Alithya Group inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Aletheia's third quarter fiscal 2024 results conference call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Aletheia's management. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you once again for joining us for Aletheia's third quarter fiscal 2024 results conference call. The press release and MD&A with complete financial statements and related notes were issued this morning and are now posted on our website. The webcast presentation can also be found on our website in the Investors section. Please be advised that this call will contain statements that are forward-looking and which are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These statements include, without limitation, our estimates, plans, expectations, and other statements regarding the future growth, results of operations, performance, and business prospects of Aletheia that do not exclusively relate to historical facts, or which refer to future events, including statements regarding our expectation of our clients' demands for our services, and our ability to take advantage of business opportunities and meet our goals set in our current and next three-year strategic plan. For more information, please refer to the cautionary note in our presentation and to the forward-looking statements and risk and uncertainties sections of our MD&A, available on our website. All figures discussed on today's call are in Canadian dollars. IFRS measures. Please refer to the cautionary note in our presentation and to the non-IFRS and other financial measures section of our MD&A for more details. Presenting this morning are Paul Raymond, Alitia's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Claude Cibot, Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Paul Raymond. Paul?

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us this morning. I'm very pleased to share the detail of our team's robust performance in the third quarter of fiscal 2024. With sequential revenue and margin growth, as well as other notable achievements in our Q3, we have many positive trends to talk about today. So I'd like to begin this morning by highlighting three critical areas that summarize our third quarter achievements. First, Alitya set an internal record for gross margin as a percentage of revenues in Q3, as well as record adjusted EBITDA margins. Second, we made considerable progress in reducing our SG&A expenses while also generating notable positive cash flow in Q3. Additionally, we continued to reduce our debt in alignment with ongoing targeted initiatives. Third, Q3 was another strong quarter for bookings, and when excluding the two long-term contracts, we achieved a book-to-bill ratio of 1.2 and saw sequential revenue growth in all our geographies. Now, let's take a closer look at these achievements. Last November, we highlighted gross margin as a source of pride in disclosing our Q2 results. In the third quarter, that upward trend continued with gross margins as a percentage of revenue reaching 31.3%, which is the highest mark to date in Aletheia's history as a publicly traded company. That result is the fruit of targeted initiatives aimed at maximizing gross margins and higher value services, which includes more permanent employees in our mix and achieving better utilization rates. Our smart shoring operations currently account for 6% of our assigned people, but we continue to bolster and position our operations to take on a more substantial role in the quarters ahead. Smart shore operations also serve us in building stronger project teams for our clients by enabling us to balance senior people with junior ones. This is a win-win situation because it also allows us to train our junior employees and to prepare them for career opportunities, which is a central element of our internal promise to our people. Q3 also saw continued improvement in SG&A expenses as our disciplined approach continues to deliver positive results. In fact, year over year, our expenses decreased by 5.4% in the third quarter, complemented by positive cash flow and further debt reductions. With these new efficiencies reducing our spending, we also seized the opportunity to increase our credit facility, ensuring future flexibility for addressing both organic growth and potential M&A. As mentioned in my introduction, our posted adjusted EBITDA margin in Q3 was also a record achievement for Aletheia, driven by both our growth... Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.