GFL Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call - Hit 30% Adjusted EBITDA, Guiding to Further Margin Expansion and Low-to-Mid 3x Leverage
Summary
GFL closed 2025 with a milestone 30% adjusted EBITDA margin and a clean balance sheet after aggressive buybacks and M&A. Management says pricing outperformed expectations, operational levers are taking hold, and the company is entering 2026 with a commitment to exit the year with net leverage in the low-to-mid 3x range while pursuing a robust M&A pipeline and further shareholder returns.
The guide for 2026 is constructive but not complacent. Revenue is targeted at roughly CAD 7.0 billion, adjusted EBITDA at roughly CAD 2.14 billion, and adjusted free cash flow around CAD 835 million, all while absorbing headwinds from weaker commodity markets and FX. The call balanced confidence in execution with clear caveats: commodity weakness, FX volatility, and timing of R&G ramps remain the main downside risks to the story.
Key Takeaways
- GFL achieved a historical milestone, reaching 30% adjusted EBITDA margin for full-year 2025, and Q4 margin was 30.2%, the highest Q4 margin in company history.
- Full-year adjusted EBITDA was CAD 1.985 billion; on a constant FX basis it would have been roughly CAD 2.0 billion, exceeding the high end of original guidance by about CAD 50 million.
- Adjusted free cash flow was CAD 425 million in Q4 and CAD 756 million for 2025, with conversion improving to 38% despite M&A and FX headwinds.
- Capital allocation was aggressive: GFL repurchased roughly CAD 3.0 billion of stock in 2025, including an incremental CAD 750 million in the back half of the year, and deployed about CAD 1.0 billion in M&A.
- Inclusive of approximately CAD 4.0 billion deployed in M&A and buybacks, GFL finished 2025 with net leverage of 3.4x. Excluding the CAD 750 million incremental buybacks, year-end leverage would have been about 3.1x.
- Management is committed to exiting 2026 with net leverage in the low-to-mid 3x range, and said the company could reasonably deploy CAD 1.5 billion to CAD 2.0 billion of M&A in 2026 while still exiting the year in that leverage band.
- 2026 guidance: revenue approximately CAD 7.0 billion (CAD 7.14 billion constant currency), adjusted EBITDA CAD 2.14 billion (CAD 2.185 billion constant currency), implying a ~30.6% margin and ~10% EBITDA growth year over year.
- Key drivers in the 2026 guide: pricing mid-5s percent, volumes +25 to +50 basis points, M&A adding ~250 basis points of revenue, and a FX translational headwind of ~210 basis points using FX 1.36.
- Commodities are a meaningful headwind. Q4 commodity prices were down ~33% year over year, current prices are ~20% below 2025 averages, and management models a ~50 basis point revenue headwind from commodity and fuel in 2026.
- Operational levers remain central: pricing realization (including ancillary surcharge programs), improved labor turnover, fleet optimization and procurement gains were credited for margin expansion; CNG fleet penetration is in the mid-20s percent and targeted toward ~30%.
- Growth CapEx dynamics: net CapEx in 2026 is expected to be ~CAD 800 million, cash interest ~CAD 395 million, and management excludes roughly CAD 175 million of incremental growth CapEx (about half of 2025 levels). Growth CapEx is front-loaded in 2026, largely for EPR collection trucks, with R&G project benefits pushed further into 2027.
- EPR and R&G updates: EPR transitional benefits and collection rollouts materially helped pricing in 2025. R&G project ramps were delayed into 2027, so near-term R&G contribution is muted, while full EPR flows should largely be in place by end of 2027.
- Q1 2026 preview: management expects CAD 1.60–1.625 billion in revenue at approximately a 28.8% adjusted EBITDA margin, and Q1 adjusted free cash flow of about negative CAD 45 million, driven by working capital and CapEx timing.
- Minority assets GIP and ES performed roughly in line with revised expectations: environmental services EBITDA ended just north of CAD 500 million, GIP around CAD 300 million, and management indicated a combined cost base near CAD 3.0 billion and an implied per-share value of roughly CAD 5–6 attributable to those holdings.
- Index and reporting changes: executive HQ relocation to the U.S. aims to expand index eligibility. Russell review is possible mid-spring, and management plans to convert to U.S. GAAP and consider USD reporting, potentially as early as 2027, to broaden passive demand.
- Execution sensitivity: management repeatedly flagged FX translation sensitivity (one cent moves revenue by ~CAD 35 million and adjusted EBITDA by ~CAD 11 million), commodity price volatility, and timing risk on municipal and special-waste volumes as the main near-term risks to the guide.
- M&A strategy is targeted and pragmatic. Pipeline focuses on tuck-ins that leverage existing platforms and create faster, higher-return synergy capture, rather than chasing broad roll-up targets.
- Management tone blended confidence with caution. They highlighted multiple upside avenues to 2026 guidance, but also acknowledged a soft C&D backdrop and the need to balance buybacks with disciplined M&A if valuations shift.
Full Transcript
Jasmine, Moderator: Good evening, everyone, and thank you for attending today’s GFL Fourth Quarter 2025 earnings call. My name is Jasmine, and I will be your moderator today. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call, with the opportunity for questions and answers at the end. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. At this time, I would now like to turn the call over to Patrick Dovigi, founder and CEO of GFL. You may now proceed.
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Thank you, and good afternoon. I would like to welcome everyone to today’s call and thank you for joining us. This afternoon, we will be reviewing our results for the fourth quarter and providing our guidance for 2026. I am joined this afternoon by Luke Pelosi, our CFO, who will take us through our forward-looking disclaimer before we get into the details.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Thank you, Patrick. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining. We have filed our earnings press release, which includes important information. The press release is available on our website. During this call, we’ll be making some forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian and U.S. securities laws, including statements regarding events or developments that we believe or anticipate may occur in the future. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those set out in our filings with the Canadian and U.S. securities regulators. Any forward-looking statement is not a guarantee of future performance, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements speak only as of today’s date, and we do not assume any obligation to update these statements, whether as a result of new information, future events and developments, or otherwise.
This call will include a discussion of certain non-IFRS measures. A reconciliation of these non-IFRS measures can be found in our filings with the Canadian and U.S. securities regulators. I will now turn the call back over to Patrick.
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Thank you, Luke. We started 2025 by presenting our strategy to drive best-in-class financial results, and this year’s results demonstrate we are doing exactly what we said we would. Our relentless focus on value creation through the optimization of our existing platform is yielding results that are consistently ahead of expectations, and our future has never been brighter. In 2025, we reached the historical milestone of 30% Adjusted EBITDA margin for the first time in our company’s history. This result is attributable to the tireless efforts of our 15,000 employees and ongoing contributions from implementing the operational priorities we highlighted at last year’s Investor Day. Ongoing price discovery, along with the operational efficiencies within our portfolio, remain a core focus to drive appropriate returns for the high-quality services we provide.
In 2025, we meaningfully outperformed our initial price expectations, furthered our realization of the incremental pricing opportunities we identified at Investor Day. The pricing environment remains constructive, and we are confident in our ability to continue to price at an appropriate spread above our internal cost of inflation. Q4 volumes were ahead of plan, and we ended the year with 50 basis points of positive volume, a remarkable achievement considering the macro environment we’re in. We see this differentiated outcome as yet another testament to the quality of our portfolio, underpinned by our overall market selection and the execution of our returns-focused capital deployment strategy. Consistent with the third quarter, both operational and SG&A cost intensity continued to trend lower in the quarter and for the full year.
The levers we outlined at Investor Day continue to contribute to this performance, including enhanced operational efficiency, improving labor turnover, fleet optimization, and procurement benefits as a result of our greater scale. The combined impacts of these initiatives are apparent in the 30% Adjusted EBITDA margin we achieved for the year, an industry-leading 130 basis point increase over 2024. To achieve such a result in the face of an ongoing macro headwind reinforces our conviction in our stated goal of achieving low- to mid-30s margins by 2028. 2025 was also a transformative year in terms of our capital allocation strategy, the benefits which include the sale of our ES segment, simplified our business into a pure-play solid waste leader. The valuations achieved in both the ES transaction and recapitalization of GIP demonstrated the immense equity value we have created in both of these assets.
Our retained investment in these businesses allows GFL to continue to participate in meaningful value creation. The proceeds received from the divestitures and recapitalization allowed us to materially delever our balance sheet and buy back over 10% of our own stock. We deployed nearly $1 billion to a creative M&A, largely in the back half of the year, providing an incremental tailwind as we head into 2026. Regarding the share buybacks, recall that we originally intended to deploy $2.25 billion of the ES proceeds into share repurchases, a level of investment that we completed early in the first half of the year. Due to the share price dislocation the second half of the year, we saw additional share repurchases as a highly prudent use of capital to create shareholder value over the long term. As a result, we deployed an additional $750 million into incremental buybacks.
Inclusive of both the $1 billion of M&A spend and the incremental share repurchases, we exited 2025 with the lowest year-end net leverage in our history. With the benefits of the implementation of the capital allocation strategy in place, we enter 2026 with ultimate balance sheet flexibility. This setup, together with natural deleveraging from organic growth, will allow us to execute on a robust M&A pipeline while maintaining leverage in the low to mid-3s as a range to which we remain highly committed. As for the base business guidance, Luke will walk us through the details, but it’s exactly as we previously indicated. Recall that in 2024 and in 2025, we laid out an extremely detailed plan, raised the guide multiple times throughout the year, and beat our expectations on all financial metrics.
We see multiple avenues of upside to our current 2026 guide, and that gives us confidence in our ability to meet and potentially exceed the expectations for the year. Lastly, in 2025, we also progressed on our previously stated intention to maximize index inclusion opportunities. Last month, we announced the relocation of our executive headquarters to the U.S. The relocation broadens our eligibility for participation in U.S. equity indices while preserving our eligibility for inclusion in Canadian indices. We expect this strategy will help increase GFL’s visibility with investors and ultimately drive a wider shareholder base. I’ll now pass the call over to Luke to walk through the quarter and guide into more depth and then share some closing comments before we open it up for Q&A.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Thanks, Patrick. Q4 revenues grew 7.3% on account of better-than-expected contributions from pricing, volume, and M&A, which greater than anticipated headwinds from FX. Pricing was 6.4% for the quarter and 6.1% for the year, 70 basis points better than our original plan, largely on account of EPR transitional benefits and realization of the incremental pricing opportunities we articulated at Investor Day. The sequential quarterly acceleration of price throughout 2025 sets us up with a very high visibility into 2026 pricing. Q4 volumes were 70 basis points ahead of plan, largely on account of unanticipated special waste activity in several of our markets. Lagging hurricane volume, the initial ramp of EPR, and the commencement of a larger municipal contract in the prior year were the primary drivers of the negative volume print for the quarter.
C&D-related volume continued to be soft, but we remain well-positioned for a broader economic recovery in this end of our business when it happens. Adjusted EBITDA margins continues to expand, with Q4 margins reaching 30.2%, the highest Q4 margin in our history. Adjusted EBITDA margins were up 175 basis points in our Canadian segment and behind 10 basis points in the U.S., although U.S. margins were materially up when excluding the impact of prior year hurricane volumes and acquisitions in commodity prices. Commodities continued to be a drag on margins, with market pricing decelerating another 10% from Q3. Excluding the impact of commodities and these other non-reflective items, Q4 underlying consolidated margins were up over 150 basis points from the prior year. The outperformance in Q4 resulted in full-year adjusted EBITDA of $1.985 billion.
Note that using the same FX rate on which our original guidance was given, the full-year amount would have been approximately $2 billion, over $50 million better than the high end of our original guide despite the commodity and C&D volume headwinds. Adjusted Free Cash Flow was $425 million for Q4 and $756 million for 2025, ahead of plan on account of the EBITDA outperformance as the other inputs were largely in line with expectations. Adjusted Free Cash Flow conversion improved to 38%, inclusive of the impacts of headwinds from M&A and FX. During the fourth quarter, we completed the incremental M&A that we had previewed in Q3, setting us up for meaningful revenue rollover into 2026 consistent with the initial framework we provided. We also bought back over $200 million of our own shares during the quarter, bringing annual share repurchases totaled to $3 billion.
Inclusive of the approximately $4 billion we deployed into M&A and share repurchases, we ended the year with net leverage of 3.4x, as Patrick said, the lowest year-end net leverage in our history. Excluding the $750 million of incremental share buybacks, year-end net leverage would have been 3.1x. The strong finish to 2025, combined with our positive forward outlook, allows for 2026 guidance better than the initial framework we provided in Q3. To level set on the guide, when we previously provided our 2026 framework, we did so assuming an FX rate of 1.40, which was the FX rate at the time and, coincidentally, the average rate for all of 2025. Consistent with our past practice, we are providing our actual 2026 guidance using the current FX rate of 1.36. Any changes to the FX rate will cause translational impacts to our reported results.
Recall that every one-point change in FX impacts revenue by approximately $35 million and Adjusted EBITDA by approximately $11 million. 2026 revenue is expected to be approximately $7 billion or $7.14 billion on a constant currency basis, an 8% increase over 2025. Pricing is expected to be in the mid-5s, driven by our base pricing programs and incremental contributions from EPR. The pricing plan includes modest progression in our ancillary surcharge programs, and any implementation acceleration in this area will be a source of upside. Q4 commodity prices were down 33% year over year, and today’s prices are approximately 20% less than the average price in 2025. Based on these current price levels, commodity and fuel prices are expected to create a 50 basis point headwind to revenue growth in 2026. Any improvement to commodity prices throughout the year will be additive to our results.
Volumes are expected to be positive 25-50 basis points. There are a couple more sizable impacts included in this number, namely around hurricane volumes in Q1, EPR transition, and tangential residential contracts. Excluding these headwinds, underlying volumes are expected to grow closer to 100 basis points. M&A is expected to add 250 basis points of revenue growth, and using an FX rate of 1.36 creates a 210 basis point headwind. Adjusted EBITDA in 2026 is expected to be $2.14 billion or $2.185 billion on a constant currency basis, an increase of 10%. Adjusted EBITDA margins are expected to expand by an industry-leading 60 basis points, overcoming the headwinds from lower commodity prices and FX rates. The implied 30.6% margin for 2026 reflects an over 500 basis point expansion of margins over the four-year period since 2022.
Adjusted Free Cash Flow increases to $835 million or $860 million on a constant currency basis, an increase of 14%. The 2026 guide includes cash taxes more than what was previously expected as the benefit of ITCs associated with R&G projects have shifted into 2027. If not for this change, Adjusted Free Cash Flow growth would have been closer to 20% on a constant currency basis. Included in the Adjusted Free Cash Flow guide is net CapEx of approximately $800 million, cash interest of $395 million, and other items of $110 million. Excluded from Adjusted Free Cash Flow is approximately $175 million of incremental growth CapEx, approximately 50% of the amount deployed in 2025 consistent with previous expectations. Adjusted Free Cash Flow conversion as a percentage of Adjusted EBITDA increase.
Jasmine, Moderator: One moment, ladies and gentlemen. One moment, ladies and gentlemen, if I try to get our speaker reconnected. Pardon the interruption. We now have our speakers back on, and we will now begin the Q&A session. As a reminder, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad to ask a question. To remove your question, press star followed by two. We kindly ask that you limit your remarks to one question and one follow-up. We will pause to briefly as questions are registered. Our first question comes from Patrick Brown with Raymond James. You may now proceed.
Patrick Brown, Analyst, Raymond James: Hey, good afternoon, guys. Can you all hear me?
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Yes. Can you hear us, Tyler?
Patrick Brown, Analyst, Raymond James: Yeah, you’re there. Okay, good deal. Hey, Patrick, I appreciate the guidance. Yeah, hey, I appreciate the guidance of low threes on the leverage. But one, does that assume no incremental M&A and buyback? Is that right? And then I think you mentioned last quarter that 2026 could be an outsized M&A year. And I get that you’re very active in the back half of 2025, but is that still your base case as we sit here today?
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Yeah. I think to be crystal clear on the leverage point, we are committed to leverage, as we said, in the low to mid threes. I think Luke made the point that absent any M&A, you end the year close to 3 turns. Obviously, doing incremental M&A and buybacks would increase that number. But we are definitely committed to exiting 2026 at sort of low to mid threes. Could there be a quarter where there’s 25-40 basis points of leverage move around in a quarter? Sure. But we end the year exiting low threes to mid threes.
Patrick Brown, Analyst, Raymond James: Okay, perfect. Yep, exactly what I was looking for. Okay. And then, Luke, if I just try to do the EBITDA bridge, I feel like there are a few kind of key things to think about. So one, it seems like you have something like $30 million of M&A rollover benefit. Again, this is on EBITDA. Two, on my math, at least, you maybe have $40 million of EPR and R&G. Three, you have about a $45 million drag from FX. But if I took all of those, it feels like organic EBITDA is up maybe low to mid single digits. And I realize that commodities and a few things are in there, but is that conceptually close? Because it feels doable.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Yeah, Tyler, it’s a great way of breaking it down. And thank you for doing my role for me. I think you’re directionally right. You seem to be taking just the good guys and not factoring in the bad guys, right? So. A couple of things. Commodity is going against you, right? And so that is a pure sort of EBITDA hit that you will sort of have. In that margin bridge we have, recall Q1 2025, we enjoyed storm volumes in the Southeast associated with the hurricane, very high margin contribution that you’re not getting the benefit of that. So that’s sort of distorting that bridge a little bit. And then on the EPR, well, $40 million, I think, was the right way of thinking about it at the beginning of 2025.
With the outperformance that 2025 had, I think that number comes in a little inside on the 2026 year-over-year comp. So if you normalize those, then I think you should get to a base business underlying organic EBITDA at the sort of mid- to high single digits. And as you said, we’re feeling confident that that’s something that can be achieved.
Patrick Brown, Analyst, Raymond James: Okay, perfect. Thank you, guys.
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Thanks, Tyler.
Jasmine, Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Sabahat Khan with RBC. You may now proceed.
Sabahat Khan, Analyst, RBC: Okay, great. Thanks and good afternoon. Just, I guess, just following up on the commentary around EPR, can you just maybe give us a little bit more color on the incremental growth CapEx investments that you’re sort of calling out here? How does that sort of flow in through the course of the year? And just, I guess, in terms of the R&G side and the EPR side, it sounds like the contribution is still there, but just maybe how does that ramp for 2026 and maybe into 2027? Thanks.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Yeah. Hey, Sabah. Great question. Luke speaking here. The $175 is very front-end loaded. The expectation, just so you know, what’s really coming on EPR this year is the collection side of the contracts, and the majority of that is actually for the payment of said trucks. So I think we’re expecting sort of about $100-$120 of that in Q1 and then sort of trickles in through the balance of the year. As we had alluded, R&G incremental contribution this year is more muted as projects have shifted to 2027. So the R&G contribution in the current plan is pretty flat in terms of dollars with 2025. You have slightly higher levels of production at a slightly lower rim price. And then the expectation is it’s sort of into 2027 and 2028 when you get the ramp of the tail of the R&G projects coming online.
Growth spend in 2027, the equivalent of that number, I think, steps down significantly again from where we are today as EPR will largely be completed and the R&G tail is relatively small. So we’ll advise on 2027 as we get closer to it. But the expectation today is it’s, again, a meaningful step down from this year.
Sabahat Khan, Analyst, RBC: Okay, great. And then just on the volume portion, it looks like you’re guiding to modestly positive volumes. Can you maybe just break that out a little bit across some of the puts and takes, any shedding left in that? And in addition, sort of what are you seeing across some of the more cyclical markets? Is the situation maybe somewhat better than 2025? If you can just kind of break out the volume piece a little bit. Thanks.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Yeah, I think we’re giving the guides, Sabah, based on today’s macro conditions, which continues to be soft on the sort of C&D or industrial end. Now, I think there are some green shoots out there that may suggest there’s opportunity above that. And certainly, the benefit of that opportunity would be additive to the guide. If you think about the year for 2025, Q1 started a little bit sort of stronger before some of the uncertainty entered the macro environment. And therefore, I think Q1 is a tougher comp. So we’re expecting a negative volume number in Q1. And then that moderates as you start lapping the sort of tougher quarters that we’re sort of experiencing in the back half of this year. We do have the benefit of EPR coming in and contributing, and that is part of it.
Then also, as Patrick alluded to, we still take a lot of pride in our market selection. What I mean by that is a concentration of our revenues in the faster-growing south and southeast markets where notwithstanding a perhaps more uncertain macro, you still do have volumetric growth by virtue of people moving and new business formation. So we’re feeling good with the setup. I think there’s multiple avenues of upside above what we have in here. But we’re very pleased to be able to sort of report a year of positive volume where I think the industry as a whole is probably slightly negative. To be able to reiterate that sort of positive outlook going into 2026 as well.
Sabahat Khan, Analyst, RBC: Maybe just a quick one, if I can sneak it in there. Just on the capital allocation side, obviously, a very big year on buybacks in 2025. Sounds like the M&A pipeline is reasonably good. How do you guys sort of balance the two in terms of what seems more attractive for your analysis or just how you view it? Thanks.
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Yeah. I mean, obviously, with the selloff in the sector and sort of where we are, we continue to believe the stock is materially undervalued. That being said, we need to balance that. That could correct itself very quickly. Our expectation is that it will in time. So we also have to plan for the future and some of these opportunities that are in front of us. And as we continue to work through the opportunities, we’ll sort of outweigh and weigh against one another about what we think the right thing to do is. But just know that my 30 million shares are working beside every one of yours. So I’m going to do what’s right for what I believe sort of the long-term value creation for the business will be.
But last year was clearly obvious in the back half of the year that it was prudent to spend that incremental CAD 750 million on share buybacks just given where the stock was trading. But that being said, we have a great pipeline as well with good opportunities in markets where we’re already operating. We’ll continue looking at both and weighing them as the opportunities continue to present themselves.
Sabahat Khan, Analyst, RBC: Thanks very much.
Jasmine, Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Kevin Chiang with CIBC Capital Markets. You may now proceed.
Kevin Chiang, Analyst, CIBC Capital Markets: Thanks for taking my question. I apologize if I missed this. Luke, you mentioned you kind of saw sequential improvement in pricing as you kind of got through 2025 here. Just wondering how we should think about the cadence of pricing in 2026 as you kind of average out to the mid-fives that’s in your guidance there.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Yeah. Hey, Kevin. Great question. With the sequential increase that you had coming to the back half of 2025, you end up with a stronger start in absolute numbers in Q1 that then sort of tapers down. So the way we’re sitting it is that Q1 is a sort of mid-6 or better number. And then that ratably kind of steps down to a kind of 5-type number by the end of the year. So one of the benefits that we have in a year of accelerated pricing, realized the year before, is the degree of visibility you have into that pricing cadence. I mean, where we sit today, we probably already had 80% of 2026’s pricing effectively already in hand just by virtue of how the sort of math plays out. So feeling really good on the price number could be a source of upside as we go.
But it really will be starting high in Q1 and then tapering down by Q4.
Kevin Chiang, Analyst, CIBC Capital Markets: That’s helpful. Maybe just turning to some of your, I guess, minority investments, GIP and environmental services. Just wondering how those performed in 2025 and what was still kind of a soft, I’ll call it, industrial economy. Just did those businesses exhibit the type of resiliency you saw within your solid waste business? Did it kind of end out the year the way you anticipated 12 months ago? Just any color you can provide there would be helpful. Thank you.
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Yeah. I think if you look at the EES business, I mean, you were forecasting sort of $525 million of EBITDA for 2025 going into the year when there was a lot of optimism around a new president, etc. I think with the softness in the industrial economy, etc., that business largely just finished just north of $500 million-ish. So I mean, it was modestly off from our plan, but not materially off from the plan. And we had pretty robust plans for that business from sort of a growth perspective. And on the GIP side, again, it’s an industrial business, yes. But by and large, 75%-80% of that work is government contracts and largely based around transportation sector. So that business basically performed to plan.
So exiting, coming into this year somewhere in the $300-ish million range of EBITDA like we had discussed. That’s sort of still well in hand. But if you factor that in, even those two businesses at cost, right, from our perspective, at cost, there’s $5-$6 a share of value there. Why we think about opportunistic share buybacks is because our numbers on 2026 puts GFL trading at sort of in the 12.5x range on 2026 numbers when you factor in the equity value that sits in those two businesses that aren’t included in our numbers. And I think that’s why we continue to think share buybacks are very attractive at these levels.
Kevin Chiang, Analyst, CIBC Capital Markets: That’s very helpful color. Thank you very much.
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Thanks, Kevin.
Jasmine, Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Brian Bougermere with Citi. You may now proceed.
Brian Bougermere, Analyst, Citi: Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking the question. Sorry if I missed this in the prepared remarks. Did GFL provide 1Q guidance like I think it did on the 4Q call last year? Maybe I missed it, or maybe we blame the call operator, or maybe you’re shifting strategy a tiny bit. Thanks.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Yeah. Hey, Brian. It’s Luke. Thanks for the question. I think we had some technical difficulties when we were giving the very end of the call, and maybe that sort of cut out. But either way, I’ll just reiterate what the prepared remarks was. What I said was that looking specifically at Q1, we expect revenue of CAD 1.6 billion-CAD 1.625 billion at approximately 28.8% margin, which implies 150 basis points expansion over the prior year. Q1 Adjusted Free Cash Flow is expected to be negative CAD 45 million, which is less than the prior year, but solely on account of the timing of working capital and CapEx payments.
Brian Bougermere, Analyst, Citi: Okay. Okay. Thank you very much for that. Then just one more question for me, just maybe as R&G production I know these projects have been pushed out, but just as we are gradually kind of ramping up production, are you finding that your costs are sort of roughly in line with what your initial expectations were from the investor day last year for ongoing production costs, startup costs, just any kind of broader comments there? Thanks. I’ll turn it over.
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Yeah. No material change in the actual costs. I think, obviously, we’re taking a very careful look at building out the larger sites before we’re building out some of the smaller ones. So I think what we’ve articulated is in the investor day presentation, we said sort of about $175 million of R&G coming on. Our perspective is just depending on where some of these regulations and volume requirements come in that we’re going to sort of think about that number sort of being potentially sort of in the $125 million-$150 million range. That being said, EPR is outperforming. So those two numbers as a whole are going to be on plan to our investor day presentation.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Brian, just to add to what Patrick said, I think the operating costs, once the plants are up and running, are proving to be very much in line with the pro formas, which included an appropriate degree of conservatism to account for that. What we have noticed, though, is some of the startup has slipped a little bit to the right. So your ramp to achieve that sort of full run-rate profitability, as argued, would have been a quarter or so longer than anticipated. But all the projects that we have up and running are performing, in fact, at or above what those sort of underwritten sort of cost profiles were. So I think it’s more of the sort of timing issue of shifting to the right. And then Patrick said, just ensuring that the overall envelope that we originally identified remains the appropriate level.
But net, net, we had presented EPR and R&G as a combined step in that bridge. And we think that combined step remains intact. It just may be a reallocation between the two components therein.
Jasmine, Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Trevor Romeo with William Blair. You may now proceed.
Brian Bougermere, Analyst, Citi2: Good evening. Thanks for taking our questions. First one I had was kind of a follow-up on EPR. I guess in terms of some of the provinces that maybe aren’t as far along on EPR, how much at this point is still in that kind of future opportunity bucket? I guess, are you still seeing incremental contract awards as a potential upside driver for this year and beyond? And maybe you could talk about competition for any new contracts that are still out there if it’s gotten tougher to win any of those deals.
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Yeah. I mean, I would say we’re largely through. I think there are some collection contracts still to be let over the next couple of years. But we would put that in the normal course bucket with normal resi wins. But anything material, we are largely through that now. Alberta was the last province to basically get finalized. And we ended up splitting the processing for the province of Alberta with Waste Management. So Waste Management ourselves have sort of half of the province each. And that was the large that was really the last one that will be let in Canada. So from an opportunity perspective, I think by the end of 2027, you’ll have all EPR dollars flowing through the P&L.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Okay. Thanks, Patrick. That’s helpful. And then maybe just on your M&A pipeline and kind of, I guess, the pipeline plus what you bought maybe within the last quarter or so, if you could just provide maybe some color on the regional or asset perspective, kind of where you saw attractive opportunities, what you’d see in the near term in terms of your pipeline there?
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Yeah. I mean, I think we said the NHU floor, people were questioning whether or not we would actually deploy if we’d actually deploy the amount of capital that we had in our sort of initial guidance that we’d have been articulating through the year, just given the slow start to the year and the fact that we were focused on the divestiture and recapitalization of ES and GIP. We basically deployed close to $1 billion that we said we would. I think when you look at 2026, as we said on Q4, pipeline is very healthy, a lot of good opportunities, obviously still due diligence on a bunch. But again, focus on businesses in markets where we already have existing infrastructure, creating very good synergy opportunities, which will sort of yield higher returns on invested capital versus moving outside and acquiring businesses outside of the existing platform.
We’re obviously extremely happy with the post-collection network we have throughout the 10 provinces in Canada and 25 states in the US. So we’re going to continue just driving incremental opportunities on the backs of those facilities. And that’s what we’re going to be focused on for 2026. But again, it’s going to be as we communicated, $750 million-$1 billion. As we said in Q4, we think this year could be even higher than that. And assuming we continue to make our progress through diligence on some of these assets, I think we’ll have a pretty good update for everybody when we report Q1.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: All right. Thank you very much.
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Thank you.
Jasmine, Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Konark Gupta with Scotiabank. You may now proceed.
Konark Gupta, Analyst, Scotiabank: Thanks, Sam. Just on the M&A follow-up, in terms of the asset quality that you’re finding these days in the marketplace, I mean, a big chunk of the market has already been consolidated, right? And I mean, obviously, there’s still a ton of opportunities for you guys, especially given you’re smaller than the rest of the three. But any noticeable differences you are seeing in terms of quality of assets that are coming open to you?
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: No. I mean, I think it’s obviously year by year. You can never predict when a specific asset is going to come to market. But what we know for certain is that the sellers of these businesses aren’t getting any younger. And as people start thinking about succession and liquidity, that’s creating opportunity. And I mean, if you think about the Canadian market, again, basically, Waste Management, Waste Connections and ourselves represent, call it, 40%-ish of the market. So 60% of the market continues to be white space and not consolidated. And you think about the U.S., about 50% of the market is consolidated by the majors. And that still creates a very good opportunity for all of us to continue acquiring businesses in the markets where we see opportunities for each of our respective businesses. But the quality of the assets continues to be very high.
The quality of the assets that we’re looking at within the existing pipeline are very good. And again, we think they’ll be great contributors to the sort of overall book and will yield very good return on invested capital on the backs of our existing infrastructure. So we’re feeling very good about where we sit today, and we’re feeling very good about 2026 and beyond in that respect.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: And Konark, just to add to Patrick’s commentary, you have to remember, I mean, the focus of us on tucking acquisitions into our existing platform. We can have a scenario whereby we have a great market and a great asset base, and there’s a competitor that doesn’t necessarily have a gold star asset. But in our hands, with cost takeout opportunities and other synergy, you can turn that into a very high-quality asset. So what’s nice about where we’re at in our journey is the ability to densify and tuck in some of our best-in-class markets and thereby take what is perhaps a suboptimal little sort of tuck-in on its own, but turn that into something accretive in our hands. And that’s really what we’re focusing on, what can this business or asset contribute in our hands.
Konark Gupta, Analyst, Scotiabank: Yeah. No, thanks for the color on that. And if I can follow up, I think there’s some news around the Toronto recycling contract changes that have happened. I think there’s a change of supplier or your third-party partner there. Any sense in terms of what potential changes might be required on your side to deliver on the contract in Toronto?
Brian Bougermere, Analyst, Citi4: I’m sorry. I’m just calling. It’s not available. Please try again later.
Sure, my dear.
No se preocupe. Si lo mueve, el sistema no se encuentra disponible. Habló de intentar más tarde.
Let us warn.
We’re just going to move to it.
LZ.
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Hi. Sorry. Yeah. In terms of EPR, yeah, I mean, we obviously are doing the exact same work we did before, albeit with different service providers, meaning our customer used to be the City of Toronto, and now our customer is Circular Materials. That being said, there’s been no real change. Yes, there’s a little bit of political fraud in the City of Toronto, the fact that we ended up taking on two more districts than we had before, and there was a loss of some union jobs, I think, that led to some media attention by a couple of, I would say, the more left-leaning papers. That being said, we started collection in Ontario for over 1 million homes, and collection success was better than 99.3% in the first month of a very large startup. So overall, very successful. Province continues to be very happy.
Ultimately, there’s a change in collection days in some of the City of Toronto, which certain residents didn’t like or enjoy. But I think we’re largely through that and now into our second month, and I think the noise has largely subsided.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Yeah. Appreciate the time. Thanks.
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Thank you.
Jasmine, Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from William Griffin with Barclays. You may now proceed.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Great. Good evening. Thanks very much for the time. Most of my questions have already been answered, but just wanted to come back to the update you gave around the GIP and ES. I appreciate the color there on the performance. I guess, do you have any updated thoughts on maybe providing some incremental disclosure around those businesses going forward in quarterly releases, just to kind of help investors and analysts kind of track the performance of those businesses?
Yeah. Well, it’s Luke. It’s a great question and something I know we’ve talked about in person. In light of the fact that both of those recapitalization or carve-out just happened, we all have this very fresh mark. So the cost basis, as Patrick referenced, roughly close to $3 billion across the two assets today is pretty sort of fresh. So we didn’t include something at this. But absolutely, as we go forward, we’re going to come up with the appropriate level of disclosure such that you guys can have a handle on how those businesses are doing, what the sort of debt level of them are, and what our sort of equity interest is. So you’ll have an ability to calculate that $6 per share math that Patrick was doing. So we will do that.
As of today, we’re just thinking, "Hey, you had $1.7 billion cost base in ES, roughly $1 billion in the GIP asset." And then I think we valued the option on ES at a couple hundred million bucks, so just under $3 billion of value at cost across those two businesses today.
All right. That’s all for me. Thanks very much.
Jasmine, Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Jerry Revich with Wells Fargo. You may now proceed.
Jerry Revich, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Yes, hi. Good evening, everyone. Hi, Patrick. Luke, I wanted to ask you, as we think about the free cash flow profile of the business, so now that we’ve got a cleaner portfolio, how should we be thinking about CapEx to sales beyond 2026? So the core business looks like there’s about 11.5% CapEx to sales, and you have the high returns growth CapEx on top of it. As a starting point for 2027 and beyond, how would you counsel us to think about both growth CapEx opportunities as well as just normalized CapEx to sales versus what we’ve got in 2026?
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Yeah. Thanks, Jerry. It’s a great question, and I know one that sort of industry-wide sort of focuses on. I think today, normal course CapEx, if I was underwriting a model, it’s an 11%-11.5% number, right? I think probably 11.5% today as we sort of just get through some tariffs, etc., and maybe that gravitates back down to that normal sort of 11% spend. I would characterize that as the normal course, which is inclusive of maintenance and normal course growth. Obviously, in years where we’re going to be delivering outsized growth, whether it’s EPR or a similar type of investments, there could be opportunity for spend above and beyond that, and we’ll call that out as we have.
Where we sit today, as I articulated to the other question, I think next year’s growth spend is currently contemplated a step meaningfully down from this year’s as really EPR is behind us, and you just have the sort of tail end of building out the sort of R&G facilities. So the truth is, as we’ve said since our 2023 capital allocation framework, we’ve looked at the growth CapEx similar to M&A. And if we could find more opportunities like R&G and EPR, we would be very inclined to invest in those based on the sort of returns profile. Where we sit today, we don’t see anything else on block that is going to warrant that same carve-out as we’ve done for EPR and R&G. So we’d expect these just to play off and then roll off, and we’ll just be back to a singular CapEx number.
But certainly, by regulation or otherwise, we see opportunities as attractive as these, we’re going to go after those, and we’ll talk about the appropriate stratification or bifurcation of our CapEx at that time.
Jerry Revich, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Super. Separately, Patrick, can I ask you, given the strong M&A activity over the course of 2025, normally, we see you folks deliver really good synergies in year two of integration. Can you just talk about, for some of the larger deals, how those assets are performing and whether we could see a notable tailwind 2026 versus 2025 as you integrate those assets?
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Yeah. I mean, there was nothing overly large that sort of happened in 2025. That being said, when we embarked on the M&A pipeline for 2025, we did just given that we were taking a year and shoving it into basically 6 months, we really focused on the ones that were most accretive that were going to give us the biggest bang for our buck quickest. And I think that’s what gives us a lot of conviction around some of the comments we made in our prepared remarks. I think if you look at the previous 20 quarters of the business, I think the previous 20 quarters, we really sort of met or exceeded expectations. And I think there’s multiple levers and multiple avenues for us to continue to exceed expectations in 2026.
A big part of that is realizing synergies on some of these opportunities that we closed in late Q3 and early Q4. You’re right. We will continue to deliver on those. I think those will contribute to us exceeding expectations for 2026, coupled together with what we think is a very compelling pipeline for 2026. We look to have some great updates for you as we report Q1 and give some good updates for the balance of the year as we get through the beginning of the year.
Jerry Revich, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Sorry, Patrick, if I may, just to put a finer point on that. So typically, in year one, you work down by about a turn in terms of synergy relative to the acquisition multiples, what we typically see. So just applying that, given the outsized M&A in 2025, it does feel like that’s a big chunk of the core EBITDA growth that you have baked into the numbers unless I’m missing something about the nature of these deals that’s abnormal.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: No, Jerry, it’s Luke speaking. I think you’re absolutely right. We’ve demonstrated the outsized margin expansion that we’ve delivered and enjoyed over the past three or four years. A large part of that is being driven by that synergy capture, as you’ve articulated. So if you think about the 2026 guide, Tyler, on the first question, was trying to parse it out. But even when you peel it all back, you’re seeing margin expansion above and beyond what normal course price-cost spread should provide. And a component of that is exactly as you said, that you’re realizing the synergy benefit of all that M&A we did in 2025 and also still the tail end of what you did in 2024. So you’re absolutely right.
Typically, if you’re going to pay, I think Investor Day, we said we pay sort of 8x on the face of it and then over time can take that cost of ownership multiple down through synergy capture. That is happening. You saw that in 2025. You saw that in 2024. And certainly, for us to be able to have a 2026 guide that shows 60 basis points of margin expansion, including, don’t forget, a 25 basis point-plus headwind from commodities, a few other puts and takes, you’re actually at an underlying of closer to 100 basis points of margin expansion in 2026. Certainly, contributing in there is the synergy capture from the acquisitions that you completed in 2025 and previously.
Jerry Revich, Analyst, Wells Fargo: All right. Thank you, Trent.
Jasmine, Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Toby Sommer with Truist. You may now proceed.
Brian Bougermere, Analyst, Citi1: Thank you. I was hoping you could elaborate a little bit more on some of the green shoots that you said you might be seeing with respect to volume in 2026 in both the core and perhaps even ES? Thanks.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Yeah. So Toby, it’s Luke speaking. I was speaking in relation to GFL when I sort of spoke to that. I think on the macro side, some of even the indices, whether it’s PMI or PPI, are actually sort of starting to turn, I don’t know if it’s positive or showing some sort of green shoots coming out of that. But it’s also just in the sentiment and talking to some of our larger customers as to what their capital plans are for 2026. Very clearly, in 2025, people shelved a lot of capital plans, whether it was expansionary or the like, as they were waiting out to see how the world was going to unfold.
I think just having conversations with some of our large customers today, it seems clear that people are figuring out a way to navigate in this period of uncertainty and are going to invest in some of that sort of capital spend that can end up being volume on our side. We also saw on the special waste side, we alluded in the prepared remarks, Q4, some surprise special waste coming out of activity in some of our markets that wasn’t otherwise contemplated. As you know, that’s often the leading indicator for activity that then follows on the back of that. So while we would certainly like to see more green shoots before we get sort of too ahead of our skis, it’s certainly positive to just see those indicative indicators suggesting that maybe there’s some opportunity on the horizon.
Brian Bougermere, Analyst, Citi1: Thank you. That’s helpful. With respect to moving the headquarters to the U.S. and inclusion in various indexes, could you maybe give us a little bit of color on timeline and any hurdles or decisions that you have to weigh in order to pursue various inclusions?
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Yeah. So right out the gate, by virtue of the changes that have already occurred, we’ve become eligible for the Russell set of sort of indices. And the timeline as to how that typically works is mid-spring, I think, in April, they’ll make an evaluation, and we believe that we’ll check the boxes to be eligible for inclusion. And the actual inclusionary date would happen mid-end of the year. I think it’s in June. And if you look just on the face of it, I mean, the Russell Index inclusion alone could yield somewhere in the mid-single digits of our float, right? So an incremental permanent demand that sort of could come on.
By virtue of this step that we’ve taken, the next step would become eligibility for other U.S.-based indices, the CRISPS being one that is available to us and we think we’re eligible, and then obviously the S&P sort of 400/500. Further steps would be required, most notably U.S. GAAP and no longer being a foreign private issuer. Steps are underway for us to be eligible, both from a U.S. GAAP conversion as well as to be filing on the domestic forms. In doing so, you could then open up that incremental index demand. If you look at what the index specialists say, there’s upwards of another sort of 10%-15% of volume of our sorry, float that could be in demand from that. If you just look overall as to how much passive demand is in the GFL stock versus our peers, there’s a meaningful gap.
I think this headquarters announcement is a first step in starting to close this. There’s a significant degree of incremental demand that we think over the short and medium term should come into the name. We’re going to continue to actively pursue that. As Patrick alluded to in his opening remarks, one of the benefits of the current strategy, thanks to some of the sort of recent changes to the S&P definitions, is none of these changes preclude our eventual inclusion or eligibility, therefore, into the TSX 60, which, as many know, would drive even more incremental passive demand. We think we have a very nice near and medium and longer-term tailwind that should drive a significant incremental permanent demand for a large component of our float.
Brian Bougermere, Analyst, Citi1: I appreciate the detail. Thanks, Luke.
Jasmine, Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Jamison with TD Cowen. You may now proceed.
Jamison, Analyst, TD Cowen: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. So Luke, just a clarification on the pricing. So pricing was 6.4% in the fourth quarter. I think you said Q1, you’re mid-4s or in the 6s. And I think you said you’re largely 80% contracted through the year as of Q1 or something like that. So help me understand. I mean, I know that pricing will bleed lower, just the math of it, throughout the year, but how do you get to mid-5s from 6-4 or solidly in the 6s?
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Yeah. Hey, Jim. Thanks for the question. It’s a good one. I know sometimes the pricing math can get a little confusing, but it’s really a function of the quarter over the prior year quarter. During a period of ramping pricing during the year, you’ve effectively the pricing actions I did in H2 2025. I now have certainty of those rolling over into H1 of 2026. It therefore just gives me a high degree of certainty of the actual dollars of price that will be realized in each of these quarters.
So if you think about a Q1 number being in a sort of mid-6s, and if that then steps down and forgive me, I don’t have the rest of the quarterly cadence in front of me, but think of that then stepping down to the high 5s, that then steps down to the low 5s, that then steps down to 5, that’s how you’re going to blend to a number in the sort of mid-5s. So that’s the sort of rough cadence of it. That is absent any incremental pricing actions that sort of get taken through the year. And as I said, we think, we hope that we’re able to actually do sort of slightly better than that, right? The pricing that you ultimately realize is a function of stick rate.
When you do pricing actions, you do sometimes have rollbacks that you need to do to establish the sort of firm-level pricing. Obviously, the full extent of those aren’t known to us today. We’re taking estimates based on our past experience. That is the basis on which the math would yield that sort of mid-5s number.
Jamison, Analyst, TD Cowen: Okay. Great. And then my last one, you basically just touched on it in the prior question. But given that FX is moving your financials and your guidance around quite a bit, I was going to ask, do you have plans to report in U.S. dollars? It sounds like you said maybe you’ve got something in the works, but what would be the timing on that?
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Yeah. It’s a great question and something that we think a lot about because today, FX moves against us is a benefit for our peers. So we’re sort of moving in opposite directions. And I think just adds incremental complexity to the comparability. So I think the eventual outcome is that we convert to being a U.S. GAAP reporter, again, eliminating diversion in reporting between us and our peers. And you could evaluate being a U.S. dollar-denominated sort of reporter as well. I mean, more and more, our business has grown in the U.S. However, we still have a very sizable business in Canada. And the sort of backend infrastructure and shared services is all based there. So we’ll continue to evaluate.
I think, though, if you were to make a change to be a U.S. GAAP filer, it may make sense at that time that you also went to a U.S. dollar currency just to fully align comparability among the sort of peer group. The timing for that, Jim, I’ll tell you is, as I was speaking about the Russell, we think there’s a path where you can get sort of Russell inclusion midway through this year. The next big inclusions would require a U.S. GAAP conversion. And I think we intend to be ready to do that as early as Q1 2027. Now, whether or not we actually sort of go forward at that date or you wait to the end of the year is still sort of TBD. But it’s not going to happen in 2026.
But we’re certainly taking the steps and preparation now to be ready to do that sometime in the future. I could see a potential outcome being you do it at the end of 2027 in advance of 2028. But certainly, we’re exploring all options.
Jamison, Analyst, TD Cowen: Okay. Great. Thanks, Luke. Appreciate it.
Jasmine, Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Stephanie Moore with Jefferies. You may now proceed.
Brian Bougermere, Analyst, Citi0: Great. Good evening. Thanks, guys. Look, I just wanted to follow up on a question maybe two or three questions ago. We were talking about the outsized margin expansion this year outside of price-cost spread. I think, Luke, you did a really good job at the analyst day of outlining kind of all the self-help initiatives, answering pricing, automation, and the likes that you expected over the next couple of years. Could you maybe give us an update on how those are trending, what we should be thinking about in 2026 that’s really moving the needle? And I guess as a follow-up to that, if we do expect to see a more outsized M&A even this year or next year, do some of these investments help make those integrations and synergy captures that much more effective? Thanks, guys.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Yeah. Thanks, Stephanie. It’s a great question. Something that, as we look back on the investor day presentation and our outperformance in 2025, gives us even further conviction in our ability to realize those financial benefits from the self-help levers that we’d articulated based on how successful we were in 2025. Look, if you think where the levers are starting with the pricing, I mean, obviously, we started 2025 with an expectation of low to mid-5s pricing, ended the year at 6-1, nearly 70 bips of outperformance. A big part of that was the realization of those sort of ancillary surcharge program as we had sort of anticipated. I think we articulated a $40 million-$80 million price there, taking that at this sort of midpoint.
You have roughly the $60 million amount that, I mean, I think we’re set up and on pace to recognize that ratably over the four-year period, arguably a little front-end loaded as we’ve demonstrated in 2025. As I said in the prepared remarks, pricing for 2026 estimated in the sort of mid-5s range. Any further accelerated implementation of the ancillary surcharges could give upside to that number. We’re feeling really good on that aspect, or that’s what a self-help lever. When you start getting into the middle and the next one was employee turnover, we said, "As we reduce this employee turnover, we’re going to realize the benefit of the efficiency, the cost of risk, the onboarding, and the productivity associated with that." I think you’re seeing that as well.
I mean, across the cost category lines this year, from direct labor cost to R&M expense to SG&A, you’re seeing the operating leverage come. And part of that is that improved labor turnover. We got to high teens in 2025. We see more room for improvement in 2026 and 2027. And certainly, those benefits are accruing to the bottom line. The fleet conversion and CNG piece, I believe, was the next lever. I mean, I think when we started this, we had a sort of mid- to high-teens percentage of our fleet being CNG. And then we brought that up to mid-20s. And we’re now on a path to sort of be close to 30% and certainly seeing the benefits of that coming through in the results as well. So feel really good with the ratable realization of that benefit or that prize that was articulated on that side.
The last one was just the sort of general procurement and overall sort of efficiency in the middle. And I think you’re seeing that as well. So you peel it all back, what gives us a great sense of optimism is we’re not relying on any one of those levers to drive outsized performance. It’s, in fact, the combination of each of them in small little ways, but all adding up to this differentiated margin expansion that you’re seeing in our business versus ours. So 2026, we’re excited to continue to deliver. As we said, we see avenues of upside on the guide. And certainly, continued outperformance in those levers will be sort of part of that. 2025 was a great starting year. And we hope to be able to continue the trend.
Brian Bougermere, Analyst, Citi0: Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Jasmine, Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Adam Boots with Goldman Sachs. You may now proceed.
Jamison, Analyst, TD Cowen: Hi. Good evening. Patrick, you talked about potential for an outsized year of M&A. Just how far above the $1 billion annual target would you be comfortable going? I mean, just back of the envelope math, I think every $500 million of incremental M&A only adds 0.1 or 0.2 to leverage.
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Yeah. I think we think where we sit today, you could easily spend $1.5 billion-$2 billion. I think temporarily, leverage might be sort of in the 3.75-3.8 range intra-quarter. But then you still exit the year in the mid-3s. So I think that’s where I think is where you sort of peak out before you would need some form of equity. And I think going back to I think what we’ve telegraphed in Q4 and sort of late Q3 was that we think that this year could be. That being said, we’re still in diligence on a lot of these opportunities and nothing’s for certain. But yeah, your math is right. Obviously, depending on what the purchase price is for you’re buying that sort of but in that range, you’re correct.
I think that you would still end up in the low to mid-3s even deploying that amount of capital.
Jamison, Analyst, TD Cowen: Then, Luke, I think you said for 2026 margin guidance, there’s 100 basis points of underlying margin expansion, 25 basis point headwind for commodities. What are some of the other puts and takes that get you to 60 basis points? Then can you just help us think through the cadence of going from 150 basis points year-over-year? I think guidance, obviously, embeds decelerating margin expansion throughout the year.
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: Yeah, Adam, great question. If you think about 60 basis points margin expansion on the headline number, included therein, you got 25 basis point headwind from commodities. You got 5 basis point headwind from the Q1 year-over-year comp on that hurricane volume that I alluded to. Again, we always hope there is no natural disasters. But in 2025, we enjoyed excess volume at a high margin. So back in that, it was another 5 basis points. And then you have a 10 basis point headwind from FX and some of the carbon credits that you realize in 2025. So when you think about the 60 basis point headline number backing out those amounts, it yields about 100 basis point sort of underlying piece overall. When you think about the cadence, Q1, as I said, the 150 basis point beat based on the guide year-over-year.
Q2 of last year, you enjoyed an exceptional sort of margin performance. So actually contemplating, I think, flat to a little backwards in Q2. Then Q3 and Q4, modestly ahead. I think what you’re seeing is, as the business matures and our geography expands in the south, you’re seeing a bit of a flattening of that sort of seasonality. So as opposed to the peaks and valleys from Q1 to Q3 that we historically had, you’re seeing a bit of a sort of flattening of that year-over-year. We expect sort of more of the same. But that’s the basis for the expectation of the cadence throughout the year. You also have, Adam, recall, the commodity comp will bigger drag in the first half of the year. Then that steps down as you go throughout the year.
The underlying will have less adjustments to achieve by the time you get to Q4 if commodity prices stay where they are today.
Jamison, Analyst, TD Cowen: Great. Thanks so much.
Jasmine, Moderator: Thank you. Our last question comes from Adech Shreza with Saiful. You may now proceed.
Brian Bougermere, Analyst, Citi3: All right. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a quick one. In terms of the reported volume of 50 bps for 2025, how much of that was from EPR and R&G ramping up?
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: R&G had a de minimis component to the overall thing because R&G is much less a revenue story for us than it is. There’s a little bit in there from R&G ramping up. But that’s not a sort of significant component of that. I think when you look at EPR and you look at our Canada-wide sort of volume, I think the numbers that we would have reported was EPR was about $10 million in Q1, roughly $20 million of each of Q2 and Q3. And then as you had lapped the Q4, it was de minimis. I think it was sort of $5 or $7 million in Q4. So you certainly got some outsized contribution from that.
Where we take comfort is even when you strip that out, when you think about some of that hurricane volume they’re comping year over year, you’re still, I think, at an industry-leading sort of volume print. Again, just going back to some of our market selection where we enjoy volumetric growth just based on the macro that’s happening in Central Florida, Georgia, and some of our Texas markets that helps sort of offset some of the C&D-related exposure.
Brian Bougermere, Analyst, Citi3: All right. Thank you. And just in terms of your guide for volume for next year, what are you sort of kind of building into your guide in terms of recovery? Because you mentioned some green shoots that you’re seeing. So are you thinking of building in some cyclical volumes in there or anything like that? Or is it really what you’re seeing right now?
Luke Pelosi, CFO, GFL: No. Our guide is based on the environment that we see today. So we just assume sort of status quo. The green shoot sort of commentary was more, as I was alluding to some of these conversations and touchpoints we’ve been having with our customers, "Look, January is going to be a tough volume month right at the gate." Just because when you think about the amount of snow that’s come and blanketed Wisconsin, Michigan, Toronto, these are markets that are used to snow. But this has been an exceptional level of snow. So I think you got a pretty tough start to the year in January. But again, it’s just sort of structurally of some of the contracts we’ve won, EPR coming online and the like that gives us sort of confidence to be able to print a slightly positive number.
Certainly, any recovery as we think about our C&D volumes or just broader macroeconomic activity could provide a tailwind above and beyond. But that would all be additive. We’re just assuming status quo with the current sort of macro environment.
Brian Bougermere, Analyst, Citi3: Great. Thanks for taking my question.
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: All right. Thank you so much.
Jasmine, Moderator: Thank you. At this time, I’ll now pass the conference back over to Patrick Dovigi for any closing remarks.
Patrick Dovigi, Founder and CEO, GFL: Thank you, everyone, for joining. Much appreciated. Look forward to catching up when we report Q1. Thank you.
Jasmine, Moderator: That concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.