NFI Group Inc. (NFI) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to NFI 2026 First Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To answer your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker for today, Stephen King. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Lisa, and good morning, everyone. Joining me today are John Sapp, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Dusnip, Chief Financial Officer. On today's call, we will recap the quarter, which included a clear continuation of our operational recovery, strong margin expansion and earnings growth by improved manufacturing margin and our backlog conversion. John will also provide the latest details on our outlook and our reaffirmed 2026 guide. This call is being recorded and a replay will be made available shortly. We will be referring to a presentation that can be found in the financials and filing section of our website. As we move through the slides via the webcast link, we will call out the slide number. On slide two, we provide our cautionary or forward-looking statements and note that certain financial measures referenced today are not recognized in earnings measures and do not have standardized meanings prescribed by International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS. We advise listeners to view our press releases and other public filings on CEDAR for more detail. In the appendix of this presentation, we have provided a list of key terms and definitions that will be used on today's call. A reminder that NFI statements are presented in U.S. dollars, the company's reporting currency, and all amounts referred to are in U.S. dollars, unless otherwise Slides three and four provide a brief overview of our company and if I is a bus and coach manufacturer and total mobility solutions provider we offer a wide range of buses and coaches on proven platforms and our North America's largest bus and coach provides we hold market leading positions and offer the industry's strongest aftermarket network slide five provides a brief insight into enterprise product and geographic mix and a few other models I'll now pass the call over to John morning everyone and thank you for joining us today I'll be picking up on slide seven.

The first quarter saw solid performance with 978 EUs delivered, $842 million in revenue, and adjusted EBITDA of $86.1 million. This was a 37% increase from the first quarter of 2025. Our performance was primarily driven by gross margin improvement of 450 basis points to a total 15.7% as we continue to convert our strong backlog into results and improved production efficiencies. This performance supported earnings per share of $0.10 or $0.18 on an adjusted basis with both significant improvements from last year. The demand environment remained strong as we reported a 109% book-to-bill ratio on an LTM basis and an 80% option conversion rate. The North American bid universe remains at impressive levels with roughly 32,500 EUs in total and total backlog of $13 billion with 43% coming from firm orders and 57% in options. Liquidity saw a decrease from fourth quarter. This was primarily driven by seasonal investments in work and process inventory following significant deliveries in the fourth quarter of 2025. We also had some extended receivable balances associated with tariff recovery plus a few other timing items. During the quarter, we successfully launched the battery recall campaign, completing full battery replacements on 12 buses, leading to cash outflows of $2.5 million. Our team has a detailed plan for the campaign that will leverage our service center network. We anticipate that quarterly replacements will be larger as we move through 2026. Moving to slide eight, we highlight the quarterly and LTM deliveries by product lines. Transit bus deliveries were down 12% in the quarter and 7% for the LTM period. This was primarily due to lower UK deliveries. However, average sale prices, or ASPs, of heavy-duty transit buses increased by 10.5% year-over-year, reflecting the conversion of stronger backlog to results geographic and propulsion sales mix. Motor coach deliveries saw a 2% increase on both a quarterly and LTM basis. This was largely driven by higher public deliveries offset by lower private deliveries. The ASP in this segment also saw growth up 4.6%. Low floor cutaway and medium duty remains a bright spot, with deliveries up 20% in the quarter and 24% on an LTM basis. With 794 total deliveries, this was another record performance from our RBAC team. I'll now pass it over to Brian to go through the fourth quarter results before we get into a detailed look at our outlook.

Thanks, John. As John covered some of the key performance metrics, I'll highlight a few segment details. Turning to slide nine, manufacturing continued to drive gross margin performance with significant year-over-year improvement. Margins were down sequentially, reflecting seasonality and strong sales mix in the fourth quarter of 2025. Aftermarket remained stable with a nearly 29% gross margin. On slide 10, this margin performance helped drive a 75% increase in manufacturing-adjusted EBITDA, hitting $58 million. That's the highest first quarter in that segment since 2018. On an LTM basis, the segment is up to $258 million, representing 72% of our total EBITDA. On slide 11, quarterly free cash flow was another positive at $17.5 million. This is up $13.1 million from last year, with operational performance improvements offset by higher cash capbacks and investments in intangible assets, primarily supporting new products. We invested approximately $68 million in working capital in the quarter, primarily increasing overall inventory balances following the busier fourth quarter. In addition, we recorded the battery cell inventory received through the battery settlement into raw materials and had some tariff-related accounts receivable balances. On slide 12, we'll walk through the adjustments to achieve adjusted net earnings with all amounts shown net of taxes. We commenced restructuring activities at Alexander Dennis' Scottish facilities to better match our current demand. We also had some minor adjustments related to the battery settlement and removed the gains from our JV investment in GR seating. I'm now on slide 13, where we'll summarize total leverage, liquidity, and return on invested capital. Total leverage, which includes all debt instruments, was at 3.46 times. Liquidity was up approximately $247 million year-over-year, reflecting the impacts of our refinancing activities in 2025. ROIC continued its strong trajectory, ending Q1 at a 100-basis point improvement from the fourth quarter, reflecting positive cash generation and lower average invested capital. I'll now turn the call back to John to discuss our outlook.

Thanks, Brian. Our first quarter performance positions us well for the remainder of the year and gives us increased confidence in our 2026 guidance on slide 15 we recap the strategic value drivers that will support our continued performance this year and beyond operational excellence initiatives will expand margins our focus on product and market leadership will deliver a consistent high quality customer experience and these activities combined with the conversion of our backlog and growing aftermarket business will drive profitable growth as we continue activities to de-lever and strengthen our balance sheet. During the quarter, we continued to drive improvements in overall supply chain performance and rate readiness. This included activities at American Seating, where their first quarter improvements further supported our expectations that those issues will be fully behind us in the second quarter. While we are monitoring macro impacts of global conflicts, nothing material to report, we have factored in assumptions for higher freight and shipping costs into our guidance. With a focus on cost management, we took actions to improve Alexander Dennis' cost structure, to improve our competitive position, and to right-size production capacity to their order book. We continue to make strides in improving the overall customer experience and want to provide sustained outperformance to customers through our delivery and acceptance processes. Rob Marion's recent appointment as president of MCI will help continue those activities in the motor coach space. Rob is a long-term NFI employee who helped drive manufacturing performance and operational excellence at both New Flyer and our internal fabrication businesses. While we were also thrilled to be recognized as a top Manitoba employer March 2026, this award showcases that our actions to be an employer of choice are paying dividends. And as Brian mentioned, leverage improved slightly, now down to 3.46 times, with expectations for more significant deleveraging throughout 26 and into 27. We're also advancing our work to evaluate options for refinancing the convertible debentures that mature in January, with plans to provide more details during our Q2 update. Our first quarter delivered on our drive for profitable growth as we maintained momentum through Q425 and had year-over-year improvements to gross margin and our total unit economics. We remain on track to achieve our 2026 guidance range with expectations for adjusted EBITDA between $370 and $410 million. Slides 16 to 18 provide the latest updates on our order demand and our backlog, and I won't go through them in detail, but I will mention a few key points. The demand environment is very strong, with over 5,600 EUs in bids submitted, which will help drive order activity in 2026. The longer-term outlook is also strong, with 26,000 EUs in the expected five-year procurement plan reflecting fleet age and customer expected vehicle replacement plans. Our backlog remains stable at 15,228 EUs and $13 billion. I'll point out that a significant portion of our backlog is funded into 2027, and we anticipate that option conversion into firm orders will remain strong this year as customers look to confirm funding under the Infrastructure Investment and Job Acts. The IIJA expires in September 2026, but funds can be spent in 27 and 2028. While ZEB as a percentage of the backlog declined in the quarter, they remain an important part of our overall platform. We expect ZEBs will make up a meaningful percentage of our deliveries, but our overall goal is to ensure we serve customers' broad needs and our facilities are fully set up for all. Average sale price of new income orders was $824,000 per EU, continuing a solid trend of price improvements in transit and coach segments, even with lower ZEB orders. Before we close, I also want to provide the latest views on the macro tariff environment. On slide 19, we have identified the major tariffs that are present and applicable to our industry. While tariff structures continue to evolve, we believe our exposure is manageable. During the quarter, there were some changes to the overall structure of 232 steel, copper, and aluminum derivative tariffs, but those are not expected to have a material impact on NFI's operations. Our U.S.-based manufacturing footprint and higher domestic content position us favorably relative to some of our other manufacturing peers, which is helping mitigate the impact of cross-border trade measures. We are also continuing to work on IEPA refunds with advisors and government departments. We will do what's right for our customers there and to meet our contractual obligations. Overall, we maintain the view that tariffs are largely a pass-through cost to customers through contractual obligations and through general price increases. For clarity, our guidance includes the current known impacts of tariffs as of today's date. It does not reflect any material changes that the tariff environment could have on demand, pricing, or cost in the future. And so wrapping up on slide 20, a few final comments. We delivered strong earnings growth in the first quarter, driven by improved execution, backlog conversion, and margin expansion, leading to a 37% year-over-year adjusted EBITDA growth. Demand remains robust, supported by a large backlog and active bidding environment. We're making steady progress on deleveraging while maintaining flexibility in our capital structure. So across NFI, the team is looking forward to our continued progression as we deliver on our strategic objectives to drive operational excellence, enhance the customer experience, and deliver profitable growth. With that, I will now open up the line for questions. Operator, please provide instructions to our callers.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. You'll hear that automated message advised when your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, press star 11 again. We also ask that you wait for your name and company to be announced before proceeding with your question. One moment while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question is coming from the line of Chris Murray of ATB, Corn Market Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Yeah, thanks, Doug. The first question is on manufacturing margins. You know, we saw that the revenue in the U.K. was down pretty significantly. But what we're trying to understand a little bit is what do the manufacturing margins look like on a core basis in the North American operations? You know, I'm kind of assuming that there's limited impact from the UK, that it's either break-even or a little bit underwater. But, you know, any thoughts that you can share with us about how to think about, you know, the North American transit and North American coach business in terms of margin progression would be helpful.

Yeah, thanks, Chris. And thanks for the questions. So, first off, we'll say overall, as you've noted here, I think relative to the performance in the quarter that we're continuing to see, you know, strong per-EU economics. And as a result, I think it's reflective of what we see around an improving backlog. And as over the past few years, as this team's been able to navigate certainly through some of the critical cost pressure, and we now see some of the benefits of that improved backlog starting to come through, It's starting to float through in terms of different areas. I will note that in terms of our U.K. volume, the U.K. volume this quarter was down slightly versus as a comparison in terms of year-over-year. And relative to the North America side, we do continue to see benefit in terms of that margin improvement that we're able to generate. But, Brian, I'll look to you, too, to share a few insights relative to the manufacturing.

Yeah, thanks, John. And, Chris, I think we've been pretty consistent over the years, just talking about about the dynamics of North America relative to the more competitive environment in the And so you're picking up on that, and that's coming, as you noted.

And Chris, the only thing I'd say, obviously, fourth quarter is our busiest period. Q1 is slower. So we tend to tell people to focus on an LTM number when you're thinking about either gross margin, present per unit, but per unit, just to help kind of normalize what a full year expectation.

I guess the next question, and maybe this is more for John, but, you know, John, now you've had some time um you know to kind of get settled um and have a look at the business uh some of the strategic directions you know one of the questions i've been getting a lot um and it kind of goes a little bit to the first question but is about the uk business um certainly the restructuring program was started i think um before you even got there but you know lots of questions i've i've had now about the utility of of even maintaining the uk business if it's not better or better held maybe um in someone else's hands um you know we've seen some other political changes even overnight in the uk right now so just trying to think about you know positioning and any thoughts you may have

about um strategy around that business or anything else that you may have kind of picked up on is in your early days as uh as president the ceo yeah thanks chris i appreciate the question And, look, Alexander Dennis, we have a terrific product offering, certainly for our customers over there, one that has been built on decades of that business, really doing exceptional work for the end-use customers. And so we certainly have high confidence in terms of, you know, the products, the quality that we deliver, and therefore our ability to go, you know, to continue to compete and win in this space. However, as noted, it is a much more competitive environment that has evolved in a different way over the past few years, with certainly larger penetration from foreign competitors into the space. And so it's important for us to react. And in answer to your question, how we're talking about it as a leadership team and certainly how I'm viewing it through my lens here, first and foremost is to ensure that this business is positioned to win and to continue to win in the current environment. That means making some very difficult decisions, and as you would have noted here over the past couple months, and as Brian shared earlier, we had to make some difficult choices around redundancy and really getting some actions underway relative to right-sizing and some tough footprint decisions there as a result. So those are going to continue to play through, and they are important for us in terms of ensuring the businesses, as noted, position to win in the current environment. Also, we want to ensure that there's optionality in those decisions, too, because this is a market that has a lot of conversation around it within the U.K. government and between our teams as well as regulators, et cetera, in that market that could allow for some future tailwinds. And we want to ensure that anything we do from a decision standpoint also allows for us to bring capacity back in quickly. And so the actions that we've taken position us to do just that. Relative to your question there, the portion of your question around the portfolio, I will say this is a question that I will always ask and evaluate all of our portfolio on a regular basis to ensure it's one that is built for us and for the long term over the next three to five And so whether or not it's Alexander Dennis or any other portion of our portfolio, that will be a constant responsibility here as a team. We're going to continue to do so. And so relative to Alexander Dennis specifically, this is something that the team, as we evaluate our strategy across the entire portfolio, is really starting to dig into now as we look at what positions us for long-term growth. We'll do that here over the coming months. But right now, we're very much focused on just ensuring AD is ready to win and compete in the current environment.

Thank you. One moment for the next question. And our next question is coming from the line of Cameron Dworkson of National Bank. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I just want to ask a question about the cadence of bus deliveries, particularly in the transit segment, just over the next few quarters. Obviously, fairly low in Q1 and down year over year, but just want to understand how it looks for Q2 and into the second half of the year.

Yeah, Cameron, great question. Appreciate it. And look, there's several things to note here as we're through the first quarter and we position ourselves here in terms of the back half. And I think your question is primarily focused on within the transit bus space. I will say that for Q1, there were some important steps and actions that we've taken overall as a team to really position us for what we anticipate will be continued volume growth here as we get into the back half of the year. And we've taken, I think, some important measures in terms of our supply chain rate readiness. I think what you'll note from our commentary early on is some of the longer-term systemic issues in terms of our supply chain. significant action that have worked through to address those. We've also done some key things within our four walls just to ensure that we're driving to the most efficient flow that we can have, limiting any elements of auto station work, et cetera, that can slow us down. And it really positions us well in terms of EU volume increases here that we're in and beyond.

What I'll say is also that we're off to a very strong April seasonality and okay no that that's helpful and I guess sort of related if I look at uh you know the average selling price for transit buses in QN uh you know up very nicely year over year over 10 percent um I know that mix can have a fairly significant impact on on that number just wondering what you kind of expect for average selling price in the transit segment kind of for the remainder of the year is a mix going to be similar? Just any thoughts on that?

Look, from a mixed standpoint, we obviously continue to watch it closely as well. And certainly from a backlog standpoint, you can see in the data that we've shared where things sit relative to ZEBs versus our ICE solutions. Overall, from what you'll also note is the continued EU economics improved, even while we may have seen a slight drop in terms of Zed output in actually Q1, I think, which continues to demonstrate the improvement and the improving economics of our backlog overall. Our strategy around being a propulsion agnostic player and being able to drive the level of profitability that we all expect, regardless of those platforms, is key to us. And I think Q1 continues to demonstrate that, And especially as our improved backlog continues to play through. So we certainly look at it. We may see some movement here of a couple percent relative to ZEB participation in terms of our outputs overall. But generally, we have confidence, confidence certainly in the guidance that we've shared, and confidence that the mix is going to be supportive of what we need to go deliver on the year.

Brian, anything? I'd just like to remind, obviously, we have geographical mix, but I'd also just remind everybody that there's a pretty big difference between an RBAC cutaway relative to a new flyer vehicle or an MCI motor coach. And so mix can be a big factor in this, and I really wouldn't read too much into that.

Okay, that's helpful. I'll pass along. Thanks, Cameron.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. One moment for the next question. And our next question is coming from the line of Daryl Young of Stiefel. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Just wanted to ask around the all-Canadian build facility up and running now, but it doesn't sound like it's going to achieve full capacity until later this year. So I'm just wondering if there's a drag on margins to start the year related to this or if it's material at all. And just given you've actually had very strong EBITDA per year, so this would potentially be upside to that.

Yeah, thanks, Daryl. Great question. What I would say is that we are exactly where we intended to be, if not a little bit ahead in terms of what we're seeing in terms of EU out-puts out of the All-Canada bill. We're obviously really pleased with that facility, what it's going to mean for us in terms of additional volume growth, which is obviously critical to the investment that we made towards it. And it is overall, I would say, slightly ahead of schedule from a volume standpoint in terms of what we're doing from the facility overall.

And the only thing I'd add, Daryl, obviously, we opened it in Q4, and then it's been ramping to John's point on plan through Q1. So it would have had a little bit of impact, I think, at working capital, because it's kind of ramping up and increasing the volume production. But I think that's helpful for the rest of the year in Q4. That'll be supportive as we get to higher deliveries out of that facility.

And then second question is around RBOC continues to be very, very strong. Obviously, it's a smaller part of your business, but just wondering if you can give us a bit of color on whether that's a function of pent-up demand or if you have some unique products that might be new that are taking share or any views on how big that business can get in the next two years.

Yeah, thanks, Daryl. Great question, and we're certainly very proud of the performance that we continue to see from the RBAC team, and frankly, we do believe that we've got a very high-demand product in a specific area with a low-floor cutaway that our customers find particularly valuable and beneficial to the customers that they serve. And so as a result, the RBAC volumes that we saw last year and that we anticipate here is that business continues to look very strong. And so we would see that demand profile continue to play through, as you see, just recap type investments that their customers are making. And I think also as the performance of the product itself and those that you need customer base that it's able to serve continues to be made more aware of from a market standpoint, I would expect that we'll continue to see good growth and progress with it. We would also note, too, that in terms of the medium-duty bus, the E-Quest bus that is launching here, it's really relaunched here this year. It's a terrific product. We are seeing good interest and demand from these customers for that, and obviously that is going to continue to bring – That's great, Collar.

Thanks, Dale.

Thank you. One moment for the next question. Our next question is coming from the line of Jonathan Goldman of Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, team, and thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just looking at the adjusted EBITDA, it looks like there was a benefit from an add-back of restructuring costs, $7.5 million, maybe call it $8 million. That benefited margins. How should we think about that in terms of to go forward? Is that one time, or could we also think about maybe a payback on that restructuring charge that could flow through margins in the subsequent quarters?

Yeah, so in the quarter, we saw some benefit from the, you know, gain from the GR seeding acquisition that we did. We would do that to be a one-time thing. I wouldn't anticipate that we would see that, again, it was really valuation of our assets relative to the purchase price there. And we wouldn't expect that to be, you know, have any effects on a go-forward basis. We did recognize some restructuring costs in Q1, reflective of the work that we're doing in Alexander Dennis, and we do believe we'll have some more of that in the balance of the year in Q2.

Brian, I think it's fair to say that the overall expectation is that restructuring will generate savings in that business, demand in that market.

Kane, is it fair to say after the kind of cost actions you've taken that you're structuring And U.K. margins are immediately better today than they were maybe a quarter ago?

Yeah, I think what we would say is as we go forward post-restructuring, without question, this is about driving improved margin performance out of the U.K. business for sure. And so these are the right restructuring decisions. Certainly, they are going to take certainly a few months here for it to continue to play through. But we do anticipate then, as a result, the margin improvement.

Okay, that makes sense. And then, John, you talked about, you know, you might get more color on the convert coming up in the next quarter and your thoughts there. But with the visibility that you guys have, the results you just put up, you know, the guidance, how would you characterize your flexibility of options to deal with the convert?

Yeah, it's a great question. I'll lead it off, and then Brian may share a few thoughts here as well. But overall, I think what we're anticipating here is we prepare towards the strategy and the decisions there that we want to make relative to the converts. And really, as we consider overall where we're at relative to our overall leverage position, we do believe we've got some good options here that are going to emerge for us overall as a business. And that's really driven by, you know, the continued improved performance of the business overall. So, you know, generally feel very positive about our ability to make a great decision and execute on a great strategy for us as NFI going forward.

Yeah, and we've met with and we've met and continue to meet with a lot of relatives a couple of years ago today than we had a couple of years ago. And so, you know, as John mentioned, we're really looking at.

Okay, thanks. And maybe just one more for me. You guys kept the guidance maintained. If I'm just looking at LTM numbers, 360 million of EBITDA things are accelerating, getting better both seasonally and operationally. Q1 was up 24 million EBITDA year on year. Can you give us some thoughts on why you maintain the guidance range? And what is the risk to the 370, given that you're kind of tracking well ahead of that?

Yeah, it's a great question. Certainly, we feel continued building confidence in terms of the guidance that we've put out. But it is also, we've just cleared April. We continue to see strong momentum. It's obviously a great momentum for the year. And as you noted from an LTM basis, we continue to see, you know, improvement as an overall, you know, business and relative to it. That said, there are still, you know, risks that are out there that we need to ensure that we are ready and that we execute against. So as noted earlier, we've done a lot of outstanding work this year in terms of the supply chain and really ensuring that from a rate readiness standpoint, our supply closure. So those are some of the risks certainly that we've worked here towards mitigate. They're in a much reduced way here as we go forward, and we'll have some work to do relative to the year, not necessarily in terms of our North America space. There are certainly some that are out there. We've shared with you all before, not things early in the year. Okay, fair enough.

I appreciate the color. I'll get back in queue. Thanks, Jonathan.

Thank you. One moment, please, for the next question. And our next question is coming from Belana Ty-Collins of CIBC. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just to start, you mentioned that some of your customers are deferring their decisions and their orders on ZEPs, are those customers switching their options to diesel, or are they just kind of deferring altogether? And does that dynamic impact your production scheduling at all for the year?

Well, I'd share a couple things. First off, on the last part of your question, in terms of our production and scheduling, we do a really good job of being able to manage through and execute. And really, from an order in terms of our master planning for the rest of this year we feel really good we may see a little bit of movement here and there but nothing significant that would give us concern and certainly we think we have a well understood mix as we as we go forward overall relative to your question in terms of conversion there's been some examples of it the first thing I would note though is that relative to this overall order book conversion that we do continue to see especially as you know, we approach that, you know, towards the end of 2026 timeframe that we're seeing a lot more orders that are being firmed up. Relative to the specific question on propulsion type, you know, there is the potential certainly for us to, you know, entertain a customer making a switch from a Z to an ICE propulsion platform, but it's fairly minimal when we're seeing those occurrences. And really what we see relative to the push to the right tends to be more around, you know, know infrastructure establishment other things that customers need to have in place and they're not quite ready yet for us to be able to go receive that so but there's several things in there for sure what I would say overall we feel good about the Zedmix that we have going forward through 26 will feel really good about what we see in terms of Zedmix you know in the out years and all of it is certainly from a terms of our performance here for this year is definitely manageable within the the guidance that we've provided the other thing too i would note is when we're able from a production standpoint yeah and i there is less touch labor that is required for us to be able to get a internal combustion through the shop than a zep and so when we do see a conversion that does create that path for us to to increase uh rates obviously slightly right when you're talking about more buses but we can get more ice through the shop than zep so overall from an evita standpoint um that is another reason that we're able to manage any kind of impact to us, and that's really by driving more volume.

Okay, great. And then just on transit deliveries in Q1, obviously the UK and ADL dragged that down year on year. Can you maybe just comment on the year-over-year change in North American transit deliveries and how we should think about that within Q1?

Yeah, I mean, the U.K. certainly was the big driver, as noted. I think we saw a little bit of an impact in terms of North America, and it would go back to a couple things. One is we were continuing to execute and navigate through the seeding challenge to some degree in terms of the quarter, although we have seen that improve significantly such that it really is something that we expect in the very near future. And second, there were a couple of other things that I noted around just ensuring from an efficiency standpoint that we took a couple of necessary steps, you know, within our operational and manufacturing facilities to ensure that we were getting to that efficient state of flow that really positions us strong for Q2 and beyond. Out-of-station work can be very inefficient when it starts to propagate. Seats had been previously a driver for that. Now that we've seen that issue resolved, it's really allowing for us to see those volumes come back strong. And what I would note is that we've had a really strong April. It's exactly as we anticipated based on some of those decisions made, which may have affected a little bit in terms of our Q1 outputs. But what I would really highlight is we're positioning what we anticipate to be strong EU expansion and growth here as we get to Q2 plus.

Okay, that's really helpful. Thanks.

All the best. Yeah, thanks, Ty.

Thank you. One moment for the next question. Our next question is coming from the line of Tim James of TD Cowan. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks very much for the time. I just want to explore one question here.

Can you talk about the aftermarket as you look out over the next two years and just kind of review some of the moving parts there in terms of volumes that you expect to see kind of driving revenues and any sort of influences on margins?

I know there's some different kind of services that end up hitting that aftermarket revenue line. I'm just curious as to kind of the moving parts that we should think about over the next kind of one to two years.

Yeah, great. There's three things that I'll talk about on this question, Sam, but it's a great question overall. Certainly, we continue to see very good growth relative to our core business in the aftermarket space. And so, if you see volumes, installed base, all of those things that are beneficial in terms of spare parts, volume, and your core business, those continue to strengthen. And we continue to see certainly good action from the team relative to the needed pricing to reflect the economics and what our end-use customers need from a material standpoint. Overall, those are good tailwinds that are going to continue to support the core portion of the business. Where you do see some mix relative to profitability in the aftermarket space can be what we call within our programs. Those will be where we're working with an end-use customer around a specific form or where they need to put a new product on. And so when we do that, the programs, they can be a little bit lumpy, as you could expect, as you may have a large municipality that's going to have a program for a retrofit that comes through, and then you can see that shift or where that program comes off. You've got to go find that next one. Overall, the team's done a fantastic job in terms of building up that pipeline of programs to ensure that we continue to see good growth here for the next couple of years. The third thing I would note, too, is that we are, at least in some regions, also relative to FIFA, to note, too, is that, okay, that's great.

That's super helpful. Thank you, Tim.

Thank you. And there are no more questions in the queue. I would like to turn the call back over to Stephen for closing remarks. Please go ahead, Stephen.

Yeah, thanks a lot, Lisa, and thanks, everybody, for joining us today to get our Q1 recap. As always, please don't ever hesitate to reach out to our IR team, and we'll have some materials posted on our website. Thanks a lot, and have a great day.

This concludes today's program. Thank you so much for joining. You may now disconnect.