CEMATRIX: A 96% Run, a ~6x EBITDA Business, and One Margin Question

The hardest part of judging CEMATRIX isn't understanding what it does — it pours lightweight foam concrete on construction sites. It's deciding what the stock is worth after the shares have already roughly doubled since the start of 2025. That is the question the company's investor webcast on September 17, 2026 ought to answer, and the reason a reader should care about a small Calgary contractor they may never have heard of.

CEMATRIX (TSX: CEMX, OTCQB: CTXXF) is a specialty construction contractor and, by its own description, the leading North American supplier of cellular concrete — a mix of Portland cement, water and pre-formed foam that it produces and places on site for lightweight backfill behind retaining walls and bridge approaches, for insulation, and for grouting and tunnel work. It is a niche, but a growing one: the company reports a roughly 25% compound annual growth rate since 2017, with expansion into the United States the primary driver.

The financial trajectory behind the rally is real. Revenue grew 27% in 2025 to C$45.1 million, adjusted EBITDA more than doubled to a record C$8.3 million, and cash flow from operations reached C$8.2 million. Growth has continued into 2026: second-quarter revenue was C$18.7 million, up 76% from a year earlier, and first-half revenue of C$26.0 million was up 50%. Adjusted EBITDA set records in both the quarter (C$5.0 million) and the half (C$4.4 million).

None of that, by itself, tells you whether the stock is cheap. A value reading has to strip out the growth to reach what the operating business is worth relative to the cash it produces.

The cash behind the moat of a niche

The balance sheet does most of the heavy lifting here, and it's unusually clean for a company growing 50%-plus. CEMATRIX ended the second quarter with about C$16.2 million in cash and no long-term debt. It is buying back shares under a normal course issuer bid — roughly two million repurchased since the program began, and a renewed bid announced in April 2026 — instead of paying out a dividend. Management has said it has no plans to raise capital.

Backlog stood at C$61.5 million at the end of the second quarter, and it includes what the company calls the largest project in its history. Behind that is a warning for anyone reading the record quarter as the new normal: management has said revenue is "lumpy," driven by the timing of large projects that start and stop within a single quarter. The record second quarter benefited from a large tunnel-grouting job that began and finished inside the period, which is why management expects the third quarter to be softer.

Grasping that is essential, because the doubled price changes the arithmetic. With roughly 149 million shares — about 150.5 million issued before buybacks, less the repurchases — and a share price near the top of its 52-week range around C$0.50, the market cap sits somewhere in the C$70–75 million area. Subtract the C$16 million of cash and there's no debt to add back, leaving an enterprise value for the business itself of a little under C$60 million.

Against roughly C$10 million of trailing adjusted EBITDA — the C$8.3 million earned in 2025, less the C$2.4 million in the first half of that year, plus the C$4.4 million in the first half of 2026 — that is a multiple near six times. Six times EBITDA is not an expensive price for a profitable niche business with a clean balance sheet and that growth rate, but it is no longer the deep value the old share price implied. The 96% move since the end of 2024 has already priced in a good deal of the improvement.

What the margin says about the backlog

Which brings the judgment to one gate rather than a scatter of metrics: gross margin. This is a construction business, and the difference between a great year and a mediocre one is how much of its growing revenue it keeps.

Margins have been the soft spot. Second-quarter gross margin came in at 35%, down from 39% a year earlier, and the first-half figure fell to 28% from 32%. Management attributes the decline to contract mix and says margins rise with volume and execution; the longer-term target sits around 30%. That gap — between where margins have been running and the target — is exactly the sort of thing the September webcast, where CEO Randy Boomhour and CFO Marie-Josée Cantin typically present and field questions, is set up to resolve.

If gross margin holds toward 30% as the C$61.5 million backlog converts, the near-six-times multiple starts to look modest and the earnings power the market has been paying up for becomes real. If mix and cost pressure keep dragging the margin down, then growth is being bought at a falling quality of earnings, and the doubled price stops looking like the value story the rally suggests. Concentration is part of the same risk: one of the largest projects ever sits in the backlog, and a slippage there would show up disproportionately in both revenue and margin. On the input side, the company locks in cement prices and flagged U.S. cement tariffs as a watch item.

The webcast, in other words, is not a stock-picking event by itself. It is the check on the single input the current valuation leans on. Two quarters of a stagnant 40%-plus top-line number told the market the growth story is intact; the question a value reader should carry into September 17 is not whether revenue can keep growing, but whether the bigger backlog can be converted at margins that justify the price the rally has created. If the answer is yes, this is a reasonably valued compounder worth a portfolio slot. If it's a dip in margin or a wobble in the largest project, the doubled stock may have run ahead of what the business can actually deliver.