A wave of North American data-center building has turned Mississauga-based Bird Construction into this year's standout on the TSX. The stock had been climbing, then got another leg higher after BCE tapped Bird as lead partner for a multi-year build in Western Canada, with plans that include a 300 MW site in Saskatchewan. Through Thursday, the shares are up 139% on the year, beating other high-fliers such as BlackBerry Ltd. and Aya Gold & Silver Inc., each of them having more than doubled.
The BCE mandate adds to a sizable backlog Bird said it had on the books in mid-August, a key draw as investors crowd into companies tied to AI and data centers. National Bank of Canada Capital Markets analyst Maxim Sytchev called the BCE work "a huge amount of work on the go and it doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon," adding, "I think that's what makes the investment thesis so compelling."
Bird has stacked up backlog over several years by expanding in defense projects, oil and gas infrastructure, and data-center work. Sytchev said the company is now set up to capitalize on a surge in federal infrastructure spending. As he put it, "You know the saying: 'It's kind of like an overnight success built from kind of the last decade'."
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Profitability has also moved up. Under Chief Executive Officer Teri McKibbon, Bird lifted its EBITDA margin to above 7% in the second quarter, up from 2.35% in fiscal 2019, putting it within reach of the company's 8% goal for 2027, Sytchev noted. He recently raised his price target to C$92, citing expectations for a "generational level of spending" by governments and private clients across Bird's core industrial, building, and infrastructure segments.
Bird's surge has outpaced Canadian peers such as Aecon Group Inc., up 40% this year through Thursday, while AtkinsRealis Group Inc. is down 3%. The company has also outgained several U.S. construction and engineering names, including MasTec Inc., Primoris Services Corp., and Sterling Infrastructure Inc.
Valuation sits in the same neighborhood as those U.S. comparables. Bird trades at 19.5 times forward 12-month earnings, versus roughly 20 times for MasTec, 19.3 times for Sterling Infrastructure, and 17.6 times for Primoris. And it keeps adding to the pipeline: this week, Bird said it expanded a partnership to build infrastructure projects in Ontario near the mineral-rich Ring of Fire. That kind of work can be a tailwind for the shares, said Chris Murray at ATB Cormark Capital Markets, who added, "We're starting to see an appreciation for the fact that the construction teams and the construction names are producing pretty high quality earnings."
Between the AI data-center buildout and public-sector projects, the average analyst outlook calls for Bird's adjusted earnings per share to increase by 42% for 2026 and by 40% for 2027, according to Bloomberg data. For anyone watching how the data-center cycle and government spending ripple through real-world contractors, Bird's mix of backlog, margin improvement, and valuation comps lays out the case to track from here.
