Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Titanium Transportation Group's Q1 2022 earnings conference call. On today's call, we have Mr. Ted Daniel, President and Chief Executive Officer, Alex Fu, Chief Financial Officer, and Marilyn Daniel, Chief Operating Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made on this call today may be forward-looking. In that regard, please refer to the risk factors and cautionary provisions outlined in the press release issued by the companies yesterday, as well as the filing made by Titanium on SEDAR. Please note that today's call is being recorded today, May 17th, 2022. A replay of this call will be available until midnight on May 31st, 2022. Details of the replay can be found on our website under the Investors section. I would now like to turn the call over to Titanium's President and CEO, Mr. Ted Daniel. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thank you, operator, and thank you all for joining us. We are extremely pleased to report a very strong start to the year. Titanium delivered a record CAD 136 million in revenue for the first quarter of this year. This reflects the benefits of our focused investments in the company's core businesses, coupled with successful management and strong organic growth. We continue to realize the benefits of our ongoing investments in technology as both operating segments delivered improved EBITDA margins and profitability this quarter. Strong revenue and efficiency improvements this quarter resulted in a record bottom line with quarter earnings per share of CAD 0.13 per share on a fully diluted basis. With a very strong start to the year, we expect to meet or exceed our full-year revenue and adjusted EBITDA outlook, confirming our expectations for another year of strong growth for Titanium. The company continues to execute on its strategy of continuous organic and inorganic growth consistently over the past several years. We've maintained a clear focus on key priorities to continue value through technology. We continue to execute on our core trucking and logistics business to better the customer experience and improve efficiencies. We've built a scalable, robust platform through the use of innovative technologies. Our asset-light growth in the U.S. and our ability to integrate value-add acquisitions has led to the company's successful transformation over the past few years. Now, before we dive into the results, I'd like to spend a few moments highlighting some recent advancements in strategic initiatives in our technology platform. We recently announced that Titanium was a key contributor to a new and improved technology partnership between BlackBerry and ISAAC Instruments, a leading driver-centric fleet in-cab communication and ELD provider. Titanium was integral in developing this partnership and integrations between the ISAAC trucking operating system and BlackBerry Radar trailer tracking, two important systems for Titanium's fleet management. We're very proud to be the first fleet in North America that has deployed the newly integrated solution for our entire fleet of trailers and tractors, a tangible first in the industry. A key focus of our technology and innovation is to drive organic growth with strong financial navigation and efficiencies. We built a robust internal technology team that has been developing systems to connect our businesses. More importantly, our team is leveraging our data science and large databases to create and deliver solutions and insights for our customers, carriers, and employees to enhance decision-making and profitability. We've made excellent progress advancing strategic technology initiatives, and we're excited about our recent launch of two new products developed by our internal development team. In early April, we launched two new proprietary products to further enhance our logistics services. We successfully launched the Titanium Carrier Portal with intelligent capabilities, and we launched a newly redesigned version of Titanium's mobile app, which is now available on both iOS and Android. The app allows for third-party tracing with partner carriers, creating full transparency for our customers. We believe our FreightTech allows us to punch well above our weight class and further enhance our growth potential. Turning now to our first quarter results. We've experienced excellent growth and improved profitability in both operating segments. As mentioned, total Q1 revenue of CAD 136 million was up CAD 50.3 million or 58.7% from a year ago as we successfully improved performance of our truckload business. Necessarily, we obtained customer price increases and strategically refocused capacity. The logistics segment contributed approximately CAD 88 million in the quarter and continues to benefit from our strategic investment in the U.S. logistics business, where we have opened five locations in just under three years, the most recent being this quarter in Atlanta, Georgia. The company's investment in technology and efficient platforms enabled us to scale easily and meet the increased demands. We expect this to continue. We're now seeing these scalable benefits manifest into stronger margins and increased profitability in our U.S. segment. Likewise, in our Canadian business, we've continued to see an increase in transactional volume demand. Consolidated quarterly EBITDA was CAD 13.9 million, an increase of CAD 6.4 million or 85.2% from a year ago. EBITDA margin improved to 13.4% from 11.8% in Q1 of 2021. EBITDA performance continues to improve as we realize operating synergies and productivity improvements from the acquisition of International Truckload Services just over a year ago and the most recent acquisition of Bert and Son's Cartage. Our advanced data navigation ensures our pricing strategy reflects rising costs and incorporates fuel surcharges where necessary. This remains an ongoing evaluation in real time. As noted last quarter and looking ahead, the general operating environment continues to experience inflationary cost pressures from higher fuel pricing, increased repairs and maintenance costs, as well as increased downtime. Macroeconomic volatility, the residual effects of COVID-19 on the labor market, and the prospects of war have certainly disrupted more than just the supply chain. In response, we continue to focus on technology to increase productivity and efficiencies. Additionally, we're starting to see the arrival of new equipment that has been significantly delayed from last year. The new equipment will help to reduce downtime and repair costs. Currently, there is a one-year backlog for new equipment. Thankfully, in anticipation, we placed orders last year. We're seeing early slight indications of some softer consumer trends emerging, although to date, industry load volumes remain generally healthy. Against this backdrop, Titanium remains exceptionally well-positioned to navigate these conditions with our solid balance sheet, scalable technology, and experienced and dedicated team. For the coming year, we expect to deliver between CAD 450 million and CAD 470 million in top line revenue and between CAD 38 million and CAD 43 million in EBITDA. Lastly, we remain committed to exploring further acquisition opportunities as they arise in 2022. Turning to our operating results for the quarter, let me hand over the call to Alex Fu, our CFO. Alex? Thank you. To echo Ted, first quarter results reflect a record achievement for Titanium and a very strong start to the year. Turning right away to segments. Logistics delivered revenue of CAD 87.9 million in the quarter, up from CAD 47.5 million a year ago, an increase of 84.9% and record quarterly revenue for the segment. Similarly, logistics delivered a record CAD 9.1 million in EBITDA, up from CAD 4 million in Q1 of 2021, representing more than a twofold increase. We continue to see significant opportunities in our U.S. logistics business and announced our next U.S. office in Atlanta, Georgia, in March of this year. Overall, we are very pleased with the division's Q1 performance, delivering CAD 54.9 million, up 69.6% from Q1 of last year. While we do expect the spot market to normalize in the year, we are expecting our volumes to grow as we add more capacity to the division. As part of the growth strategy, we plan to add an additional two offices to our U.S. footprint in 2022. Turning to the trucking segment, revenues during the quarter were CAD 49.3 million, up CAD 10.1 million from a year ago, or an increase of 25.9%. Included in this increase is three months of revenue in the acquisition of ITS, whereas prior year only included two months. The difference was about CAD 5 million. Also included was approximately CAD 1 million in revenue earned from the acquisition of Bert and Son's Cartage on January 1, 2022. Segmented EBITDA was CAD 5.7 million for the quarter, compared to CAD 4.2 million in the same quarter a year ago. In reviewing the balance sheet, our capital position remains strong with our net debt to equity ratio at 1.12, a marginal improvement from December. Looking ahead, we're committed to CAD 41.3 million in capital expenditure in the next 12 months, primarily to replace aged equipment. In addition, we are expected to realize CAD 5.8 million in proceeds from the sale of aged equipment. Given the strength of our capital position and our confidence in our earnings outlook, we maintain our dividend, declaring a dividend of CAD 0.02 per common share. I would now like to turn the call back to Ted. Thank you, Alex. Q1 was a very strong start to the year for Titanium. In both our logistics and trucking segments, our recent investments are helping to deliver strong top-line growth with improving profitability. In the early part of the year, severe weather and border blockades negatively impacted freight volumes. We're experiencing some cost pressures, but in both segments, we're seeing favorable opportunity to pass through needed price increases, which should continue to support margins as the year progresses. Our logistics spot market, we see some early signs of a softer rating environment which may have an impact on margins going forward, although we currently continue to see relatively strong activity levels. Our advanced FreightTech platform allows us to pivot swiftly and maintain profitability. These dynamics, while they require our attention and focus, they are what we consider to be a part of the natural dynamic of the industry. Titanium continues to adjust and respond to market dynamics and to capitalize on opportunities for profitable growth. As we progress through 2022 with our strong FreightTech and relentless innovation, we expect to deliver another year of profitable organic growth with additional upside from the potential to pursue accretive opportunities. I wanna thank everyone on our team for their hard work and dedication. With that, I'll turn it to the operator to open the line for questions. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. You will then hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request, and your questions will be polled in the order that they are received. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from Benoit Poirier from Desjardins. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning, gentlemen. Congrats for the good quarter. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Good morning. Could you maybe provide some color about the overall trucking environment and where do you see some softer consumer trends? Yeah. From the trucking segment, for sure, it still tends to be a very good trucker's market for us. In terms of trends, not really sure where the market entirely is going. As usual, you know, our diversity in terms of our customer base and product line sort of protects us as we move forward. We feel very confident that we are well-positioned into the rest of the year. Okay. Perfect. When we look at logistics, I think the 13.4% EBITDA margin is a new record level. Obviously, it seems that we are going through a softer spot market environment. Just wondering what drove the performance of the logistics in Q1, and how sustainable is the 11.5% margin? Certainly the market conditions right now with the pricing and inflationary cost is what drove up the prices and our revenue. That the 11.5% is most likely not sustainable. We are expecting it to be normalized. Where are we going to end up with? That's hard to say given the current market environment, but we are confident that we can maintain what we used to have, which is about the 8.8%-9% range. Okay. That's great color. Could you remind me, Alex, how much of your truck transportation or your total exposure to the spot rate? I know it's mostly contractual rates, but I would be curious to hear whether the mix has changed between contractual and spot rates. On the trucking side, it's all contractual. We don't have much on the spot market in terms of our trucking segment. Our logistics is a combination of both contractual and spot. I'd say we have a good chunk of spot freight, but I think I don't know if we've got an exact calculation at the moment. We're about 90. Yeah. 90% contract in our trucking, so that gives us a certain level of stability. In the logistics side, you know, we usually I think we're somewhere in the range of 50/50. Yeah. It does fluctuate a little bit, but that's, you know, you're not 90/10. Okay. Perfect. Okay. That's great color. Just in terms of M&A, it seems that you're quite confident to achieve more M&A opportunities this year. Could you talk about whether the softer market environment provides you more M&A opportunities and whether you're starting to see greater activity these days? At this point in time, it's kinda hard to guess. We're always looking for accretive acquisitions. You know, I know that 2021 was a really strong year for a lot of carriers. Rates were very favorable. At this point in time, kinda hard to say, right? It's gonna be tough. Definitely we're always looking for good fits, you know, for value-added acquisitions, and ones that make a lot of sense to our shareholders. Okay. That's great. Thank you very much. I'll pause the line. Thanks, man. Benoit. Thanks. Thank you. Your next question comes from David Ocampo from Cormark. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Morning, David. Morning. I just wanted to touch first on the truck transportation margin profile. It had a pretty decent sequential improvement over the Q4 and the Q3. I think you guys previously noted that you kind of foresee this division getting up to kind of that 16% margin range. What's the timeline to get there, and are there any risks for that 16% number? Our goal is to get it to that higher percentage range this year. The reason being is because the cost of equipment and interest rates are going up. It's a necessary requirement in order to start covering the more expensive equipment and more expensive interest. From that point of view, it's almost like, if you think about it's almost like an immediate requirement. Obviously, as you know, it takes a little bit of time to work through these processes, given the fact that truck transportation is a segment that is largely driven by contractual rates. Obviously the requirement for higher percentages at the EBITDA level is driven by an inflationary component at the equipment and the interest rate component. That's kind of the goal. Yeah. Rates are typically set, I guess, once a year. If you continue to see inflation here, are you able to go to your customers and get maybe perhaps, you know, two or three rate increases in a year depending on what happens with inflation? We're actually seeing contracts on shorter-based terms now. They vary from anything from one month, three months, six months, one year. We're definitely seeing customers working with shorter contracts this year. However, because we've been in such extreme times, it's not atypical to review with customers mid-contract term, if there's significant changes in the cost of operating. We've had to do that on a number of occasions throughout the last few months. Marilyn, if you're able to disclose, I mean, it did seem like we got off to a pretty tough start to the year. So was the latter parts of the quarter at a significantly better margin than, say, January? Definitely. Yeah. It's very quickly, we can summarize that January was pounded by weather. Even if you had strong rates, I mean, if you're not able to run your miles, it doesn't matter what the rates are. February was blockades. Again, that was very challenging. Certainly, you know, we can conclude that, yeah, the second part of the quarter was much better. Great. Then I just wanted to kind of loop back to your annualized guidance or your annual guidance. It was maintained. You mentioned that you should at least be able to meet or potentially even exceed that. But everything that I'm hearing on the call today, you know, improvements in truck transportation, there might be some regression in logistics, but you might be able to pick up some more volumes and you're potentially going to open up two new locations this year. Is there a significant degree of conservatism baked into that guidance? Because it does seem like even if you take a number and annualize it's gonna come in well above your targeted range there. Yeah, I think that I wouldn't say significant. I think that we've, you know, we feel comfortable with the numbers that we have at this point in time. I think that one thing is for sure, I don't think anyone out there right now would disagree if I'm gonna say that everyone, to some degree, has concerns with the current economic and political uncertainty. We feel the numbers right now make sense to us. Does that make sense? Like, is that? Yeah, that makes sense. Ted, just for clarity, are the two offices included in that number? No. The existing number is without any additional U.S. locations. Okay. Got it. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, just as a reminder, if you do have a question, please press star then the number one. Your next question comes from Michael O'Brien from ATB. Please go ahead. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Morning, Mike. I just, a few of my questions have already been asked, so just wanted to ask about CapEx and updated CapEx. I noticed that in your MD&A, compared to your last filing, you've got another 50 power units planned, so CAD 41 million in CapEx, I guess, committed over the next 12 months. Is that correct? Yes. We're still getting 2021's orders into 2022, which is incredible. You know, OEMs are promising equipment within a matter of six to nine months, and it takes more like 12-15 months to get equipment. There's constant delays. That just seems to be the climate of the existing sort of delivery environments, and that's across the board regardless of which OEM you're dealing with, whether it's a truck or a trailer. I think, Alex, you can give me some additional numbers. So- Go ahead, Mike. In comparison to our last disclosure, there was a lot more uncertainty in Q4 in terms of when we're gonna get the equipment. So far this year, we've received about 60 trucks and 60 trailers. That's all from our 2021 orders. We are expecting and we're in constant communication with our OEMs to try to get more equipment in, and we are more confident now to say that we should be able to get 150 trucks and 250 trailers within the year. We want more, but so far, that is the most realistic target that we're gonna have. Great. Okay. Let's explore that we want more. Let's just say, I mean, you know, as you say, there's some uncertainty around it, but let's just say you get the CAD 41 million worth of capital stock over the, I guess, it's next 12 months or is that by calendar year end? Next 12 months. Okay, great. If you then look beyond that to the 12 months that follow that, what kind of replacement CapEx do you sort of ballpark would you think would be reasonable as we model this? Realistically, we are looking at around the same. Around the same. We'd like to have maybe 10%-20% more, because we are into our replacement cycle now. That's probably the same amount that we'll need for trucks and trailers in 2023 at the very least. Okay. Just, yeah, CAD 40 million. Think of it as CAD 40 million in EBITDA for the next 12 months, CAD 40 million in CapEx and potentially that the following year, depending again on deliveries, right? Yes. It's completely dependent on the deliveries. Yeah. Okay. Very helpful. Minus proceeds at this stage. Minus net proceeds, right. You'll get something back, right, I'm sure. Those markets are probably still quite hot, I would expect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's very helpful. That's all I have for today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Ben Jekic from PI Financial. Please go ahead. Good morning, great members. Morning, Ben. Hey, one question has been answered on CapEx. I just have if you can repeat. Ted, you said most of the volumes in trucking is contractual and in logistics is 50/50. Yeah. It's about logistics tends to fluctuate depending on the capacity of the market. When capacity tends to tighten, logistics seems to sway a little bit more towards the spot market. When capacity sort of loosens, logistics tends to sway a little bit more towards, you know, it leans back more towards the contractual environment that it has with its customers. Gotcha. Okay. That's great. A wonderful start to the year. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Russell Green from Raymond James. Please go ahead. Morning, Russ. Morning, Ted and team. Obviously very impressive to see what the team has been able to do over the last couple of years, and I think you've kind of touched on this with some of the other questions, but when it comes to your capital allocation priorities, it sounds like you're anticipating there's some M&A, there's going to be some continued CapEx. I just wanted to understand how the dividend kind of plays into your capital priorities, when you discuss with the board. Good question. Thank you, Russ. Yeah. For the time being, exactly, we wanna make sure that we maintain our flexibility, as a management team in order to be able to make the capital allocation decisions. Whether we're investing in further innovation to further our technological advancements so that we can continue to grow our logistics on an innovative FreightTech platform, or we have the ability to use the money for accretive acquisitions. Barring that, you know, as the year progresses, obviously, you know, we'll continue to reevaluate. Okay, thanks. Thanks, Russ. Just a second question, if I may. Mm-hmm. Now that you've had, you know, five locations open in the U.S., two additional it sounds like are underway. If you were to look out three to five years based on what you've learned to this point, what do you think the opportunity set looks like for you and the team? We believe that, you know, the U.S. is ballpark, give or take, you know, $100 billion. It's a $1 trillion market. Our goal is to continue to grow on an asset-light model, primarily in the U.S. We're looking at 20-25 locations as kind of a number that we're using as a benchmark. We believe that, you know, if you look at the larger freight brokers in the U.S. because the reason we look at that is because we believe that technology has. You know, COVID has really just accelerated technological investments, and that's a big area, and I'm actually very excited about that. If we can bring it, you know, just kind of full circle our investment in FreightTech, you know, we're gonna open up a bunch more locations. Average location we use as a benchmark in that kind of CAD 20 million a year range. We believe that we can continue to grow on an asset-light basis, barring any opportunities that may arise in terms of accretive acquisitions. Great. Thank you. Again, it's great to step back and see what's been achieved in the last two years and look forward to seeing what it continues to be brought into your financial statements. Thanks. Thanks, Russ. Thank you. Thank you. Your last question comes from Benoit Poirier from Desjardins. Please go ahead. Yeah. Just to get back on the previous question. Is the average location about CAD 20 million or $20 million per year, Ted? That's USD. USD. Okay, perfect. In the press release, you talk about the new entrants in the trucking industry, obviously, that came in when the spot rates were much higher. Any concern about this? Do you think it's additional capacity or it's basically some companies that move outside from the bigger one to start smaller companies? Given the softness in spot rate, are they going likely to exit the market? Any thoughts about the potential new entrants these days given the market environment evolving so fast? I just want to clarify, your question is in the context of the logistics environment or the trucking environment? I would say I think it's more toward the trucking environment of the truck transportation that I believe so. Okay. Just to answer the second part of your question when you mentioned about the new entrants. As you know, the number of new entrants in the U.S. has increased hugely in the last 12 months, with unprecedented new entrants into the marketplace. They have definitely entered in on the high point. We feel that new group of entrants into the industry may have trouble sustaining themselves throughout a normal economic cycle in the trucking industry. A lot of people came in when trucks were very expensive to buy and rates were very expensive in the U.S., remembering that Canada always kind of falls behind and lags in the trends. We actually feel fairly confident that as there may be a bit of a lull or a bit of a softening in the marketplace now, there will be some natural, perhaps attrition to that group that have entered. I don't think it'll saturate the market. I think it'll adjust on its own. Our strategy when it comes to that part of it is, you know, continued growth in terms of what we do and our expertise and our customer base that we work with now. That's the second part of the question in terms of the trucking segment. I think the first part you asked about was softening. Are you talking about the new entrants softening the rate market or where were you with that question? I'm not too sure. Oh, the softening spot rates, the potential impact on their how sustainable they could be in the market. I would assume that the softer spot rate environment could probably force them to exit the market at one point in time. Mm. Yeah. I think you covered that question. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, that's good. Okay. Could you maybe talk about the implementation of the new technology with BlackBerry and ISAAC seems very promising. Would you be able to quantify maybe the cost saving or the benefits you see in terms of implementing this technology? The quantification there is more on an operational level. It's essentially operational efficiency so that when you're connecting the truck and the trailer, our dispatch are able to make better decisions in terms of locating the equipment. Then as well, don't forget, with the ELDs in the U.S., but we're getting ELDs now in seven months with hard enforcement January 2023, you can't waste any time for the driver, right? Basically, time is money, and you need to be able to connect the two, right? Yeah. One without the other isn't gonna deliver any freight. From that point of view, the efficiency is above contribution margin, so at the G&A level. Okay, thank you very much. Thanks for the time. Thank you. Thank you. Pleasure. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Daniel, you may proceed with your conference. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, operator, for facilitating the call. Regardless of the economic conditions we operate in, undoubtedly with our innovative, hardworking team of people, Titanium will continue to grow, succeed, and increase shareholder value. We highly appreciate your interest in Titanium. If there are any further questions, please feel free to contact us. Thank you, everyone, for joining this morning's call. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you very much for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have a great day.