Brookfield Business Partners LP Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Gary Ho - Desjardins Securities Inc. - Analyst : Maybe to start off with DexKo. You mentioned there's volume improved in North America, but softness in international. You also mentioned some tariff implications. Are you able to maybe quantify that perhaps impact to EBITDA near term? And are DexKo competitors also affected by tariffs as well? Just trying to see how easily you can pass through potential price increases there.

Question: Gary Ho - Desjardins Securities Inc. - Analyst : Okay. Great. And my second question on Clarios. Can you walk us through kind of where you stand with the 45X filing? There's many policy changes in the past couple of months. Any pivots in how you think about these credits Clarios is entitled to today?

Question: Gary Ho - Desjardins Securities Inc. - Analyst : Okay. Great. And then just the last one, if I can. In your letter to shareholders, you mentioned to generate proceeds from monetization, you look at additional ways to accelerate plans to return capital to shareholders. Can you maybe talk us through kind of what that might look like? Is it a REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. MAY 02, 2025 / 2:00PM, BBU_u.TO - Q1 2025 Brookfield Business Partners LP Earnings Call bigger share buyback program? Are you perhaps referring to the potential La Trobe monetization in those remarks? Any comment there would be helpful.

Question: Devin Dodge - BMO Capital Markets (Canada) - Analyst : The unitholder letter, there was mention of a realignment at Scientific Games. Just wondering if you could provide some additional context on how you think this will enhance value of the business.

Question: Devin Dodge - BMO Capital Markets (Canada) - Analyst : Okay. Excellent color. Maybe second question. We saw that Brookfield recently announced an agreement to invest in Barclays payments business. Just given your current presence in the sector, should we assume that BBU participates in that transaction? And then more broadly, can you speak to that investment pipeline that you see in the payment sector and where you think Brookfield can enhance the value of these businesses? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. MAY 02, 2025 / 2:00PM, BBU_u.TO - Q1 2025 Brookfield Business Partners LP Earnings Call

Question: Devin Dodge - BMO Capital Markets (Canada) - Analyst : Okay. Interesting. And then just one last one. Earlier this week, we saw that Schoeller Allibert reached an agreement to merge with IPL. Look, we recognize this is one of your smaller investments, but just wondering if that agreement provides Brookfield and BPU with an eventual exit.

Question: Jaeme Gloyn - National Bank of Canada Financial Inc. - Analyst : First question just on the CDK. I guess, the subpack called out a little bit of churn still going through. I was wondering if you could frame that for us. Have you seen improvements? Is it stabilizing, deteriorating? What can you tell us about how customers are still behaving with respect to the CDK business?

Question: Jaeme Gloyn - National Bank of Canada Financial Inc. - Analyst : Okay. And something we don't hear too much about, but it still contributes meaningfully in Business Services is Unidas. Can you give us a quick update on the performance of that business and the underlying market? And are you seeing any other potential macro impacts affecting that business?

Question: Jaeme Gloyn - National Bank of Canada Financial Inc. - Analyst : Okay. And lastly, I just wanted to go back to a comment around managing through some of the potential tariff impacts, accelerating cost optimization initiatives and then pushing, I guess, some pricing actions through. Are these actions underway in any of the business lines? And maybe focus more on the pricing side. Or is this just a playbook waiting to be deployed?

Question: Jaeme Gloyn - National Bank of Canada Financial Inc. - Analyst : Can you elaborate on where that action may be taking place at this point?

Question: Nik Priebe - CIBC World Markets Inc. - Analyst : Okay. Just going back to Clarios for a moment. Has the company had any interaction or dialogue with the IRS about the 2024 tax filing specifically and the credits that were recognized last year but haven't been converted to cash on balance sheet? Like I'm just wondering if you have any visibility on how the review of that tax filing is progressing and maybe when you'd expect to hear back on it?

Question: Nik Priebe - CIBC World Markets Inc. - Analyst : Got it. Okay. That's helpful. And then just at Sagen, the higher mortgage insurance cap became effective in December. Is there any early indication year-to-date what impact that might have on transactional premiums? I'm just wondering what proportion of transactional premiums would be on those properties valued between $1 million, $1.5 million. You can start with that detail, but I'm just looking for kind of a general sense of what it does to the size of the total addressable market for that business. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. MAY 02, 2025 / 2:00PM, BBU_u.TO - Q1 2025 Brookfield Business Partners LP Earnings Call