WSP Global Inc.

Bonjour mesdames et messieurs, good morning ladies and gentlemen. Bienvenue à la conférence téléphonique sur les résultats financiers du troisième trimestre de l'exercice 2022 de WSP. Welcome to WSP's third quarter 2022 results conference call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Quentin Webber, Investor Relations. À vous la parole. Please go ahead, Mr. Webber.

Good morning, bonjour. We hope that you are all doing well and thank you for joining our call today. We will be discussing our Q3 2022 performance, followed by a Q&A session. Joining us today are Alexandre Lerue, our President and CEO, and Alain Michaud, our CFO. Please note that this call is also accessible on our website via webcast. During the call, we will be making some forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ from those expressed or implied. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any of these statements. Relevant factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements are listed in our MD&A for the year ended December 31st, 2021. Also during the call, we may refer to certain non-IFRS measures. These measures are defined in our MD&A for the quarter that ended October 1, 2022, which can be found on CDAR and on our website. Our MD&A also includes reconciliations of non-IFRS measures to the most directly comparable IFRS measures. Management believes that these non-IFRS measures provide useful information to investors regarding the corporation's financial condition and results of operation as they provide additional key metrics of its performance. These non-IFRS measures are not recognized under IFRS, do not have any standardized meaning prescribed under IFRS, and may differ from similarly named measures as reported by other issuers, and accordingly may not be comparable. These measures should not be viewed as a substitute for the related financial information prepared in accordance with IFRS. I will now turn the call over to Alexandre.

Thank you, Quentin, and good morning, everyone. During the third quarter of 2022, we continued to build on the momentum we experienced in the first half of the year, in addition to closing significant transactions. As a result, we welcome over 7,300 new employees from recent acquisitions, strengthening our presence in key markets and geographies. Organically, we also increased our end count by 3,200 in 2022, demonstrating the strength of our brand as we recruit new talent organically. In total, we have grown our workforce by 10,500 people in 2022, all while successfully delivering on our projects and being focused on our markets and our performance. I'm going to kick off this call by touching on three key highlights. First, our third quarter results are slightly ahead of our expectations. We achieved solid organic net revenue growth across all our segments, and improvements in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net earnings, in addition to maintaining a very healthy backlog. Second, and as just mentioned, since June of this year, we closed six acquisitions, including the E&I business of John Wood Group, our largest transaction this year. The integration of these businesses are underway and progressing as planned. We successfully completed in August an equity offering of $920 million Canadian dollars, providing us with a solid balance sheet going into 2023. To set some structure for this call, I'm going to expand on some of our recent achievements and Alain will cover our financial performance. Beginning with recent acquisitions, Woody and I is now officially closed and the integration is progressing as planned. We are already benefiting from the collaboration between businesses and seizing opportunities across various markets. For example, our team is working together on an offshore wind project in the state of New York. Combining a strong brand in offshore wind with the depth, skill set, and solid client relationship, this has translated into a very robust client offering. We're also making key nomination from our recent acquisitions including the appointment of Joe Serco as president of our earth and environment business in the USA, representing more than 6,000 employees. Joe was previously the CEO of the global consulting business unit of the John Wood Group, which was mainly composed of the E&I business we just acquired. In September, we also closed a previously announced acquisition of Capita, REI, and GL Hearn. The two businesses are now being integrated into our UK platform, adding depth and expertise to our advisory engineering business across the country. Emerging success stories include stepping into support with one another current projects, aligning our opportunities and combining forces to a new work. In a bid for an academic project, REI is now supporting WSB's consortium, enhancing the strength of our bid. Our recent acquisition includes GreenCap in Australia, MadridBase, BOD, and OD Engineering in the US. These acquisitions support our regional and global ambitions by reinforcing our service offerings in key sectors and strengthening our presence in key geographies. Our M&A activity demonstrates our opportunistic and disciplined approach to acquisition, and we do not foresee the future to be any different. We will continue to allocate our capital in accordance with our strategic plan with a view to maximize shareholder value. Now moving to our recent industry awards and recognitions. Starting with the E&R rankings, WSP took the number one position in E&R Magazine's 2022 list of the top 225 international design firms for the second consecutive year. We also achieved leading position in transportation, buildings, power, water, hazardous waste, and manufacturing. We're also thrilled to have won the two Environmental Analysts Sustainability Consulting Awards. These awards recognize our leadership role in sustainability and resilience. Additionally, the acquisition of ENI has enabled us to strengthen our market position and take the lead in environment analyst top 100 environmental and sustainability consultancy firms for 2022. In our quest to become the undisputed leader in our industry, these recognitions demonstrate WSB's continued focus on achieving its strategic ambitions. On the topic of ESG, we continue to reinforce our leadership and commitments. In 2021, WSP committed to reaching net zero by 2040 across its value chain, supported by greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets approved by the science-based target initiative. Just at the end of last month, we received official approval for a net zero target under the SBTI and use net zero standard. We are proud to be among the leading companies to receive this recognition. To support our climate commitments, we recently launched our climate transition plan, a crucial element of our journey to reduce GHG emissions as it set out concrete action. Having a solid action plan to decarbonize our own activities to drive growth, with our clients, including helping them on their own decarbonization journeys. At this moment, WSB experts have joined world leaders and industry professionals to accelerate climate action and find solutions to the world's environmental and social challenges at the 27th Annual International Climate Change Conference, known as COP27. In December, WSP will actively contribute to the COP15 conference in Montreal. COP15 will look at the implementation of protocols of the Convention on Biodiversity. We are honoured to share the influence WSP has on the ways to reduce negative impacts on our planet, and more announcements are to come in that regard. Transitioning over to our recent wins, I would like to highlight two notable projects. First, WSP and its partners were recently awarded the opportunity to completely redesign New York's Penn Station. The project involves providing a preliminary design for the long-awaited transformation of the station, creating a world-class transportation facility that will relive overcrowding, or relief, I'm so sorry, overcrowding, improve safety, and deliver a rider-focused transit experience. This project will reshape Penn Station into a single level facility centered around a grand train hall with a 450 foot long sky lit atrium between Madison Square Garden and 2 Penn Plaza. It will benefit from deep collaboration across our transportation buildings and advisory business lines. And the second project is for Boeing. WSP was selected to provide environmental health and safety services as well as sustainability-related due diligence activities for various Boeing sites across the world. This project is a great example of an opportunity to leverage our global platform and allow us to expand from national to international contracts, increasing our portfolio enormously. WSP was able to emphasize its long-standing relationship with Boeing and its subsequent familiarity with company systems, providing significant time and cost benefits for Boeing. In the U.S., we continue to be well-positioned to work through the ongoing stimulus plan as federal funding for highway, transit, energy, and water projects, among others, are being deployed. The benefit for WSP will play out over several years and may not peak until 2025. We could expect a positive impact in early 2023 due to the timing of awards for the programs continuing through the year, but the situation remains fluid. Before I pass it to Alain to review our financial results in greater detail, Let me state that I am very proud of our performance. We had another good quarter with great achievements on many fronts, including a recent reduction in turnover and continuous success at increasing our headcount to support our growth journey despite a tight labor market. On that note, Alain, over to you.