Badger's Second Act: Pricing Power and a U.S. Plant Set the Stage for Scale
Record quarter, a new manufacturing footprint, and a pricing inflection point as data center demand widens Badger's moat.
BDGI.TO · Earnings Call · 2026-07-31
A Quarter of Records... and a Bet on Scale
Badger Infrastructure Solutions delivered its strongest quarter yet, with revenue up 23% year-over-year to $257 million and adjusted EBITDA up 25% to $66.1 million. The company's fleet grew 8% to 1,820 hydrovacs, and revenue per truck per month jumped 14% to $47.7 thousand. As CFO Robert Dawson noted, “Our adjusted EBITDA improved to $66.1 million, an increase of 25% compared to 2025.” — Robert Dawson, Chief Financial Officer · 2026-07-31 But the real story isn't the quarter itself—it's the strategic moves that position Badger for a much larger future: a second manufacturing plant in the U.S. and a deliberate push into adjacent service lines.
The Manufacturing Pivot: From Contemplation to Commitment
The construction of a second plant has been telegraphed for a while. In the March 2026 call, CEO Robert Blackadar said, “we're actually underway with getting some of that information and pulling that together. We do have a lot of additional reasons other than just scaling.” — Robert Blackadar, President and CEO · 2026-03-06 Fast-forward to this quarter, and the plan is now firm: a facility in the southern U.S., expected online in the back half of 2027 or early 2028. U.S. manufacturing is no longer a hypothetical; it's a strategic imperative. The Red Deer plant is already running at record output—80 hydrovacs in Q2 versus 51 a year ago—and the second plant will provide both capacity and redundancy. As Blackadar put it, “we are underway with a second manufacturing plant to be located in the United States, and we expect that plant to come online in the back half of 2027 or early into 2028.” — Robert G. Blackadar, President and CEO · 2026-07-31
The economics go beyond tariffs. While avoiding duties is a bonus, CFO Robert Dawson stressed the organic growth case:
The strategic need for the facility, the growth of the business, and the returns that our current organic growth strategy is offering us justify the facility in its own right. And then these tariffs recently, I think, are just a little cherry on top of those economics.
Pricing Power Unlocks RPT Growth
For most of the past year, pricing was a headwind. But the tone has shifted decisively. In the Q&A, Blackadar acknowledged the earlier pressure, “the pricing environment continued to be under a fair amount of pressure back half of last year and through Q1 of this year. We identified in the months as the quarter for second quarter was going on, in April and May, that there were some pricing opportunities.” — Robert G. Blackadar, President and CEO · 2026-07-31 Now, with utilization at record levels, Badger is capturing those opportunities. The company sees pricing opportunity as a durable tailwind, not a one-off. This is already showing up in RPT—up 14% year-over-year—and management believes there's more headroom.
The data center boom is part of the story. Badger's exposure has crept up to ~13-14% of revenue, but Blackadar is careful to frame it within a broader demand wave: “I think Q1, we were in that 11%, 12%, 13%-ish range and we are just right around sub-15%. I think 13% to 14% as we went through Q2.” — Robert G. Blackadar, President and CEO · 2026-07-31 He also highlighted that data centers now represent roughly 44% of all upcoming Dodge project bids, a massive backdrop that also tightens capacity for non-data-center work. That confluence benefits a company with Badger's scale and service breadth.
The Long Tail Ahead
With no traditional backlog, Badger is instead building visibility through recurring revenue and national account contracts. The move into industrial cleaning and trench safety—the latter launching in H2—adds sticky, maintenance-oriented revenue. Combined with a four-region U.S. expansion and a refreshed NCIB, the company is clearly investing for the long term.
The contrast with prior calls is stark. A year ago, Badger was dealing with tariff uncertainty and fleet overcapacity; now it's a supplier-led pricing game. As Dawson said on the prior call, “I'd say all in, including the ancillary support around the data centers, I'd say, in that 10% to 11% range.” — Robert Blackadar, President and CEO · 2025-11-07 That figure has moved meaningfully. The company is no longer just trying to fill trucks—it's choosing where to deploy them and at what price.
Badger's moat—vertically integrated manufacturing, a national footprint, and now pricing power—is widening. The second plant is the clearest signal yet that management expects this cycle to last well into the next decade.