CGI Inc.

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

Thank you, Juliane, and good morning, everyone. With me to discuss CGI's fourth quarter fiscal 2021 results are George Kindler, our President and CEO, and Francois 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, November 10, 2021. Supplemental slides, as well as the press release we issued earlier this morning, are available for download, along with our Q4 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 revive 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. And all of the dollar figures expressed on this call are Canadian, unless otherwise noted. I'll turn it over now to Francois to review our Q4 financial results And then George will comment on our business and market outlook. Francois?

Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. I am pleased with our Q4 performance as revenue growth and operational discipline contributed to double-digit EPS accretion and increased cash from operations. Our year-over-year constant currency revenue growth accelerated in Q4 as previously booked orders began to flow into revenues. We delivered 15% adjusted EPS growth. We generated strong cash flow from operation, up 7.1% year-over-year in Q4, bringing the last 12 months total to over $2 billion, an increase of 9.1% year-over-year. And we strengthened our balance sheet by executing our first public debt issuance, both in the U.S. and in Canada. This was supported by strong investment-grade credit ratings from both Standard & Poor's and Moody's. For Q4, we delivered revenue of $3 billion, up 6.4% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. This is an acceleration from the 3.5% growth in Q3. Double-digit growth in constant currency was achieved in the following geographies. Western and Southern Europe, up 13.6%. Asia-Pacific up 11.5%. U.S. commercial and state government up 11.1%. Canada up 10.5%. And Central and Eastern Europe up 10.1%. This was driven by strong demand in the following industries. Healthcare grew 10.8%. MRD grew 9.9%. And financial services grew 6.4%. Total bookings of $2.9 billion, representing a book-to-bill of 97.1% for the quarter, while our trailing 12-month book-to-bill stands at 114.2%, up 17% year-over-year. I would like to highlight a few reporting segments with strong bookings in the quarter. U.S. commercial and state government with a book-to-bill of 117%. UK and Australia at 111%, and U.S. Federal at 110%. New business in the quarter was 31% of bookings, an increase from the previous year's 22%. On a 12-month basis, new business was 32% of bookings versus 25% for the year ago. Given the continued increase in demand for our services, are as if reflected by the strong bookings in the last 12 months, we expect continued positive growth trends in fiscal 2022. We finished our 2021 fiscal year with a backlog of $23.1 billion. Adjusted EBIT in Q4 was $493 million, while EBIT margins increased to 16.4%, up 76 basis points compared to Q4 last year. The year-over-year increase was mainly due to higher utilization rates and lower non-recurring project adjustments. We saw strong margin improvements in U.S. federal with margins up 350 basis points, as well as U.S. commercial in Scandinavia, both showing 170 basis point improvements. This was partially offset by lower margins in Canada due to lower tax credits this year as well in the UK due to a non-recurring contract provision. Our effective tax rate in Q4 was 25.5%. We continue to expect our tax rate for future quarters to be in the range of 24.5% to 26.5%. Net earnings were $346 million, and diluted earnings per share were $1.39, representing an increase of 44.8% year-over-year. This improvement was mainly due to revenue growth, margin improvement, and lower restructuring costs. Excluding integration and restructuring costs, net earnings were $347 million for a margin of 11.5%, and diluted earnings per share were $1.40, an accretion of 14.8% when compared to $1.22 in the same quarter last year. In the quarter, DSO was 45 days down from 47 days last year. Cash provided by operating activities was $527 million, an increase of 7.1% year-over-year. Net debt to capitalization declined quarter-over-quarter to 26.6% from 30.9% in 2003. We are proud as an organization to have a new group of investors in our company through our inaugural bond offering, raising in the process $1.8 billion across the U.S. and in Canada. We used a large portion of these funds to prepay the $1.25 billion U.S. loan facility that was due in 2023. More importantly with this debt raise, the weighted average maturity of our debts has increased from 1.6 years to 4.7 years, with 91% being fixed interest debt versus floating interest debt. For the last 12 months, cash provided by operating activities was $2.1 billion, or 17.4% of revenue. This is an improvement of $177 million year over year. In fiscal 2021, we invested $1.9 billion in our build and buy profitable growth strategy, comprised of $301 million back into our business, mainly in IP and managed services engagement, $99 million on business acquisition, and $1.5 billion to buy back our stock. Buying back CGI stock has been an accretive and flexible way to return capital to our shareholders. In fiscal 2021, we bought back 15.3 million shares at an average price of $98.16. As of the end of Q4, the company could purchase up to an additional 10 million shares under the current NCIB program. Looking ahead, our cash allocation priority remains the same, investing in our business, pursuing accretive acquisitions, and buying back our stocks. With cash of $1.7 billion on hand and a $1.5 billion revolver that remains fully accessible, we have $3.2 billion readily available. In addition, we now have access to the public debt market to support our build and buy profitable growth strategy. Now, I will turn the call over to George to provide perspectives on fiscal year 2021 and on our business for the year ahead. George?