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Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LPÂ (BIP 0.36%)
Q3Â 2018 Earnings Conference Call
Nov. 02, 2018, 9:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Denise, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Q3 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions)
I would now like to turn the call over to Melissa Low, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please begin.
Melissa Low -- Vice President, Investor Relations
Thank you, operator and good morning. Thank you all for joining us for Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call for 2018. On the call today is Bahir Manios, our Chief Financial Officer; and Sam Pollock, Chief Executive Officer. Following their remarks, we look forward to taking your questions and comments.
At this time, I'd like remind you that, in responding to questions and in talking about our growth initiatives and our financial and operating performance, we may make forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks, and future results may differ materially. For further information on known risk factors, I would encourage you to review our Annual Report on Form 20-F, which is available on our website.
With that, I'd like turn the call over to Bahir.
Bahir Manios -- Managing Partner and Chief Financial Officer
Great. Thank you, Melissa, and good morning, everyone. Financial results for Brookfield Infrastructure in the third quarter were solid, reflecting the regulated and contractual cash flows that underpin our operations. Our results continued to benefit from solid organic growth across the business driven by inflation and taxation across the majority of our businesses.
Higher volumes delivered through our transport and energy networks and the commissioning of growth projects and earnings. 2018 has been an active year on the capital deployment front, having exceeded our annual new investment target of 500 million to $1 billion. We recently invested over $600 million and in North American residential infrastructure business.
In addition, we advanced acquisition of our Western Canadian midstream business where we'll be deploying $525 million. We recently also closed on the provincially regulated portion of the business, investing 265 million and expect to close the Federally regulated portion in mid-2019. We also continue to advance on closing three other transactions, in which we will deploy in total approximately 600 million. These investments are expected to generate an average going-in Funds from Operations or FFO yield of over 10%.
Looking ahead, we are very well-positioned to generate strong FFO per unit growth of almost 20% on a run-rate basis, beginning in the second half of 2019. With the recent deployment of capital, this more than makes up for the FFO gap from our recent asset sale and capital raises. More importantly, the future upside in the acquired assets is expected to be substantial and this will stand us in good shape to continue to grow our FFO in the future.
So just in our overall results, our business generated FFO of 278 million, or $0.71 per unit, during the third quarter of 2018. Results benefited from another period of strong organic growth, which enhanced our results by 8% on a constant currency basis. We are very pleased with the performance of each of our operating groups, as our businesses continued to perform, in most cases, ahead of their plans.
Notwithstanding the fact that our current period results were impacted by the loss of income from a very successful asset sale and the impact of a stronger US dollar, underlying fundamentals are very strong and our outlook remains positive for the balance of the year and beyond.
Our utilities segment generated FFO of 130 million, benefiting from solid underlying performance and same-store income that increased 4% year-over-year. The increase was partly due to substantial connection activity in our UK regulated distribution business as well as capital commissioned into our rate base. This compares to 170 million of FFO in the same quarter last year, which included our Chilean operations, sold last quarter, and cost associated with a debt financing recently completed at our Brazilian regulated transmission business as well as the impact of foreign exchange.
At the end of July, our UK regulated distribution business order book reached 1 million connections -- its highest ever. We have secured 129,500 connections to date in 2018, and that's 10% ahead of the prior year, which was a record year for our business. Year-to-date sales are strong, including several notable deals in the third quarter. We are also very encouraged by our current projections that indicate that this momentum is sustainable heading into 2019.
We recently acquired a controlling stake in Gas Natural Colombia, the second largest gas distribution network in the country. Since closing, our asset management team has been very focused on transitioning the company into a decentralized operating business. We recently hired a new CEO and internalized a number of processes, which were previously previously provided by its parent. We are also working toward executing several exciting growth opportunities in this business over the next 6 to 12 months.
The transport segment contributed FFO of 119 million. Results were positively impacted by higher tariffs charged at each one of our operating groups. Results at our rail business benefited from increased agricultural volumes but these positive impacts were offset by lower volumes from our minerals customers, and the handback of one of
our state concessions in our Brazilian toll road business.
FFO in this segment was also reduced by $15 million as a result of foreign exchange, primarily the result of the conversion of income from our businesses to close
to 20% lower FFO in US dollars. The energy segment reported FFO of 59 million in the third quarter. This represents a 23% increase over the same period in the prior year, reflecting higher transport volumes due to strong gas production growth across North America. Our district energy operations benefited from new customer additions and warmer weather, which increased throughput in our North American business.
Our North American natural gas transmission business commissioned the first phase of its Gulf Coast expansion on October 1. The project, which required a total capital investment of $100 million on a net to BIP basis was delivered ontime, on-scope and within budget and is expected to increase our EBITDA in that business by roughly $25 million per year.
Concurrently, one of the large LNG producers in the region has also announced a project to increase capacity at its Corpus Christi facility, and as a result, we will be proceeding with phase two of NGPL's Gulf Coast expansion, which will require $230 million of capital for annual EBITDA of 50 million BIP's share of those two numbers being a 115 million and
25 million, respectively.
Our North American district energy business was recently selected to own and operate two large-scale systems in Colorado and New York State. The City of Denver engaged our business to plan and build a system for the National Western Centre, a newly designed 3 million square foot "smart: campus. This 250-acre facility will double the footprint of the previous building and is expected to attract over 2 million annual visitors and host over 400 annual events, including Colorado's largest agricultural convention.
Additionally, our business was selected by a prominent US educational and institution to exclusively negotiate a transaction to acquire, modernize and manage its district energy system. The project consists of three plants, and the distribution infrastructure will ultimately consist of over six miles of steam piping and over two miles of chilled water piping. These opportunities are high-profile, strategic wins that expand our US footprint, and on a combined basis represent total investments
of approximately $300 million or 120 million net to BIP through long-term concession contracts, backed by
high-quality investment-grade counterparties
The data infrastructure segment contributed FFO of 19 million for the period, which was consistent with the prior year. During the period, we were very pleased to have won the tender for the renewal of our Eiffel Tower lease, allowing us to continue broadcasting frequencies to one-fifth of the French population from the top of this
landmark. This 10-year extension goes into effect in March 2019, adding to the stability of our broadcasting platform. We also completed the commercial launch of our first fibre-to-the-home tender. Our business rolled out 25,000 connections and has received positive commercial feedback. This is a meaningful milestone for our business.
And finally before I conclude my remarks this morning, I wanted to briefly touch on our liquidity position and foreign exchange. First, during the period we replenished our corporate liquidity. In anticipation of completing several investment initiatives, we enhanced our liquidity through a number of successful capital issuances, raising
C$750 million in the Canadian debt and preferred share markets, which brought corporate liquidity to almost 2.5 billion at the end of October. With this level of liquidity, we are able to fully fund all our committed transactions and organic growth backlog.
Second on foreign exchange -- weakening Brazilian real and lower rates on our Australian dollar and British pound hedge contracts reduced our results by $40 million during the period. We expect this negative trend to reverse in the future, as our average hedge rates for the next two years are over 5% higher than 2018. 8. In addition, we are of the view that the Brazilian real will recover from these near trough levels, which was impacted in the quarter from the uncertainty surrounding the country's recent elections, which is now behind it. We recently executed on our hedging strategy with respect to our near-term cash flows from Chile, Colombia and Peru. And in addition to that we are also prepared to enter into hedge contracts to lock in a portion of our near-term cash flows generated in our Brazilian businesses should there be a continued recovery in that currency. It is our objective to have between 80% to 85% of our total FFO be either generated in or hedged back to the US dollar on a go-forward basis.
And so, with that, I will turn the call over to Sam.
Samuel J. B. Pollock -- Senior Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer
Great, thank you, Bahir. And good morning everyone. My agenda for the call today is to review our focus on investments in energy midstream. Then I'll provide an update on our strategic initiatives that we have under way and I will conclude with an outlook for the business. We held our Annual Investor Day in New York in September and I'd like to thank, many of you who came out to join us. For those of you who are unable to join us, I invite you to view the presentation on our website.
Now, let me begin. Over the past three years, our energy business has experienced transformative growth. We've built a global portfolio of attractive Energy midstream assets and growing cash flows from this sector by nearly four times. Soon spanning four countries these operations play a key role in the gathering, processing, storing and transporting of natural gas. We've built this business by capitalizing on contrarian views during periods of dislocation and market volatility.
There are three key reasons why we have confidence in the midstream sector. First, we like its core infrastructure characteristics, these assets are strategically located, difficult to replicate and have a strong contracted cash flow profile. Their scarcity value is supported by the fact that they are often the only connections between supply and demand centers.
Second, the businesses we own have significant growth potential, with the emergence of new resources and growing demand, there is a large funding gap for infrastructure build-out, making these assets primed to benefit from future growth.
And third, we are well established owner and operator with almost 40 years of energy investment experience across Brookfield, we have deep institutional knowledge and access to market intelligence, which provides us with a competitive edge in identifying discrete opportunities.
The scale of the North American natural gas market is unparalleled, given the massive transformation we've seen over the last 10 years. Both supply and demand are at all-time highs, requiring substantial amounts of infrastructure to help move and store gas. We believe that there is approximately 150 billion of energy infrastructure investment opportunities in the US alone. This is comprised of roughly 100 billion of capital required for midstream development through 2021, with the balance representing potential investments in MLPs, many of whom are seeking structural simplification. This has created a large pipeline of prospective proprietary transactions of scale, through corporate carve-outs, partnerships and privatizations. In the coming years, we are optimistic about our ability to continue to grow our presence in the energy sector.
Now let me move on to our current initiatives. In our last quarterly call, we outlined our plans to deploy up to $1.7 billion into new investments in the latter half of 2018 and in 2019. Over the past few weeks, we have invested approximately $900 million of this amount, including $630 million in a North American Residential Energy Infrastructure business. In addition, we have completed the first phase of our Western Canadian Midstream business acquisition, with phase two on track to close in mid-2019. Once phase two has closed, our investment in this Midstream business, which we've now renamed North River Midstream will be approximately 500 million.
Staying with energy, we are also in advanced bilateral discussions to acquire a 1,500-kilometer gas pipeline in India. This well-located pipeline draws from a prolific Krishna Godavari basin and spans the country from east to west. It will also provide secure cash flows generated under a 20-year take-or-pay contract with the largest company in the country. If successfully concluded, total equity invested by Brookfield and its institutional partners will be approximately $1 billion, of which Brookfield Infrastructure will invest approximately 200 million.
Lastly, in our growing data infrastructure business, in the third quarter, we've reached an agreement with a strategic partner to acquire a co-controlling interest in Ascenty, the leading hyperscale data center operator in South America, for close to $2 billion. Brookfield Infrastructure and its institutional partners will be investing $750 million of which BIP share will be approximately 200 million. We expect to close this transaction, along with the acquisition of our US data center business, which we discussed in our last call by the end of 2018.
Now moving to our outlook. From a global macroeconomic and political perspective, the third quarter has been eventful. Headlines were dominated by concerns over a global trade war, volatility in the capital markets as a result of rising interest rates, political uncertainties with respect to Brexit negotiations and of course, elections in South America. However, at an operational level, none of these events have had a meaningful direct impact on our overall fundamentals, and business conditions remain solid in all of our key markets.
All in all, our outlook is positive as our financial position remains strong and much of the business is underpinned by networks with high barriers to entry and cash flows that are highly regulated and contracted. We believe that Brookfield Infrastructure's investment and corporate finance strategies should allow us to prosper in any economic conditions.
Now, our primary focus for the balance of the year is to close our advanced transactions, integrate our newly acquired businesses into our various operating groups, and execute on our organic capital project backlog, bringing these projects to completion on time, scope and budget. We are also seeing many opportunities to continue to expand our globally diversified business with very high-quality investments, and we have tremendous flexibility and financial resources to pursue them.
With that, I will now pass it back to the operator to open the line for questions.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Cherilyn Radbourne with TD Securities. Your line is open.
Cherilyn Radbourne -- TD Securities -- Analyst
Thank you very much and good morning. Sam, maybe I could start by asking you for your thoughts on the recent election result in Brazil and what implications that has for business conditions?
Samuel J. B. Pollock -- Senior Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer
Hi, Cherilyn. I think if someone might ask us about that. Look, I think the -- our main views on the result is that, it's a positive outcome definitely, relative to the alternative, the new President has appointed what we believe to be a very friendly -- market friendly Finance Minister, everything that they indicate that will be their plan going forward. Regarding various reforms to the way the economy is structured to the fact that they're going to increase privatization, it's all very positive to us. We've also seen a recovery in the exchange rates, which were pretty immediate once it was clear that he was going to be successful. So I'd say all in all, we are positive and optimistic about the next four years.
Cherilyn Radbourne -- TD Securities -- Analyst
Great. And then switching tracks. I wanted to ask about the District energy wins, you announced this quarter, which were quite nice and meaningful in side. Can you give us a sense of the pipeline of opportunities declined that which you're continuing to pursue, can you just comment on whether these opportunities are or sort of inbound to BIP or whether you have a team (inaudible)?
Samuel J. B. Pollock -- Senior Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Cherilyn. I'll cover that one. Look, we're quite excited about those two particular situations. At this stage, I would caution that we've been selected as the preferred proponents. So we still need to secure and sign up the transactions but there's no reason why that shouldn't happen. But further to your question, I guess regarding how we pursue these opportunities and how big our pipeline sits at the moment. We do have fairly large team that's out there looking for new opportunities.
As we've discussed in the past, we think that the sector is highly fragmented, particularly in United States and that has lots of opportunities to grow this business. Today, our sales pipeline has over 400 opportunities in it. And when I talk about the sales pipeline, this consist of systems like the ones that we refer to in our letter as well as just new customers we might connect to the system and of those today, we have probably close to 30 that are signed but are waiting legal drafting and then we probably have another 50 to 70 that would be in the proposal stage.
And then at least another, the balance of them which would be several 100 that are in the outreach phase and so we think there's lots of opportunities to grow the business. My only caution is that the lead time in bringing these leads to -- to fruition is relatively long and so I think it just goes to the, the pent-up demand and the fact is, this should be a continuing growing business, but one that you won't see leaps in its results in the near term.
Cherilyn Radbourne -- TD Securities -- Analyst
Great. That's my two. Thank you.
Samuel J. B. Pollock -- Senior Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Cherilyn.
Operator
Your next question comes from Rupert Merer with National Bank. Your line is open.
Rupert Merer -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst
Hi, good morning everyone. So just following up on the Brazilian market you have a more positive outlook for that market. If you see privatization that you can sit or making additional investments in Brazil at this point?
Samuel J. B. Pollock -- Senior Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer
Hi, Rupert. I'll tackle that one. The -- look we are always looking for -- for good opportunities. So if something comes up that we think is exceptional, We will pursue it. I think our main focus in Brazil at the moment is in fact building out our existing platforms. As you know, we have many strong franchise in the country, whether it would be the gas business, the electricity transmission business, the rail and the roads. And so that's already very broad and each one of those businesses has great opportunities for tuck-in acquisitions and expansions.
Yeah, probably the most near-term opportunity for us would be participating in some of the auctions that will take place for transmission lines in the coming months. I believe this one coming up in December that we will participate in and so our focus is really today is about building out those businesses, building out our newly acquired data center business and probably less so on new investments, but again if something pops up that's interesting. We'll definitely consider it.
Rupert Merer -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst
Great. And then sticking with Brazil moving over to the transport sector, you had one concession had to back in the quarter. Can you give us some color, how large was that concession? And also a little color on the maturity as you might see in those concessions the next couple of years and any opportunities you may have to extend those concessions with reinvestment?
Bahir Manios -- Managing Partner and Chief Financial Officer
Hi, Rupert. I'll start and maybe Sam will jump in as well. But with respect to the magnitude on the hand back from an FFO perspective, it's about $6 million to $7 million a quarter. And just with respect to maturities. I believe we have one also coming due next year and that will be also same magnitude as this one, albeit it will take place in the latter part of the year, or at the back end of 2019.
Samuel J. B. Pollock -- Senior Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. And just to add onto that last year we were successful in securing a new road, which was a package consisting of an existing road that was expiring as well as additional roads around it that the government had put in with it. And so I would say there is sort of a recycling of these roads as the first generation expire and parties like ourselves. And it's relatively few players in the market that are participating in the government auctions and so we expect that we will be replenishing our roads on a fairly regular basis.
Rupert Merer -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst
Great, thanks. Okay, thanks for the color.
Samuel J. B. Pollock -- Senior Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Bahir Manios -- Managing Partner and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from Andrew Kuske with Credit Suisse. Your line is open.
Andrew Kuske -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Thank you. Good morning. Maybe just a specific question to start on (inaudible) and if you could just give us a regulatory update on the regime that's in pricing, any kind of progress on getting market price?
Samuel J. B. Pollock -- Senior Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer
Hi, Andrew. We don't have any update on that at the moment. We don't expect that there will be any just to provide, I guess, a bit of a timeline -- the QCA will make it's views known on our submission probably at the end of this quarter. December is our expectation and then the Minister will make a final decision regarding moving to market pricing sometime in the first or second quarter of next year. And the views of the QCA are just a recommendation she can make her own decision either going along with the QCAs recommendation or taking her own view.
Andrew Kuske -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Okay, thank you. And maybe just a broader question, just on your data business and the recent investment in Brazil. Do you look at your positioning in Brazil is something that you can scale and grow significantly beyond the initial investment and then effectively port that knowledge into other marketplaces?
Unidentified Speaker --
So the answer to the question is yes and yes. Yeah, we were pretty excited by the partnership that we have with Digital Realty. They obviously have fantastic existing relationships with all the tech company and cloud computing companies. We've got, I believe a second to none platform in South America and Brazil in particular. And so, in fact already, we have begun to source opportunities to take that business outside of Brazil and into Colombia, and so we're looking at a few opportunities there that have come our way. And I think marrying our local expertise and knowledge with their relationships you should turn this into a very large business.
Andrew Kuske -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
So maybe just an extension on that due to the opportunities expanded into Chile and Peru like -- core markets in South America?
Unidentified Speaker --
Yeah. So that the business plan this is a South American business, not just to Brazil business. So, we love to take it into Peru, Chile, Colombia and Brazil if possible.
Andrew Kuske -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Okay. That's great. Thank you.
Unidentified Speaker --
Thank you.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your next question comes from Frederic Bastien with Raymond James. Your line is open.
Frederic Bastien -- Raymond James -- Analyst
Good morning, guys. A few years back, you identified water infrastructure as a platform of potential interest but as recently taken a backseat to other priority sectors. Are you still kind of looking at that sector with interest and are there any other opportunities that may be considering on next quarter of the year?
Samuel J. B. Pollock -- Senior Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer
Hi, Frederic. We still are very positive on the water sector. It happens to be one that is more challenging to get into much like airports. I guess, highly sought after and the opportunities are fairly rare, it's not as big a sector as you might think. It's not as big in private hands. We have a couple of opportunities that we're looking at in South America at the moment, it's a little unclear whether or not they they will proceed or whether or not they will meet our underwriting standards.
So at this stage, I can't give you an estimate as to when we'll make another investment in water. We continue to progress the desalination project in California. We remain excited about that particular business. It's obviously been a very slow permitting process. But we're hopeful that in 2019 with the new governor in place that will have the political support to bring that board.
Frederic Bastien -- Raymond James -- Analyst
Okay.Thanks for that. The other question I have, when we think of you Brazilian pipeline that you purchased. I guess a couple years ago, you increased your interest last year. My question relates to the rest of your portfolio, are there any other assets in which you could increase your stake in over the next couple of years or is that not possible to do?
Unidentified Speaker --
So I guess, I'm just thinking quickly about that. At this stage, there -- obviously our ability to increase stakes in our assets is dependent upon our various partners and whether or not they're looking to reduce the amount of capital we have in particular business or if they don't want to participate in a capital of project. There is always situations where we have partners who have less capital than we do and so there is that possibility. I'm just not sure, to be honest, that it would be fair for me to comment about that, because many of them are public companies and it's probably not right for me to say something.
Frederic Bastien -- Raymond James -- Analyst
Okay. Fair enough. Thank you very much.
Operator
Your last question comes from Jeremy Rosenfield with Industrial Alliance. Your line is open.
Jeremy Rosenfield -- Industrial Alliance -- Analyst
Thank you. I apologize if there's some feedback on my line. I just had one question on the sort of opportunity in the US energy infrastructure space and particularly with regards to MLPs. Is there a specific hurdle or something that you're waiting for before, you're able to execute on one of these opportunities, maybe I'm thinking your decision from FERC in terms of regulatory items?
Unidentified Speaker --
Hi, Jeremy. I guess the only thing that is the hurdle, is not so much any regulatory issues, with lot of these -- these situations, it's just the matter of reaching commercial arrangement with that the various other capital raisers or sellers. Obviously, in many cases there are just bit of spread. A lot of these MLPs enjoyed great access to the capital markets for a number of years, that's now found the way a number of them still remember the share price, they traded at, they -- they are low to sell assets that they might have held on 100% base for many years. So it's just a matter of the current market conditions settling in. And they're being accustomed to a new paradigm. And then us agreeing on a transaction that makes sense. But we have a number of discussions that we -- that are under way with various parties and we're hopeful that in the coming quarters or years, we'll be able to progress them.
Jeremy Rosenfield -- Industrial Alliance -- Analyst
Okay. Sounds good. Thank you. That's it from me.
Unidentified Speaker --
Okay. Thank you, Jeremy.
Operator
There were no further -- Your next question comes from Ryan Levine with Citigroup. Your line is open.
Ryan Levine -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Just a follow-up on that last question. Can you provide some color in terms of what asset classes or types of midstream -- US midstream opportunities you would be considering and would you be open to that being support -- some of the historic drop down stories to help facilitate some of their organic and add features you got them?
Samuel J. B. Pollock -- Senior Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer
Okay. Hey, Ryan, you just go in there and the wire look like, as it relates to the types of opportunities. As you can probably tell from my comments, we have a strong interest in natural gas, we think the dynamics in ag sector are probably on a long-term basis, a bit more attractive than some of the liquid pipelines. But nonetheless, I think we would consider both and just take into account the various differences in long-term outlook.
One of the things and you touched on that the drop down stories. Yeah, that is something that we have also, very much identified as an opportunity. And for those on the call, what we're referring to is the fact that many of the large integrated companies used to rely on MLPs, as a source of capital to drop down some mature assets at which they would recycle capital back into their other operations and a number of the large integrated companies that that have these subsidiaries no longer can use the capital markets.
And so we are, -- we have approached to all of them, all these companies about alternatives to their dropdown strategies and again, those would be situations that we're hopeful over the coming quarters and years, to strike relationships where we can -- be acquirers of those assets as opposed to them, continue to drop and down into their subsidiaries. It's early days, because all of this market volatility is relatively new, but we do think that these represent great long-term opportunities for us.
Ryan Levine -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Then just one follow-up, looking on your prepared remarks, which already the NGPL financing to Corpus, there is additional change both at corporates, you see further expansion opportunity?
Samuel J. B. Pollock -- Senior Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer
Yes. I guess sure answer is yes. Yeah, we continue to have open season just to check demand for -- from various customers. Today, I think we have met the various demand that's out there, but our expectation is that with the continued growth in production, that will be further expansion opportunities going forward.
Ryan Levine -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Great. Thank you.
Samuel J. B. Pollock -- Senior Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer
Okay. Thank you.
Operator
I would now like to turn the call over to Sam Pollock for closing remarks.
Samuel J. B. Pollock -- Senior Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer
Okay. Thank you, operator and thank you everyone for joining the call this morning. We look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter. And on behalf of the management team, we wish you all the best for 2018 and the upcoming holiday season. Thank you.
Operator
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.
Duration: 39 minutes
Call participants:
Melissa Low -- Vice President, Investor Relations
Bahir Manios -- Managing Partner and Chief Financial Officer
Samuel J. B. Pollock -- Senior Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer
Cherilyn Radbourne -- TD Securities -- Analyst
Rupert Merer -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst
Andrew Kuske -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Unidentified Speaker --
Frederic Bastien -- Raymond James -- Analyst
Jeremy Rosenfield -- Industrial Alliance -- Analyst
Ryan Levine -- Citigroup -- Analyst
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