CGI Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to CGI's fourth quarter fiscal 2022 conference call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Kevin Linder, SVP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Linder.

Thank you, Joelle, and good morning. With me to discuss CGI's fourth quarter fiscal 2022 results are George Schindler, our President and CEO, and Steve Perron, 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 9th, 2022. Supplemental slides, as well as a press release we issued earlier this morning, are available for download along with our fiscal 2022 MD&A, audited financial statements, and accompanying notes, all of which have been filed with both Cedar 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 recommend our investors 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 and less otherwise noted. And I'll turn it over to Steve to review our Q4 financial results, and then George will comment on our full-year performance in Business Outlook. Steve.

Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. Our results in the quarter were strong against all key financial metrics, demonstrating the resiliency of CGI's business model and the value that we provide to our clients. In Q4, we delivered $3.25 billion of revenue, up 8% year-over-year, or up 13.9% when excluding $178 million of unfavorable foreign exchange impacts. all segments delivered positive constant currency growth, including the following with double-digit growth. Western and Southern Europe, up 35%. Asia-Pacific, up 22.7%. Canada, up 13.2%. And U.S. commercial and state government, up 10.9%. From an industry perspective, we also add constant currency growth across all sectors. Notably, financial services grew 21%, manufacturing, retail, and distribution grew 14%, government grew 13%, and communication and utilities grew 10%. The number of our consultants and professionals increased year-over-year by 10,000 people, representing a 12.5% increase for a total of 90,000 worldwide. As planned, our offshore delivery centres of excellence are growing at a faster pace, 13.2% year-over-year and now representing 22% of total employees. We booked $3.6 billion of contract wins in the quarter, up 25% year-over-year, and representing a book-to-bill ratio of 112%. Notably, new business in the quarter was 37% of booking, an increase from the previous year's 31%, and the highest in the last five quarters. Book-to-bill was over 100% in the majority of our client proximity segments, led by UK and Australia at 139%, US commercial and state government at 125%, US federal at 121%, and Finland, Poland, and Baltics at 117%. With respect to our European operations, book-to-bill was 107% for the quarter and 114% for the full year, demonstrating ongoing resilience in relation to the current macroeconomic pressures. And in North America, book-to-bill was robust at 117% for the quarter. On the strength of total Q4 bookings, global backlog is now at an all-time high of $24.1 billion. This represents 1.9 times revenue. Bookings related to our IP services and solutions also increased significantly year-over-year, resulting in an IP book-to-bill ratio of 146% in the quarter. With the addition of services acquired from Humanis, which consists almost exclusively of SINC revenue, IT as a percentage of revenue remains stable sequentially at 20% in the quarter. As a reminder, mergers provide us with new client relationships where we can offer and deliver our full suite of end-to-end services, in particular our IT. In the quarter, multiple segments add notable IT booking UK and Australia with an IP book-to-bill ratio of 283% driven by our global trade solutions. Canada with an IP book-to-bill ratio of 273% led by new wins for our wealth management solution suite. And US commercial and state government with an IP book-to-bill ratio of 166% driven by our advantage state and local government ERP solutions. With respect to profitability, adjusted EBIT in Q4 was $522 million, up 5.7%, after considering the unfavorable impact from fluctuation against our Canadian reporting currency. EBIT margins were 16.1%, up 10 basis points sequentially. On a year-over-year basis, margins were down 30 basis points. mainly due to the temporary dilutive impact of recent larger acquisition and also due to the expected increase of post-pandemic travel in support of business development activities. We remain on plan to bring recent mergers to CGI margin targets over the coming quarters. EBIT margin were strongest in the following segments. Asia Pacific at 28.6%. Canada at 24.6%, UK and Australia at 16%, and Finland, Poland and Baltics at 15.9%. Our effective tax rate in Q4 was 25.4% compared to 25.5% in the prior year. We continue to expect our tax rate for future quarters to be in the range of 24.5% to 26.5%. Net earnings were $362 million and diluted APS was $1.51, representing an expansion of 8.6% year over year. When excluding integration and acquisition costs, net earnings were $373 million, reflecting a margin of 11.5%. On the same basis, diluted EPS was $1.56, an accretion of 11.4% when compared to $1.40 in the same period last year. This improvement was mainly driven by the execution of our build and buy profitable growth strategy. In Q4, cash provided by operating activities was $489 million representing 15.1% of revenue. Compared to the prior year, cash from operation decreased $38 million, mostly due to COVID-related income tax refunds in Q4 of fiscal 2021, timing of our payables, and a higher DSO of 49 days. The increase in DSO was mainly due to the impact of recent acquisitions, which are in the process of being fully integrated as well as foreign exchange fluctuations. Our DSO target remains at 45 days. In the quarter, we invested $103 million back into our business and $133 million in buying back 1.3 million shares at the weighted average price of $105.48. Importantly, our return on invested capital is up 80 basis points to 15.7% compared to 14.9% in the year-ago period, demonstrating our efficient deployment of capital. Looking ahead, our capital allocation focus continues to be on delivering double-digit returns to our shareholders by investing back in our business, pursuing accretive acquisition, and buying back our stock. Our capital resources total $2.5 billion with access to more if needed. Now I will turn the call over to George to recap the full year results and the outlook for our new fiscal year.