global was always set up to manage that transition. But clearly, the 2 parts of the business are different scales, but we are seeing growth in the omnichannel part, the RCS, WhatsApp, Viber, e-mail part of the business. And so that is really -- as we start to look forward through the end of this year into this first part of '27, that's really where we see the inflection point of that part of the business starting to be contributed and return us to growth from an EBITDA perspective. I hope that helps. We don't disclose the exact detail. In terms of market share, again, we don't talk about the specific market shares. Clearly, at the moment, in the last couple of quarters, it's been a difficult market for us there. But again, as we effectively get these integration problems behind us and the products and Go-to-Market, we clearly believe that we will have a competitive advantage given the structure of Proximus Global, our cost base and our product portfolio to Go-to-Market and be successful in capturing that growth going forward. Stijn, do you want to take that? Stijn Bijnens: Yes, we should. Regarding the second question, Proximus today is a market leader in B2B at the connectivity level. Of course, we intend to stay that, and it's also due to our strong footprint and network superiority. But there are additional services to be offered that Proximus is currently doing, but I do think there is an opportunity to grow further in everything that has to do in cybersecurity, cloud. I strongly believe in hybrid cloud. So a combination of strong partnerships with the hyperscalers, but also having our own sovereign cloud solution, there is an increased interest. And I think Proximus is in a superior position in Belgium to capture the part -- the growth in hybrid cloud. Also, AI will go towards the edge. You see a lot of announcements, if you look at NVIDIA and Nokia. So we kind of own the edge real estate in Belgium from a telco perspective. So we see many opportunities. It will take time to capture those opportunities, of course. But I do think we have the team and we will build the organization to unlock that value that we really leverage our telco infrastructure in those new pockets of growth. Operator: There are no further questions. So I'll hand back to your host to conclude today's conference. Nancy Goossens: Thank you for joining us today, and thank you for your questions. As always, should there be any follow-ups, you can address those to the Investor Relations team. Bye. Operator: Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Thank you for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the AAON Inc. Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Release Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Joseph Mondillo, Director of Investor Relations. You may begin. Joseph Mondillo: Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. The press release announcing our third quarter financial results was issued earlier this morning and can be found on our corporate website, aaon.com. The call today is accompanied by a presentation that you can also find on our website as well as on the listen-only webcast. We begin with our customary forward-looking statement policy. During the call, any statement presented dealing with the information that is not historical is considered forward-looking and made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, each as amended. As such, it is subject to the occurrence of many events outside of AAON's control that could cause AAON's results to differ materially from those anticipated. You are all aware of the inherent difficulties, risks and uncertainties in making predictive statements. Our press release and Form 10-Q that we filed this morning detailed some of the important risk factors that may cause our actual results to differ from those in our predictions. Please note that we do not have a duty to update our forward-looking statements. Our press release and portions of today's call use non-GAAP financial measures as defined in Regulation G. You can find the related reconciliations to GAAP measures in our press release and presentation. Joining me on the call today is Matt Tobolski, CEO and President; and Rebecca Thompson, CFO and Treasurer. Matt will start off with some opening remarks. Rebecca will then follow with a walk-through of the quarterly results, and Matt will finish with our outlook for the rest of the year and some closing remarks. With that, I will turn the call over to Matt. Matthew Tobolski: Thanks, Joe, and good morning. The third quarter marked a decisive inspection point in our operational recovery and capacity expansion. We saw substantial improvement in production throughput at both the Tulsa and Longview facilities, which drove meaningful sequential sales growth, while continued strength in bookings contributed to further backlog growth. While margins in the quarter continued to be impacted by operational inefficiencies in Longview and the early ramp-up of the new Memphis facility, we continue to make steady progress and expect sequential margin improvement to continue through the fourth quarter and into early 2026, putting us firmly on track toward our longer-term goals. The BASX brand continues to perform exceptionally well, fueled by strong momentum in the data center market, where favorably priced bookings have risen sharply and the pipeline of opportunities remains robust. BASX-branded backlog grew to $896.8 million, up 119.5% from a year ago and up 43.9% from the prior quarter. Demand for both our air-side and liquid cooling products remain strong, reflecting how well our custom solutions align with customer needs. To meet this growing demand, we remain laser-focused on ramping up production capacity at our new Memphis facility. This facility adds nearly 800,000 square feet of state-of-the-art manufacturing capacity which provides considerable growth to our BASX production capabilities and positions us well for continued growth. The ramp-up of the facility is progressing as planned, with large-scale production expected by year-end. With a strong backlog and significant increase in capacity, we expect the BASX brand to deliver meaningful growth in 2026. The AAON brand continues to perform well, with sales rising substantially from the prior quarter and bookings remaining strong. AAON-branded sales grew 28.1% sequentially, driven by over 20% production increases at both the Tulsa and Longview facilities and improved utilization of the ERP system, enabling us to better meet demand. Also production returned to prior year levels. In Longview, while still about 20% below last year showed strong progress. Based on September and October exit rates, we expect Longview is nearing full recovery. Enhanced production output of AAON-branded equipment resulted in a book-to-bill ratio for the brand below 1, successfully helping bring backlog in lead times of AAON-branded equipment closer to normalized levels. While backlog for the brand remains higher than desired, we are making steady progress in reducing it. We are committed to achieving this in the near term, ensuring we can effectively serve our customers and restore a normal business cadence. Despite a soft commercial HVAC market and extended lead times, AAON-branded bookings remained strong. While flat year-over-year due to a challenging comparison, bookings were up 15% on a 2-year stack reflecting continued strength in underlying demand. National account wins were particularly robust with bookings up 96% in the third quarter and 92% year-to-date, representing 35% of total bookings for the year. Bookings of Alpha Class air-source heat pump equipment also continued their strong momentum, up 45% quarter-over-quarter and 46% year-to-date. As I mentioned earlier, Longview's ERP implementation has progressed considerably. While production of AAON-branded equipment at the facility remained about 20% below target, output improved sequentially throughout the quarter and by quarter end, production of AAON-branded equipment was approaching full recovery. Production of the new BASX-branded equipment in Longview has performed exceptionally well with consistent year-to-date improvement. Despite the improvement in throughput, we continue to work through efficiency challenges that are weighing on facility profitability. We view these as temporary and expect meaningful margin improvement in the coming quarters. In Tulsa, average production levels for the quarter reflected a full recovery. And by quarter end, we're running ahead of target. We've made strong progress in improving coil supply, which supported the higher production volumes. And while our supply of coils remains constrained, we are effectively managing through these constraints. With the Longview implementation now well underway, we have gained valuable experience and insight, both operational and technical that will guide future ERP rollouts and greatly enhance our readiness to efficiently deploy the ERP system across our other facilities. While we continue to expect some level of operational impact as future sites transition, we are far better prepared to manage these challenges with strengthened internal processes, improved training programs, and a proven framework that positions us to execute future implementations with greater speed, precision and minimal disruption. We've applied the lessons learned from Longview to the Memphis go-live, which occurred on November 1. And we continue to expect Redmond to transition in the first half of 2026 with Tulsa following in the second half. I will now turn the call over to Rebecca, who will walk through the financials in more detail. Rebecca Thompson: Thank you, Matt. Net sales in the quarter increased year-over-year $57 million or 17.4% to $384.2 million. The increase was driven by a 95.8% rise in BASX-branded sales due to continued demand for data center solutions, and increasing production out of our Memphis facility. AAON-branded sales were roughly in line with the prior year, declining 1.5% but increased 28.1% sequentially, driven by solid production gains at both Tulsa and Longview facilities. Gross margin was 27.8%, down from 34.9% in the prior year, but up 120 basis points sequentially. The year-over-year contraction was primarily due to operational inefficiencies associated with the ERP system implementation and unabsorbed fixed costs related to the new Memphis facility. Sequentially, the improvements reflect progress made in optimizing the new ERP system and the resulting increases in production throughput at both the Tulsa and Longview facilities. Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA margin was 16.5%, down from 25.3% a year ago, but up 160 basis points in the previous quarter. Diluted EPS was $0.37, down 41.3% from a year ago, but up 94.7% sequentially. Below the line pressures included elevated DD&A from Memphis and technology consulting fees related to the ERP implementation. Looking at the segment financials, starting with AAON, Oklahoma, net sales grew 4.3% year-over-year and 29% sequentially. The growth was driven by a strong backlog entering the quarter and improved production throughput that enabled higher backlog conversion. Coil supply also improved, allowing us to efficiently scale production of AAON-branded equipment. Segment gross margin was 31.5%, down from 36.8% in the prior year period, but up sequentially 400 basis points. The year-over-year contraction was primarily due to approximately $4.5 million in unabsorbed fixed costs associated with the new Memphis facility. AAON Coil Product sales increased $35 million or 99.4% from the year ago period. The year-over-year increase was driven by $46.5 million in BASX-branded liquid cooling product sales, a category that was not in production during the prior year period. AAON-branded sales at this segment declined $10.9 million or 31.6% due to the ERP implementation disruptions. Sequentially, AAON-branded sales grew 36.2% reflecting improved utilization of the new ERP system and the resulting increase in production throughput since its go-live in April. Despite the improved throughput, gross margin declined sequentially, reflecting several discrete items which collectively impacted gross margin by 1,050 basis points in the quarter. We expect these challenges to be resolved with our ERP progress. And over time, we expect this segment will deliver gross margin of around 30% based on the strength of pricing within the backlog. Sales of the BASX segment grew 19.2% driven by sustained demand of data center solutions as the market continues to demonstrate strong momentum, and the business captures additional market share. Initial production from our new Memphis facility played a key role in driving growth. Gross margin contracted modestly due to higher indirect warehouse personnel costs associated with operating the Redmond facility near full capacity. Optimization efforts at this facility remain a focus and are expected to accelerate as the Memphis facility continues to ramp. Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash balances totaled $2.3 million on September 30, 2005 (sic) [ September 30, 2025 ] and debt at the end of the quarter was $360.1 million. Our leverage ratio was 1.73. Year-to-date, we had cash outflows from operations of $18.8 million compared to cash inflows of $191.7 million in the comparable period a year ago. Capital expenditures for the first 3 quarters, including expenditures related to software development, increased 22.1% to $138.9 million. We had net borrowings of debt of $205 million over this period, largely the finance investments in working capital, capital expenditures and $30 million in open market stock buybacks that we executed in the first quarter, all of which we anticipate will generate attractive returns. Overall, our financial position remains strong. We anticipate cash flow from operations will turn significantly positive in the fourth quarter as working capital, including contract assets become a source of cash, reflecting payments received on a large order that was recent started deliveries. This gives us flexibility and allows us to continue to focus on investments that will drive growth and generate attractive returns. We now anticipate 2025 capital expenditures will be $180 million compared to our previous estimate of $220 million. The reduction primarily reflects project timing and the inability to fully deploy funds this year with the majority of these expenditures expected to shift into 2026. I will now turn the call over to Matt. Matthew Tobolski: Thank you, Rebecca. As previously mentioned, backlog remains strong across both brands, giving us the confidence in visibility to stay focused on production and execution. The BASX brand remains the key growth driver of the company, fueled by exceptional demand for the data center market and the unique custom design solutions that we provide our customers. In the quarter, BASX secured a strong volume of new orders at attractive margins, most of which are scheduled for production at our new Memphis facility in 2026. This sets us up to ramp production efficiently next year, optimize the fixed cost investments made in 2025 and drive robust growth for the BASX brand in 2026. The AAON brand also maintained strong momentum. Backlog at the end of the quarter was up 77.1% year-over-year, reflecting strong demand across our business. While backlog size and lead times remain extended, we are actively managing this by ramping production. Despite commercial HVAC volumes being down double digits year-to-date, bookings have stayed strong, demonstrating the resilience of our business. For the fourth quarter, we expect double-digit revenue growth driven by continued production recovery and pricing actions implemented earlier this year. This positions us well for 2026 as comparison fees. However, looking to 2026, we also plan to implement the ERP system at our Tulsa facility in the second half of the year. While we expect minimal disruption based on our Longview learnings, there may be some short-term production impact during the transition. Turning to our 2025 outlook. We now anticipate full year sales growth in the mid-teens at a gross margin of 28% to 28.5%. Adjusted SG&A as a percent of sales expected to be 16.5% to 17%. Before I hand it off for Q&A, I just want to finish by saying, while we continue to navigate some near-term challenges, we're making steady progress across all areas of the business. Our operational execution is improving, production is ramping, demand remains robust and cash flow is trending in the right direction. As we look ahead, we are extremely excited about the opportunities that 2026 will bring. With that, I will now open the call for Q&A. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Ryan Merkel with William Blair. Ryan Merkel: Congrats on the quarter, a lot of things to like here. I wanted to start off with the BASX orders, which I think for me is the headline. You talked about liquid cooling being strong. You talked about Memphis is fully coming online. But just speak to the drivers, speak to your confidence in your outlook for 40% to 50% growth for the BASX segment. And then you mentioned order visibility is pretty good. I just want to get a sense that you continue to expect strong orders. Matthew Tobolski: Yes. Great question. And to start, maybe looking back to the Q2 earnings call, where the sort of backlog in BASX was flat, it was obviously a point of question from a lot of individuals. We mentioned on that call that obviously, we have to have the capacity and the visibility in our ability to execute those orders in order to really start taking on large orders to support the Memphis growth. As we've kind of progressed through the third quarter, we've had a lot more traction and visibility and kind of understanding what that ramp rate looks like, which allowed us to effectively go out to the market and really start filling the coffers for the Memphis facility. That, coupled with continued strength on liquid cooling orders out of the Longview site, air-side solutions at both Memphis and the Redmond site, provide a lot of that backlog growth. And so, the Q3 sort of order securing was really a good mix of orders in both air-side and liquid side orders kind of across all of our sites, but certainly with a strong amount of focus on the Memphis facility as we look to ramp that up in late '25 into '26. As we think through the visibility, I would just say that the activity our team is having in the pipeline conversations, in projects across existing as well as a number of new customers continues to strengthen and remain very strong. And so, we're having a lot of interest really across the product portfolio and tremendous amount of conversations across the sort of entire network of data center developers, as we look to really capitalize on the continued growth and align our unique value proposition to those customers. So really, we see the BASX -- the growth story is certainly being very strong, certainly have good growth in 2025. And as we go into 2016, we'll see continued good strength in converting that backlog into sales. Ryan Merkel: That's great. Okay. Perfect. And then the one nitpick this quarter was gross margin. Good to hear though the ERP, you're feeling strong there. The implied guidance for 4Q gross margin, 31%, you're showing a step-up. But let's just take the two pieces. So, in Oklahoma, if I add back sort of the Memphis unabsorbed and you're going to be getting the full production there soon, it sounds like, and then the price cost, which is really just a timing thing, should we think about sort of gross margins on a normalized basis for the Oklahoma segment at that 35%, 36% level? That's the first part of the question. Matthew Tobolski: Yes. And certainly, the math you're doing is putting you in that range. So, when we back out the Memphis impact and we back out that price cost differential kind of on that near-term kind of tariff dislocation, that does put you right in that mid-30s. Certainly, we see some additional pressures that existed. When we look at the kind of year-over-year comp from '24 to '25 in Q3, certainly, you got another 200-ish basis points of kind of gap there. And really, what I would say is, we've been ramping up production, kind of meeting some near-term needs of BASX products inside the Oklahoma segment, which while profitable in its sales, it certainly is a new product introduction into that facility that just caused some manufacturing inefficiencies where production lines aren't optimized kind of to build that, but we were doing it to ensure we met customer demand. So, I'd say that mid-30s with some headroom on top of that really is where we see the Oklahoma segment kind of on a normalized basis. Ryan Merkel: Got it. All right. I'll leave the ACP questions for others, but it sounds like there's some discrete items there and 30% long term is a target. So, that's kind of what I expected. Matt, I wanted to give you an opportunity before I turn it over to just comment on the short report that was out. I don't know if that's something you want to do, so I'll give you that out. But there were two claims that I was hoping you could respond to. One, the change in accounting has inflated revenues. And then two, large liquid cooling gross margins are in the 20% range. Just any thoughts there. Matthew Tobolski: Yes. So, just maybe to start off on that report and really just to hit this head on, we want to just kind of reaffirm that we take the integrity of our financial reporting incredibly seriously, and it is regularly reviewed by our independent auditors. And so these statements that are prepared and presented are fully in accordance with GAAP and with the rules of ASC 606. From a confidence standpoint, we're incredibly confident in the strength of our business, in the appropriateness of our accounting practices, and in our operations overall. So with that, just saying that the demand for our products, the pricing of our products remains incredibly strong, and our focus is on executing our strategy, serving the customers and making sure we deliver that long-term value for our shareholders. As we talk through the purported changes in accounting practice, just to state that, that is the ASC 606 standard, which is how revenue has been recognized for the BASX brand kind of throughout its history and since being acquired by AAON. When we look at the dynamics, there was certainly an increase in contract assets in the first half relative to that one large liquid cooling order, which is recognized as a custom engineered, custom manufactured product recognized on a percent of completion basis. And so, when we think about this in context, that one order that was acquired late in the year last year and kind of converting throughout this year, that was nearly the size -- that single order was nearly the size of all of BASX in 2024. And so, that just mathematically is going to drive that change in a near-term perspective on the contract assets. But in Q3, you saw those contract assets decline. You saw the receivables jump showing that conversion and shipping and going to that customer. And so that, that conversion is going to drive cash strength as receivables are kind of converted to cash-in-hand throughout the fourth quarter. The look at that, I mean, that liquid cooling order itself, again, just to reaffirm, that is a custom engineered product developed in the standard process in which BASX supports our customers over its entire history. And so, just kind of reaffirming that, that is not a contract manufactured product. It was engineered to a specification from a customer much the same as we have executed the development and execution of BASX products over its entire history. It is priced well. It is not priced at some low-margin kind of perspective. We're executing well. We're delivering for the customer. We're delivering the quality that customer expects, and we continue to receive add-on orders for that product as well as developing and collaborating on other cutting-edge innovations for the data center space. So, all that to say, I mean, this is executing in accordance with regulations. It's executing incredibly well and profitably for our customers. And some of the ACP near-term stuff has nothing to do with the price perspective on the product. It's inefficiencies as we've kind of rolled out some of that growth. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Noah Kaye with Oppenheimer. Noah Kaye: Matt, Rebecca. Great to be on with you for the first time and a good quarter to be on for the first time on. I want to go to your CapEx guide lowering it to $180 million and the comments you made, Rebecca. Anything we should read or infer from that into kind of the timing of your planned capacity ramp, whether at Memphis or elsewhere in the business that we should be thinking about? Rebecca Thompson: No, I don't think so. It's just a slight shift from moving some amounts between Q4 to Q1. So, I don't think the lowering of that CapEx is going to slow down the ramp-up of Memphis. The Memphis facility has already really built out with most of the equipment we need to do the ramp-up right now. So, next year's additional plants would just be increasing capacity for future growth. So, it should not impact those ramp-up plans at all. Noah Kaye: Okay. And then since Ryan teed it up, I might as well ask about the discrete onetimes at ACP. Can you just give a little color on that and kind of how you lap them as we go into 4Q in '26 here? Matthew Tobolski: Yes. Just to start off, I want to maybe just take the ACP segment for a second and look at this from a quarter-over-quarter perspective. We saw really good strength and growth in the ACP segment, and absent of the discrete items that we kind of referenced, you'd be seeing margin at around 27%, which is showing good quarter-over-quarter growth in both the throughput as well as the overall margin profile. Some of these discrete items that kind of are in question, I mean, there's essentially operational inefficiencies, some of which are going to -- or most of which will abate kind of with the optimization of the ERP, the rest of which just with some additional manufacturing process improvement. Nothing to do with pricing. The liquid cooling order is priced at very compelling levels. And as I mentioned earlier to Ryan's question, that liquid cooling order itself is a solutions-based product, solutions-based win. It was not a low bid type situation. So, priced well and really just focused on getting that execution kind of fully in order. And looking forward, we're confident when we say the segment is at least a 30% gross margin business, based on what we have in the backlog, based on what we have with the margin profile in the backlog and really just focused on execution for both the BASX and AAON brands. Noah Kaye: Yes. And is that -- is ACP where we see the most improvement sequentially into 4Q to kind of help us get to that 31% that was referenced earlier, if that's the right number for gross margin for 4Q? Matthew Tobolski: Definitely quarter-over-quarter, you're going to see strong improvement. ACP definitely being a big driver of that improvement. But I would say, I mean, you're also going to see some incremental improvement within the Oklahoma segment as well, it's kind of as that price cost dynamic get on the right side from the tariff impact. Noah Kaye: Okay. Perfect. And lastly, obviously, really strong data center orders for BASX this quarter, great to see the increase in backlog. Can you talk a little bit about the customer mix and profile there? You mentioned liquid versus air-side, but just give us a sense of the demand profile across the customer base. Matthew Tobolski: Yes, it's a pretty broad-based actually. And I would say that when we look at the amount of interaction and conversation in the space right now, it is across sort of the entire profile of data center developers. So obviously, there's been strength and continued strength within the hyperscalers. But within a lot of the, I'll say, the contract builders, the colocation providers, the neocloud, we're seeing strength really across the profile in the order activity and in the quote activity in that space. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Chris Moore with CJS Securities. Christopher Moore: Yes. Maybe we'll shift from BASX to rooftop. Can you just talk a little bit about pricing at this point in time, the current AAON premium, and maybe just your big picture thoughts on rooftop in '26. Matthew Tobolski: Yes. So, from a pricing standpoint, I mean, obviously, we put on price twice this current calendar year. So, early January 1, put in 3% and then additional 6% kind of came in through the tariff surcharge. So sitting a little above 9% compounded for the year. As we look forward, we're definitely in the midst right now of really kind of all of our analytics and kind of where cost drivers are looking as we go into 2026. So, no real guidance at this point on kind of what pricing actions are going to come in the near to midterm. But I would say that, we certainly see the price premium of AAON equipment is still existing, for sure, kind of inside the space, maybe ever so slight contraction from last year to this year, but really seeing the price premium and the value proposition is still being sold kind of throughout that product brand. Looking to your question, Moore, I'll say, on the market perspective, I mean, certainly, the space remains soft, the commercial HVAC space remains soft. As we do a lot of our checks with our sales channel partners, a lot of the commentary we're getting is, there's actually a pretty substantial uptick in bid activity. But still soft in the overall order conversion. So, I say that -- to say that, it's a positive indicator, certainly showing there's a lot of activity kind of brewing inside the space. But obviously, in the near term, if not converting to actual orders, it's not converting to new projects. And so, when we think about what that looks like into '26, indicates we're going to enter '26 kind of in continued softness. But I'd say that demand we're seeing with that bid activity, we would look to see that sort of start converting midway through the year into sort of strengthening of the overall order cadence from a macro perspective. But that aside, with that kind of as the macro driver, we continue to remain incredibly focused on some of the unique growth drivers that are sort of providing us that outperform in bookings, things like the Alpha Class air-source heat pump product differentiation really getting out in the marketplace and ensuring that we're selling to the market and effectively communicating to the market that value proposition as well as the continued focus on that national account strategy. So, we see those being the, I'll say, the levers that are allowing us to continue outperforming from a bookings perspective against the softer macro backdrop. Christopher Moore: Perfect. Very helpful. And maybe just a follow-up back to BASX. In terms of gross margins, we've had lots of discussions currently and ultimately, in terms of where the margins could be at the Investor Day. And we talked about 29% to 32%, a little bit below rooftop. And I'm just, again, trying to understand is there something structural in BASX that couldn't get to the mid-30s? Or it's just the rapid growth that is going to make it difficult for a while to get to that level? Matthew Tobolski: No, it's a great question. And certainly, our kind of putting it around that 30% level is really, sort of, setting what we see as the, sort of, near-term execution targets kind of within that space. From a perspective standpoint, it took AAON 30-some-odd years to really get into that mid-30s range. And a lot of that was driven by really good execution around improvements around manufacturing process, coupled with obviously pricing competitiveness. And so, as we start getting more and more, I'll say, we get the ability to really kind of get some of our production lines stable, we can really start focusing on pulling our costs and putting dollars to the bottom line in those spaces. And so, I would just say from an expectation setting standpoint, that 30% range is really kind of where we want to keep everyone grounded. But certainly, we're an organization that is focused on outperforming. And so, for us, looking at how do we keep driving better execution and really keep driving improvement of that is going to be something that is certainly front of mind as we keep progressing forward. Operator: Next question comes from the line of Tim Wojs with Baird. Timothy Wojs: On the Oklahoma business, Matt, I mean, where are your lead times today kind of relative to normal? And I guess as you think about kind of converting the Tulsa facility next year on the ERP side, I guess, how are you kind of communicating that to people in the channel? And how are you preparing for any sort of, I guess, kind of order pull forward that might kind of happen as a result of that implementation? Matthew Tobolski: Yes. Certainly great questions. And on the lead times, when we look at the Oklahoma segment, where they stand today, they're probably sitting around 50% higher than we wanted to be. And again, our focus here is really on getting that execution up, getting that volume up at that facility and really start pulling that back down. So, one thing I'd say is, well, obviously, backlog growth is a big conversation on the BASX side of the business. On the AAON side, our big driver here is, let's get that backlog down, let's get that lead time kind of back in check where we want them to be, just to be able to make sure that we're meeting the market demands appropriately. As we think about, I'll say, kind of getting ahead of things within the ERP side, we're certainly going to be substantially more proactive. Again, I'll just say lessons learned around the Longview side to make sure we get ahead of it. And provide some buffer kind of, in sort of, what we communicate to the market to make sure we deliver and these schedules that are met with our best foot forward. So, that's going to be definitely going to be part of our intentional, kind of, before go-live messaging strategy ahead of a Pulse to go-live. Exactly what that's going to look like and kind of what buffer, that's still certainly part of an operational conversation, but certainly will be something we're looking at throughout the mid part of '26. Timothy Wojs: Okay. And speaking of operations, I mean, you just, I think, hired a COO. Could you maybe talk about what kind of those responsibilities are going to be for him in kind of maybe the near and intermediate term and kind of what he brings to AAON? Matthew Tobolski: Yes. And I really -- maybe what I'll do is I'll start by kind of just framing a perspective here, which is, we've been very fortunate to go through some tremendous growth, which is incredibly exciting. It's an awesome opportunity for our organization, for our team to grow and to really thrive inside that space. And as we think about AAON 5 years ago versus AAON today, I mean, we've got five facilities. We've got some monster growth coming out of brand-new facilities. We've had massive expansion in Longview, strong investment in Redmond and continued investment inside the Tulsa facility, all of that supported by strong demand. So, the company over the last 5 to 10 years, it's really transformed. It's kind of gotten a lot of legs below it and really built itself up in stature and mass. And so, when we think about what Roberto brings to the organization, it's the ability to effectively manage consistency across all five facilities and drive best practice lean manufacturing, visible manufacturing really across the organization and get the right visibility to be able to tack the problems before they become problems. And so, you've got experience operating up to 23 facilities, expert in lean manufacturing and really something that the operations team and the whole team of AAON and BASX is incredibly excited about as we look to continue capitalizing on the growth drivers in a very profitable fashion. Timothy Wojs: Okay. Okay. That's great. And then, I guess just two questions -- two, kind of, modeling questions. I guess, first, is there any way to just quantify the free cash flow that you expect in the fourth quarter? And then as you kind of think about bringing on Memphis, do you have like a DNA number that we should think about for AAON in 2026? Rebecca Thompson: So, I don't have a quantification of the free cash flows for Q4. It should be considerably up. I mean, especially you saw it turn positive this quarter. We're starting to -- we had delays in getting some of our billings out. So, we're collecting those now in the fourth quarter. Yes. It should be up significantly, but I don't have a good estimate to give you just off the cuff. And then, on your second question, -- yes, so for 2025, we expect the year will be in the $75 million to $80 million range, and then we expect to see like another $20 million to $25 million in 2026. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Julio Romero with Sidoti & Company. Alex Hantman: This is Alex on for Julio. Just a follow-up on ERP. I know we talked a little bit about lessons learned and alluded to that, but maybe we could get a little more specific on key lessons learned from Longview that you're applying to Memphis and maybe even what milestones you thought about before greenlighting the rollout to Memphis? Matthew Tobolski: Yes. From a lessons learned, I mean, I'll say there's kind of a variety of people and process sides of it. But just high level, what I would say is, some of the configuration changes and lesson learned that we've implemented in Longview as well as Memphis is streamlining some of the automation that can be provided in process flow inside the ERP that wasn't fully implemented, I'll say, kind of on the initial go-live that caused too much manual interaction that slowed down some of the production velocity. And so, we really kind of streamlined some of those processes, and we've really greatly enhanced the amount of hands-on training within the system. I think the lessons learned is, we did a lot of training as part of the go-live, but a lot of it was more classroom setting versus getting really more live hands on how you would live in the system on a day-to-day basis. And so, a lot of that kind of was lessons learned out of the Longview site. And really, that was informing the kind of go-live strategy within the Memphis site. And Memphis has been live for about a week now and really been operating in a smooth fashion, albeit lower volumes than what we have in Longview, but kind of on a go-live and a ramp-up perspective, behaving very well. Alex Hantman: Great. I think going hand-in-hand with streamlining and ERP work might be automating with AI. So, I was curious if you could touch on any sort of work with that. Matthew Tobolski: Yes. I mean, certainly, as a manufacturer that greatly supports the explosive growth of the data center investment around AI, it certainly also informs kind of how we leverage AI as an organization. So there's a lot of things we're looking at. I mean, everything from how we analyze warranty claims for trends, how we look at predictive analytics around unit performance. So, there's a lot of sort of projects going on. But certainly, as time progresses, AI will become more and more relevant kind of in our strategy. But what I would say now is we have a lot of things that are more in the sandbox and planning phase as we look at how to leverage AI, both from an operations perspective, but also from a value driver from a customer's perspective. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Brent Thielman with D.A. Davidson. Brent Thielman: Great. Yes. I guess, question, Matt, just as you peel back kind of the layers here within the rooftop business, your thoughts on what seems to be working in terms of the share capture strategy. I heard you comment on the national accounts growth, maybe how that informs, how that, kind of, strategy is working and anything else in and around that? Matthew Tobolski: Yes. So, to maybe peel it back in kind of two pieces. I think, when we look at what we call the more transactional type orders, the standard kind of end market orders, we see that softness kind of that you hear across the overall commercial HVAC space on the more everyday type orders. We see that kind of in our order cadence as well. And so, when we look at where the growth drivers have been, I'd say two things that are big differentiators for us that have allowed us to outperform in bookings has been the Alpha Class air-sourced heat pump. So, from an innovation and sort of a product differentiation standpoint, continue to see that getting some good traction inside the space as we really have a best-in-class solution that operates in sort of your southern climate all the way to your low-temp climates with sort of the more Alpha Class Extreme program. So that's definitely been a driver that's, sort of, allowing that differentiation of product to really capture the hearts and souls of a lot of organizations. And it really aligns well with that national account customer. So when we think about national account customers looking to reduce carbon footprints with portfolios of facilities all across the country, that Alpha Class product definitely is a huge conversation starter and a differentiator kind of inside the space. And with the three tiers of that product, we rolled that out in a way that provided solid pricing points, really depending on kind of what the market is from an environmental perspective. And so, we don't need to go all the way to the Alpha Class Extreme, low ambient air-source heat pump if I'm delivering a product in Florida. But when we look at some of the northern states, the solutions that we have in terms of efficiency, performance points and cost points really can't be beat inside the marketplace. And so, that's really allowed a broad conversation on that national account space, really around air-source heat pumps, decarbonization to be able to provide really a solution across the portfolio that really can't be met by anyone else in the marketplace. And so, a lot of that on some of that conversation and growth really in both the national accounts as well as really just transactional air-source heat pumps. Brent Thielman: Got it. And then on the BASX side, whether you wanted to talk around the orders this quarter, Matt, or kind of an immediate pipeline. I mean, one of the objectives here is to try and get into maybe more of the standardized products. And I guess, question one is, are you starting to see those orders come through? Is it far too early for that? And two, maybe just the diversification of customers that are reflected in these orders? Matthew Tobolski: And just to maybe put a clarifying point. When we look at the productization strategy, I wouldn't say we're going to a standard product by any stretch. What I would say is, really just, envision that as the same solution or the same mindset around how AAON goes to market with a software-driven semi-custom, still very much value-driven products just in a little bit more of a walled off platform that provides some more efficiencies in how we go to market. But I just want to kind of clarify that. I wouldn't really go to sort of a standardized product definition. It still very much is highly configurable value-driven solutions. But I would say, we're certainly starting to get into quote activity on those products. We're in the early innings, really on getting that into the marketplace. And so, certainly out there having the conversations, but that backlog growth that we see right now, that is reflective of the historic solution-based, the custom products that BASX brand has built itself on since its formation. Customer-wise, I mean, there's obviously a couple of large orders that exist inside that sort of backlog growth. But I would say there's also a spattering of other smaller customers kind of in there. So, there is definitely a couple of big hitters in that backlog growth, but there's also a diversity in the customer base in what we're growing right now. Brent Thielman: Okay. Last one. Obviously, a big chunk of orders here is to fill the Memphis capacity that comes on to, I think, just based on past conversations, Matt, you sort of want to be deliberate about that, work through any inefficiencies as that facility ramps up. I guess the question I have is, do you have what you want for now? Or are you comfortable continuing to push and capture more orders for that facility even as that hasn't ramped up quite yet? Matthew Tobolski: Yes, great question. I mean, I think the -- there's definitely good backlog sitting in there right now to help ramp that facility in a measured perspective, but there also is some headroom in there, especially as we get into the second half of next year to start putting in some more demand into that facility. And so, there is room to definitely keep putting orders in there as we get more and more traction. The facility as it stands today, just kind of maybe perspective, it has the ability to have seven production lines put in place. We're sitting at three today. We're adding -- we're working to add a couple more, but there certainly is all of that five to seven production lines are not fully booked out. And so there is room to -- as we keep growing it out to keep ramping up production at that facility. But I would definitely be thinking about that from a bookings cadence for orders that would be coming in for start delivery in the back half of next year. Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to the management team for closing remarks. Matthew Tobolski: Okay. Thank you, everyone, for joining us on today's call. If anyone has any questions over the coming days and weeks, please feel free to reach out to myself. Have a great rest of the day, and we look forward to speaking with you in the future. Thank you. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Hello, and welcome to Intellia Therapeutics Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Rocco, and I will be your conference operator today. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Jason Fredette, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications at Intellia. Please proceed, sir. Jason Fredette: Thank you, Rocco, and hello, everyone. Earlier this afternoon, we issued a press release and filed our 10-Q outlining our recent business updates and our third quarter financial results. These documents can be found on the Investors and Media section of Intellia's website at intelliatx.com. At this time, I would like to take a moment to remind listeners that during this call, Intellia management may make certain forward-looking statements. We ask that you refer to our SEC filings available at sec.gov for a discussion of potential risks and uncertainties. All information presented on this call is current as of today, and Intellia undertakes no duty to update this information unless required by law. Joining me on the call are John Leonard, our Chief Executive Officer; and Ed Dulac, our Chief Financial Officer. With that, I'll turn the call over to John. John Leonard: Thanks, Jason, and thanks to all of you who have tuned in for today's call. In terms of the agenda for today, we'll begin with the status of our nex-z program in ATTR amyloidosis since that is obviously top of mind for all of you. We then will provide an update on the significant progress we have made with lonvo-z, which is being developed as a potential onetime treatment for patients with hereditary angioedema or HAE, and we will close with Ed's financial review. First, for nex-z. Since the start of 2024, we've been enrolling patients in MAGNITUDE, our Phase III clinical trial for ATTR amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy. And we've been enrolling MAGNITUDE-2 for patients with hereditary ATTR amyloidosis with polyneuropathy since the start of 2025. Both trials have advanced rapidly, which we believe demonstrates patients' interest in a potential onetime treatment option. On October 24, a patient was admitted to the hospital after reporting abdominal pain to his principal investigator. This is a patient with ATTR cardiomyopathy in his early '80s who enrolled in MAGNITUDE and received a dose of nex-z on September 30. The patient's labs showed that his AST and ALT levels exceeded 3x the upper limit of normal and that his bilirubin exceeded 2x the upper limit of normal. These levels triggered a protocol-specified pause on patient dosing and screening for MAGNITUDE in the interest of patient safety. We decided to also pause patient dosing and screening in MAGNITUDE-2 as a precaution. On October 29, the FDA notified us verbally that it had placed a clinical hold on MAGNITUDE and MAGNITUDE-2. We are now awaiting the FDA's formal clinical hold letter. We were very saddened to learn that the patient passed away last night. We have been advised by the treating physician that this is a case with complicating comorbidities, and the case is being further evaluated. Since learning of this case, we've taken a number of actions in the interest of patient safety. For instance, we've mandated that clinical sites collect additional labs from patients in the initial weeks following dosing to detect potential liver elevation sooner. An internal team has been closely reviewing the blinded safety data, baseline characteristics, among other factors, to identify potential contributors to the liver-related events seen in MAGNITUDE. We've been working with the trial's independent data safety monitoring committees as we consider other potential monitoring and risk mitigation strategies. And of course, we are engaging with global regulatory authorities and other stakeholders to understand their perspectives, concerns and requirements so we can develop a plan that would allow us to resume enrollment as soon as appropriate. Not surprisingly, given the clinical hold, we are unable to maintain our milestone guidance for nex-z, and we expect to provide an update once we finalize the plan with regulators. Simply put, a lot has transpired over the past couple of weeks and in recent hours, and there is still much work ahead. There's a lot of focus on the safety profile of nex-z at this stage as there should be. That said, we continue to believe in this product candidate's potential to address important unmet needs for patients with ATTR amyloidosis. This is based on a few key factors. First, ATTR amyloidosis is a disease with high mortality. While undeniable progress has been made in this treatment, current therapies only slow its advance and most patients continue to face progressive morbidity and mortality. Second, we've enrolled more than 650 patients in MAGNITUDE and 47 patients in MAGNITUDE-2. To date, Grade 4 liver transaminase elevations have been reported in less than 1% of all patients enrolled in MAGNITUDE. Each of these cases has been observed approximately 3 to 5 weeks following randomization and dosing. There have been no Grade 4 liver transaminase elevations in MAGNITUDE-2. And third, we are highly encouraged by the data from our ongoing Phase I clinical trial of nex-z. On Monday, in a late-breaker oral session at the 2025 AHA Scientific Sessions in New Orleans, we will have the opportunity to share longer-term data for nex-z that we believe demonstrates its potential to improve various disease measures and mortality. Let's move on to lonvo-z, which is being investigated in our ongoing HAELO Phase III clinical trial for HAE. Over the course of 2025, we've made considerable progress in this trial. Enrollment was completed in September, less than 9 months after we dosed our first patient. This puts us on track to share top line data by mid-2026, submit a BLA to the FDA in the second half of 2026, and prepare for an anticipated commercial launch in the U.S. in the first half of 2027. We believe lonvo-z could completely redefine the HAE treatment landscape. We aim to reset expectations and the standard of care for patients living with this debilitating disease by completely eliminating attacks and the need for other HAE medications for a majority of patients, all with one dose. This Saturday, at the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Annual Scientific Meeting in Orlando, we will be presenting longer-term safety and efficacy data from all of the patients who received a 50-milligram dose of lonvo-z in our Phase I/II clinical trial. I'll now hand over the call to Ed, our Chief Financial Officer, who will provide an update on our financial results for the third quarter 2025. Edward Dulac: Thank you, John, and good evening, everyone. Intellia continues to maintain a solid balance sheet that allows us to execute on our clinical pipeline and build important capabilities required for future success. Our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities were $669.9 million as of September 30, 2025, compared to $861.7 million as of December 31, 2024. During the third quarter, we raised approximately $115 million from our ATM facility. When combined with the benefits of the restructuring initiatives we implemented in early 2025, this enables us to extend our cash runway into mid-2027 and through lonvo-z's anticipated commercial launch in the U.S. for HAE. Collaboration revenue was $13.8 million during the third quarter of 2025 compared to $9.1 million during the prior year quarter. The $4.7 million increase was mainly driven by cost reimbursements related to our collaboration with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. R&D expenses were $94.7 million during the third quarter of 2025 compared to $123.4 million during the prior year quarter. The $28.7 million decrease was primarily driven by employee-related expenses, stock-based compensation, research materials and contracted services, offset by an increase in the advancement of our lead programs. Stock-based compensation expense included within R&D was $12.2 million for the third quarter of 2025. G&A expenses were $30.5 million during the third quarter of 2025 compared to $30.5 million during the prior year quarter. Stock-based compensation expense included within G&A was $7.4 million for the third quarter of 2025. Finally, net loss for the third quarter of 2025 was $101.3 million, down from $135.7 million for the prior year quarter. We continue to expect a year-over-year decline in GAAP operating expenses of at least 10%. And as stated before, our cash runway is expected to fund operations into the middle of 2027. With that, we are ready to begin our question-and-answer session. Before we do, we would like to let you know in advance that we will be unable to answer some of your questions given a variety of factors, including the fact that we are still awaiting the FDA's clinical hold letter and a more thorough evaluation of the patient's case. We appreciate your patience and understanding. Operator, would you please open the line for questions? Operator: [Operator Instructions] Today's first question comes from Gena Wang with Barclays. Huidong Wang: I'm really sorry to hear the unfortunate event. I know you are still collecting tons of data, but just wondering if any initial hypothesis of the reason for liver enzyme elevation since this is a 1 month after dosing. Is that because of lipid nanoparticle Cas9 or age-related or disease? Any initial thoughts that would be fantastic. And the related question is, you shared the color on Grade 4, less than 1% in ATTR cardiomyopathy. How is that rate for ATTR polyneuropathy and the HAE patient population? John Leonard: So Gena, thank you for the question. At this point in time, we can only speculate, which we're not going to do in terms of what's the source of the liver function test abnormalities. As you pointed out in your question, we've seen across the entire study with over 650 patients enrolled, an incidence of less than 1%. This particular case is distinct from what we've seen. It was a very complicated clinical course with other comorbidities that may have had some influence in the outcome of the patient. Of the other cases that have occurred, all of those cases have either resolved or resolving and no one is in the hospital. Operator: And our next question today comes from Maury Raycroft with Jefferies. Maurice Raycroft: Maybe one more on the patient. I know you can't say much, but you mentioned the other comorbidities. Can you say what those were and also potentially whether the patient was managed in the United States or ex U.S.? And then, yes, I guess, if you can't answer those, if you could talk about just potential risk mitigation strategies that you could implement going forward. John Leonard: Yes. At this point, Maury, we can't go into the comorbidities. I can only say that the patient had a very complicated medical course, and these other comorbidities may have influenced the ultimate outcome along with the hepatic abnormalities. We're not commenting on geography. I can only assure you that the patient received what we believe to be excellent medical care, and we have no reason to believe that there was any shortfall in taking care of the patient. With respect to risk mitigation strategies, that's ongoing work. As you might imagine, we're doing as comprehensive analysis as we're able to do, looking at all of the data we've collected, coming up with any potential hypothesis. The ultimate goal would be to find a way to exclude patients who may be at risk, should we identify it or impose interventions that could deal with the liver function test abnormalities if they do occur. Operator: And our next question today comes from Alec Stranahan with Bank of America. Alec Stranahan: I guess, how many ATTR patients are currently within that 3- to 5-week post-dose window on the study right now? John Leonard: I can't give you precise numbers, but it's -- the vast majority of patients have passed through it. And with each passing day, there's a smaller and smaller set of patients who have yet to go through it. Operator: And our next question today comes from Mani Foroohar with Leerink Partners. Mani Foroohar: My condolences, a tough outcome for the patient for sure. So let me dive in a little bit on a hypothetical that I've received from a number of clients, which is if this hold were to remain for an extended period of time, what does that mean for the ongoing OpEx spend of the company? i.e., I know it extends the duration to whenever we get a potential pivotal outcome for the study. But does it change the total amount of spend over the course of the study? Is your spend at a normal level during this hold or at least some activities interrupted? How should we think from a financial modeling perspective, recognizing that, that, of course, is a secondary concern to the moral obligations for the patient? John Leonard: Thanks for the question. It was a little garbled, Mani, but I think you were asking how does the hold play into the financial runway of the company and how do we manage through it. I think there's going to be a two-part answer. Ed can speak to the runway and how we currently view it. As you can imagine, our priority is going through the data and coming up with the best possible path forward. And that is job one at this point, and it's something that we're working very, very hard to do. The goal is to be up and running as soon as appropriate so that we can regain what was a very substantial momentum as we said. We had enrolled over 650 patients, and that's I think just a really stellar record. But maybe, Ed, you can say a few words about the runway and how we're thinking about this may impact that. Edward Dulac: Of course. Thanks, John. Yes, I would say we -- it's premature to be too precise with any guidance. But as we sit here today, based on the information we know, as we indicated, the time lines and the plans for lonvo-z are unabated. So we continue to operationalize that study as we have been. While we are on clinical hold and therefore, unable to enroll new patients or screen for patients, as we reported, we do have now more than 650 patients in MAGNITUDE and we have 47 patients on MAGNITUDE-2 that still remain on study, are still being managed according to the protocol. So the appropriate follow-up. So that will continue as we work our way through our clinical hold. Maybe to your point, the only thing that changes is the incremental cost of dosing per patient. So in many ways, near term as we work our way through the clinical hold, you could argue we're going to spend a little bit less money. We'll still have program management fees related to CRO costs and our own internal work, but the incremental cost per patient will not occur during this time, and we will reassess what the time lines look like once we have a clearer path on getting off clinical hold. And then we don't talk much about it, but we do have research priorities within the organization, and that continues. So again, sitting here today, we don't see a substantial shift in the operating needs or the cash needs for the company, and we'll look to reevaluate that in a collaborative effort, including with the regulatory authorities in the weeks and months to come. Operator: And our next question comes from Yanan Zhu with Wells Fargo Securities. Yanan Zhu: Sorry to hear the update about the patient. I was wondering, when you talk about comorbidities, is there any liver-related comorbidities? And then additionally, when you talk about less than 1% of the enrolled patients have Grade 4 enzyme elevation, could you -- are you able to disclose how many cases of Grade 4 liver enzyme situation has happened and how many are still resolving? John Leonard: Thanks, Yanan. The 1% applies to the more than 650 patients. I remind you, this is an ongoing placebo-controlled double-blinded study. And what's attributed to what in precise numbers by case, et cetera, is not possible for us to get into. But you should think of this as less than 1% across that number. With respect to the comorbidities, it's not something we can get into at this point. I can assure you that there's an ongoing evaluation where we'll get more information that I think will be very helpful to understand the clinical course that this patient experienced. And we'll present that information at the appropriate time once we have it. But until that information is in our hand, I think it's premature to discuss. Operator: And our next question today comes from Troy Langford with TD Cowen. Troy Langford: My condolences on the unfortunate update today. I guess just to kind of follow on to some of the other -- some of the previous questions. Is there anything that you all can do preclinically to try and disprove any sort of causation between nex-z treatment and the safety event? And then I know you all can't say that much, but is there -- if you all can provide any sort of color on potential time lines or next steps with the FDA around reinitiation of the study, I think that would help a lot. John Leonard: Yes. I can't speak for the FDA, and we're certainly waiting for the letter that we expect to receive from them, the hold -- clinical hold letter. And that will be obviously very influential in how we think about -- going about getting back the protocol up and running. With respect to preclinically evaluating, it's hard to know at this point. But as I said before, we're looking at every source of information that we have to see if there is some way that we can identify patients who may be at increased risk. And when we find that information, I'm sure we'll be talking about it in a way that will be meaningful, but only when we're convinced that we have that information well in hand. Operator: And our next question today comes from Brian Cheng of JPMorgan. Lut Ming Cheng: Ed, earlier this year in January, I remember that you said that the ATM would be used at an opportunistic time. And looking at your 10-Q, $128 million this quarter was executed through the ATM. What changed your mind here in executing the ATM? And is the ATM your path going forward in raising additional cash? John Leonard: Brian, thanks for the question. And Ed, do you want to talk about how we think about the various tools for raising funds? Edward Dulac: Yes. So we've often talked about ATM as not a primary strategy, but a tool within the toolkit to raise capital for the company. We're not going to comment on specifics going forward, but we do believe in having options. And so whether it's traditional equity that's often done in biotech, including the use of the ATM, you should expect us to continue to have that available to us and potentially circumstances dependent to utilize that strategy. But there are others for a company like ours that is approaching Phase III data and has a BLA filing. And so whether it's collaborations that we could consider, debt structures or more creative financing opportunities, I do believe we have the balance sheet to get to those milestones and multiple options to consider to improve the balance sheet in the future. Operator: And our next question today comes from Jay Olson at Oppenheimer. Jay Olson: We're sorry to hear this news. Since you mentioned there are no Grade 4 liver transaminase elevations in MAGNITUDE-2, can you just talk about any notable differences in the baseline characteristics for MAGNITUDE versus MAGNITUDE-2? And any particular changes you may be considering to the enrollment criteria? John Leonard: The primary difference is the indication itself. Patients in MAGNITUDE-2, as I'm sure you know, have polyneuropathy, which is a manifestation of TTR amyloidosis. And in MAGNITUDE, it's cardiomyopathy as the primary manifestation. Other than that, the differences tend to be really minimal, and I would think of it as on a continuum with respect to the drug as a whole. Operator: And our next question today comes from Salveen Richter with Goldman Sachs. Salveen Richter: I was just wondering if we step back, whether you could just help us understand the steps from here apart from the FDA letter. John Leonard: Well, central to the way forward is the FDA letter and coming to terms with what they'll require. But you can imagine that we're already working very hard with all of the information that we've accumulated. We're looking clinical information, preclinical information, manufacturing, et cetera. All of this is part of a very, very comprehensive analysis to see if there is any indication of a particular thing or a characteristic that puts patients at risk. While we do that, we wait for the FDA and the information that it requests. And as that information -- as that letter becomes available to us, we'll think through what we need to do and we believe we'll have the tools to address what we imagine may be things that are of interest to them, and we will work very, very closely with them to come up with the best possible plan that we think is an appropriate way to mitigate risk. Operator: And our next question comes from Jack Allen of Baird. Jack Allen: I also wanted to pass along my condolences, a tough update here. Stepping back, I was hoping you could help remind us of the differences in the construct as it relates to the ATTR candidate as compared to HAE. I believe they're using different LNPs, but could you help me understand that, and then also obviously targeting different genetic diseases as well? John Leonard: Yes. Thanks for the question. As we've shared elsewhere, the LNP is the same. That is the lipid constituents, the mRNA is the same. It's the guide RNA that differs between the two. but that leads to a totally different sort of outcome in patients. So ultimately, the patients themselves are different. The disease that they have is different and the gene that is targeted is different. So we view lonvo-z and nex-z as absolutely distinct from each other and the patient experience thus far aligns with that. Operator: And our next question comes from Silvan Tuerkcan with Citizens. Silvan Tuerkcan: My condolences as well to the clinical team. My question is do you add any additional liver monitoring in the lonvo-z trial in HAE? And I'm asking because if the percentage is less than 1% on 650 patients, if you do the math, less than a patient in the HAE trial, right? So any chances you can pick up slight liver increases there before there's a potential launch? John Leonard: Well, first of all, the lonvo-z HAELO trial is completely enrolled. And as we said at a prior update, that patient population is fully enrolled, and they've all passed through this initial window for the patients randomized in the primary evaluation part of the study. The monitoring that we have is not as intense as what we have in the nex-z trial. But again, our experience to date has been quite distinct. And if there were an issue that we would expect to be able to see it with the monitoring that we do have. I would say that an additional aspect to point out is that on Saturday, as we said in our comments, we'll be presenting at the AACI meeting, the combined pooled experience that we have of all patients who have received a 50-milligram dose for lonvo-z, and you'll be able to see the same not only clinical performance, but safety performance that we're seeing ourselves. Operator: And our next question today comes from Jonathan Miller at Evercore ISI. Jonathan Miller: My condolences as well to the family of the patient and to you guys, tough update. I guess I would love to dig further into the comprehensive analysis that you said you were doing. Obviously, you're going back over the individual patient. But how deep are you going across both the nex-z and the lonvo-z patient populations thus far? And can you maybe put some guidelines around what sorts of cases you would consider to be possibly fitting the pattern versus the sorts of cases you would be excluding? I'm thinking of patients who have subclinical liver enzyme elevations that might fit a timing pattern. How do you adjudicate whether you think those are part of this signal or not? John Leonard: The first point I would make is that the lonvo-z experience is distinct from what we see with nex-z. But with respect to nex-z, you're correct in that we'll have more information coming from this particular patient, which I think can be potentially very illuminating in terms of understanding the patient's clinical course. But other than that, when I say comprehensive analysis, I mean comprehensive. And we're looking broadly. We're looking deeply and the sorts of things that you're raising are all on the list of things for us to consider. Operator: And our next question comes from Whitney Ijem with Canaccord. Angela Qian: This is Angela Qian on for Whitney. I also want to express our condolences. So we understand you'll be increasing the monitoring of lab values after dosing. But can you give us a little bit more color on how often the lab values are being monitored previously? In this one patient, the levels were discovered when he had abdominal pain. But in the other patients who did have elevations, how was that discovered? John Leonard: We've always monitored in the window, and that's how we are aware of what we've seen thus far. We've not only picked this up as a result of more intense monitoring. But what we've done as more information has become available to us is move to at least weekly monitoring for the first few weeks after a patient has been exposed to the drug to see if we're able to actually characterize the full course of what happens when it happens. Again, it's occurring in less than 1% of all of the patients that have been enrolled in the trial. And the notion there is that if there's information that can be acted on that, that's in the hands of the physicians who are caring for these patients. Operator: And our next question today comes from Luca Issi with RBC Capital Markets. Shelby Hill: This is Shelby on for Luca. Maybe a quick one on HAE. We appreciate that you don't see a lot of read-through here, but do you think the patient death in TTR could hurt the potential commercial opportunity for this indication? Any color there, much appreciated. John Leonard: I can only speculate at this time, I think between where we are today and completing the readout of our Phase III trial for HAELO, there's a lot of time and information to be accumulated that will characterize the benefit risk profile for lonvo-z. Again, I would point you to a presentation that will be given on Saturday, just a couple of days from now, where the combined experience of all of the patients, 32 that have received 50 milligrams and the efficacy profile, along with the safety profile is there for everyone to see. And we think that, that is largely going to be representative of what we think we'll see in our Phase III or clinical use of the product more broadly. So until we get all of that information, I don't think we're going to be in a position to talk about the commercial opportunity. But thus far, we very much like what we see. Operator: And our final question today comes from Myles Minter with William Blair. Myles Minter: Sorry to hear about the update. It's a straightforward one. Do you have a cause of death? This is a cardiomyopathy trial. You will have deaths in the trial, unfortunately. Just wondering whether this was a CV-related event or as it seems maybe something beyond that? John Leonard: If I heard you right, I'm sorry, it was a little garbled. We'll give the information once we have all of the final material in hand. There are some things that are being done after the death to give us additional insights. And at the appropriate time, we'll share all of that. Operator: Thank you. And that concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to CEO, John Leonard, for closing remarks. John Leonard: So thank you all for joining us. We will look forward to speaking with you again when we have meaningful updates to share. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.
Todd Seyfert: Good morning, and welcome Sturm, Ruger & Company's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. I'm Todd Seyfert, President and Chief Executive Officer. Before we get started, I would like to turn it over to Sarah Colbert, our Senior Vice President and General Counsel, for the caution on forward-looking statements. Sarah Colbert: I would like to remind everyone that some of the statements we make today will be forward-looking in nature. These statements reflect our current expectations, but actual results could differ materially due to a number of uncertainties and risks. You can find more information about these factors in our most recent Form 10-K and other filings with the SEC. We do not undertake any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Todd Seyfert: Thanks, Sarah. This quarter's results reflect both the realities of a challenging market and the early progress we're making as we continue to execute the strategic plan we began earlier this year. The broader market continues to face headwinds from tariff and interest rate uncertainty, inflationary pressures and a softening job market, all of which are affecting discretionary consumer spending and manufacturing costs. The firearms market is experiencing similar pressures. The overall market trending down 10% to 15% this year, while NICS checks, often used as a proxy for the market, down roughly 4% year-to-date versus 2024. Additionally, the market continues to be influenced by the availability of used firearms at retail. Despite these challenges, I am pleased with our top line performance for the quarter where we achieved year-over-year sales growth. As we continue to make progress on our strategic plan, we are actively focused on key operational initiatives and innovation activities. As top line performance trends upward, these disciplined actions are critical to accelerating return to sustained profitability and enhancing long-term success. Now Tom Dineen, our Chief Financial Officer, will take us through the financial results for the quarter. Thomas Dineen: Thanks, Todd. Net sales for the quarter were $126.8 million and diluted earnings were $0.10 per share. For the corresponding period in 2024, net sales were $122.3 million and diluted earnings were $0.28 per share. On a pretax basis, the company lost $2.1 million in the third quarter of 2025, driven by $1.9 million of acquisition and operating costs at the new Hebron, Kentucky facility that was acquired in July, increased costs associated with material and technology and increased sales promotional expenses. During the third quarter of 2025, we revised our estimated annual effective income tax rate for 2025, and recognized a $3 million increase to our year-to-date income tax benefit. This increased third quarter net income by $0.19 per share. Without this increase, our EPS would have been a loss of $0.09 per share. For the 9 months ended September 27, 2025, net sales were $395 million, and the company lost $0.48 per share. For the corresponding period in 2024, net sales were $389.9 million and diluted earnings were $1.15 per share. In the second quarter of 2025, the company rationalized and price repositioned several product lines, reduced the number of models offered and implemented an organizational realignment, which adversely impacted the results of operations for the 9 months ended September 27, 2025. On an adjusted basis, excluding the impact of these nonrecurring expenses, diluted earnings for the 9 months ended September 27, 2025, were $0.65 per share. On an adjusted basis, excluding the reduction in force expense of $1.5 million incurred in the first quarter of 2024, diluted earnings per share for the 9 months ended September 28, 2024, were $1.22. On September 27, 2025, our cash and short-term investments totaled $81 million. Our short-term investments are invested in United States treasury bills and in a money market fund that invests exclusively in United States treasury instruments, which mature within 1 year. On September 27, 2025, our current ratio was 3.5:1, and we had no debt. In the third quarter, we generated $13 million of cash from operations. In the first 9 months, we generated $39 million of cash. Year-to-date, capital expenditures totaled $28 million, including $15 million for the Anderson acquisition in Hebron, Kentucky. The company expects capital expenditures to total $35 million for the year for continued investments in new product introductions, expanded capacity for product lines in greatest demand, upgraded manufacturing capabilities and strengthened facility infrastructure. For the third quarter, we returned $13 million to our shareholders through the payment of $3 million of quarterly dividends and $10 million through the repurchase of 288,000 shares of our common stock at an average cost of $34.33 per share. In the first 9 months of 2025, we returned $36 million to our shareholders through the payment of $10 million of quarterly dividends and $26 million through the repurchase of 731,000 shares of our common stock at an average cost of $35.60 per share. The company also announced that its Board of Directors declared a dividend of $0.04 per share for the third quarter for stockholders of record as of November 17, 2025, payable on November 28, 2025. This dividend is approximately 40% of net income. Now back to you, Todd. Todd Seyfert: Thanks, Tom. When I stepped into the CEO role earlier this year, we began a comprehensive assessment of our operations and a full review of our product portfolio. Those activities continued into the third quarter where we realized top line growth from many of the actions taken in the second quarter while identifying additional opportunities to strengthen our foundation moving forward. Operationally, we are executing several key initiatives designed to improve efficiency and profitability across the organization. This quarter, we advanced into the next phase of that work with a rigorous evaluation of product line performance, conducting detailed line-by-line reviews of our portfolio and assessing profitability facility by facility to ensure our resources are deployed where they create the greatest value. This includes realigning our manufacturing footprint to maximize efficiency and reduce costs by balancing production lines across facilities to improve delivery and resource utilization. At the same time, we continue our product line analysis and rationalization to ensure that every product earns its place in our lineup and every facility operates efficiently and accountably. A great example of this is our newest facility in Hebron, Kentucky, which we acquired in July of this year. Following our product line review, we identified the need for additional capacity to support our modern sporting rifle category. We purchased Anderson to provide that capacity, which in turn freed up capacity in Maiden for one of our most in-demand products, the second-generation Ruger American Rifle. With the additional resources in Hebron, we are actively working to in-source components that were previously purchased, a move that will improve our cost structure, shorten lead times and give us greater control over quality and delivery. Additionally, product innovation continues to be the most important factor in remaining successful in a tough economic market. As I've said before, our greatest opportunities lie in delivering new relevant products that resonate with consumers and position us for sustained growth. For the quarter, new product sales accounted for $41 million or 34% of net firearms sales, which reinforces the popularity of our innovative products. As always, new product sales include only major new products that were introduced in the past 2 years. These are high-demand platforms that continue to resonate with customers across a variety of segments, including the award-winning RXM pistol, a modular polymer-frame striker-fired pistol developed in collaboration with Magpul. The second-generation Ruger American Rifle, an update to the American-made rifle that has been the benchmark for accuracy, durability and performance in bolt-action rifles for over a decade. Marlin lever-action rifles, which remain a staple for collectors, hunters and traditional enthusiasts. The Ruger 10/22 with carbon fiber barrel, a lightweight model featuring a stainless steel tensioned barrel with a carbon fiber sleeve. And the fourth-generation Ruger Precision Rifle, refined through years of feedback from competitive shooters. With that said, our pipeline remains strong and demand for new products continues throughout the channel. In Q3, we made meaningful progress to position ourselves for success in the future. Already in October, we have reintroduced Glenfield Firearms, an iconic value brand that offers hunters of all experience levels with a no nonsense American-made rifle; expanded the second-generation Ruger American Rifle line with the Prairie and Patrol models, the first Ruger American Rifles featuring a heavy barrel; and broadened Marlin caliber offerings with the launch of the first-ever 10-millimeter lever-action rifle in the market. These launches build on our most successful product families, and we're just getting started. Looking ahead, the coming months will bring even greater opportunity, including building out the popular RXM pistol family with new grip frames, sizes, accessories and configurations; launching a new line of modern sporting rifles manufactured in our Hebron facility; and bringing back the classic Ruger Red Label shotgun, making us once again a full-line manufacturer of firearms. As you can see, Ruger is well positioned for continued success. We remain focused on building a stronger, more agile company, one that consistently delivers value to our customers, employees and shareholders. I'm encouraged by the progress we've made and excited about what's ahead. With that said, we continue to take a disciplined and thoughtful approach to capital allocation, ensuring that every dollar deployed serves a clear strategic purpose and creates long-term shareholder value. Our priorities remain unchanged: maintain a strong debt-free balance sheet, invest in core product innovation and operational efficiency and return capital to shareholders responsibly. This disciplined capital approach ensures the company has the flexibility to invest when opportunities arise while continuing to reward shareholders over time. Ruger's future success will be measured by improved returns for our shareholders, and we are taking the right steps to get there, building a company designed for long-term strength rather than short-term reactions. Thank you for your time, continued support and confidence in Ruger. Operator, can we please have the first question? Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Mark Smith with Lake Street. Mark Smith: I wanted to ask first just about gross profit margin and what was kind of putting downward pressure on gross profit margin here in the quarter, if it was a mix issue or if there's still some of the transformation things that are putting some pressure on gross profit margin this quarter. Todd Seyfert: Before I answer that, just apologies. It sounds like we had some technical difficulties with the video this morning, which we encourage you to go to the website. It will be posted after the call today. But there's a lot of good content there. So again, apologies for the issues for those of you that couldn't access it or see it this morning. So with that, Mark, in terms of margins, really, it's a combination of things. I would tell you, it's not a lot of the things that we saw in Q2. It's more about some of the volumes. And really, the biggest thing I would say is the Hebron, Kentucky, the work that we're doing there to get that facility up and ready for production. And so we had about $1.4 million of costs associated with that facility without any revenue coming out of it. And so that's really the driver. We continue to go through our product line rationalization and our SKU consolidation, but you're not seeing a lot of that in the quarter. Mark Smith: Okay. And I did want to ask about Hebron on just kind of an update on where you're at in getting that facility up and running and production in that facility. Todd Seyfert: Absolutely. We're making great progress, Mark. Our goal was to be in production with firearms by year-end, and we're on pace for that target still. Mark Smith: Okay. Perfect. And then can you just talk a little bit about mix and price. As we think about -- it looks like sales price on orders received was down a decent amount as well as some of the items that were shipped, but very good production and units shipped. But I'm curious just kind of where your mix came in if RXM had maybe higher mix at a lower-priced item. And then I'd love to hear your thoughts on -- as we think about the new line coming out here of Glenfield and kind of your thoughts around mix and price and how that fits within the strategy. Todd Seyfert: Absolutely. So I think really the way to think about it in the quarter, Mark, was heavy LCP orders and shipments. We did do a program. And so that was a thoughtful program in terms of the quarter. And so that's really the driver within the quarter. When we talk about the Glenfield expansion, that's actually an opportunity for us in terms of the facility in Newport. What we did there, Mark, is, as you know, that the original American Generation -- American Gen I Rifle was produced in that facility. It's been produced for over a decade, fantastic entrance for Ruger into the bolt-action marketplace, affordable quality, value. As we pivoted to the Gen II Rifle, obviously, there was some confusion in the market, why are you still producing both. So a decision was made. Listen, when we bought Marlin, we acquired the assets and the trademarks for Glenfield. So what we did is we said, listen, we've got this opportunity, we've got this capacity. Let's go ahead and figure out how we enter at a new price point where Ruger hasn't played, round out the product offering, good, better, best, and that's where we came out with the Glenfield. And so that will be produced on upgraded machinery and equipment on the Gen I line, we're in production as we speak. And I will tell you that the acceptance in the marketplace has been fantastic. Mark Smith: Perfect. And I think the last one for me. Just curious about kind of steel and other input prices, where they're at and any pressure on margins that we maybe have seen from rising input prices? Todd Seyfert: Yes. I would say fairly flat. The good news is, is we had some -- we bought ahead in terms of supply, in terms of how much we had on hand, Mark, with some of the uncertainty. So that helped us a little bit. There is some noise around aluminum right now. Obviously, with the continued tariff uncertainty, we're positioning ourselves to be reactive to whatever is happening. And as you know, following this, it seems to be either by the day or by the week, we're seeing new information. And so we track it very closely, but not a significant amount of pressure on our costs to date. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Rommel Dionisio with Aegis Capital. Rommel Dionisio: Two questions. One, if I could just follow up to Mark's question on the Glenfield line. How do you guys think about the positioning of that brand and that product line going forward to not cannibalize existing sales of like Marlin or the other products that you have in place? Is it more just a pricing issue? Or is there kind of a different demographic you're targeting with that new product line, or sorry, revamped or rejuvenated product line for Glenfield that's got a heritage brand there. And the second would be on the Patrol line you just announced. I wonder if you -- is that towards law enforcement? I wonder if you could just give us some granularity on the type of consumer you're targeting with those two products? Todd Seyfert: Sure. Absolutely. So back to Glenfield first, Rommel, really, the whole idea around Glenfield was as we stratify our product line, we have the Marlin at the top of the pyramid, we have Ruger in the middle, and we didn't really have kind of the "opening price point." And so that is where Glenfield will play. It will be kind of the first gun. It will be the value to get into the Ruger brand and the Ruger company. And so our thought there was, again, we didn't have products at that price point. And so we created a variant of the Gen I with improved features and benefits at a price point that the Gen II does not play at. And so really focusing on attracting a new segment of the market, that's where we're focused on. And we're not cannibalizing anything because we don't have anything else near that price point. And so to us, this is kind of greenfield new opportunity, white space in the market. When it comes to the Patrol rifle, that's really a name. It's really not law enforcement focus, Rommel. It's really a variant of the incredibly successful Gen II. We've never had a heavy barrel version of the Gen I or Gen II to date. And so this really opens up that product line into categories in the marketplace that we have not gone to yet in terms of the Gen II rifle. So it's really a new variant, not focused on law enforcement, really focused on kind of that Western hunting general all around consumer, if you will. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of James Kostell with Cuyahoga Capital. James Kostell: Sorry, we had a little technical problem there. Yes, two unrelated issues. Firstly, 1976 was the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Next year will be the 250th. And '76, Ruger imprinted on the barrels made in the 200th year of Liberty. And will you be doing something, a similar promotion for next year? And it's my perception when I go to sporting goods stores that in the aftermarket, firearms with that imprint on them trade at a premium. And do you agree with that? Furthermore, if you're going to be doing a promotion of this sort and you compare it to what happened in 1976 versus 1975, can you give us an idea of what sort of increase in unit volume you saw back then and perhaps may see next year? Todd Seyfert: Well, first off, thanks for remembering what we did, and we're excited about it. So we're in the process right now evaluating what is possible across the product families. As you know, technology has changed, our volumes increased. And so we got to be thoughtful about how we would imprint and what lines. And so we're going through that analysis. There will be something. We're just not exactly sure which and how many. And then in terms of the premium that we see in the marketplace, we have seen when Ruger does special make ups or special builds that it does create a premium in the marketplace, and we believe that helps build the brand over time. And so we're very happy and very excited when we can do these things because it does give that consumer, that Ruger consumer that's used to these special types of firearms and other options to come in and buy another Ruger. So we're excited about that very much. In terms of kind of the other, the last question. It's a little bit more about -- we have to be a little bit careful about forward-looking statements and what we can and can't say. But I will tell you, again, we're very excited about next year. We're excited about the opportunity for the country and the brand and how we bring those two things together. James Kostell: Can you help me with what unit volumes did in 1976 versus '75 and kind of what happened there? Todd Seyfert: Gee, I can't off the top of my head to be honestly. I wish I anticipated this question and I could have helped you out. But I don't have those numbers at my fingertips. James Kostell: Okay. Second unrelated issue. You're going to reintroduce the Red Label. Do you -- I mean, is that somehow related to your new large shareholder, which is sort of the elephant in the room? Todd Seyfert: No, actually. It really is, for us, upon my arrival, we have really talked about the product families and where Ruger is and where Ruger wants to go. And it was really important to all of us in the company to become, once again, a full-line firearms manufacturer. And the one area that we were missing was the shotgun market. And so really, it's our way back to being the only full-line manufacturer of firearms, and that was the impetus for the reintroduction, as well as I'm a big shotgunner and I'm excited about it as well personally, so. James Kostell: Well, I mean, looking at it across the industry, SKB as an example, and Mossberg both import their target guns, I think, mostly from Turkey. I mean do you -- would you have a problem with somebody else manufacturing the gun and you're selling it under the Ruger name? Todd Seyfert: No, we wouldn't. Ours are U.S. made. So that's I think the differentiator for us and what Ruger is trying to do is we stand behind, we're very proud that we're a U.S. manufacturer of firearms and we'll continue to be that. Obviously, if an opportunity came up, it's something -- obviously, if it makes sense for the business and it makes sense for our shareholders, we would look at it. But our focus right now is building guns here in the U.S. James Kostell: So you think the Beretta interest had nothing to do with the Red Label? Todd Seyfert: That was -- these things happened way, way before the Beretta investment in Ruger. So this was on our road map. This is something that the company had been working toward, and we're at the point now where we're ready for it to launch, and we're ready to have guns, which we are launching here shortly. so. James Kostell: Would you have any update on the Beretta situation that you'd like to share with us? Todd Seyfert: I mean I think the answer is, listen, we appreciate their investment and confidence in our company. We reported in our press release last month that we issued a shareholder rights plan to kind of preserve the status quo, what we try to engage. And we're happy to engage with anybody that wants to have a conversation. And so we're a public company. We're always for sale, and we look forward to engaging with them when they're right. Operator: I'm showing no further questions. So with that, I'll hand the call back over to President and CEO, Todd Seyfert, for any closing remarks. Todd Seyfert: Thanks, everyone. We appreciate your attention. Again, apologies on the video. Please go to the website. The team did a great job putting that video together, a lot of good content. We appreciate your investment in Ruger and your trust, and we look forward to speaking to you next quarter.
Operator: Good morning. My name is Joelle, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Cascades' Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now pass the call to Jennifer Aitken, Director of Investor Relations for Cascades. Ms. Aitken, you may begin your conference. Jennifer Aitken: Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our third quarter 2025 conference call. We will begin with an overview of our operational and financial results, followed by some concluding remarks, after which we will begin the question period. Today's speakers will be Hugues Simon, President and CEO; and Allan Hogg, CFO. Before turning over the call, I would like to highlight that certain statements made during this call will discuss historical and forward-looking matters. The accuracy of these statements is subject to risk factors that can have a material impact on actual results. These risks are listed in our public filings. These statements, the investor presentation and the press release also include data that are not measures of performance under IFRS. Please refer to our Q3 2025 investor presentation for details. This presentation, along with our third quarter press release, can be found in the Investors section of our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us after the session. I will now turn over the call to our CEO, Hugues Simon, who will begin with a review of our Q3 performance. Hugues? Hugues Simon: Thank you, Jennifer, and good morning, everyone. Our third quarter performance was stronger than our projections. This was driven by improved volumes, higher average selling prices and lower production costs in both businesses. This reflects the growing momentum achieved by our profitability initiatives. Volume showed steady positive momentum in the quarter. In Packaging, the flexibility of our operating platform enabled us to capture volume above our forecast. We continue to remain laser-focused on our balance sheet, allocating free cash flow to reduce our debt. Consolidated EBITDA of $159 million increased 16% from Q2. As I mentioned, this was driven by a stronger performance in both of our businesses due to higher volume, higher selling price and lower production costs. Year-over-year consolidated EBITDA increased 14%. Results in both businesses benefited from stronger pricing and favorable raw material costs. These offset higher operating costs and lower utilization rate in Packaging. We provide a breakdown of the impact of these factors sequentially and year-over-year on Slide 5. Trends continue to be favorable on raw material input costs. We provide an overview of raw material average quarterly costs and trends on Slide 6 and 7. Moving now to the results of our businesses, which are highlighted on Slide 8 through 13 of the presentation. Beginning with Packaging, our second quarter sales increased 4% sequentially. This reflects stronger volume and improved average selling prices. Demand levels exceeded our cautious outlook with September, in particular, coming in stronger than expected. We provide box shipments data for Cascades and the industry on Slide 8 and 9. Q3 EBITDA increased by 14% sequentially to $136 million. This was driven by higher volumes and selling prices. EBITDA margins improved to 17.1% from 15.6% in Q2. Results in this business have begun capturing benefits from our improved operating cost structure and profitability initiatives. The closure of our Niagara Falls facility went well and production was transitioned to other operating units ahead of schedule. Similarly, we had a strong quarter at Bear Island, and we are pleased with the sequential progress. Production increased 24% to just over 102,000 tons. The mill ran at 90% of our targeted ramp-up curve and 88% of its total production capacity in the quarter. We have continued to see this positive operational pace in October, and we are forecasting a strong end of 2025. We remain committed to closing the gap by year-end. Our employees at Bear Island are driving this momentum and we would like to thank them for their hard work and incredible focus. Year-over-year sales increased by 3%. This reflected higher selling prices and favorable exchange rate, which offset lower volume due to plant closures and softer demand as a result of economic headwinds. EBITDA increased 16% from last year, driven by higher selling prices and lower raw material costs. Margins improved to 17.1% from 15.1% last year. Moving now to our Tissue business. Third quarter sales increased 5% sequentially on stronger volumes. Converted product shipments increased 6% in both away-from-home and retail tissue markets. EBITDA of $46 million increased 21% from Q2 as benefits from volume, mix and lower operating costs mitigated slightly higher raw material costs related to a higher proportion of virgin fiber. Sales increased 6% from last year. This reflected stronger volumes and higher average selling price. Shipments increased 5% year-over-year with a 7% increase in retail and a 1% increase in away-from-home. Year-over-year EBITDA increased by $3 million, reflecting higher volume, higher average selling price and lower material costs. These were partially offset by higher operating costs due to planned maintenance. We continue to focus on our Pryor, Oklahoma mill. We are building a strong foundation to accelerate efficiency improvements. We have started to see benefits in October and are confident that this trend will continue through Q4. Also, our recent investments in Kingsey Falls and Granby facilities are delivering good results. I'll now pass the call over to Allan, who will briefly discuss some of the financial highlights. Allan? Allan Hogg: Thank you, Hugues, and good morning, everyone. Let's start with the specific items recorded during the quarter, which impacted operating income by $12 million on Slide 14 and 15. The main items were $10 million for an environmental provision related to a closure in 2024 of a plant in Canada and $6 million of restructuring charges mainly related to the closure of the Niagara Falls mill. In addition, there was also a $4 million gain on derivative financial instruments. Slide 16 and 17 illustrate the year-over-year and sequential variance of our Q3 adjusted earnings per share and the reconciliation with the specific items that affected our quarterly results. As reported, Q3 net earnings per share were $0.29. This compared to net earnings per share of $0.01 last year and a net loss of $0.03 per share in Q2. On an adjusted basis, net earnings per share were $0.38 in the current quarter. This compared to net earnings per share of $0.27 last year and $0.19 in the second quarter of 2025. These increases were both driven by stronger adjusted EBITDA in the current quarter. As highlighted on Slide 18, third quarter adjusted cash flow from operations was $137 million, up from $86 million in the year ago period and $101 million in Q2. Adjusted cash flow generated in the second quarter improved year-over-year, mainly reflecting stronger operating results and lower financing expense. Capital investments and dividends paid to minority interests were largely unchanged. Sequentially, the increase in levels of adjusted cash flow generated reflects stronger operating results and lower amounts of dividends paid to minority interest, net of higher financing expense paid. Slide 19 provides details about capital investments. New investments for the third quarter totaled $30 million, bringing the year-to-date level to $91 million. For 2025, we expect CapEx to total approximately $140 million, slightly lower than the $150 million stated at the end of Q2. Moving now to our net debt reconciliation as detailed on Slide 20. Sequentially, net debt decreased by $81 million in the third quarter, mainly due to a stronger cash flow from operations and a reversal in working capital requirements. A less favorable exchange rate on our U.S.-denominated debt increased debt levels by $42 million. Our leverage ratio decreased to 3.6x from 3.8x at the end of the second quarter. Our available liquidity under our credit facility stood at $630 million at the end of the third quarter. We also announced that we've completed the sale of the Flexible Packaging operation on October 8. The $31 million of cash proceeds have gone towards debt repayment in the fourth quarter. Including this amount, total proceeds from asset sales amount to $57 million this year. Financial ratios and information about maturities are detailed on Slide 21, and other information and analysis can be found on Slides 26 through 34 of the deck. I will now pass the call back to Hugues, who will conclude with some brief comments before we begin the question period. Hugues? Hugues Simon: Thank you, Allan. We provide our outlook for Q4 on Slide 22. In Packaging, raw material and selling price trends are anticipated to be favorable. However, we remain cautious regarding demand levels due to unusual post-Thanksgiving seasonality and continued macro uncertainty. To this end, we are currently forecasting Packaging results to be in the range of stable to 10% below Q3 levels. This is driven by an expected 5% decrease in volumes, mainly in December. Tissue results are expected to strengthen sequentially with lower raw material and maintenance costs. Corporate costs are expected to be stable. However, share-based compensation costs are expected to be higher given the recent increase in our share price. Before opening the call to questions, I would like to provide an update on our strategic priorities for 2025 and 2026. First, our plan to monetize redundant assets is progressing well, and we are increasing our target to $120 million by June 2026 from the $80 million disclosed previously. Lastly, our culture of excellence focus is starting to show benefits and have helped mitigate the impact from headwinds. On Slide 24, we provide a few examples of what has been done and our current areas of focus. Looking at our most recent quarter, our initiatives contributed approximately $10 million to our results sequentially. We are on track to achieve our $100 million objective of run rate profitability improvements by the end of 2026. With that, we can now open the call to questions. Operator? Operator: [Foreign Language] [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Hamir Patel with CIBC Capital Markets. Hamir Patel: Congrats on a strong quarter. Hugues, I wanted to ask about the profitability improvement objectives there, the $100 million by the end of 2026. You mentioned you captured $10 million in Q3. How much have you captured cumulatively to date? And then the sort of longer-term goalpost of over $200 million, what do you see as the time line of achieving that? Hugues Simon: Yes. Thank you for your question, Hamir. If you look at what we've done so far this year, the first 2 quarters of the year was mostly focused on building the foundation to drive improvements. And we really started to see some good benefits in the third quarter. So we're building momentum. And as we stated on the second quarter, like we're really looking at a net run rate of $100 million by the end on the last quarter of 2026. So we expect the momentum to continue. I won't say on a straight curve. But most of it has to be achieved like before the fourth quarter, it's not all going to happen at the end of 2026. So we expect some momentum to be building over the next 3 quarters. And we're focusing on twice of the amount because, obviously, there are some headwinds. You look at the uncertainty in the market today. There's a volume impact. We -- that drove some of our decisions in the third quarter to shut down our Niagara Falls facility. We were able to redistribute the customer mix, focus on linerboard versus medium and look at profitability on a per hour basis, putting the right products on the right machine for the right customer. So that momentum is going to continue to build. And obviously, the focus is to get it as fast as we can. Hamir Patel: Great. That's helpful. And Allan, with respect to the CapEx budget for 2026, $175 million, what are the sort of larger projects that drive the increase there? Allan Hogg: Well, our team are just planning for that. But there's no, I would say, major strategic, but maybe a bit more investment in this year to continue to improve where we need to improve, improve quality, reduce our costs. So -- but there's nothing, I would say, like a major addition to what we have. That's what we have on the table right now. Hamir Patel: Okay. Great. And just the last question I had, and maybe this is for Hugues. Just with respect to what you're seeing in the recovered paper market, do you feel OCC prices are bottoming here? And kind of what are you seeing in your local markets? Hugues Simon: Yes. I mean we just had the latest publication going down $5 here and $10 in the Southeast yesterday. I mean we're getting to a point. It's a low number. We're really tracking the percentage of people that are doing the recycling. We're also tracking the quality of the product that we're getting. Sometimes when pricing deteriorates, you see an impact on quality, and that's something that we pay very, very close attention. There's also more of a headwind for people to export out of North America. But in the meantime, we're also seeing with the shutdown in the U.S., a lower recovery rate or a lower generation of OCC as well as consumers have reduced their spending. So we're -- per region, we're tracking the balance of all that, making sure that our strategy provides for like the low generation that we'll typically get as well after Christmas and match that with our operating rate. But overall, for the next quarter, we see that as if you do the summation of everything I just mentioned, it's a positive trend for us, but paying close attention to the volume generated. Operator: Your next question comes from Sean Steuart with TD Cowen. Sean Steuart: Congrats on a solid result. Hugues, a number of the U.S. packaging comps have provided cautious 2026 guidance with respect to the volumes and margins. Do you have enough visibility in your order file maybe past the fourth quarter to really comment on expectations, I suppose, on the volume side to start with for your Packaging business in 2026? Hugues Simon: Thank you for your question, Sean. I mean the visibility, I mean, we typically guide 1 quarter ahead. All the economic uncertainty right now gives a bit more of a -- it's a bit muddy out there for 2026. If you look back over the last few quarters, we've been very cautious on the guidance, and we've also been cautious on volumes that we put in our operating plan. The key here for us is really we want to be able to capture any uptake in demand. And we've been able to do that in the third quarter. We are able to do that right now in the fourth quarter. If you look at the fourth quarter, our -- the biggest uncertainty is post Thanksgiving, given the U.S. shutdown and how much money the U.S. consumer have to spend. So it's going to be the same reality until we see more stability in the economy, but we'll be ready to capture any uptake. And we're really focusing right now on partnering with customers that are more resilient that don't see too much of a drop that are using basic products. And then we have our mix in Canada and in the West that does behave differently than the U.S. It's very busy in our Western operation. It's very busy in Ontario as well. Quebec is probably the one that is the most difficult market given the type of businesses and the type of product that we produce. So we're working on that as well on a per region basis to partner with the most resilient customers. But as far as visibility, I mean, we'll continue to be cautious. We're not going to be over optimistic, and we'll make sure that we have the quick turnaround time to capture any available business over and above our forecast. Sean Steuart: Second question for Allan. The increase in the asset sales target to $120 million, is that incremental just exclusively the addition of the Flexible Packaging divestiture? And further to that, can you give us a sense of any associated EBITDA tied to these initiatives, i.e., how much are you giving up as you sell these assets down? Allan Hogg: Well, it's not necessarily linked to the Flexible Packaging transaction. As we go, we continue to evaluate what we have, and we see that there may be new opportunities that are coming on the table. So that's why we feel comfortable to increase this target. And there's -- in terms of EBITDA contribution, it's nothing -- I would say, nothing major. And as for Flexible, the approximately $5 million to $6 million a year. So that's no -- nothing significant, and we continue to progress, and we might have new opportunities in the future and some might just be not achievable. So that's why we are comfortable with the level we have right now. Operator: Your next question comes from Matthew McKellar with RBC Capital Markets. Matthew McKellar: Just reflecting back on some of the presentation materials around the time you're constructing Bear Island would suggest there could still be pretty substantial incremental EBITDA to unlock as Bear Island ramps up from, I guess, 88% in Q3 to the full potential of the facility. So recognizing that price input cost spreads and operating costs have evolved over time, how do you think about the incremental EBITDA Bear Island running full to generate compared to what you did in Q3? Hugues Simon: Yes. Thank you, Matt, for the question. The -- if you look at the last 6 months, we saw consistent improvement from an operating rate standpoint or operating efficiencies. We're now to a point where we're at 90% of our ramp-up curve, but also at 80% of the capacity of the mill. So we'll continue to push on that to get to the 100%. And we've now started to look at usage, so cost components, whether it's chemical, all the materials that we use here. So this is going to be a main focus for the next 6 to 12 months is how do we get benefits from both operating efficiencies and usage, so cost structure. We don't disclose profitability per mill, but there's still enough benefits to capture between where we are today versus where we want to be, that remains our #1 priority on Packaging. Matthew McKellar: And would that 6 to 12 months' time line align with when you would expect to essentially hit the full run rate profitability of the mill? Hugues Simon: From an efficiency standpoint, we expect Bear Island by the end of next year to be at the same. You're never at 100% of the capacity all the time, but we'll be running at the equivalent from an operating standpoint of our Greenpac operation. And our cost initiative, I want to say that it's going to take 24 months to get to a full where we are. That being said, we always reassess that, right? So sometimes we're somewhere and then we feel we can get better. And that's a bit of the mindset that we've put in place with our excellence initiatives where we always want to have over $100 million in the pipeline of improvement so that we can take care of headwinds, inflation and other cost components that we have less controls on. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Nathan Po with National Bank Capital Markets. Nathan Po: Congrats on the quarter. So I want to ask about your Packaging segment because EBITDA came in above expectations this quarter. Were there any onetime incremental volumes that contributed to this? And can you describe whether those are more permanent volumes or temporary given you mentioned you're ready to capture any incremental uptake? Hugues Simon: Yes. No. So there's no onetime incremental volume that we don't feel that are going to come back. We are going to have this normal seasonability, sorry, on the fourth quarter. And now, I mean, we have the economic uncertainties in both Canada and the U.S., could be quite honest, like mostly post Thanksgiving. We saw good traction more than expected in September. That continued throughout the month of October. And we're not really seeing much of a slowdown to date right now in November. But we know that from a season standpoint, it is going to slow down. And you look at the accumulation of negative news for the North American consumers, we want to be cautious. So if you look at our guidance, we took 5% off in volume for the fourth quarter, and it was not front-loaded, but I mean, backloaded in the second part of the quarter, given Thanksgiving and Christmas. That being said, we're continuing to work on customer mix, the right product at the right place on the right machine and improved mix of linerboard versus medium because there is a significant difference in the profitability between the 2 products. So really pushing to have a more resilient volume base, which will enable us to plan better and look long term ahead with more stable volumes. Nathan Po: Appreciate the color. And with the -- talk about the CapEx budget constraints and lowering that guidance and focus on debt repayments, I want to invert that a little. What needs to change in the environment in 2026 or even 2027 for you to revise that CapEx budget upwards or start investing for growth? Hugues Simon: Well, we've said for many quarters, we want to be between the 2.5 and 3. We're at 3.6. So we're making good progress. We're not announcing any significant CapEx for 2026. We have options. Our strategy is to really build different options in both Packaging and Tissue to see what has the best return for Cascades. So I mean, we started looking at what are our alternatives, and we'll continue to do that. But for now, we're going to continue our focus on debt repayment. We're making good progress. We're looking at our forecast at the end of Q4. We'll make additional progress in the third quarter results. That does not include the Flexible Packaging sale, which cash came in, in the fourth quarter, and we're pushing our $80 million to $120 million. So we're really focused on that 2.5 to 3. We're not waiting to get there to assess our options, but we want to maintain a good ratio so that we maintain flexibility in an environment that it's ever changing. So a strong balance sheet will always give us more alternatives and put us more in the driver's seat versus like a 4x ratio on debt. Operator: There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Hugues, please continue. Hugues Simon: Well, thank you, everyone, for your time. We're very satisfied with the quarter. Looking forward for the fourth quarter, and we'll try to maintain the trend. Thank you. Operator: [Foreign Language] Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good day, and welcome to the Velocity Financial, Inc. Third Quarter 2025 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chris Oltmann, Treasurer. Please go ahead. Christopher Oltmann: Thanks, Chloe. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for the discussion of Velocity's Third Quarter 2025 results. Joining me today are Chris Farrar, Velocity's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Mark Szczepaniak, Velocity's Chief Financial Officer. Earlier this afternoon, we released our third quarter results. You can find the press release and accompanying presentation that we will refer to during this call on our Investor Relations website at www.velfinance.com. I'd like to remind everyone that today's call may include forward-looking statements, which are uncertain and outside of the company's control, and actual results may differ materially. For a discussion of some of the risks and other factors that could affect results, please see the risk factors and other cautionary statements made in our communications with shareholders, including the risk factors disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please also note that the content of this conference call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of today, and we do not undertake any duty to update forward-looking statements. We may also refer to certain non-GAAP measures on this call. For reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures, you should refer to the earnings materials on our Investor Relations website. Finally, today's call is being recorded and will be available on the company's website later today. And with that, I will now turn the call over to Chris Farrar. Christopher Farrar: Thanks, Chris, and we appreciate everyone joining the call today. Our third quarter results were fantastic as we've achieved another record quarter in terms of pretax earnings, which were up 66.5%, production volumes of $739 million and new applications, which exceeded $1.4 billion for the quarter. Looking forward, the markets remain strong, and this momentum has continued into the fourth quarter as we gain market share and expand our reach. From a credit perspective, we remain disciplined as evidenced by the decline in the weighted average portfolio loan-to-value to 65.5% and our coupons remain on target at 10.5% generating attractive risk-adjusted spreads and stabilizing our attractive NIM and core pretax ROE of 24.1%. Our asset managers have done a great job of resolving NPAs consistently above par for net positive gains. Plenty of capital available for REOs that are priced properly and expect the real estate markets to continue to perform well within our niche. Most unique event in Q3 was the closing of our first ever single counterparty securitization of new production with a top-tier money manager. This strategic partnership allows us to reduce transaction costs, execute at similar levels to our regular, widely marketed deals and diversify our long-term funding options. We're proud to partner with this world-class firm and expect the transactions to continue as evidenced by a second transaction that closed in early October. Obviously, the fixed income markets are very supportive, and we intend to maximize our opportunities there. As usual, I give full credit to our outstanding team members that work so hard to deliver these results, and we will continue to create shareholder value wherever possible. With that, I'll turn over to the presentation and begin discussing Page 3. In terms of earnings, obviously, a great quarter, net income up 60% year-over-year and core diluted EPS of $0.69 a share. Portfolio NIM was very stable at 360 basis points above our target of 3.5%. Moving to Production and the Loan Portfolio. I mentioned record level of production of $739 million, 32% net increase in the portfolio year-over-year after netting out prepayments. In terms of nonperforming loans, that portfolio was pretty stable, 9.8%, down from 10.6% and within our expected range. As I mentioned earlier, we continue to see positive gains on resolved NPAs of $2.8 million, and our team has done a fantastic job there. Turning to financing and capital. I mentioned that first ever single counterparty transaction. We were approached a quarter or 2 ago by a large party and with the interest of developing a consistent outlet for our product and very pleased with the way that transaction -- both those transactions executed. And we expect it to be an additional diversification of our funding sources going forward. In terms of liquidity, we have plenty of cash and available borrowings, and you can see over $600 million of warehouse capacity at the end of the quarter. So all in all, in shape there. Turning to Page 4. I want to reemphasize our strategy of compounding earnings by taking all of our earnings and investing them back into the platform and the portfolio. As you can see, we've had outstanding results, and we think this is a great opportunity for investors to get exposure to our earnings and the compounding of capital. So very pleased with how we've transacted over the last couple of years and expect this to continue going forward. With that, I'll turn it over to Mark on Page 5. Mark Szczepaniak: Thanks, Chris, and good afternoon and evening, everyone. On Page 5. As Chris mentioned, Velocity had a new record for loan production in Q3. The loan production for the quarter was $739 million. That included $23.9 million in unfunded loan commitments. The $739 million again demonstrates our continued strong demand for our product. In Q3, the loan production broke the previous quarter's record of $725 million. There were a total of 1,778 loans originated in the third quarter. The strong production growth in Q3 included the weighted average coupon on new held for investment originations continuing to come in strong at 10.5% and the weighted average coupon on our HFI originations for the last 5-quarter average trend was at 10.6%. The growth in originations in Q3 was also very tight credit levels with the weighted average loan-to-value for the quarter being at 62.8%, which is right on top of the last 5-quarter average weighted average LTV trend of 62.8%. As a result of the continued robust growth in production, take a look at Page 6. It shows the overall growth in our Q3 for our overall loan portfolio as we retain these loans in our portfolio. Our total loan portfolio as of September 30 was just under $6.3 billion in UPB. That's a 7.1% increase from Q2. And I think as Chris mentioned, a 32% increase year-over-year, even netting out prepayments. The weighted average coupon on our total portfolio as of September 30 was 9.74%, which is 7 basis points above Q2 and 37 basis points in terms of portfolio yield over Q3 -- I'm sorry, year-over-year. The total portfolio weighted average loan-to-value remained consistently low at 65.5% as of September 30. If you go to Page 7, we maintained a strong portfolio NIM at 3.65% in Q3, and that's consistent with our last 5-quarter average portfolio NIM of 3.62%. On the right side of that page, you can see the breakout of our yield as well as the cost of funds. Our portfolio yield for the quarter was at 9.54% and the cost of funds at 6.27%. We've maintained a nice healthy spread over several periods. On Page 8, our nonperforming loan rate at the end of Q3 was 9.8%. That's down 0.5 point from Q2 and 80 basis points year-over-year. We continue to see, as Chris mentioned, the strong collection efforts by our special servicing department that have resulted in favorable resolutions of our nonperforming assets and the NPAs are comprised of our nonperforming loans as well as REOs. Page 9 shows the continued positive results of our NPA resolution efforts. Our Q3 NPA resolution gains totaled $2.8 million or 2.6% of the $108 million in UPB resolved. And on a trend basis, we've averaged 3.8% quarterly NPA resolution gains over the last 5 quarters. Turning to Page 10. The top part of the table on the right-hand side shows our CECL loan loss reserve. The bottom part shows the net loan charge-off and gain loss on REO activity. In terms of the CECL reserve at September 30 was $4.6 million, or 22 basis points, and that's on our outstanding amortized cost HFI portfolio. And that 22 basis points is consistent over the last 5 quarters, we've averaged around 20 basis points of CECL reserves. So not much of a change there. And keep in mind, the CECL reserve does not include held -- I'm sorry, fair value option loans. It's only our held for investment amortized cost. The bottom part of that table shows that for Q3, our net gain loss from loan charge-offs and REO activities. We had a net loss of $1.6 million, mainly as a result of REO valuations. Page 11 shows our durable funding and liquidity position at the end of Q3. Total liquidity at September 30 was just under $144 million, and that's comprised of about $99 million in our cash and cash equivalents and almost another $45 million in available liquidity on our unfinanced collateral. As of September 30, our available warehouse line capacity is just a little over $600 million with a maximum line capacity of $935 million. And that's a $125 million increase in max line capacity over Q2. So we went from $810 million maximum capacity at the end of Q2 to $935 million and some of our warehouse lines are increasing their capacity. That concludes my Q3. Our debt-equity ratio on a recourse basis stays consistent though it's at 1x, has been between 1.5x, 1x for the last 5 quarters. So Chris, with that, I'll turn it back to you to present an overview on our outlook and key business drivers. Christopher Farrar: Thanks, Mark. Appreciate it. Just to sum it up, we're very positive about the future. We think markets are healthy. Our credit is performing well. Our capital markets are extremely robust, especially on the fixed income side. And we believe that our earnings are going to continue to grow and expect positive results going forward. So with that, I'll open it up for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Steve Delaney with Citizens. Steven Delaney: Gosh, excellent quarter. It sounds repetitive, but you guys put the numbers up every quarter and just whether it's production gains, everything that you've summarized on Page 3. So tip my hat to you on that for sure. A little concern on not so much REO resolutions, but just in terms of, as you show on Page 10, the charge-offs are up quarter-over-quarter for sure. And this quarter, I know REO gains can be a little fluky, but we went from a nice gain on REO in the second quarter to -- or excuse me, last year third quarter to the loss this year. And I guess the number that jumps off the page because primarily, I don't understand it. Chris, if you could help me understand the REO valuations on a net basis, the negative $6.3 million. Just explain that if that was a -- do you book the REO at where you think it should be or based on your loan balance? And then as you study the market and get feedback on property valuation, then you have to adjust. Just curious why that big number of negative $6.3 million. Christopher Farrar: Thanks for the question, Steve. In terms of the REO valuation, I'll walk you through the detail. But just from a high level, if you look, you'll see it in our Q that gets filed later today, year-to-date, our REO activity is basically on top of last year, $3.2 million gain, I think it is. So there's some noise just in timing issues here. In terms of the REO valuation expense that we recognize, that happens after we've taken a loan from -- off the books and put it into REO. And then it's -- as it sits on the balance sheet, we adjust market to market realities. I would say in this $6.3 million, you've got some cases where maybe the property has deteriorated, maybe worse than what we thought when we originally foreclosed. You have some cases where we actually end up just selling the REO a little less than where we thought we were going to -- where we had it marked. So it can be driven by a number of different things. But I would say, from our perspective, we don't see it as like a worsening trend and much more of just kind of a quarterly timing issue. I expect that number, you'll see it kind of go up and down quarter-by-quarter. Mark Szczepaniak: And I'm sorry, Steve, this is Mark. If I could just add to what Chris said, it is really a timing item. The main thing to look at is the NPL resolution table, the final resolutions. For example, I got $6.3 million. What could happen is when we first foreclose on a property and set the REO up, the REO has to go up at its fair value. We'll keep in mind, since we've got the loans at basically 63%, 60% LTV, if you have a $500,000 loan, now you're going to write off the loan and put the REO on the books for, say, $800,000 because the loans at 65% LTV. So you put the REO on your books at $800,000. So that's what's in that gain on transfer to REO, that top number. Then maybe 6 months down the road, you get an offer, it's not $800,000, it's $700,000. And you say, okay, we got an offer for it. That's the new fair value. We're going to take the offer. So you write it down from $800,000 to $700,000. Well, in that period, which might be 6 months later, 8 months later, it looks like a $100,000 REO loss. The reality that $700,000 you're writing it down to is still $200,000 more than the $500,000 loan you had. So overall, if you sell it at that $700,000, you're still going to have an overall gain on resolution. It's just a timing of when you first put the REO on and then maybe you write it down because you're going to decide to take less to sell it. But what you're selling it for is still more than the loan that you took off the books. Steven Delaney: Got it. So I think you're telling me -- you added $4.6 million as a positive number when you took it into REO. And then when you understood the property or developed the marketing plan or looked at offers or something, then you had to just -- you reverse some of that. Mark Szczepaniak: That's exactly correct. And that $6.3 million, remember, it's different periods. So the $4.5 million, that's all new REO that came on in that quarter. The $6.3 million is probably something that maybe in those quarters, it went on for $8 million or $9 million positive, and now we're taking $6.3 million of it back, if I'm saying. Steven Delaney: Got it. Got it. Okay. Understood because you have the gain, it's more of an accounting gain when you take it into REO the first time. But then once you understand valuation, it sounds like that can be a little lumpier in terms of when that valuation adjustment is made. Mark Szczepaniak: That's correct. Steven Delaney: All right. That's helpful. Well, obviously, the positives in the report far exceed the negatives, but I just wanted to bring that up. And one final thing. What is your headcount currently or at 9/30? And how has that changed over the last year? Christopher Farrar: Yes. So we're at like 347 people at 9/30, and that's up about 82 heads. Steven Delaney: Okay. Congrats on another great quarter and I guess we'll do this again in 3 or 4 months. Christopher Farrar: Thanks, Steve. Operator: [Operator Instructions] This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Chris Farrar for any closing remarks. Christopher Farrar: Great. Thanks, everybody, for joining, and we'll speak to you in a few months. Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
Trip Taylor: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Participating from the company today will be John Treace, Chief Executive Officer; and Mark Hair, Chief Financial Officer. John and Mark will discuss our third quarter financial results and updated 2025 outlook. We'll then host a question-and-answer session following our prepared remarks. Our press release can be found on the Investor Relations section of our website at investors.treace.com. This call is being recorded and will be archived in the Investors section of our website. Before we begin, we would like to remind you that it is our intent that all forward-looking statements made during today's call will be protected under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements that relate to expectations or predictions of future events and market trends as well as our estimated results or performance are forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are based upon our current estimates and various assumptions. These statements involve material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to materially differ from those anticipated or implied by these forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are based upon currently available information, and Treace Medical assumes no obligation to update these statements. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these statements. Please refer to our SEC filings, including our Form 10-Q for the third quarter of 2025 filed after the market close today, November 6, and can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website at investors.treace.com for a detailed presentation of risks. With that, I will now turn the call over to John. John Treace: Thank you, Trip. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. In our press release issued this afternoon, we reported third quarter revenues of $50.2 million, representing 11% growth over the third quarter of 2024 and a 49% improvement in adjusted EBITDA versus the prior year. We also provided some color on the market dynamics we have seen and are continuing to see and our revised outlook for the full year. Before I get into details on our results and outlook, market dynamics and the execution of our strategy, I wanted to take a moment to recognize one of our directors, Richard Mott, who has chosen to retire from our Board for personal reasons. Rich has made significant and valuable contributions to Treace Medical throughout his time as a director, and we appreciate the expertise, insights and guidance that he's provided to the Board and the company. We wish him all the best, and he will no doubt always be a friend here to Treace Medical. Turning to our performance. Throughout the year, we've discussed what a transformational time this is for Treace Medical as we continue to focus our strategy to evolve our business from a single technology Lapiplasty company to a comprehensive bunion solutions company. Building upon our flagship Lapiplasty and Adductoplasty systems, we have developed and commercialized 3 new bunion correction systems this year. We believe we're now positioned to address virtually 100% of surgeon preferences for bunion correction with 5 best-in-class instrumented systems spanning all 4 classes of bunion deformities. And these are further bolstered by expanded commercial availability of several other new technologies to broaden our footprint in the foot and ankle market. To support this expanded portfolio of products and extend our customer relationships, we brought on a Chief Commercial Officer earlier this year, and we recently appointed a new Senior Vice President of Sales and have added leading foot and ankle sales experts to our sales team. We expected our growth to accelerate each quarter through 2025 and particularly in the second half, given our new solutions and ability to target a broader base of surgeons. Successful execution of our strategy helped drive revenue growth in the third quarter. However, we also benefited from sales to a limited number of stocking distributors that we don't expect to recur at the same levels in future quarters. At the same time, we experienced pressure on Lapiplasty volumes as surgeon and patient preferences continue to shift towards minimally invasive osteotomies. In addition, we're seeing broader economic conditions and softer consumer sentiment leading to a greater number of deferrals of elective bunion procedures. These headwinds have continued early into the fourth quarter, which, as you know, has historically been our strongest period of the year. Given these market dynamics, we are revising our outlook for the full year. We now expect 2025 revenue to be in the range of $211 million to $213 million, representing growth of 1% to 2% compared to full year 2024. As the founder of this company and a large shareholder myself, I'm disappointed in our results and that we are not growing our top line the way we'd anticipated for the year. I would like to provide some additional color on the drivers of our updated outlook as well as our focus areas as we move forward. First, I'd like to talk to our product portfolio and what we are seeing in surgeon and patient preferences. With our broader portfolio of products, we have now become a one-stop shop for all bunion needs with customers who use Lapiplasty technology already and have established relationships with their Treace sales reps. Our new bunion technologies have also allowed us to attract a new audience of surgeons, those who currently prefer metatarsal osteotomy procedures for the majority of their bunion cases versus our Lapiplasty solution. With our 2 differentiated 3D MIS osteotomy solutions as well as our new SpeedMTP Great Toe Fusion system, we now have multiple opportunities to appeal to this surgeon audience. We are also seeing interest from some of these new surgeons adopting our flagship Lapiplasty and Adductoplasty solutions as well. During the third quarter, we experienced mid-single-digit case volume growth versus the prior year. However, case volume growth was still below what we originally anticipated, and it was largely driven by our 3 new bunion systems, which have lower ASPs relative to Lapiplasty. While we believe this volume growth demonstrates that we are capturing a larger relative share of available bunion procedures, our system sales mix is shifting away from Lapiplasty which as a higher ASP system impacts our overall revenue levels. Further, as we ramp up with our expanded portfolio of products, we are not yet seeing a level of adoption on Lapiplasty from new product surgeons that would offset other pressures on the Lapiplasty line. That said, we continue to believe we can achieve increased adoption over time. Second, we believe in addition to the change in mix, macroeconomic conditions and consumer sentiment are impacting our case volumes. In October, we conducted a survey with a cross-section of our surgeon customers and the responses to date have indicated that on average, their bunion surgical volumes year-to-date through October had decreased approximately 7% compared to the same period last year. This is consistent with what we are hearing from hospitals and surgical centers, which are reporting that outpatient elective surgeries are being deferred, particularly for commercially insured patients and the more elective the procedure, the more likely they are to be pushed out. Third, I'll touch on the timing-related impacts of our strategy to shift our contractual arrangements with a limited number of distributors. With a new commercial leader and a new product portfolio, we have evaluated our selling strategies and saw an opportunity to enter into stocking relationships with certain key distributors, which we believe better positions us competitively in those markets. In the third quarter, in particular, we had a greater-than-expected benefit from this change. We recorded approximately $6 million in stocking distributor sales within the quarter, with approximately half of this amount being above our plans as our distributor partners responded positively to the availability of our new products and build inventory ahead of Q4 bunion season. While we are already seeing replenishment orders from our distributor partners, this pull forward of approximately $3 million in sales creates a headwind for us in Q4 as we do not expect this benefit to recur at the same level. Looking forward, we plan to continue to execute our strategy with a focus on driving continued market share gains, accelerating our top line growth and delivering improved profitability in 2026. To do this, we'll continue to train more of our 3,100-plus current customers on our new systems while also focusing on adding new surgeon customers. In Q3, 1 quarter into launch, over 20% of our surgeon customers have already adopted one or more of our new bunion technologies. As a technology and innovation leader in the space, we expect we will drive increased adoption of our best-in-class portfolio, tapping into more cases and expanding our procedure volumes with our surgeons. We are already seeing encouraging traction on this front with continued enthusiasm around our new systems and high attendance at our surgeon training events. Next, with a focus on strengthening our sales team's presence and procedural opportunities with surgeons, we plan to continue to deliver a robust pipeline of new innovations expected to impact 2026. To highlight a few, our new Lapiplasty Lightning platform. This next-generation instrumentation is designed to further increase the precision and speed of the Lapiplasty 3D correction. As a reminder, Lapidus fusion, though lower volume than osteotomy, remains the largest dollar segment in the bunion market today. We have been the pioneers and leaders in this segment, and we are committed to advancing our technology leadership and bolstering our competitive position in this market. Next, our Percuplasty compression screw system, which incorporates the innovative design features of our MIS Percuplasty screw implants into a new line of compression screw implants. This provides our sales team a new core fixation technology, which complements our SpeedPlate platform. We believe the addition of this new system will further strengthen our sales team's ability to serve more reconstructive procedures throughout the foot and ankle. And we'll continue to offer new procedure-specific SpeedPlate implants and problem-solving sterile instrument designs, opening up incremental procedure opportunities, serving more procedures and helping our surgeon customers achieve better results. And with new commercial and sales leadership, we plan to continue to build upon the capabilities of our already strong sales team, adding experienced foot and ankle sales professionals with deep knowledge and credibility in the market to deliver increased productivity and impact in 2026 and beyond. Treace is known for innovation and helping surgeons deliver greater patient outcomes. As we move forward with our growing portfolio of offerings alongside of our Lapiplasty solution, we expect our sales team to be better positioned to more broadly service existing customers and onboard new surgeon customers. Finally, while we navigate this period, we are already taking action to control what we can control with respect to our organizational cost structure and plan to evaluate levers as we move forward. We have a scalable business model and are focused on improving profitability and adjusted EBITDA and reducing our cash burn in 2026. With that, let me now turn the call over to Mark to review our financial performance. Mark? Mark Hair: Thank you, John. Good afternoon, everyone. Revenue in the third quarter was $50.2 million, an increase of $5.1 million or 11% over the prior year period. Growth was mainly driven by an increase in bunion procedure kits sold compared to the prior year. Gross margin was 79.1% in the third quarter of 2025 compared to 80.1% in the third quarter of 2024. Total operating expenses were $55.4 million in the third quarter of 2025, an increase of 8% compared to total operating expenses of $51.3 million in the third quarter of 2024. These increases reflect increased medical education, surgeon training events on our new bunion systems, restructuring charges and increased litigation expense in the quarter compared to the prior year. Third quarter net loss was $16.3 million or $0.26 per share, an increase in our net loss of 6% compared to a net loss of $15.4 million or $0.25 per share in the third quarter of 2024. Year-to-date, net loss was $49.6 million, a decrease of 10% compared to a net loss of $55.2 million for the same period in 2024. Adjusted EBITDA loss for the third quarter was $2.6 million compared to $5.1 million in the third quarter 2024, a reduction of 49%. This represents significant progress towards our improved profitability goals. Year-to-date, adjusted EBITDA loss was $10.1 million, a decrease of 54% compared to a loss of $22.1 million in the same period last year. Total liquidity as of September 30, 2025, was $80.6 million, comprised of $57.4 million of cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities and $23.2 million of availability under the revolving loan facility as of September 30, 2025, compared to $90.7 million at the end of Q2. Compared to the prior year, cash usage decreased in the third quarter 2025 and year-to-date by 17% and 58%, respectively. Before concluding, let me turn to our outlook for full year 2025. As John mentioned, we are revising our full year guidance. We now expect full year 2025 revenue to be in the range of $211 million to $213 million, representing growth of 1% to 2% compared to full year 2024. In addition, we now expect a loss in adjusted EBITDA in the range of $6.5 million to $7.5 million for the full year 2025, reflecting a 32% to 41% improvement over the prior year. We also expect a reduction in cash use of 43% to 47% for the full year 2025 as compared to the full year 2024. Supported by a strong and flexible balance sheet, we believe we are well positioned to continue executing our strategic and growth initiatives for the foreseeable future. I'll now hand it back over to John for some closing remarks. John Treace: Thanks, Mark. As we close today, I would like to reiterate that we are not satisfied with our results and that we are not delivering the growth we had initially planned for the year. However, looking ahead, we believe we are strongly positioned to drive market share gains with our new products, innovation pipeline and ability to leverage our dedicated commercial organization. We remain a recognized leader in the market, and our team is focused on increasing our top line growth, improving profitability and delivering value to shareholders. With that, let me now turn the call over to the operator to open the line for your questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Lily Lozada with JPMorgan. Lilia-Celine Lozada: Can you talk a bit more about the softness in the core Lapiplasty business and how you're thinking about that trending from here? If there is a growing preference for MIS osteotomy, do you think this is something that can turn around eventually? What could get this to return to growth if doctor preferences have just been shifting elsewhere? John Treace: Lily, John here. Yes, it's a great question. There's definitely a trend towards popularity of minimally invasive osteotomies, yet there is a segment of the market that is the Lapiplasty or Lapidus domain where you have the more significant bunion deformities, where we started in that market and built our business around that. Now we're going to go capture share in the minimally invasive osteotomy market and the MTP fusion market. These are significant volume opportunities for us. And right now, we're getting good market share penetration. We're taking competitive share in that arena, but it's coming at a lower price point. So the success we're having on the ground and in the surgeons' practices is not translating to the top line. That said, the reason we are doing this is we believe we can capture more customers and bring them into Treace and get them wherever they relegate the Lapiplasty procedure to for the Lapidus segment. Every surgeon has to do Lapidus at some point. There are deformities that are really severe or they're unstable and they have to use a Lapidus product there. So it's always going to be there. We just have to get more surgeons on board, and we're doing it using our new product technology and then pulling through the Lapiplasty. But to date, the Lapiplasty gains we're getting from those new customers aren't enough to make up for the softness overall that's coming at the trade-off of minimally invasive osteotomies to Lapidus. Lilia-Celine Lozada: Got it. That's helpful. And then I know it's still early, but I'm hoping you can share some thoughts on what this all means for next year. By my math, the guide implies fourth quarter sales down 10% or so or 6% if you adjust for that pull forward that you called out. So is that how we should be thinking about at least the first few quarters of 2026? Mark Hair: Lily, this is Mark. I'll take that one. We're not providing guidance for 2026 at this time, and we plan to provide an update at our fourth quarter earnings call. But with that said, we're navigating a change, this transition that John talked about, and there are a lot of reasons why we are very optimistic. John talked about being the leader in the space, and we're growing case volumes. I think that's a really important point to focus on. Our case volumes increased in Q3 versus the prior year, and we fully anticipate for additional case volumes in Q4 as well. So we've really been encouraged by the reception of these 3 new bunion systems. And we've got more innovation coming that should impact 2026 as well, of course, our strong commercial organization. So we look forward to providing an update about the progress at our Q4 earnings call. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Zimmerman with BTIG. Marie Thibault: This is Marie Thibault on for Ryan this evening. I wanted to sort of follow up a little bit on the shift in preferences. I would like to understand -- I know that this has been sort of an ongoing shift, but has there been some sort of acceleration that you've seen away from Lapiplasty? A little curious why this has sort of become a bigger issue here, I guess, in the second half of this year. And then as part of that, trying to understand sort of a good reaction to the 3 new bunion technologies, very encouraging to hear. Is that something that could be accelerated? Is that a focus for the sales team to sort of drive those products a little faster and partially offset some of the shift away from Lapiplasty? John Treace: Yes, Marie, John here. Definitely, there is a trend with the minimally invasive osteotomy and minimally invasive foot surgery. That's why we're here. And we're playing in that market with some really novel technologies, our Percuplasty System, our Nanoplasty System. And then there's another segment of the market that's the great toe fusion, and that can be about 20% of the overall 450,000 bunions. So these are -- osteotomies are 70% of the market procedure-wise, Lapidus is, call it, 30%. We're playing in all of these spaces now, and we're using the tools we have and extracting market share in our minimally invasive procedures while we work on next-generation Lapiplasty, and that will be there as a driver going forward for us as well. And what was the second part of the question that I missed? Mark Hair: Is the sales force focusing on these new products? John Treace: Yes, they are. Yes. Sorry about that, Marie. They absolutely are, and they're using it to drive greater penetration, greater engagement with their surgeons. We're seeing really solid uptick with the new products. And we think that opens the door to present Lapiplasty to more surgeons and our Adductoplasty solution. So they absolutely are, and we're doing really well on that front. And that's why we were talking about the procedure volume growth mid-single digits in Q3 that we expect to continue through Q4. And if we can accelerate that, you do reach that point where the top line starts to grow again, and we'll be back on track. Marie Thibault: Okay. Sure. That's really helpful. And then a follow-up here. You mentioned taking action to control what you can control. Any specifics that you can give around where you might be able to find some efficiencies on the P&L, things to kind of offset the little bit of a lower top line? Mark Hair: Yes, this is Mark. So we have been and will continue to take actions to control those things that you said, that we can control. If you look at the financials, we had reported a little somewhat of a restructuring charge already in Q3, where we've looked for opportunities to change -- make some changes in the organization and the cost structure, and we'll continue to evaluate levers as we move forward. Fortunately, for us, we have a very scalable business. We have high margins, and we're focused on driving the top line and improving profitability. So it's definitely going to be an area of focus for us. Operator: I'm showing no further questions at this time. This does conclude the question-and-answer session. Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the call. John Treace: I think we've got somebody -- I think we have somebody in the queue. Operator: We have someone now? We are sorry about that. We have Jayna Francis with UBS. Jayna Renee Francis: Just wondering, how would you plan to recoup some of those deferred procedures when you're going into next year? And then the second one would be just the puts and takes to 2026 qualitatively since we appreciate you're not giving quantitative guidance? John Treace: Jayna, this is John. Yes, the deferred patients into next year, our approach is now we have a lot more ways to get at the patient population and whether that's a little lighter or a little heavier. But going into next year, if we will get a little bit of improvement in consumer sentiment, we continue to get our sales team more familiar and more engaged with these new products as well as Lapiplasty. I think we set ourselves up really nicely to capture a larger share of more patients coming back into the front and having surgery. Operator: [Operator Instructions] All right. I'm showing no further questions at this time. This does conclude the question-and-answer session. Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Thank you for joining us today. Certain statements made during the course of this conference call that are not historical facts, including those regarding the future financial performance and cash position of the company, expected improvements in financial and related metrics, expected ARR from certain customers, certain expected revenue mix shifts, expectations regarding seasonality, customer growth, anticipated customer benefit from our solution, including from AI, the extent of the anticipated TAM expansion and our ability to take advantage of any such expansion, our AI and our CCaaS revenue opportunities and current estimations regarding same, including the ability to leverage data in support of AI revenue opportunities, company growth, enhancements to and development of our solution, statements regarding our share purchase program, market size and trends, our expectations regarding macroeconomic conditions, company market and leadership positions, initiatives, pipeline, technology and product initiatives, including investment in R&D and AI and other future events or results are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are simply predictions, should not be unduly relied upon by investors. Actual events or results may differ materially, and the company undertakes no obligation to update the information in such statements. These statements are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties that could adversely affect Five9's future results and cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate, including the impact of adverse economic conditions, including the impact of macroeconomic challenges, including continuing inflation, uncertainty regarding consumer spending, high interest rates, fluctuations in currency exchange rates, lower growth rates within our installed base of customers and the other risks discussed under the caption Risk Factors and elsewhere in Five9's annual and quarterly reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, management will make reference to non-GAAP financial measures during this call. A discussion of why we use non-GAAP financial measures and information regarding reconciliation of our GAAP versus non-GAAP results and guidance is currently available in our press release issued earlier this afternoon as well as in the appendix of our Investor Relations deck that can be found in the Investor Relations section of Five9's website at investors.five9.com. Also, please note that the information provided on this call speaks only to management's views as of today and may no longer be accurate at the time of a replay. Lastly, a reminder that unless otherwise indicated, financial figures discussed are non-GAAP. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Five9's Chairman and CEO, Mike Burkland. Michael Burkland: Thanks, Tony, and thanks, everyone, for joining our call this afternoon. We're pleased to report a solid Q3 with continued momentum in bookings, highlighted by enterprise AI bookings growing more than 80% year-over-year, contributing to healthy improvements in backlog. Subscription revenue, which makes up 81% of total revenue, grew 10% year-over-year, primarily driven by enterprise AI revenue growing 41% year-over-year in the third quarter. In terms of profitability, adjusted EBITDA grew 37% year-over-year to a margin of 25%. We also generated record free cash flow, which grew 84% year-over-year to a margin of 13%. The meaningful increase in profitability and cash flow is driven by the transformation initiatives we announced earlier this year. We continue to take action to drive operational improvements while investing in AI and go-to-market initiatives, maintaining a line of sight to our 2027 medium-term targets as we work toward the Rule of 40 and beyond. Turning now to our business updates. Today, I'd like to focus my commentary on 3 key areas. First, our significant and evolving market opportunity ahead. Second, how we believe we're uniquely positioned to win in this new market of AI-powered CX; and third, our momentum with strategic partners. We are in the early innings of an industry shift in CX, where our market opportunity is being driven by multiple growth vectors. For instance, Gartner forecasts the market for traditional CCaaS to grow at a 9% CAGR and the GenAI customer service market to grow at a 34% CAGR through 2029 to a combined annual spend of $48 billion. We believe this growth will create a powerful tailwind for category leaders like Five9 as we continue to execute against this durable multiyear opportunity. Furthermore, we believe Five9 is uniquely positioned to be the platform for orchestrating end-to-end customer experience across both AI agents and human agents. At the heart of our advantage is data. The contact center holds a brand's richest customer data, the full conversation history across every channel and every interaction. Our platform essentially remembers everything a customer has said, whether they spoke with a live agent or an AI agent through voice or digital. This creates what we call a relationship-based experience like when your favorite app [ reaches ] you by name, remembers your preferences and picks up exactly where you left off. Every engagement feels personal, contextual and connected. AI point solutions can't replicate that because they only see isolated transactions, not the full relationship. At its core, our platform is a real-time orchestration engine for every interaction across all channels, whether handled by a human agent or an AI agent. In addition to our suite of AI products, which you're all familiar with, we also infuse AI within our core platform. For example, we now have AI-based routing, which leverages AI to dynamically manage and route every interaction with context to the best human agent or AI agent regardless of channel. Additionally, our platform is uniquely positioned to deliver experiences that will allow human agents and AI agents to collaborate in real time. This can include experiences such as in queue self-service, where during a time a customer waits in queue for a live agent, an AI agent can proactively help resolve the issue, turning hold time into resolution time. Also, agent sidebar, where AI agents can quietly consult a human agent mid conversation to get help without interrupting the customer and AI barge-in, where a human can seamlessly step into an AI interaction to ensure the issue is resolved and the experience remains positive. These experiences showcase what only an end-to-end AI-powered CX platform can deliver. A continuous collaboration between human agents and AI agents, where each interaction enriches the next. That feedback loop compounds over time, creating a powerful data flywheel that strengthens performance, accuracy and personalization. In addition, we're being recognized by industry analysts for our platform-driven approach. For example, Five9 was named a leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CCaaS for the eighth year, and we were also named a leader in IDC's inaugural MarketScape for European CCaaS. Analysts are recognizing us for strengths in our AI capabilities, cloud-native architecture, global scalability and strong European market presence. This dual recognition validates our strong market position, innovation and consistent customer satisfaction. These platform advantages are also driving momentum with our strategic partner ecosystem, including a major milestone we achieved in the third quarter. In September, we launched Five9 Fusion for ServiceNow, a turnkey AI-powered integration that unifies voice and digital interactions through real-time transcription and intelligent routing. This launch delivers 2 key capabilities. First, our transcript stream integrates directly with ServiceNow Workspace, enabling Now Assist to generate AI-powered summaries and resolution notes that dramatically reduce handle times. And second, our routing engine now directs ServiceNow digital channels and cases alongside Five9 channels for true omnichannel orchestration. This represents a significant milestone in our 8-year partnership with ServiceNow, and they're leaning in stronger than ever, demonstrated by our year-to-date ACV bookings with ServiceNow quadrupling with even greater acceleration in this third quarter. We are also seeing strong traction with other key technology partners, including Salesforce, where year-to-date ACV bookings grew more than 60% and Google Marketplace, where our pipeline has tripled since the announcement of that partnership in Q1. Our strategy of building meaningful partnerships remains a key strength as our long-standing alliances with key partners continue to differentiate us in the market. Additionally, we're seeing ongoing momentum, particularly upmarket, where enterprises are looking to create holistic customer experience strategies that seamlessly integrate with their core business systems. In conclusion, we're optimistic about the foundation we are building for the next decade. At our upcoming CX Summit, we will be announcing new innovations that we believe will set the stage for the next wave of growth as we continue to lead the AI-powered CX revolution with our end-to-end platform to orchestrate interactions across the continuum of AI agents and human agents to deliver what we call the New CX. Importantly, we're doing so with a balanced approach by driving operating leverage and investing in what we believe are the highest return opportunities to drive innovation and durable growth for our business. I want to thank our team of Five9ers for their unwavering dedication to strengthening our leadership position. I'm extremely excited about the future of Five9 and confident we have the platform and the expertise to drive long-term growth. Before turning it over to Andy, I'd like to provide a quick update on our CEO search. As you know, we're focused on identifying a leader with experience and a proven track record in product innovation, a commitment to operational excellence at scale and a growth mindset to further capture market share in this expanding TAM driven by AI. I'm pleased to report that the search is progressing well with our ongoing goal of announcing a successor by year-end. And with that, I'll turn it over to our President, Andy Dignan. Andy, go ahead. Andy Dignan: Thank you, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. We were pleased to deliver another solid bookings quarter in Q3. We won the highest number of $1 million-plus ARR new logos in 2 years, and our installed base bookings hit another all-time high, driven by ongoing strength in upsell and cross-sell activities. For example, a major U.S. card servicer chose Five9 in a $3.7 million ARR deal. A multistate hospital system selected Five9 in a $2.7 million ARR deal. A leading European mobile and broadband provider partnered with Five9 in a $1.3 million ARR deal. And a global parcel delivery leader expanded their relationship with Five9 in a $3.5 million ARR deal. Looking ahead, we remain encouraged by the momentum of our business, fueled by pipeline and RFP activities sustaining elevated levels. In addition, we are increasingly winning competitive evaluation against AI point solution providers as enterprises recognize the value of our unified platform where AI is natively embedded across the entire customer journey. I'd like to talk about 4 examples of customers experiencing AI elevated CX because of the Five9 platform advantages. The first example is the global parcel delivery leader already on our core platform who is moving off an AI point solution in order to take advantage of our contextual data for hyper-personalization plus our deep integrations to their third-party systems. In addition, the efficiency gain for being able to have real-time insights across human agents and AI agents was another key reason they selected our AI-powered platform. The second example is a commercial vehicle financing provider who uses Five9 AI to support multilingual F&I servicing across North America, orchestrating seamless journeys from AI agents to human agents with deep CRM integration and omnichannel visibility. The third example is a regional digital bank who monetized their services with Five9 AI-powered routing, Agent Assist for banking integrations, enabling real-time orchestration of financial interactions while preserving full customer context across channels. And the last example is a major academic health system who replaced legacy IVRs with Five9 AI to improve patient access and scheduling, using our end-to-end platform to orchestrate voice and digital journeys with shared context between AI agents and human agents. And with that, I'd like to turn it over to Bryan to take you through the financials. Bryan? Bryan Lee: Thank you, Andy. Before we dive into our quarterly results, I'm excited to announce our inaugural $150 million share repurchase program, which is an important milestone that reflects a deep conviction in our long-term growth opportunity. We believe Five9's current valuation does not reflect our intrinsic value, particularly when considering the total platform opportunity for both our core CCaaS and AI-driven growth. The structure of the program includes an allocation of $50 million through an accelerated repurchase program, which we expect to complete before the end of Q1 2026 and the remaining $100 million balance open for up to 2 years. This program underscores our commitment to a disciplined and balanced approach to capital allocation and delivering strong returns to shareholders. Now turning to our financial update for the third quarter. Q3 revenue came in at $286 million, representing 8% growth year-over-year. Subscription revenue grew above total revenue at 10% year-over-year, driven by enterprise AI revenue growing 41% year-over-year, now making up 11% of enterprise subscription revenue. As anticipated, revenue growth was negatively impacted by approximately 5 percentage points due to a tough compare from our largest customer completing its multiyear ramp throughout 2024 and from minimal seasonal uptick compared to Q3 '24. As a reminder, subscription revenue reflects both customer growth and product expansion, including our AI solutions. Subscription revenue represented 81% of total revenue, up from 79% a year ago. And we expect this mix shift to continue as we focus on high-margin subscription dollars increasingly led by our AI solutions. Telecom usage represented 12% of revenue and professional services made up the remaining 7%. By design, these 2 categories are not growth drivers and steadily becoming a smaller percentage of total revenue. On an LTM basis, enterprise contributed approximately 91% of total revenue with the subscription portion growing 18% year-over-year. Our commercial business represented the remaining 9% and declined in the teens year-over-year as we continue to focus upmarket, which has better unit economics. The year-over-year decline in commercial is more pronounced than anticipated, but we're in the process of recalibrating and expect to get to historical year-over-year trends within the next couple of quarters. LTM dollar-based retention rate came in at 107% in the third quarter, down sequentially from 108% in Q2, which is within the small band we spoke about last quarter. This was driven by the tough compare I mentioned a moment ago regarding subscription revenue growth. In Q4, we anticipate DBRR to continue to be range bound, but expect upside in 2026. Turning now to profitability. Q3 adjusted gross margin was 63%, up approximately 100 basis points year-over-year, while adjusted EBITDA margin reached a record of 25%, up approximately 530 basis points year-over-year. This marks our fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year expansion in both metrics. The consistent improvement is driven by our revenue mix shift toward higher-margin subscription revenue, combined with operating leverage as we scale and achieve cost efficiencies from our transformation initiatives. Additionally, we continue to boost productivity as demonstrated by our revenue per employee increasing 12% year-over-year. Q3 GAAP EPS was $0.21 per diluted share, representing 4 consecutive quarters of positive GAAP earnings, while non-GAAP EPS came in at $0.78 per diluted share. In terms of cash, both operating and free cash flow reached record highs. We generated $59 million or 21% of revenue in operating cash flow and $38 million or 13% of revenue in free cash flow. Turning now to guidance for the fourth quarter and full year 2025. For Q4 revenue, we're guiding to a midpoint of $297.7 million, which represents sequential growth of 4%. Despite our ongoing expectations of minimal seasonality, the 4% sequential growth is higher than our typical guidance pattern for Q4 due to revenue contributions from the backlog driven by both new logo and installed base bookings from past quarters that are starting to ramp. For full year 2025 revenue, we're maintaining our guidance at $1.146.5 billion, which represents double-digit growth for the full year. For Q4 non-GAAP EPS, we're guiding to a midpoint of $0.78 per diluted share, which reflects our ongoing disciplined cost management and an estimated 1.7 million shares being retired through our accelerated share repurchase, offset by lower interest income. For full year 2025 non-GAAP EPS, we're raising the midpoint by $0.06 to $2.94 per diluted share. Additionally, we're raising our full year 2025 adjusted EBITDA margin expectations to approximately 23% compared to our prior outlook of 22%. In summary, 2025 has been a year of transition, shaped by multiple financial and operational dynamics. However, I'd like to provide some perspectives on how we expect the business to inflect as we progress throughout 2026. It's important to understand the evolution we are seeing in how bookings convert to revenue, particularly for our recent installed base expansions, including more AI products. Deployment of these AI solutions and expansions into additional departments within existing customers have longer implementation cycles, typically converting to revenue over multiple quarters. This translates to a meaningful portion of the strong installed base bookings we've been achieving layering into revenue progressively throughout 2026 with the most significant impact in the second half of the year. And this is in addition to our new logos in the backlog ramping throughout 2026. Given these factors, we expect the sequential change in Q1 '26 revenue to be relatively flat, followed by momentum building quarter-over-quarter throughout the year. From a year-over-year perspective, we expect revenue to return to double-digit growth in the second half of 2026. As a result, we're comfortable with the current Street consensus revenue of $1.254 billion for 2026. On the bottom line, our historical pattern is for Q1 to step down sequentially, representing our lowest quarterly EPS of the year. And we expect that same pattern to continue in 2026. We anticipate sequential improvement in Q2 with more meaningful acceleration in the second half, particularly Q4. For the full year 2026, we expect to exceed the current Street consensus non-GAAP EPS of $3.14 per diluted share. Also, we expect annual adjusted EBITDA margin to expand by at least 100 basis points year-over-year to 24% plus in 2026. Lastly, we expect annual free cash flow to be approximately $175 million in 2026. In closing, Q3 reflects strong execution on our transformation initiatives, which are driving bookings momentum and meaningful operating leverage. We remain laser-focused on achieving the Rule of 40 in 2027 with a return to double-digit total revenue growth, driven by bookings strength in both core CCaaS and AI, coupled with ongoing margin expansion. The share repurchase program we announced today demonstrates our confidence in the team's ability to execute and create long-term shareholder value. Operator, please open the line for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] We will begin with DJ Hynes from Canaccord. David Hynes: Bryan, I'm going to start with you and just what happened in the quarter. I mean, look, Five9 has generally been known for being pretty measured with its guidance. I look at Q1 of this year, you beat the high end by $7.2 million. Q2, you beat it by $7.8 million. This quarter, we're only at the high end of the guidance range. So I guess it begs the question like what changed? What happened in the quarter? Bryan Lee: Yes, DJ, thanks for the question. So just a couple of points I want to make there. First of all, we're in the current growth environment that we're transitioning through. We do not expect big beats, number one. And then if you think about the quarter, I'm going to stick with subscription revenue that represents 81% of our revenue. There are 2 components. So it grew 10% year-over-year in Q3 versus 16% in the quarter before. So that 6 percentage point differential, 5 of those 6 is made up by the tough compares that we've been talking about all year long, right? We have the headwind from our largest customer who is finishing its multiyear ramp throughout 2024, making a tough comparison as well as our seasonal uptick that was very strong last year, that was very minimal at this time in Q3. And then there's a third component that was unanticipated in the sense that earlier, I mentioned the commercial revenue declining year-over-year in the teens. So that was more than what we anticipated. And there are really 2 key drivers there. One was we underallocated demand gen spend toward commercial during the quarter. And the other piece is that we had a gap in sales capacity as we promoted more commercial reps to enterprise than normal. So we're in the process of recalibrating that, and we anticipate over the next couple of quarters to kind of return the commercial revenue growth -- revenue year-over-year trends back to the historical norms. But those are kind of the puts and takes that went through the quarter. Michael Burkland: And DJ, I'll just add, promoting those reps from our commercial team to our enterprise team, that happens naturally. That's our farm system for talent internally. So again, from time to time, we get a lot of promotions that happen. And then what you have is in commercial, you've got reps that are ramping, right? So that was part of it. Operator: Our next question will come from Siti Panigrahi from Mizuho. Sitikantha Panigrahi: I just wanted to ask about this -- your installed base booking. Last quarter, it was record bookings. Again, another quarter of record bookings. Why it's taking so long to translate that to revenue? I understand it takes maybe a couple of quarters. But Bryan, based on your guidance, it appears now a little bit more like a year, like Q2 when we'll start seeing that. Can you help us understand and what can you do to further accelerate that? Bryan Lee: Yes, absolutely. So Siti, the installed base bookings, as you've heard in the last 2 quarters, have hit all-time highs, which is great. And a lot of that is through upsell, cross-sell of software, including AI and new business units that we're discovering within our existing customer base. So these kind of bookings, and we're having more and more of those each quarter, they have a ramp converting from bookings to revenue, very similar to new logos essentially. So that's why our Q4 guide, if you look at it, the sequential growth there is rounding up to 4%, which is higher than the typical guidance that we give for Q4. And that reflects the backlog of not just new logos, but installed base bookings that are starting to convert into revenue. And then not just Q4, but into 2026 as well. So this is a new dynamic, but one that we have taken into consideration for our guidance. Operator: Our next question will come from Ryan MacWilliams from Wells Fargo. Ryan MacWilliams: And look, we'd love to hear about what the bookings environment in the third quarter was like and how that's evolved with all the attention on AI now. And I know this is less a part of your business at this point, but I still have to check in just on the holiday season usage in terms of how we could see seasonal hiring for seats there, both for open enrollment and retail customers. Michael Burkland: I'll start, Andy, feel free to chime in and Bryan, too. But good to see you, Ryan. Look, some highlights for the quarter. AI bookings up 80% year-over-year. We're really, really pleased with that. And again, the momentum in AI is continuing. But I'll add that our non-AI bookings in enterprise was actually a Q3 record as well. And again, as these worlds come together over time, we're still breaking out kind of our AI products from our non-AI products for you all in terms of revenue and bookings commentary. But look, it's a good bookings environment. As we just talked about, there's a little lag in the engine given the character of the bookings. But look, highest number of $1 million-plus logos in 2 years, that's great and an all-time record for installed base bookings. So all in all, we're really pleased with the bookings momentum, but didn't mean to steal your thunder. Ryan MacWilliams: No, no, that's fully... Bryan Lee: Let me touch on seasonality real quick, Ryan. So -- it was actually quite a few interesting dynamics that we saw. And I'm going to focus -- if you recall, we surveyed our top seasonal customers back in July, and I'm going to stick with the consumer vertical with those customers because it's a good proxy. So on the subscription side, we saw that it was minimal seasonality as they had anticipated. But on the telecom usage side, we did see a slight uptick. And so we went back to those customers, and they actually observed the same in terms of volume of interactions coming into their contact center where they saw a small uptick. So they're in the process of monitoring that really closely to see if in the back part of November and December, we see a much stronger uptick then, in which case, they will, to the extent possible, expand their seasonal business with us. So right now, the way the guide is set up, we're still expecting minimal seasonality, but there is -- if there is that uptick, then that would be potentially a small upside for us. Operator: Our next question will come from Catharine Trebnick from Rosenblatt. Andrew King: Andrew King here on for Catharine Trebnick. Just wanted to double-click on the international really quickly. Good to see that IDC report out. Just wanted to hear what you see your differentiator as over in that market? And how is that BT relationship helping you progress over there? Andy Dignan: Yes. The BT relationship continues to be strong for us. I mean, obviously, they bring to bear sort of the reseller type market. They bring their services to bear. And so we continue to have a lot of success there. And look, we've been saying it, international has a lot of upside for us, and we continue to lean heavily on the partner go-to-market. We still have direct business. And so we feel good about how that's tracking and again, continue to invest in that space, both obviously, in our core business, but then AI and digital as well. As many of you might know, in the international space, digital is sort of a key technology area. So if we continue to expand that business, it's going to pay off for us. Operator: Our next question is from Terry Tillman from Truist. Connor Passarella: This is Connor Passarella on for Terry. Just wanted to kind of follow up on the Salesforce relationship, particularly on the drivers of the booking strength that you called out there. Is there a way to maybe frame the performance across the 2 opportunities that you have within that ecosystem being Agentforce and Service Cloud? Andy Dignan: Yes. What I would say would be -- so Service Cloud is obviously a key focus for Salesforce and us. We have over 1,000 joint customers, and we partner in every opportunity together with Salesforce to make sure that we're moving that forward. That's really why we came up with sort of the Fusion framework, which that Fusion framework is just sort of our framework for how we integrate the CRM, whether that's Salesforce, ServiceNow or others. And so we're having a lot of success in that route to market sort of the self-service arena. sorry, the Agentforce is the second opportunity. Look, I think it's still early days for Agentforce. And when we go into an opportunity, we want to win the core CCaaS. Obviously, Salesforce has CRM and like the best solution for the customers where we align on. And again, back to that Fusion, it's really about customers wanting to understand what they get, what's the benefit out of us coming together. And I think that's been -- has helped drive opportunity because our sales teams and Salesforce sales teams are all essentially saying the same thing in terms of the benefits to the customer. Michael Burkland: And I'll just add that the momentum with Salesforce and our joint customers is very, very strong. I talked about the 60% year-over-year growth in bookings year-to-date. Operator: Our next question will come from Raimo Lenschow from Barclays. Raimo Lenschow: A question from me. If I look into the data -- the call center space, sorry, there's a lot of -- there seems to be -- especially on the higher end, there seems to be still a lot of like on-premise old technology stuff. And I know everyone is focused on AI at the moment, but it does feel almost like we're doing step 2 before we do step 1. Can you see a little bit what you see in your conversations? Does that kind of -- are people realizing they actually need to move and you guys obviously have been moving kind of higher, you were a cloud vendor from the very beginning. Can you see that in the conversation and in the pipeline? Michael Burkland: Yes, for sure, Raimo. And again, I'll let Andy kind of chime in after me. But look, at a high level, you're right on. I mean, look, we're still 40-plus percent cloud, and that means 60%-ish on-premise. You're right on. There's still a ton of kind of core contact center that's on-premise that has to move to the cloud. But as you know, I mean, AI has become so front and center for every CEO. And therefore, all their CIOs are out looking at AI and sometimes AI first is the way they're making decisions. And we're -- we've now adjusted our go-to-market motions to actually be part of those discussions with an AI-first go-to-market motion where we may start a sales cycle with AI and then pull the CCaaS through as a second decision. It's just an evolving market. But in the end of the day, look, these enterprise brands know that they've got to go to the cloud to get all the benefits of AI, right? And so they go hand-in-hand. But in some cases, the order of the decisions might change. And it's playing out just pretty much as we expected and very favorable for us. Andy Dignan: Yes. I mean I think if you look at -- it's kind of like there's customers in 3 camps. You've got the ones who are already made the shift to cloud and they're looking at AI, then you have the customers that are -- they have an RFP from prem to cloud, looking at doing both, AI and CCaaS. And then some of the customers that we're seeing is they know they have to move to the cloud. But if they're looking to get that immediate benefit, to Mike's point, we do have an AI-first sort of strategy for those customers. Sometimes those customers go down that path and ultimately, they go, "Hey, look, it's just better to do this all at once." But again, we're starting to see more customers kind of lean in to say, "hey, let's do AI first" and we support that motion with a fast follow with CCaaS. And I think that's an exciting time for us because, again, we can support all 3 of those routes to market. Michael Burkland: And I'll add one more thing. We're winning because of that end-to-end platform. It's not like these are 2 separate things. We talk about them separately as AI and core CCaaS. But look, we've got one platform that orchestrates interactions, whether they're handled across -- it's across the continuum of AI agents and human agents, for example, right? So it's not a separate thing. It's really one platform that most enterprise brands are looking for. And that's why we're winning. That's why we're winning in this market right now, and it's why we believe we'll continue to win in AI. Andy Dignan: And sorry, to add one more. It's just like that parcel delivery company, right, that we -- they're a core CCaaS customer of ours, right? They chose a couple of years ago to go with an AI point solution. Here we are 3 years from now, replacing that solution. And that's again because they've got to the point where they see the value of, obviously, our AI kind of stand-alone. But to Mike's point, having that continuum of AI agents and human agents is the end-to-end platform that they're looking for. Operator: Our next question will come from Elizabeth Porter from Morgan Stanley. Elizabeth Elliott: I was hoping to get an update on just the competitive environment. I think we've seen Zoom up a little bit more in our mid-market checks and Amazon Connect reportedly just crossed $1 billion of ARR. We've seen several splashy headlines around AI native companies. So curious if you're seeing any sort of change in behavior or win rates or buyer dynamics as these players start to get more headlines? Andy Dignan: Yes. I mean in terms of the competitive dynamic, I mean, just pure CCaaS, it still continues to be us and our 2 biggest competitors. You mentioned the hyperscaler. We do see them. We like to say sometimes if we're in the same deal, one of us is probably in the wrong deal. Just 2 different kind of solutions customers are looking for. So not a huge change there. We do see Zoom in the mid-market, but our win rates continue to be strong, and we feel really good about where we're at in the core CCaaS platform. And obviously, when you look at both CCaaS and AI together and certainly our AI-first go-to-market, I think, we continue to have success. So not -- I wouldn't say any major changes in the competitive dynamic. Operator: Next question will come from Jackson Ader from KeyBanc. Jackson Ader: I had a question on the layering in, in of some of these -- of some of the -- either the enterprise deals or the AI deals. Is there anything that you can do? Is there anything within either your control or maybe partners' controls that you would say, all right, can we accelerate the time to actually get some of these products implemented and generating not just bookings, but revenue ahead of what's happening right now? Andy Dignan: Yes. So as Bryan mentioned and Mike, we have this situation where a lot of the changes we've made in our installed base, we're selling 2 quarters in a row of record bookings. There is still that lag, right? And I think we've -- and we talked about this previously, we've added some new functionality certainly within our AI products where you're leveraging generative AI to deliver faster, right? It's less about the work -- building the workflows and more about just doing essentially prompt engineering. And so we can move faster, and we're certainly doing that. We're seeing that within our customer base. A lot of times, though, we're part of kind of an overall AI transformation across the company. A lot of times they're doing -- they have to get their data to a good spot. And again, companies have gotten much better there. But we still see some of that dynamic where it is kind of like a new implementation. But I do think that as we get further into this, more and more customers are going to be more comfortable leaning further into that true GenAI agent versus some of the markets like health care and financial services that are still a little bit behind. But the good thing is we can service -- we talk about our trust and governance that the dial of trust. Some customers want to do just purely sort of workflow driven. We are seeing companies go faster towards the, let's go all in with generative AI. So I think we're well positioned for it, but that's going to be the #1 thing is sort of adoption of customers wanting to go faster and have trust in the platform. And we've done a lot of things within the platform sort of reducing hallucinations and things like that. The team has done a great job. And so that will demonstrate customers starting to move faster in terms of deployments. But we always hit those challenges and customers just aren't ready to fully ramp yet. Operator: Our next question is from Samad Samana from Jefferies. William Fitzsimmons: This is Billy Fitzsimmons on for Samad. Obviously, the business is still growing at a good clip. You're adding revenue. You called out record enterprise bookings. If we go back a handful of quarters ago, there was a period where you had a string of kind of several quarters where you announced a variety of mega deals. There's the health care one, the logistics one. And correct me if I'm wrong, but now it's been kind of another handful of quarters since that $50 million ARR financial services deal. And just wanted to get your view on why you think that is. Is there any impact at all from maybe like slower on-prem conversions or maybe even like decision fatigue because of AI? Or is this more just a function? I know there were some sales org changes about a year ago where -- and I'm paraphrasing here, there was more incentivization. You were incentivizing kind of dolphin sized deals over, call it, like the whales. And is it a function of, hey, we're just going after more dolphins now? Michael Burkland: Yes. Billy, I'll start. Look, the pipeline for megas is still very, very good. These take time. I mean that's the answer. They just -- the sales cycles are long, and it's really a function of that. We've said this all along that it's going to be lumpy. And therefore, let's make sure that we have this flywheel of dolphins that are coming through our sales funnel. And we talked about it. It was the record -- not record, but highest in 2 years number of $1 million-plus new logo wins. So again, the dolphins continue to be the more important metric, I guess, is the way for us to think about it. But look, there's a nice pipeline of megas out there, and we're very well positioned, in some cases, with very, very strategic partners of ours, too. Andy Dignan: And in terms of the sales changes, we didn't make any -- we put focus back on to the dolphins, but we kept a dedicated team. It's actually even bigger than it was before with not just salespeople, but solution consultants and experts and services team. So we continue to double down on the market. But to Mike's point, it's just lumpy and takes time. But we feel good about that space. Operator: Our next question will come from Will Power from Baird. Ioannis Samoilis: Yanni Samoilis for Will Power. So I noticed that Q4 revenue guidance is a $6 million range top to bottom, which is a bit wider than the range that you normally give or guide to for a given quarter. And I was just curious if there's anything that might be driving the wider range of outcomes that you're forecasting there. And then on the flip side, I appreciate the color on your early expectations for 2026. But what's giving you the confidence to comment on next year with that level of precision giving the wider guidance range for Q4? If you could just help juxtapose that for us. Bryan Lee: Yes, absolutely, Yanni. So the $6 million range for Q4 is mainly based on the fact that we beat Q3 by $1.3 million, and we actually held that back because of the commercial revenue decline that was bigger than what we anticipated. And so that was for prudent reasons. And while we're recalibrating and we expect the normalcy to happen over the next couple of quarters, and we're expecting some partial recovery in Q4, we just wanted to have a little bit of a wider range there to allow for that. Now going into 2026, we have built contingencies into our outlook there. But if you think about 2025, there's -- it's been a year of transitions and a lot of operational and financial changes, a lot of tough compares that we were going through, which we expect to lap fully by the end of the year. But then we're starting out with a strong backlog of not just new logos, but installed base bookings that Mike and Andy talked about as well. So with those ramping starting in Q4, but mostly in 2026, that gives us that comfort around that Street consensus of $1.254 billion. But we'll provide more details next quarter when we give formal guidance for next year. Operator: Our next question is from Rishi Jaluria from RBC. Rishi Jaluria: Nice to see continued AI adoption. Maybe I want to think a little bit one step deeper and think about kind of the current state of enterprise adoption. Look, I get that you have a lot of the tools to be the trusted AI partner in terms of governance and security and data privacy, and you've been a trusted partner with critical data over the years. So I totally understand your positioning. What we've been seeing, and I'd be curious to hear what you're seeing is a lot of enterprises are maybe slowing down the rate of AI adoption as they try to figure out the right use cases and one of those being customer support. But maybe just any color you can give in terms of what you're seeing broadly within your base of kind of the state of enterprise AI demand today versus how it had been maybe, call it, 6 months ago. And as we think going forward, right, getting that greater uptick in AI throughout your customer base, what are things that you have in your power and your control to work with those customers to just kind of get over a lot of those hurdles that are holding back AI demand in the enterprise? Michael Burkland: Yes, I'll start, Rishi. Look, the AI demand is so strong. I think what we're seeing is just a continued improvement, quite frankly, in appetite and demand and willingness by the larger brands out there to do more than proof of concepts to actually deploy AI. It's being proven. And there -- again, their appetite is also shifting toward the platform players like Five9 for that AI. I think they're realizing the limitations of these point solutions in some respects, right? So that's the flip side. But what they're seeing, and it's why Andy talked about that one case where one of our largest customers that had a point solution for AI basically is replacing it with our AI because it's all part of our platform. So I think there are 2 very different things happening here. I think the demand is very high across the brands for AI. They're getting more comfortable with it, but they're getting more comfortable with it from platform players like Five9, and that is a good thing for us. Andy Dignan: And in terms of what's in our control, we've talked about in the past our AI blueprint strategy. So we have the ability to go into our installed base, right? We're having a ton of success, right, as you see in the numbers in terms of installed base. We know the types of calls they have. They have their recordings, right? We're working with the customers. Obviously, they have access to all of this. So our teams can come in and take a very data-driven approach on, hey, here's the use cases that we see that would have high ROI upside. And we've done a lot of work on the back end to have essentially prebuilt type both go-to-market and implementations to deliver on those quickly, right? So I think that's an area where we continue to double down on. And we're -- the other thing is our product team and engineering team in terms of AI, they work closely with our services teams and our sellers and our customers to say, "Hey, like what are you seeing out of these blueprints? What are the things that we could build into the product to even accelerate some of that demand." So it kind of gets that flywheel going on the opportunity that we have the customers' data, right? Obviously, their data is their data, but we have the knowledge and working with them to be able to deliver that. So that's what we can control. Operator: Next question will come from Peter Levine from Evercore. Peter Levine: Maybe to piggyback off of an earlier question around the competitive landscape is, I mean, are you seeing any pricing pressure on your core live agent seats at renewal, meaning as you see some of these competitors come in, trying to gain share, are your customers at renewal perhaps maybe fighting or pushing back for higher discounts? So maybe the question is just like what's your discipline on pricing for core agent seats given just the escalation in terms of the competitive landscape? And then second, can you just remind us how you charge for AI and the revenue recognition behind that? Andy Dignan: Yes. So I'll take the front part of that. So what we're seeing at renewal time is we aren't seeing pricing pressure on our core business. What we are seeing with customers is they want to make sure that they -- that we have pricing models built in for them to take advantage of AI. Last quarter, we talked about a couple of big expansions to health care companies. And that was that renewal time where they said, "Hey, look, we've been leveraging our platform for multiple years, and we were able to renew at a higher level and then build into that renewal both AI and agents." So we don't see that kind of pricing pressure. But I don't know, Bryan, if you want to comment on the revenue side. Bryan Lee: Yes. Definitely on the revenue side, the pricing model for our AI products is either capacity or consumption-based. And whichever model it is, it's usually a block of units that you're getting and then overage if you go beyond that. So it works pretty much like a commitment model plus overage charges. Operator: Our next question will come from Arjun Bhatia from William Blair. Arjun Bhatia: Okay. Perfect. Just took some time. Can we just go back to the commercial business for a second? Obviously, it seems like that caught you off guard a bit. What is sort of the remedy? Is it just allocating more sales and marketing spend? And then how do you think that might evolve next year? Like can that get back to growth? Or is that a little bit too ambitious for 2026? Michael Burkland: Yes, Arjun, I'll start. Look, we did over rotate in terms of demand gen allocation to enterprise and majors, which, again, we're always trying to crack the code there because, look, it's 91% of our revenue is enterprise, and it's the bigger market opportunity and so forth. But I've encouraged the team to just be careful not to over rotate. We've already corrected some of that allocation of demand gen spend back to commercial. And the good news about commercial is it's kind of a real-time indicator, right? I mean it's -- things move -- deals move through the funnel quickly and they turn to revenue quickly. So while we had the impact of that in Q3, we've rectified that, and I believe we'll be right back to where we have been in commercial within the next quarter or 2. Now at the same time, just keep in mind, that is not a growth vector overall for the business. But at the same time, we don't want it to become a headwind like it was in the quarter. And this sales capacity that we talked about earlier in commercial is also something that we've got to just anticipate. Again, sometimes it's going to be a little lumpy. In this case, it was lumpy where we had several promotions. We just got to manage that a little bit better. So in our control. Operator: Our next question will come from Tom Blakey from Cantor. Thomas Blakey: Just wanted to maybe talk a little bit more about competition. I think there was a question earlier. Just looking at the dynamic growth of some of these conversational names like Sierra and Decagon. I mean, are you seeing these guys currently in the market? Are they disrupting in any way? I think just given the dynamic growth there, I think, we should address that. And just maybe a housekeeping item for Bryan. Was the 5-point headwind from the large customer from 3Q '24 like different from where you implied in the guide? Was it more of a surprise or kind of in line, that will be great? Bryan Lee: No, the 5 points, that was in line. So that was exactly expected. But I'll turn it over to Mike. Michael Burkland: Yes. And you can talk to Sierra and Decagon. I mean they're getting a lot of limelight these days, right? And limelight, they're not very large companies yet. But look, they're getting a lot of press. And this gets back to what I said earlier about kind of point solutions versus platforms. And most of these large brands, they want to look at the hot stuff, so to speak. They want to take a look. But in the end of the day, a lot of these decisions are made based on the end-to-end platform capabilities because providing that connected contextual personalized experience between AI agents and human agents is only possible. It's only possible if you have an end-to-end platform like ours. So again, I'll let Andy chime in, you want to talk about... Andy Dignan: I mean we see them, I wouldn't say consistently, but we come across them. A lot of times, there's pilots. And certainly, we're in there, like it could be in one of our own customers, right? They've just made their way in. Obviously, they're getting a lot of publicity in the market. But this is where we lean into what we've been talking about, right? It's that sort of continuum of being able to deliver to both AI agents and human agents. And if you look at where they've started, and again, I'm sure they'll comment on they're going to go down the voice path. It's largely been digital, right? That's been the focus of a lot of these point solutions. Voice, as we've talked about, is a strength for us, right, and a very big strength for us that's hard to replicate. So you add those things together, we feel strong about where we're competing on those use cases, and we're going to continue to get better. Operator: This concludes the Q&A portion of our call. I will now hand the call back over to CEO, Mike Burkland, for closing remarks. Michael Burkland: Thanks, everyone, for joining us. We look forward to keeping you updated as we close out the year and enter into 2026. Exciting times. Thank you very much for joining us.