NCS Multistage (NASDAQ:NCSM) Chief Executive Officer Ryan Hummer used a fireside chat hosted by Lytham Partners’ Managing Partner Robert Bloom to outline the company’s technology-focused oilfield services strategy, its growth priorities outside North America, and how it plans to expand its addressable markets through new product deployments and targeted M&A.
CEO background and company overview
Hummer said he joined NCS in 2014 after a career largely spent in investment banking in Houston, including roles at Jefferies, Credit Suisse, and Lazard. He initially entered NCS in corporate development, became CFO in late 2016 as the company prepared for an IPO, and transitioned to CEO at the end of 2022 following founder Robert Nipper’s retirement plans.
He said NCS focuses on areas where it can obtain a leadership position and earn attractive margins, and that its products historically have supported “very capital efficient resource development,” particularly in unconventional oil and gas development tied to horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. While North America has been the historical center of unconventional activity, Hummer said NCS is increasingly focused on earlier-stage unconventional regions such as Argentina and the Middle East.
Business model and financial profile
Hummer emphasized what he called a “capital-light business model,” with most manufacturing outsourced while NCS oversees quality assurance and assembly. He said the approach has helped the company minimize capital investment needs and generate free cash flow “over industry and commodity cycles.”
On company scale and mix, Hummer said revenue last year was about $180 million, with approximately 60% generated in Canada, 30% in the U.S., and 10% outside North America. He added that NCS works with more than 200 customers in a given year and has “very limited customer concentration.”
Discussing operating leverage, Hummer said revenue rose from about $120 million in 2021 to $185 million in 2025 while gross margin remained “pretty much the same at 41%.” He said the company is working to keep SG&A relatively flat following cost-rightsizing in 2020 and 2021, and framed the model as targeting 25%–35% incremental EBITDA margins versus a current EBITDA margin of about 15%. He also said annual capital spending typically runs around 1%–2% of revenue, and that through the cycle NCS expects to convert about 50%–60% of EBITDA into free cash flow.
Market opportunity and competitive positioning
Hummer said NCS generates most of its revenue in completions—the phase where a well is stimulated to flow—rather than during drilling or later-life production. He estimated the global completions market at about $10 billion, with slightly less than half in North America and slightly more than half outside North America. Based on NCS revenue of roughly $180–$190 million, he estimated the company’s overall share at about 2%.
Given that about 90% of NCS revenue comes from North America while more than half the completions market is outside North America, Hummer said international penetration represents a key source of “sustainable growth” for the company.
On competition, he said the basis of competition includes product and service quality, responsiveness, delivery performance, and price, with the weight of price varying by market. He pointed to NCS’s “fracturing systems” product line—sliding sleeve flow-control technology installed downhole—as its largest segment, and said NCS has an extensive track record there that helps it win work and enter new markets.
Expanding addressable markets: offshore, SAGD, geothermal, and production
Hummer highlighted several areas where NCS is extending beyond its historical onshore North American base. He said the company expanded several years ago into the North Sea, a shallow-water offshore market, and reported that NCS worked with seven customers there last year and has added two customers already this year.
He also discussed a development project with Shell for a deepwater Gulf of Mexico application, which he said will be NCS’s first entry into deepwater oil and gas. Hummer described it as more technically demanding than shallow-water work and said it involves integrating two components—“a first for NCS”—that could open a new global product line.
Beyond offshore, Hummer said NCS has begun adapting its flow-control technology for higher-temperature applications, including steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) in Canada. He said the company upgraded seals and other equipment components for higher temperatures and completed its first deployment last year, creating an opportunity in a market “we weren’t in at all three years ago.” He also pointed to geothermal and enhanced geothermal as another potential avenue, describing it as baseload power that could serve data centers.
Additionally, Hummer said NCS is looking to expand beyond completions into production-phase opportunities by helping customers adjust downhole valves and flow-control equipment over the life of a producing well, potentially increasing the company’s access to wells beyond the initial completion.
Market environment, technology adoption, and M&A update
Addressing the near-term environment, Hummer said many North American customers budgeted around $60 oil entering the year, compared with $70–$75 during the prior budgeting cycle, which he said could lead to flat-to-lower spending. He added that NCS has significant exposure to Canada—participating in about 30% of Canadian wells in fracturing systems—and noted that customer consolidation has also created headwinds by reducing combined activity levels versus what two customers might have done separately.
Even with those pressures, Hummer said NCS aims to grow by gaining market share and advancing new products through field trials, noting that adoption timelines differ depending on novelty and cost. He cited faster uptake for StageSaver, a contingency feature in the Repeat Precision product line intended to help customers recover quickly if an efficient surface operation goes wrong. He also highlighted RapidTrace in tracer diagnostics, which he said can detect a chemical on-site to provide rapid answers, a benefit in remote regions such as Alaska, the North Sea, or parts of the Middle East. By contrast, he said Terrace AICV—positioned for production applications with a higher price point—requires more customer conversation and longer trial cycles, particularly in lower commodity price environments.
On inorganic growth, Hummer provided an update on NCS’s acquisition of ResMetrics in July of last year, calling it the company’s first deal since 2017. He said the transaction carried a purchase price of about $7 million and was a horizontal acquisition of a direct competitor in the U.S. He said NCS expects $1 million to $2 million of synergies by the middle of this year, driven by best-practice adoption and rightsizing personnel and infrastructure such as lab and manufacturing capacity, and added that the company is beginning to see revenue synergies as well.
Hummer said NCS is evaluating additional M&A opportunities and intends to remain disciplined on valuation, cultural fit, and “industrial logic” for synergies. On capital allocation, he said the company prioritizes internal investment, maintains cash for potential acquisitions—since “cash is king” in many deals—and may consider returning cash to shareholders in the future if excess cash is not deployed through M&A.
Looking longer term, Hummer said the largest market-share opportunity is in the U.S., while international expansion remains a “long game.” He said international revenue has grown from about 5% in 2023 to more than 10% currently, and he believes it could reach the mid-teens over time, citing the North Sea and other offshore markets, the Middle East, Argentina, and other regions developing unconventional resources.
About NCS Multistage (NASDAQ:NCSM)
NCS Multistage Holdings, Inc is an oilfield services company that designs, engineers and manufactures downhole completion systems for use in hydraulic fracturing operations across North America. Specializing in multi‐stage stimulation technologies, the company’s product portfolio includes composite frac plugs, open‐hole frac systems and mechanical isolation tools that enable producers to optimize well performance in unconventional reservoirs. Its tools are employed in plug-and-perf operations, horizontal completions and re-entry applications, providing zonal isolation and pressure integrity throughout the fracturing process.
In addition to its core frac plug offerings, NCS Multistage provides a range of complementary services including on-site rig support, tool installation supervision and pressure testing.
