Alithya Group inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Alithea's second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. If anyone has any difficulty hearing the conference, please press star followed by zero for operator assistance at any time. Before turning the meeting over to management, Please be advised that this conference call will contain statements that are forward-looking and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. I would like to now remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded on Thursday, November 12, 2020. I will now turn the conference over to Rachel Andrews, Vice President, Communications and Marketing. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Alesia's second quarter fiscal 2021 results conference call. The press release and MD&A with complete financial statements and related notes were issued earlier today and are posted on our website. The webcast presentation can also be found on our website in the investors section. Presenting this morning are Paul Raymond, Alesia's president and chief executive officer, and Claude Thibault, chief financial officer. Following their comments, we will open the call for questions. Before we begin, I would like to specify that this conference call is intended for the financial community. Also, please be advised that this call will contain statements that are forward-looking and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. Please refer to the risk and uncertainties section of our MD&A available on our website for more details. Let me remind you that all figures expressed on today's call are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. and be aware that we will refer to certain indicators that are non-IFRS measures. Please refer to our MD&A for more details. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Paul Raymond.

Thank you, Rachel. Good morning, everyone. Bonjour. Before I begin, I would like to say that despite the daily challenges faced by our employees in the wake of this pandemic, They continue to show passion and dedication for Alethea and our clients, and I sincerely want to thank all of our 2,200 professionals across North America and in Europe for their hard work. So we are very pleased with our second quarter results and our growth, yes, growth, despite the impacts of the pandemic in certain geographies. They demonstrate the resiliency of our business model, as well as the growing demand for our digital transformation services. So the three key points in the quarter are, first, we generated year-over-year revenue growth. Second, our Canadian operations reported their best gross margins on record and generated double-digit growth. And finally, our third quarter, which is historically stronger than the second quarter. So we are expecting this to materialize as we start benefiting from the new contracts and improvements in our U.S. operations. So revenues for the quarter increased 1.5% to $68.4 million, driven by our Canadian operations, which was partially offset by our US and European businesses, which continued to be impacted by COVID-19. What is important to highlight is that compared to the first quarter, although our consolidated revenues decreased since Q1, as they historically do in the summertime, they did so at a much lesser extent than usual. From Q1 to Q2, on a constant currency basis, consolidated decrease would have been only 1.8%. This should be a strong indicator for the sustained demand for our services. In addition, we are proud that the three acquisitions we completed last year continue to generate organic growth, both year over year and sequentially, as well as superior margin. This is a testament to our strategy, successful cross-selling our activities, and synergy generation. Furthermore, Some large Canadian clients, which we've talked about at length, which had started to stabilize in the first quarter, have now begun to ramp up, which is also a very positive sign for the future. Despite solid top line results, our profitability is less than last year due to the lower utilization rate in the US. This is the result of the pandemic coupled with our strategy, this strategic decision, this was our decision, to support our employees and protect our expertise during this temporary downturn. We believe this is in the company's best medium and long-term interests. We finished the quarter in a solid financial position, which will be further improved if we receive the PPP loan forgiveness. In the quarter, our bookings totaled $62.3 million. While our book-to-bill ratio was just under 1, or 0.91, it is normal to have a small dip from our superior first quarter, as our second quarter is seasonally softer with vacation periods being a slower time for business. Our year-to-date book-to-bill ratio stood at over one, or 1.03. As I've said before, I would like to remind everyone, however, that we believe a 12-month trailing book-to-bill ratio is a better indicator of our future perspectives, as notable variations can occur when looking at quarterly numbers alone, as we can see in the second quarter. Having started reporting this new metric from April 1st, we will be providing annual measures by the end of this fiscal quarter. In the quarter, we also added 12 new clients and signed several other agreements to implement enterprise cloud solutions, including a recent one for the Florida Municipal Power Agency. At the end of the quarter, we also renewed our historic agreement with Desjardins, one of our major historical clients, for the provision of services and the delivery of technology projects starting October 1, 2020. We are delighted that Déjà Vu has reiterated its confidence in Aletheia, particularly knowing the rigorous process that it applies to the selection of its suppliers. This will appear in our Q3 bookings. Finally, since going public two years ago, we have been on a journey to diversify our business by industry, by geography, and by client. Our revenues are well diversified, and as a result, our exposure to the hardest hit industries by the pandemic is much smaller. Claude will now review our second quarter results and our financial position.