CGI Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to CGI's second quarter fiscal 2021 conference call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Mayor Yagi, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Yagi.

Thank you, Jacqueline, and good morning, everyone. With me to discuss CGI's second quarter conference call, fiscal quarter fiscal 2021 results are George Schindler, our President and CEO, and François Boulanger, Executive Vice President and CFO. This call is being broadcast on CGI.com and recorded live at 9 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, April 28, 2021. Supplemental slides, as well as the press release we issued earlier this morning, are available for download, along with our Q2 MD&A financial statements and accompanying notes, all of which have been filed with both SIDAR and EDGAR. Please note that some statements made on the call may be forward-looking. Actual events or results may differ materially from those expressed or implied, and CGI disclaims any intent or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. The complete safe harbor statement is available in both our MD&A and press release, as well as on CGI.com. We encourage our investors to read it in its entirety. We are reporting our financial results in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS. As always, we will also discuss non-GAAP performance measures, which should be viewed as supplemental. The MD&A contains definitions of each one used in our reporting. All of the dollar figures expressed on this call are Canadian unless otherwise noted. I'll turn it over now to George to give a brief overview of Q2. Francois will then review our Q2 financials, and then George will comment on our operational highlights and strategic outlook.

George? Thank you, Mayor, and good morning, everyone. We closed the first half of the fiscal year with strong second quarter results. Our team's performance, combined with the accelerating client demand for our end-to-end services, across every industry and geography positions us well for a return to year-over-year growth in the second half of this year, beginning in Q3. In the quarter, we continued to deliver on our near-term plan to prioritize the preservation and expansion of shareholder value, once again sustaining EPS accretion and generating strong cash from operations. We also made investments in our build and buy strategy to fuel our future profitable growth for the benefit of all three stakeholders, our clients, members, and shareholders. The rising client demand we noted last quarter increased considerably during Q2, as demonstrated in our bookings, which were up over $1 billion compared to the same quarter last year. Demand for new digital and modernization projects was robust across nearly every geography and industry sector, particularly in retail and consumer services, financial services, and government. New business comprised nearly 40% of total awards in the quarter, up both sequentially and year-over-year. Included among the nearly $4 billion in contract awards during the quarter were numerous projects in the digital arena, such as a data modernization program with a US-based global communications and media company. Through our consulting and systems integration services, we will help streamline and support the client's cloud-based data management platforms. An expansion and extension of our Trade360 IP engagement with one of Canada's top multinational banks. For this long-standing client, we will continue to support the digital transformation of their trade finance operations through numerous innovations, including blockchain enablement. An expanded partnership with OP, Finland's largest financial services group, On this managed services engagement, we will collaborate with their insurance business to deliver advanced analytics and automation to support and enhance customer and employee experience, as well as generate cost savings. Taking a longer view, bookings over the past 12 months were up over the previous period by more than $1.7 billion. This reflects CGI's position as a partner of choice to serve clients' needs across a wide range of business transformation, and digitization initiatives. In fact, our clients' trust in CGI's consultants is reflected in record high client satisfaction scores, and our pipeline is growing as a result, up nearly 20% globally, and strong across every geography and every service. The diversified mix of CGI's end-to-end services again contributed to our strong margins in the quarter, as new, previously booked projects translated into positive sequential revenue trends across each service offering. As anticipated, our systems integration and consulting services revenue was up nearly 3% compared to Q1, driven by new digital projects, a growth trend we expect to continue. For example, in our US-based human-centered design practice, which has grown over 30% year-over-year, we bring together user insights and technologies to help clients create engaging customer experiences. Demand remains strong for larger enterprise managed services engagements to integrate the full range of CGI services to help clients increase business agility, enhance customer experience, and reduce costs. From an IP perspective, revenue grew 4% compared to Q1 on the strength of new projects, while volumes are now beginning to recover in our transaction-based IP solutions, including those for payroll and travel-related services. Our solutions are industry-leading in areas such as ERP for central and local governments, banking business processes like trade, wealth, payments, and collections, end-to-end retail industry processes, and future energy grid modernization solutions. CGI's portfolio of IP are highly configurable business platforms as a service, that integrate with our end-to-end offerings and utilize provider-neutral cloud approaches, embedded security, and data privacy practices. For clients, our IP delivers business benefits while enabling a higher degree of flexibility and customization for their unique modernization and digitization needs. For shareholders, our portfolio of IP solutions delivers sustained high profitability through longer-term recurring revenue engagements. With this in mind, and in line with rising client demand, we made additional investments in the quarter to accelerate progress towards our IP30 initiative, which represents IP as a 30% target of total revenue. Specifically, we have dedicated a senior executive to be responsible for global IP strategy, sales, and innovation. Through collaboration with leaders across our client proximity and global delivery units, all with the aim to drive profitable growth. Now, I will turn it over to Francois to review our financial results.