エバラス・コンストラクション・グループ（ECG）2026年第3四半期決算説明会：受注残高が86%急増、業績予想を引き上げ

主要ハイライト

• Everus Construction Groupが発表した2026年第3四半期の売上高は前年同期比40%増の13億8,000万ドルとなりました。SE&MおよびEpsilonを除くオーガニック売上高は36%増加しました。
• EBITDAは57.5%増の1億4,020万ドルとなり、EBITDAマージンは110ベーシスポイント拡大して10.1%となりました。業績には、過去のプロジェクトにおける未回収請求の清算に伴う一時的な特別利益760万ドル（純額）が含まれています。
• 受注残高は前年同期比86%増の54億8,000万ドルに達しました。四半期末の合計に対し、SE&MとEpsilonが約7億4,200万ドル寄与しました。
• E&Mが引き続き主要な成長エンジンとなり、売上高は48%増、セグメントEBITDAは79%増となりました。データセンターが受注残高の最大の割合を占めたほか、産業、インスティチューショナル（公共・機関向け）、その他のエンド市場も成長を記録しました。
• 経営陣は2026年通期の業績予想を引き上げ、売上高を50億ドル〜51億ドル、EBITDAを4億8,500万ドル〜4億9,500万ドルとしました。
• 9月30日時点の純レバレッジ比率は0.7倍と、同社の目標レンジである1.5倍〜2.0倍を下回っており、オーガニック投資や買収に向けた余力を維持しています。

主要財務業績

2026年第9か月累計の営業キャッシュフローは、前年同期の1億860万ドルから2億6,730万ドルに増加しました。フリーキャッシュフローは、運転資本のタイミングの影響も一部寄与し、7,480万ドルから2億2,120万ドルへと増加しました。設備投資額は5,340万ドルで、売上高の1.5%に相当します。

9月30日時点で、Everusは2億4,500万ドルの制限のない現金および現金同等物を保有し、5億7,200万ドルの有利子負債総額を抱え、信用枠のうち2億4,800万ドルが利用可能でした。

事業および業績の動向

E&Mの受注残高は前年同期比で約100%増加しました。経営陣によると、大規模ハイパースケール顧客との案件や、現在の受注残高期間を超えたプロジェクト計画への関与に支えられ、データセンターが引き続き最大構成要素となっています。

成長は幅広い分野に及びました。産業用受注残高は、新たな地域での案件拡大を含め、半導体や製造業の活発な動きから恩恵を受けました。インスティチューショナル受注残高は政府関連やヘルスケア全般で改善したほか、ホスピタリティ、倉庫、再生可能エネルギー、特別プロジェクト、サービス業務も前年同期比で増加しました。

SE&Mの買収により、Everusは製薬およびヘルスケアプロジェクトへの事業機会を拡大し、機械工事を増加させ、米国中東部でのプレゼンスを強化しました。経営陣は統合が順調に進展していると述べました。

9月1日に買収したEpsilonにより、モジュール建築およびオフサイト建築能力が追加されました。同社はデータセンター、自動車、ヘルスケア分野でのクロスセル展開の可能性を見込んでいますが、Epsilonのプロジェクト進捗ペースはムラがあり、受注残高の売上化速度はEverusの従来の現場工事よりも一般に緩やかです。

T&D部門はユーティリティ需要の好調から恩恵を受けました。経営陣は、変電所、送電、その他のユーティリティ工事の成長を強調し、顧客関係や包括保守契約を通じて、インフラ老朽化や需要増加に伴う将来の支出機会においてEverusが優位な位置にあると言及しました。

経営陣の業績予想（ガイダンス）

Everusは、年初からの業績、Epsilonの追加、ならびに持続的な事業モメンタムを踏まえ、2026年通期の見通しを引き上げました：

経営陣は、通期の試算マージンにはプロジェクト執行によるメリットやSE&MおよびEpsilonからのマージン寄与が反映されていると説明しました。なお、長期的な設備投資目標（売上高の2.0%〜2.5%）は維持しています。

リスクおよび注視事項

• 第3四半期のEBITDAには760万ドルの一時的な特別利益（純額）が含まれており、実質的な事業業績との比較可能性に影響を与えています。
• 経営陣は業界における長期的な人手不足の課題を認識しているものの、Everusは人員を拡大するとともに、プレハブ工法やモジュール建築を活用して生産性を向上させています。
• Epsilonのモジュール建築による売上高は四半期ごとにブレが生じやすく、受注残高の売上化スピードもEverusの通常の事業より緩やかになると予想されます。
• フリーキャッシュフローは一時的な運転資本の好都合なタイミングに一部支えられており、同水準で再現しない可能性があります。
• アナリストからは、データセンターに対する反発的な政治的論調や建設一時停止の可能性について懸念が示されました。経営陣は、顧客行動の変化は観察されておらず、データセンター市場に対する堅調な見通しを維持していると述べました。

アナリスト質疑応答のハイライト

受注残高の売上化：経営陣によると、Everusは歴史的に受注残高の約80%を12か月以内に売上化しています。モジュール建築の性質上、Epsilonの受注残高は売上化までの期間がより長くなります。

データセンター市場への関与：同社はハイパースケール顧客との計画段階に引き続き深く関与しており、継続的な機会を見込んでいます。また、経営陣は受注残高の拡大が産業、インスティチューショナル、ユーティリティ、その他の市場にも及んでいることを強調しました。

Epsilonとのクロスセル：Everusは各事業責任者間の協議調整を開始しており、既存顧客へEpsilonの技術を提案すると同時に、Epsilonの顧客層へEverusのサービスを提供する機会を見出しています。

必要資本：経営陣は、プレハブ工法およびモジュール建築の拡大が、売上高の2.0%〜2.5%という長期的な設備投資目標枠組みを変更させるとは予想していません。

労働力の確保：Everusは過去10年間で人員を大幅に拡大しており、プレハブ工法やモジュール建築によって、単なる人員増加以上のペースで売上成長を支援できると見込んでいます。

2027年のマージン：経営陣は、2月に予定している発表に先立つ2027年ガイダンスの開示を控えました。プロジェクトの可視性と継続的な執行効果に支えられ、2026年第4四半期のガイダンスは第3四半期とおおむね同様のマージントレンドを想定していることを示しました。

決算説明会（トランスクリプト）全文

決算説明会の完全なトランスクリプト

経営陣による説明

Operator

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to Everus Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Paul Bartolai. Please go ahead.

Paul Bartolai

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Everus Construction Group's Third Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. Leading the call today are CEO, Jeff Thiede and CFO, Max Marcy. We issued a news release yesterday detailing our third quarter 2026 operational and financial results. This release and the accompanying presentation materials are available on our website at investors.everus.com.

I would like to remind you that management's commentary and responses to questions on today's conference call may include forward-looking statements, which, by their nature, are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Although these forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs, actual results could differ materially. For a discussion of some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to the Risk Factors section of our latest filings with the SEC.

Additionally, please note that you can find reconciliations of historical non-GAAP financial measures in the news release issued yesterday and in the appendix of today's presentation.

Today's call will begin with prepared remarks from Jeff, who will provide a review of our recent business performance and an update on the progress against our strategic priorities followed by Max who will provide a more detailed financial update before wrapping up with our guidance. At the conclusion of these prepared remarks, we will open the line for your questions.

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Jeff.

Jeff Thiede

Thank you, Paul, and good morning to everyone joining us today. Everus delivered another quarter of strong financial results, achieving due quarterly revenue, earnings and backlog records. Our results reflect the robust demand we are seeing across our diverse end markets. as well as our team's disciplined execution and ongoing focus on our 4 ever strategic priorities.

We continue to see sustained demand across our business, as demonstrated by our strong backlog growth. The trends are broad-based with growth across each of our E&M markets. We are experiencing robust bidding activity, strong order patterns and continued positive tone from our customers. keeping us on pace for a strong finish to the year and continued momentum into 2027.

Turning to our quarterly highlights, beginning with Slide 4. We delivered record third quarter revenues of $1.4 billion, up 40% from the prior year, with growth across both our E&M and T&D segments. Our strong top line performance was complemented by another quarter of excellent execution, resulting in a 58% increase in third quarter EBITDA compared to last year, with EBITDA margin up 110 basis points. Our record results underscore the strength of our position in the industry, our disciplined focus on our operational playbook, and the deep long-standing relationships we have with our customers.

Our backlog at the end of the third quarter was $5.5 billion, up 86% from the same period last year driven by continued strength in E&M and including contributions from our recent acquisitions of SE&M and Epsilon. The outlook for our data center business remains robust and this was a key driver of our backlog growth in the quarter. Our data center and customers tend to be large hyperscalers, and we remain deeply involved in the project planning process for these customers. These plans can extend beyond our backlog burn, giving us good visibility into the continued momentum in the industry.

Our long track record of successful project execution our deeply talented and experienced workforce and our geographic footprint positions us very well for these attractive industry trends. That said, we also continue to see strong demand trends across other areas of our business, and we are strategically positioned to benefit from our diverse end markets. Within Industrial, we continue to see strong trends in the high-tech submarket, mainly semiconductor, including the ongoing ramp-up of work in the new geography we entered around this time last year.

The initial project for this new customer is progressing nicely, and we remain encouraged by the multiyear opportunity we see in this geographic region. The institutional market also generated solid backlog growth, building on momentum we saw during the second quarter. We've seen strong growth in our government and health care submarkets to industries where we have a long history of success. After having some large projects finished up in 2025, we are excited to see the renewed activity in these 2 key submarkets.

Our recent acquisitions of SE&M and Epsilon are also contributing to the diversity of our growth drivers. SE&M significantly expanded our presence in the pharma and health care submarkets and increased our volume and mechanical work. Momentum remains strong in SE&M's business, and the integration process is progressing extremely well. We remain excited by the opportunities in the attractive Mid-Atlantic market.

We are very pleased to welcome the Epsilon team to Everus with the acquisition closing on September 1, and off-site construction is clearly a critical driver of success in our business. So we are excited by the expanded modular construction capabilities that Epsilon brings to our company. It also enhances our business diversification by broadening our geographic footprint into several attractive regions. And we expect to have meaningful cross-selling opportunities with the customer relationships that Epsilon has.

We look forward to keeping you updated as we make progress on integrating Epsilon into our operations. Epsilon has strong business momentum, and we are excited about the contributions it will make to our growth strategy.

I'd like to wrap up my comments with an update on our key strategic initiatives. As a reminder, our value creation framework is based on targeted growth, operational excellence and disciplined capital allocation. In terms of growth, I already highlighted the sustained momentum we are experiencing across our E&M business. While E&M has been the primary growth driver recently, we remain encouraged by the favorable outlook in our T&D business.

We are experiencing solid backlog momentum across our utility submarkets and we are optimistic about the growth outlook for our T&D business in the coming years. Utility investment to address aging infrastructure and support projected load growth will provide opportunities in the coming years. We have long-term relationships with utility customers in our key geographies, and we are well positioned through our long-standing master service agreements to benefit from the expected ramp in transmission and distribution spending.

Now turning to operational excellence. Efficient project execution is contributing to our outstanding results, including EBITDA margin of 9.8% through the first 9 months of 2026, which is up 120 basis points compared to last year. Our strong performance is a direct result of our disciplined focus on the Everus operational platelet, the use of modular construction and prefabrication services and the hard work and dedication of our team members across the company.

Our commitment to our 4 ever strategic framework that focuses on employees, value, execution and relationships remains a driving force behind our continued success. And the last initiative I wanted to update you on is our disciplined capital allocation. As we have stated since our spin-off almost exactly 2 years ago, our capital allocation framework prioritizes investments that support our growth, both organic opportunities and through acquisitions. Our 2 acquisitions this year align with the acquisition strategy that we've described which is to expand our geographic footprint, diversify our business and deepen our market presence.

Our corporate development team remains busy, and we are excited about the opportunities we are evaluating in our acquisition pipeline. Even with the recent transactions, our net leverage is well below our 1.5 to 2x targeted range. So we have continued flexibility to execute on our growth strategy.

In summary, we remain committed to our strategic priorities and are encouraged by the continued momentum across our business. We expect a strong finish to the year and are pleased to once again be raising our full year outlook, which Max will discuss in more detail. I would like to thank our stockholders for their ongoing support our employees for their dedication to safely building America's future and our customers for their trust and ongoing partnership.

With that, I'll turn it over to Max.

Maximillian Marcy

Thank you, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. I will provide additional details on the quarter, give an update on our liquidity and balance sheet and wrap up with our updated guidance.

Beginning on Slide 10 of the presentation, revenues for the third quarter were $1.38 billion, an increase of 40% compared to the same period last year. The increase was driven by growth in both E&M and T&D segments including contributions from the acquisitions of SE&M and Epsilon. Excluding the acquisitions, third quarter revenues were up 36% on an organic basis. Total EBITDA was $140.2 million during the third quarter, an increase of 57.5% from the same period in 2025 driven by robust revenue growth and continued excellent project execution.

In addition, results included a onetime net gain of $7.6 million related to the settlement of outstanding billings on a past project. Our third quarter EBITDA margin was 10.1%, up 110 basis points from 9.0% in the prior year period. At September 30, total backlog was $5.48 billion, up 86% from September 30 of last year. The increase was driven by strong growth in our E&M backlog, which was up about 100% and as Jeff detailed, the robust backlog growth reflects increases across each of our E&M markets as well as roughly $742 million in contributions from SE&M and Epsilon at quarter end versus the prior year.

Now turning to our segment results. Let's first look at E&M, where our third quarter revenues increased 48% to $1.14 billion. The increase was driven primarily by growth in our commercial and industrial end markets as well as contributions from our recent acquisitions. Excluding acquisition revenue, our E&M revenue was up 42% organically. Our EBITDA was $119.8 million in the third quarter, an increase of 79% compared to the third quarter of 2025. The increase was driven by our strong revenue growth and higher gross margin due to strong project execution.

As a result, our E&M segment EBITDA margin was 10.5% and up 180 basis points compared to 8.7% in the third quarter of 2025. Our third quarter T&D revenues were $255.6 million up 14% from the third quarter of last year, driven by growth in our utility end market. T&D segment EBITDA was $38.3 million in the third quarter, up 13.3% from the prior year period due to higher revenues. T&D segment EBITDA margin was 15% during the third quarter, on par with the same period last year.

Turning now to our balance sheet and liquidity. As of September 30, we had $245 million of unrestricted cash and cash equivalents, $572 million of gross debt and $248 million available under the credit facility. Our net debt increased sequentially, reflecting the closing of the Epsilon acquisition, partially offset by our strong operating results. Net leverage, defined as net debt to trailing 12-month EBITDA was 0.7x as of September 30, well below our 1.5 to 2x targeted range.

Operating cash flows were $267.3 million for the first 9 months of 2026 compared to $108.6 million in the same period last year, due to our strong operating results and favorable working capital timing. Capital expenditures were $53.4 million for the first 9 months of 2026 and up modestly from $42.1 million in the prior year period. Our capital expenditures for the first 9 months represented 1.5% of revenues below our targeted 2% to 2.5% of revenues due in part to our strong revenue growth and timing of investments.

We continue to see significant opportunities to invest in our business to support our organic growth initiatives and we remain committed to our long-term capital spending targeted range. For the 2026 fiscal year, we continue to expect that we will invest $90 million to $100 million in capital expenditures. Combined with the acquisitions of Epsilon and SE&M, we have deployed over $500 million of capital in support of our growth initiatives thus far in 2026. Even with these investments, our net leverage remains modest giving us significant balance sheet capacity and ample flexibility to continue investing in our strategic growth initiatives.

We generated free cash flow of $221.2 million for the first 9 months of 2026 up from $74.8 million in the same period last year. While our 2026 free cash flow had some timing benefits, our teams are managing the working capital dynamics very effectively as we grow with customers.

Wrapping up with guidance. Based on our strong results and the inclusion of Epsilon, combined with the continued momentum we see across our business, we are raising our full year 2026 guidance. We are now forecasting revenues in the range of $5 billion to $5.1 billion and EBITDA in the range of $485 million to $495 million. At the midpoint of our range, our guidance implies EBITDA margins of around 9.7% for the year, essentially in line with our year-to-date performance which reflects the execution upside as well as the margin accretion from SE&M and Epsilon. That completes our prepared remarks.

Operator, we are now ready for the question-and-answer portion of our call.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question is from the line of Brent Thielman with Oppenheimer & Co. Please go ahead.

質疑応答

Brent Thielman

Great quarter. Jeff, I guess, just the first question, any anecdotes or visibility you can share in the potential new business and the overall pipeline that maybe goes beyond the robust backlog you reported this quarter? And I guess any risks that you see as a result of the outcome of the elections?

Jeff Thiede

Yes. If you think about the history of our company over 30 years, we've been able to navigate successfully through a strategy to take advantage of opportunities in the current market, but also looking ahead in the future. We're really proud of our team to be able to grow our record backlog and our backlog increases in many of our markets and submarkets is encouraging to us to be able to further diversify our business and capture the opportunities today.

But meanwhile, looking ahead, I think that's also demonstrated by our most recent acquisitions from SE&M closed in April and also Epsilon closed in September.

Brent Thielman

Okay. And then yes, it looks like Epsilon added a pretty significant backlog here in the quarter. I think you had some capacity plans underway for that business. Just your thoughts on ability to convert that in 2027, does some of that work extend beyond next year? Just how we should think about that?

Maximillian Marcy

Yes. Brent, it's Max. So the modular activity that Epsilon has typically has the longer backlog burn than we see in our business. So we feel very confident in our ability to continue to generate good opportunities and solid backlog, but it will convert at a slower pace, just given the nature of the business.

Jeff Thiede

And adding to that, Brent, we look at this every -- at least every quarter, every month, our backlog burn, as we've reported previously, is about 80% over a 12-month period.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Brian Brophy with Stifel.

Your next question is from the line of Kurt Yinger with D.A. Davidson.

Kurt Yinger

Great. I just wanted to go, I guess, high level. I mean, obviously, refresh from an election perspective, but would just love to kind of hear high-level thoughts, just less data center-friendly rhetoric talking about potential moratoriums or new construction positives. I guess, how do you think big picture around that may be impacting your business? And maybe more specifically, whether that has any impact in terms of things you have in backlog? Just high-level thoughts would be much appreciated.

Jeff Thiede

Yes. Thanks for the question. We haven't seen any change in behavior from our customers. Our outlook for data centers is strong. It's as we've reported previously, and the same for this quarter. It's the largest part of our backlog. If you look at the increases in the other submarkets we have in our backlog, we have an increase in hospitality and warehouse, our industrial work, semiconductor work within industrial in addition to manufacturing is also up on a year-over-year basis for our backlog.

Our institutional government and health care, which include -- also includes pharmaceutical, is up year-over-year and even renewables and our special projects and service work is on a year-over-year backlog basis. Our utility work is up as well, most notably in the substation, transmission and utility work. So, the diversification strategy of our business is working. So today, we have a lot of data center work, and we're executing that work incredibly well, which is reflected in some of the margin uplift that we've had in this quarter and year-to-date.

Brian Brophy

Okay. Okay. That's helpful. And I guess, maybe sticking to that kind of diversification theme and looking ahead at future opportunities. I mean, if we were to kind of take today as a representation of maybe greater project risk or more uncertainty around how certain projects might progress I guess does that change your appetite to continue to pursue more opportunities in that data center area if that strength continues. I guess, I get it's a new jerk reaction, but would just love any thoughts there.

Jeff Thiede

We're very involved in the planning stages with the hyperscalers, which we're working mostly for, and we're confident that we're going to continue to see opportunities with data centers. And then throughout our organization to be able to exercise our diversification strategy. We're anticipatory on making sure that we are looking ahead to be able to optimize the opportunities that we see coming up like pharmaceuticals, like manufacturing, industrial and health care and some of our institutional workers.

Brian Brophy

Okay. Okay. I appreciate that. And maybe just lastly on Epsilon. You mentioned some opportunities for cross-sell. I was hoping we own that business for 2 months now, if there are maybe any specific examples or specific areas where you really see an opportunity to scale that business or areas where you've been able to kind of leverage it to a greater extent as part of the -- your larger platform?

Jeff Thiede

We see a lot of opportunity for cross-selling. Epsilon had its own customers before we acquired them. And for Everus, we had our own customers as well. We have visited their plant and got our presidents together, and we have got the discussions moving forward with being able to cross-sell. Epsilon is pretty well diversified too. They, of course, do some data center work, but they also have experience in automotive and in the health care industry.

So we think it's a great complement to our business. We think that the cross-selling opportunities are going to provide an expansion, and we're going to support that business through capital in our CapEx program.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Michael [indiscernible] with Golden Securities.

Unknown Analyst

Sorry, my connection was cutting out a bit, so I hope this wasn't asked already. But looking past integration with Epsilon, how much of the E&M backlog do you think could realistically shift to offsite prefab preset work? And if that is the case, would that potentially increase the CapEx going forward in the out years?

Maximillian Marcy

Yes, we see continued growth in the opportunities to be able to do off-site construction we've had an initiative within our company for many years. And organically, we've been able to grow both on prefabrication and modular. If you take a look at what Epsilon brings to our company as well. They're 100% off-site construction and the lessons learned from what we've done in the past successfully, and you complement that with Epsilon, we are going to continue to expand that part of our business, and it's going to continue to grow.

Our customers also have a big part of this because they make those early commitments for us to be able to to secure the engineering and the equipment and the tools that are necessary in order for us to be able to build upon our success. We're really excited about Epsilon. It's a great part of our business today, and we see tremendous opportunity in the future.

Jeff Thiede

And I would just add to that, Michael. I mean, obviously, we had lots of capital plans ahead of buying up salon that focus both on equipment and trucks for our businesses, but also on prefab modular opportunities, right? So I think this just supplements that. I don't think it changes the long-term dynamic of our kind of 2% to 2.5% of revenue in CapEx, I think with what we want to do with Epsilon. And then, of course, internally, our prefab modular still fits into that rubric, and we still feel confident that we can deliver lots of opportunity continue to convert backlog to modular within that framework.

Operator

Our next question is from the line of Brian Brophy with Stifel.

Brian Brophy

Can you guys hear me?

Jeff Thiede

Yes, Brian.

Brian Brophy

Awesome. I guess just to kind of pile on to the Epsilon conversation here. Can you give us a sense for how fast Epsilon has grown in the past? And how we should think about the pace of growth there relative to your stick built business?

Jeff Thiede

Yes. I'll start. I'd like to have Max comment on that. But of course, we've built a model and dove into the details very thoroughly to be able to track against what we originally planned. And and Epsilon was closed on September 1, as you know, and we're tracking very well on a business that we see as a great complement to our company.

Maximillian Marcy

Yes. So Brian, I mean, obviously, modular construction has a little different cadence, right? It's not maybe as smooth as what you see in our typical E&C on site. They've had good growth, maybe it hasn't been quite as fast as is where we have grown, but it's held in there with kind of market growth rates over the last several years.

But it's just a little bit lumpier. We feel good about our ability to continue to convert what they're doing into good revenue in the future.

Brian Brophy

Okay. And yes, just a follow-up to that. You may just answer my next question, but the acquisition contribution for electromechanical, I think, was a little bit less than some of the annual run rates would imply for SE&M and Epsilon. Just curious what the driver is? Is some of that the lumpiness and timing of deliveries at Epsilon, as you were kind of alluding to and the business only being in the quarter for 1 month? Or is there something else driving it?

Maximillian Marcy

Yes. Yes, Brian. It's a little bit the former that you were talking about, right? So I mean this is maybe a little bit lumpy first month purchase accounting, all that, all that stuff and getting the business integrated into our financials. So we feel very, very confident in the long-term run rate of the business.

Operator

Your next call from the line of [indiscernible] with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Unknown Analyst

Jeff and Max, who had another solid quarter, having a few connectivity issues. So excuse me, this has been already answered. But Jeff, with E&M organic revenue up more than 40% and the acceleration that you mentioned in data center activity, which is still ongoing. How are you thinking about still availability heading into 2027?

Jeff Thiede

Yes. I think I got most of that. I apologize, probably on our end. But I think the growth of our business is going to be, of course, reflected in our backlog. And our record backlog comes across many of our end markets and submarkets as I previously stated.

Maximillian Marcy

Yes. And so sorry, in labor availability, I mean, I think, obviously, we've done a very, very good job of growing our labor force to support the long-term backlog conversion in our business. I think we've probably grown revenue faster. I think that's probably the continued goal is to we will continue to get access to labor as we need it to complete the projects that we're taking on our backlog.

We also are using prefabrication and modular to continue to do more with less. So Obviously, long term in this space, there is a labor challenge. But we've been successful in quadrupling our labor over the last 10 to 12 years. And of course, by using prefab in modular, we continue to support further growth even faster than we can grow our labor for us.

Jeff Thiede

Yes. We're at record employment and we've got a strong history of developing our people technically, but even soft skills to have good solid succession planning to be able to continue our growth and support our goals for the future.

Unknown Analyst

Right. Max, I had another question on margin normalization. Q3 EBITDA margin was 10.1%, but accounting for the benefit that you have from the dispute resolution of 55 basis points, it comes down to 9.6%. So should we single that as the new starting point for 2027?

Maximillian Marcy

Yes. Well, we're not quite ready to provide 2027 guidance yet. We'll do that in February. But I think if you think about the benefits that we've had, I think some of it is through execution, right? So there is still some execution benefits that we saw during the third quarter. So I wouldn't call execution benefits normalized margin. But then we also have seen some upticks, continued upticks in our cartons as well. So the guidance in Q4, you kind of did the math early in Q3. So our Q4 guidance kind of suggests that we continue upon that similar margin trend in the fourth quarter based on the visibility to the projects we have and some execution benefits in the fourth quarter.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Jeff Seed for closing remarks.

Jeff Thiede

Thank you, operator. I want to thank you all again for joining us today. We will be attending several upcoming investor events, including the Baird Industrial Conference in Chicago, the Wolfe Virtual Small and Mid-Cap Conference the Oppenheimer Winter Industrial Summit and the Stifel Frontier Tech 2.0 Energy Summit in New York. If we are not able to connect during the next few months, we look forward to speaking with you on our next quarterly earnings call.

Thank you for your time and your interest in Everus. This concludes today's call.