CGI Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to CGI's fourth quarter fiscal 2023 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, Colin, and good morning. With me to discuss CGI's fourth quarter and fiscal 2023 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 8, 2023. Supplemental slides, as well as the press release we issued earlier this morning, are available for download along with our fiscal 2023 MD&A, audited financial statements, and accompanying notes, all of which have been filed with both CEDAR Plus 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 displays 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, unless otherwise noted. I'll now turn it over to Steve to review our Q4 financials, and then George will comment on our full-year performance and business and market outlook. Steve.

Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to share with you the results of our fourth quarter of fiscal 2023. In Q4, we delivered $3.51 billion of revenue, up 8% year over year, or up 2.2% when excluding the impact of foreign exchange. Constant currency growth was 3.4% in Europe and 1.1% in North America. From an industry perspective, we had growth across four of five sectors with particular strength in both health and government, growing at a combined rate of 7.2% in constant currency. Government continues to be CGI's largest vertical market, now representing 37% of revenue, up 200 basis points when compared to the prior year. CGI delivers services and business solutions to support our government clients with their mission-critical functions such as cybersecurity, logistics, financial management, and citizen services. IP as a percentage of total revenue was 22.6% in the quarter, with the vast majority contracted as longer-term recurring engagements. Overall IP revenue growth was 4.1% in constant currency, with more than half comprised of software as a service arrangements, which were up 300 basis points from the prior year. IP constant currency revenue growth was strongest in government and financial services, our largest IP revenue basis. Government represents the largest proportion of our IP revenue base, which is at 47% of total IP revenue. And financial services represents the single largest commercial revenue base, which is at 26% of total IP revenue. Our IT solutions become even more attractive to clients in times where discretionary capital is constrained as they shorten the business cycle from decision to realization of business value. We once again add a strong quarter of overall contract wins, booking $4 billion in the quarter, up 10% year-over-year, for a robust book-to-bill ratio of 114%, led by US Federal with a book-to-bill ratio of 188%, Canada with a book-to-bill ratio of 121%, and US Commercial and State Government also with a book-to-bill ratio of 121%. Importantly, Managed services, which translates to longer-term recurring revenue for CGI, represented 60% of total bookings, up significantly from 52% in the prior year, aligned with the demand we are seeing from our clients. Overall, our global backlog reached a record of $26.1 billion, representing 1.8 times revenue. Turning to profitability. Earnings before income taxes were $558 million up 14.8% year-over-year for a margin of 15.9% up 90 basis points year-over-year. Adjusted EBIT in Q4 was $573 million up 9.8% year-over-year. This represents a margin of 16.3% up 20 basis points year-over-year. This increase was driven by the combination of profitable revenue growth and operational discipline, partially offset by one less calendar or day. We delivered strong margins in the following segments. Asia-Pacific at 27%, Canada at 25%, and U.S. commercial and state government at 16.7%. Our effective tax rate in Q4 was 25.7% compared to 25.4% in the prior year. We expect our tax rate for future quarters to be in the range of 25 to 26.5%. Net earnings improved to $414 million up 14.4% when compared to Q4 last year for a margin of 11.8% up 60 basis points year-over-year. Diluted EPS was $1.76 representing an increase of 16.6% year-over-year when compared to $1.51 in Q4 last year. In September, we initiated a cost optimization program to accelerate actions to right-size our real estate portfolio and improve operational efficiencies focused on administrative activities. In the quarter, $9 million was expensed and we plan to incur approximately $65 million of additional expense over the first half of fiscal 2024. When excluding specific items, net earnings improved to $421 million, up 12.9% when compared to Q4 last year, for a margin of 12% up 50 basis points. On the same basis, diluted EPS was $1.79, an accretion of 14.7% when compared to Q4 last year. In the quarter, Cash provided by operating activities was $629 million, representing 17.9% of total revenue, an increase of 28.6% when compared to the prior year. On a trading 12-month basis, cash provided by operating activities represented 14.8% of total revenue. ESO was 44 days in the quarter in line with our target of 45 days. In Q4, we invested $107 million into our business and $325 million to buy back our stock. As of the end of September, we have the opportunity to buy back up to an additional 12.6 million shares under our current NCI brief program, which will be up for renewal in February 2024. In the quarter, we continue to deliver a strong return on invested capital at 16%, up 30 basis points year-over-year, demonstrating our proficiency and discipline on deployment of capital. Looking ahead, our focus continues to be on delivering value to shareholders by investing in our business, including in AI, pursuing and closing accretive acquisitions, and repurchasing our stock and or paying down our debt. CGI has a strong balance sheet with a net debt to capitalization ratio of 20.4% at the end of September, as well as $3.1 billion of cash readily available and access to more if needed. Moving forward, CGI has the strength and capital resources to continue to execute on both our build and buy profitable growth strategy. Now, I will turn the call over to George to recap the full year results and to provide business and market outlooks. George?