CAE Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the CAE fourth quarter conference call. Please be advised that this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Andrew Arnovitz. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, or I should say good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's remarks, including management's outlook for FY23 and answers to questions, contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements represent our expectations as of today, June 1st, 2022, and accordingly are subject to change. Such statements are based on assumptions that may not materialize and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially, and listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. A description of the risks, factors, and assumptions that may affect future results is contained in CEE's annual MD&A, available on our corporate website, and in our filings with the Canadian Securities Administrators on CDAR and the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission on EDGAR. On the call with me this morning are Marc Perrin, CEE's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Sonia Branco, our Chief Financial Officer. After remarks from Marc and Sonia, we'll take questions from financial analysts and institutional investors. Following the conclusion of that Q&A period, we'll open the call to questions from members of the media. Let me now turn the call over to Marc.

Thank you, Andrew. Good morning to everyone joining us on the call. Before Sonia and I get into the results, I want to first say how proud I am of our 13,000 CA employees who exemplified our one CA culture and delivered a truly outstanding performance in fiscal 2022. We set a number of order intake records this year, culminating in record bookings of $4.1 billion and a record backlog of $9.6 billion. These numbers are especially impressive considering that our industry is still in the early days of a cyclical recovery. We're winning market share by innovating and delighting our customers, and this is because of the great dedication of our people. Testament to their passion and commitment is that employee engagement has never been higher. Even with the added complexities of managing through a pandemic. I'll talk more about the way forward at the end of the call, but these are some of the most important factors that underscore my enthusiasm and outlook for a bigger, stronger, and more profitable CA in the period ahead. Turning now to our results. On a consolidated basis, we grew fourth quarter revenue by 25%, and annual revenue by 23%. before the contribution of our Ventilator Humanitarian Initiative last year. We delivered 32 percent higher adjusted earnings per share in a quarter, and for the year, it was up 79 percent. Testament to the quality of these results, we generated a healthy $188 million of free cash flow for the quarter and $342 million for the year. In civil, We had strong performance with double-digit growth in revenue and adjusted segment operating income, and we generated margins north of 20% for the second quarter in a row. Despite Omicron disruptions during the fall and winter and continued market weakness in Asia, fourth quarter average training center utilization reached 69%, which is up about 55% last year. Training demand in the Americas continues to be the strongest in the quarter, easily absorbing the capacity we've deployed recently into the region to meet our customers' increased needs. We also had strong demand for new pilot training with record monthly hours flown at our flight school in Phoenix, Arizona. Training utilization in Europe improved in the quarter, with airlines having become more confident about the summer travel period. Asia Pacific was a bit better, with some easing of travel restrictions in Singapore and Malaysia, but remained at a much lower level compared to 2019. In business aviation, training demand was robust and reflects the high level of business aircraft flight activity, which is well above 2019 levels. We overcame market and logistical challenges to deliver seven civil full-flight simulators in a quarter and 30 for the year. We had strong order activity in civil overall in the quarter, booking training solutions contracts valued at $517 million for a book-to-sales ratio of 1.19 times, including 15 full flight simulator sales. Annual orders reached $2 billion for a book-to-sales ratio of 1.25 times including comprehensive long-term training agreements with airlines and business jets operators worldwide, and a total of 48 full-flight simulator sales for the year, which is testament to the increased demand for pilot training. This is a big step up compared to only 11 orders for all of the previous fiscal year. Civil concluded the year with a healthy order backlog of $4.9 billion. We also expanded our horizons during the year by partnering with four of the leading electrical vertical takeoff and landing developers to provide a range of solutions, including simulators, pilot and maintenance training programs, and aircraft systems engineering support. Additionally, we concluded the acquisition of Sabre Air Center's airline operations portfolio during the quarter, giving us a valuable suite of flight and crew management and optimization solutions and a highly talented workforce, who we welcome warmly to C8. The acquisition is part of a strategy to extend civil beyond training and access an even larger portion of the civil aviation market that we already address. We continuously innovate to earn the right to be our customers' training partner of choice, and now we're expanding our aperture to also become their technology partner of choice. I'm very encouraged by the positive customer response we've had already, with airlines and business jet operators greeting CE as a highly logical partner for these solutions. In defense, we also had double-digit growth in the quarter with the contribution of L3 Harris military training, and I'm especially pleased with the acceleration in order intake with bookings totaling a record $751 million in a quarter for a 1.6 times book-to-sales ratio. Notable wins in a quarter include a contract with the Government of Canada to extend and expand the NATO Flying Training in Canada program through 2027. Defence also broadened its customer access with a US $250 million ceiling US Naval Air Systems Command contract for rapid acquisition, prototyping, integration, and development, which is an IDIQ win. Defense concluded the year with a record $1.9 billion in orders, including competitive prime awards across all five domains, that being air, land, sea, space, and cyber. This higher level of activity contributed to a $4.7 billion defense backlog, representing 1.2 times book to sales for the year. Notably, this is the first time our annual defense book to sales ratio has been above one in the last four fiscal years, and it's key to driving higher performance in the years ahead. We also concluded the year with a record $8.6 billion of defense bids pending customer decisions. Turning now to healthcare, we delivered our fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit year-over-year revenue growth excluding ventilators, and we generated sequentially higher profitability in the fourth quarter. One noteworthy order during the quarter included a collaboration between healthcare and defense to win a contract to support the German Armed Forces by providing patient simulators, user training, and maintenance support. This collaboration is a great example of CE's cross-business synergies and is testament to a unique one CA culture. Our good progress in healthcare during the year reflects a clear focus on achieving greater scale and the ramp up of our re-energized organization. We began worldwide deliveries of our newest pediatric patient simulator, CA AREA, and we launched updates to expand the future set and functionality of some of our main product solutions, including Vividix, our ultrasound education platform, C-Cath Lab VR, and C-Learning Space. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Sonia, who'll provide a more detailed look at our financial performance, and I'll return at the end of the call to comment on our outlook. Sonia?