CAE Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the CAE second quarter financial results for fiscal year 2025 conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Andrew Arnovitz. Please go ahead, Mr. Arnovitz.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's remarks, including management's outlook and answers to questions, contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements represent our expectations as of today, November 13, 2024, 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 C'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 and Exchange Commission on EDGAR. With the divestiture of C's healthcare business in fiscal 2024, all comparative figures discussed here and our financial results have been reclassified to reflect discontinued operations. On the call with me this morning are Marc Perron, C's president and chief executive officer, and Constantino Malatesta, our interim chief financial officer. Nick Leontidis, C's chief operating officer, is on hand for the question period with financial analysts. I'm sure you've all seen by now the news release we issued yesterday afternoon that accompanied our key two results, that after 20 years at CAE, including the last 15 as president and chief executive officer, and after spearheading the making of CAE as a global leader in training for simulation, for civil aviation and defense, and security forces, Mac Perron will be leading the company at next year's annual general meeting in August 2025 as part of an ongoing succession plan. Until this time, Mark will continue to lead CAE in his role as CEO. The Board of Directors has retained a leading executive search firm to conduct a comprehensive global search, which will include evaluating internal and external candidates to identify a new CEO to lead the company into the future. The Human Resources Committee of the Board will oversee the search process with support and assistance from Mark. On behalf of all of us at CAE, I'd like to say that we're incredibly grateful for Mark's exemplary leadership. His lasting impact on CAE and on the aerospace industry are unanimously recognized, and we look forward to continuing to benefit from his leadership until next year's AGM. With that, I will turn the call over to Mark.

Thank you, Andrew, for those kind words, and good morning to everyone joining us on the call. As Andrew said, today is business as usual. And I do want to stay focused on the quarterly results. But, you know, this is a big moment for C8 and for me personally. So I'll just take a moment to say that it's been really the privilege of a lifetime to lead this company. I can't tell you how proud I am of what our team has accomplished. And I'm very thankful for all the support that I've received throughout the years. Thanks to our extraordinary people at C8. We can proudly say that over the last couple of decades, we've absolutely reshaped the aerospace industry by creating something that's truly unique. CAA trains more pilots than anyone else in the world by far. And by leveraging technology, we've prepared countless people for the moments that matter and fulfilled our mission to make the world safer. This is the right time for a transition process. And as our financial performance shows, which we'll get to in just a moment, we're in a solid financial position. Our markets are on a long-term growth trajectory, and our competitive position in each of those markets is strong. Our innovative technology and our outstanding people now set the standard for safety and training worldwide. And I'm confident that she has a very bright future ahead. Now, turning to the business at hand in the second quarter. Our performance in the second quarter reflects strong demand for civil and defense market solutions. And despite some of the challenges we faced in commercial aviation from OEM aircraft supply disruptions, we've achieved solid results. Additionally, We extended our positive trend in defense this quarter with growth and margin enhancements that are largely attributable to our dedication to focus, customer centricity, and operational excellence across all of CA's P&Ls. Highlighting our strong position in growth markets, we secured nearly $3 billion in total orders this quarter, bringing our adjusted backlog to a record $18 billion, which is up over 50% compared to just over a year ago. In civil, we delivered 18 full-flight simulators to customers during the quarter, and our average training center utilization was 70%, a decrease of one percentage point compared to the previous year. This quarter, we experienced year-over-year growth in business aviation training commercial training in Asia Pacific, and similar products. However, mainly due to OEM aircraft supply disruptions, U.S. pilot hiring remained low during a quarter, impacting the incremental pilot training demand we would have expected under more normal conditions. Overall, commercial aviation training utilization was approximately three percentage points lower than last year on average, which is still very good, What it would have been even stronger if not for the temporary pressures on initial training and pilot churn in the Americas. We continue to deliver strong order flow in a quarter in a large secular growth market, which sees highly differentiated training and flight operations software solutions. We booked $693 million in orders with civil customers worldwide for a $1.08 book-to-sales ratio on revenue that's 12% higher than Q2 of last year. We ended the quarter with a record $6.7 billion total civil adjusted backlog, which is up 13% year over year. We received orders for 16 full-flight simulators in the quarters, including four based on the Comac C919 airliner, and we signed long-term training services and flight operations solution contracts with commercial and business jet operators worldwide. In defense, performance continued to track our expectations, driven by strong execution, risk retirement, significant backlog growth, and improving backlog quality. We made excellent progress during the quarter to renew growth and increase margins, including successfully concluding one of the legacy contracts for the backlog, and securing a $1.7 billion transformative award under Canada's Future Air Crew Training Program. For the quarter, we recorded orders worth $2.3 billion, resulting in a 4.6 times book-to-sales ratio, leading to a record $11.4 billion in defense adjusted backlog. This is up approximately 94% year over year. Over the past 12 months, the defense books to sales ratio was 2.04 times. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Dino, who will provide additional details about our financial performance. Dino?