Good morning, everyone. Please take your seats and we will call the meeting to order. Just be prepared with your headphones because the meeting will be more or less 50/50 French and English. Unless you're totally comfortable in both, have your headphones ready. If you're not comfortable in either, there's not much we can do for you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is John Manley, Chair of CAE's Board of Directors. In the last 11 years as a member of CAE's Board, I have witnessed firsthand the evolution and growth of this great global company and its employees' commitment to the company's core values and strategy. I am proud to now be chairing its Board. On behalf of the Board and the management of CAE, it is my pleasure to welcome you to this annual meeting of shareholders.
I'm also pleased to welcome those of you who are joining us for the live broadcast of this meeting on the internet. The meeting will be conducted in French and English, and equipment for simultaneous translation has been made available at the entrance. You may address your questions in French or in English. With me in the podium today are Marc Parent, President and Chief Executive Officer and Director, Sonya Branco, Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer, and Mark Hounsell, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer and Corporate Secretary. Fiscal year 2019 was another strong and fruitful year for CAE, with a solid financial performance. We once again booked a record backlog, and management's outlook remains positive in light of anticipated robust growth in worldwide demand for our end-to-end training services. CAE's directors have the highest confidence in the management team and its results-driven corporate strategy.
At this time, I'd like to introduce our current board of directors seated in the first row. I'd ask them to stand and remain standing as their names are called. Please withhold any recognition until all have been introduced. More or less in alphabetical order, Margaret Billson from Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Honorable Michael Fortier from Montreal. Alan MacGibbon from Toronto. François Olivier from Montreal. Michael Roach from Montreal. General Norton Schwartz from Virginia. Andrew Stevens from Gloucestershire, U.K., and Katharine Stevenson from Toronto. These persons, Marc Parent, and myself are your current board of directors. I'm also pleased to present you a new nominee to our board, Marianne Harrison. Please stand up, Marianne. Marianne is currently President and Chief Executive Officer of John Hancock Life Insurance Company, the U.S. division of Toronto-based Manulife Financial Corporation.
She's a recognized senior leader with extensive experience in the insurance and financial sectors, with a strong focus on the customer experience. Thank you for joining us, Marianne Harrison. I'd like to thank Katharine B. Stevenson, who is not eligible to stand for re-election to the board, consistent with our director term limit requirements, for her consistently wise counsel and for her many years of dedication and contribution to CAE. Stand up one more time, Kate, please. We also have the independent directors of the CAE USA board with us at today's meeting, and I'd like to introduce them to you as well. General Bryan Brown from Dade City, Florida, is Chair of the U.S. board. General Brown. Admiral Timothy Keating from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and the Honorable Sue Payton from Colorado Springs, Colorado. Thank you for your service.
I'd also like to introduce Mr. Brian Morra, the Chair of the Board of CAE USA Mission Solutions, a new business unit formed in 2018 to pursue U.S. Department of Defense higher-level security programs. Thank you. I'd now like to proceed with the formal portion of today's meeting. First of all, I now call to order the annual meeting of the corporation shareholders. Mr. Mark Hounsell will act as Secretary of the meeting. I have here the certificate of our transfer agent, Computershare Trust Company of Canada.
Mark has it, we have it, indicating that proper notice of the meeting has been given in accordance with the Canada Business Corporations Act and the bylaws of the corporation. I direct that a copy of the notice with proof of service be kept by the secretary with the records of this meeting. With the consent of the meeting, I appoint Mark Thompson and Claire Girard of Computershare as scrutineers for this meeting. CAE's bylaws provide that a quorum of shareholders is present at a meeting of shareholders if two or more persons holding not less than 25% of the shares entitled to vote at the meeting are present in person or represented by proxy. The scrutineers have advised that we have such a quorum.
The meeting is regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business. Immediately following the formal agenda, the president's report will be presented by our CEO, Marc Parent, and Sonya Branco, our Chief Financial Officer, will provide a financial update. An opportunity will be provided at the end of that presentation for shareholders to raise general questions. Proxy holders and registered shareholders who have not previously provided us with their proxies will have been provided with a ballot for the motions to be passed today. Some of you may have in hand a ballot. You should know that while each of the ballots cast today will be accounted for in the final results, proxies lodged with our registrar and transfer agent before this meeting allow me, as proxy holder, to determine the outcome of each of the motions that will go to a vote today.
If you are a registered holder or proxy holder and you have not already voted by proxy, you should have received today with the agenda of the meeting a ballot form regarding the items of business to come before the meeting. At the appropriate times, I will ask you to complete the ballot as it pertains to each item of business. Following consideration of the last item of business, the scrutineers will collect the ballot forms and tabulate the results of the votes. When each item of business is completed and the ballots have been completed as a result of the proxies received in advance of the meeting, I intend to declare the motion carried or defeated, even though all of the votes may not yet have been counted or a final report may not yet be available.
I'll do that to keep the pace of the meeting moving along. There will be a formal scrutineers report prepared and made available for any person to consult at the end of the meeting. The detailed results will also be publicly available on SEDAR in the coming days. In order to facilitate the flow of the meeting, we've also asked particular shareholders or proxy holders to move or second the motions placed before the meeting, just to keep things rolling right along using the microphones on either side of the room. I hereby table the minutes of the annual meeting of shareholders held on August 14th, 2018, which will be inserted in the minute book of the corporation. Our secretary has the minutes of that meeting. Copies of the minutes will be made available upon request. It's fascinating reading, so please get your copy while they last.
The next matter is to place before the meeting the financial statements and auditor's report thereon for the year ended March 31st, 2019. Copies of which were made available to shareholders of the record and are available for consultation at the registration desk. I will entertain questions with respect to the financial statements of the corporation in the general question period. Let us now turn to the next item of business, the election of directors. The management proxy circular contains a list of the 10 nominees recommended for election as director. The nominees to be elected as directors are Margaret Billson, The Honorable Michael Fortier, Marianne Harrison, Alan MacGibbon, The Honorable John Manley, François Olivier, Marc Parent, Michael Roach, General Norton Schwartz, and Andrew J. Stevens.
Pursuant to resolution adopted by the board of directors, the number of directors has been set at 10, and 10 eligible candidates have been nominated.
I'll now ask that Mrs. Lu move to elect each of the nominees as directors.
I so move.
Thank you, Jenny. Would Frederic Deschamps second this motion?
I second the motion.
Thank you, Frederic. I'd now ask each shareholder or proxy holder to record his or her vote on the ballot provided, by indicating whether you vote for or whether you withhold from voting in respect of each individual nominee whose name is indicated on the ballot provided. Ballots will be collected and counted following the last item of business. It just happens that the proxies that we have in hand allow me to announce that the motion will be carried, and the 10 directors identified in the management proxy circular are hereby elected for the next year. The next item on the agenda is the appointment of auditors. I'll ask Sandra Rafael to introduce a motion to appoint PricewaterhouseCoopers, Chartered Accountants, auditors of the corporation, to hold office until the close of the next annual meeting of shareholders, and for authorization for the directors to fix their remuneration. Sandra?
I so move.
Would Laurent Desmet second this motion?
I second the motion.
Thank you, Laurent. I'd ask that each shareholder or proxyholder record his or her vote again on the ballot provided by indicating whether you vote for or withhold from voting on the resolution appointing PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as auditors. Again, I'm able to indicate that the motion is carried, and I declare that PricewaterhouseCoopers are hereby appointed as auditors of the corporation, and the board of directors is authorized to fix their remuneration. CAE's management compensation is fully disclosed in the proxy circular made available to all shareholders in advance of this AGM. The CAE board of directors believes that the company's compensation program is appropriate and that it is directly linked to the personal and corporate performance. We will now vote on the following resolution. Somewhat simplified from last year, I'd say, Mr. Secretary.
Exactly. At the Chairman's suggestion, yes.
Yeah. It was a very good suggestion. Resolve that the shareholders accept the approach to executive compensation disclosed in the management proxy circular. I understand that Alexie Côté wishes to propose a motion for approval.
I so move.
Thank you, Alexie. Would Daniel Martineau second the motion?
I second the motion.
Thank you, Daniel. Again, I would ask that each shareholder or proxyholder record his or her vote on the ballot provided by indicating whether you vote for or against the resolution. Again, I'm in a position to declare that this motion carries and the resolution to accept the corporation's approach to executive compensation is duly approved and confirmed. If there are any ballots to be collected, please raise your hand and the scrutineers will collect them now. There's a ballot there. Are there any others? Just to confirm, those votes will be added to the total that was received in advance of the meeting by proxy. Thank you very much.
The next item on the agenda is the president's and CEO's address to shareholders. Before I turn the podium over to our CEO, Marc Parent, let's watch a short video produced by the management team to thank CAE employees. The board of directors and myself wanted to show it to you to give you a glimpse of the past year and CAE's company culture.
Exciting stuff. Merci, John. [Foreign language]
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and welcome to CAE's global headquarters. Thank you for joining us for our annual meeting of shareholders. As you saw in the video, our customers are at the very heart of everything we do. More than ever, everyone at CAE is working together, not to simply satisfy our customers, but to delight them. We are a diverse and large family of individuals. There are more than 10,000 of us today, working in different business units in over 35 countries around the world. As our one CAE value suggests, we work as a team with one singular focus: to deliver excellence in training. An ever-growing number of airlines, defense forces, and healthcare professionals are recognizing CAE for its reputation as the industry leader and are entrusting us as their training partner of choice. That is at the heart of our company's vision.
This was a milestone year for CAE. For the very first time in our history, we delivered more than 1 million hours of civil aviation training. At the same time, we grew into what is now the largest civil aviation training company in the world, with nearly 300 full flight simulators in more than 50 locations. Every year, we train 220,000 civil and defense crew members, including 135 pilots and thousands of healthcare professionals. We work with more than 300 airlines, major business aircraft operators, as well as 50 defense forces worldwide. Throughout our history, since the very beginning, we have been driven by a noble purpose. That is to make the world a safer place.
That is what motivates us every day. It is gratifying for me to know that the training we provide helps make air travel safer, prepares defense forces to be mission ready, and enables medical professionals to save lives. What a wonderful mission. This mission drives a passionate and committed workforce to deliver the highest levels of customer satisfaction.
This was 2019, a record year. I can't tell you how proud I am of the team and the performances we've achieved. It was quite simply our best year ever, bar none. As shareholders, I trust you share my excitement. Our share price increased over that time by, just looking at last year, over 30%. If you look at the past decade, over 450%, far exceeding the TSX Composite Index in the same period. Underscoring the performance going forward and a positive long-term view, I'm very pleased to announce that CAE's board of directors has approved today a CAD 0.01 increase or 10% increase to CAE's quarterly dividend, which becomes CAD 0.11 a share effective September 30th. That represents CAE's ninth consecutive dividend increase in as many years. Let's have a look at the different accomplishments we've had in the past year.
In Civil, the largest of our three business units, we're making a very valuable contribution in shaping the future of training by delivering innovative and full service, what we call cadet to captain training solutions. Last year, we sold an unprecedented 78 full flight simulators, which is not only a CAE record, but it is truly an industry record. We secured a high number of long-term contracts with airlines, which is a sign of a healthy pipeline and of our ability to accelerate the pace at which airlines are willing to outsource their training in all or in part to CAE. Among those contracts we signed was a 10-year pilot training agreement with easyJet, an exclusive multi-year pilot training agreement with Asiana and with CityJet, and as well, an exclusive 15-year training outsourcing contract with Avianca in Colombia.
We've also grown our position in business aviation training with the purchase of Bombardier Business Aircraft Training. This is a transformative move for CAE, indeed, our largest acquisition ever. We're very pleased to welcome as part of that acquisition 250 skilled employees to the CAE family, and which greatly expands our market addressability to include operators of the nearly 5,000 Bombardier business jets flying worldwide. In defense and security, our contribution is essential to providing training solutions to allied defense forces. Amongst the key contracts that we won last year were the United States Air Force's C-130H air crew training system program, as well as the U.S. Navy's contracted instruction services program. We had major competitive wins with OEMs such as Lockheed Martin on the Canadian Surface Combatant program and General Atomics on the U.K.'s Protector program.
We also signed training systems contracts with the Royal New Zealand Air Force for the NH90 helicopter, the German Air Force on both their Eurofighter and Tornado aircraft, Lockheed Martin on C-130J for the United States Air Force and with Boeing on the P-8A aircraft with the U.K.'s Royal Air Force. We anticipate new growth opportunities in the U.S. with the strategic acquisition we did last year of Alpha-Omega Change Engineering. As part of that agreement, we welcome 600 talented and cleared employees to CAE, which gives us now the ability to pursue, win, and execute programs which we couldn't before because of the higher degree of classification required to execute and win those contracts.
In healthcare, CAE is playing a leading role in making healthcare safer. Our training solutions are helping healthcare professionals and caregivers to hone their skills on patient simulators and as opposed to real patients, thus reducing the risk for medical errors, which of course is good. The steady stream of new simulation products that we have brought to market and the expansion of our sales force led to accelerated revenue growth. We launched innovative products such as CAE Luna, our simulator for neonatal and infant care training, and our emergency care manikin, CAE Ares. We also welcomed Rekha Ranganathan, our new President of CAE Healthcare, who brings deep commercial experience in the healthcare industry to help take CAE Healthcare to a higher level of scale. The value CAE creates goes well beyond financial results. Last year, we expanded our commitments in corporate social responsibility.
We were active on many fronts. Among others, promoting workplace diversity and inclusion, implementing sound environmental practices at our sites worldwide, and launching a program to recognize and encourage employee volunteering, and by encouraging them to do this. We also launched our new ethical principles for the responsible use of data analytics. As a leader in digital innovation, we want to affirm our commitment to adhere to the highest standards of ethical conduct in our dealings with employees, customers, and all other stakeholders when it comes to the use of data. I invite you to read our interactive online Annual Activity and Corporate Social Responsibility Report to find out how our employees are helping to make the world a better, cleaner, and safer place. Now, I would like to ask Sonya Branco, our Chief Financial Officer, to provide us with an overview of our financial results. Sonya?
Thank you, Marc. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As Marc has mentioned, CAE delivered a record financial performance in fiscal 2019. Annual revenue was up by 17% to CAD 3.3 billion, and annual net income before specific items was at CAD 335.2 million, or CAD 1.25 per share, which is up 13% compared to the previous year. I'm especially pleased with our record CAD 4 billion in annual orders and a record CAD 9.5 billion backlog, which underlines CAE's positive momentum as the world leader in aviation training. Overall for CAE, our strong operational performance translated into a good year from a cash flow standpoint. We generated a near one-to-one return of net income to free cash flow in fiscal 2019. Our strong balance sheet, together with highly supportive capital markets, enable us to pursue significant customer-driven creative investment opportunities and to continue our growth.
Last year, we closed in our 13% multi-year return on capital employed target with an increase in return on capital to 12.9%. For fiscal 2020, we're off to a good start in Q1 with 14% revenue growth and 15% higher operating income before specific items. Our earnings per share was CAD 0.24 before specific items, compared to CAD 0.26 last year. On the order front, we booked over CAD 940 million of orders for a CAD 9.4 million backlog.
As we look to the remainder of the fiscal year, our outlook for growth remains unchanged. Overall, we expect to continue exceeding underlying market growth. In civil, we expect operating income to grow in the upper 20% range on continued strong demand for our training solutions. In defense, we expect mid to high single-digit percentage operating income growth as we deliver from the backlog and continue to win opportunities from a large pipeline. For healthcare, we expect to achieve double-digit growth with our expanded sales force and the continued launch of innovative solutions. We continue to concentrate on our three capital allocation priorities. First, investing in superior and sustainable growth, either through acquisitions which give us additional capabilities or through continuing to deploy full flight simulators to support our client contracts or the outsourcing of training by our customers.
We have significant headroom in our core markets with highly accretive opportunities for investment while continuing to deliver accretive returns. Illustrating this point, the capital invested in simulators throughout our global training network over the last five years has already ramped up to a 20%-30% range of pre-tax incremental returns within only two to three years of deployment. Our second capital allocation priority is providing our shareholders with current returns while generating long-term growth. We have consistently increased our dividend commensurate with the growth of CAE and the significant cash flow it generates. In recent years, we have instituted a share buyback program. Taken together, over the last five years, CAE has returned more than CAD 620 million to shareholders. Our third capital allocation priority is maintaining a strong balance sheet.
With the strong free cash flow generation inherent to our business and the high level of free cash flow we expect from our recent training investments, we expect to further strengthen our balance sheet by de-leveraging in the next 24 to 36 months. We are well-positioned for accretive growth and returns, supporting our vision to be the training partner of choice. Thank you for your attention, and I'll turn the podium over to our CEO, Marc Parent.
Thank you, Sonya. As you can see, we truly had a fantastic year, and our strategy to be the training partner of choice is working well for all of our stakeholders. Here's a glimpse of what we have accomplished over the past four years since we launched our pivot to training strategy, and I think we can be pleased with the results.
We gained greater access to large and growing markets, and we've continued to lead the market with the 230 full flight simulators sold over the past four years, and we built the world's largest civil aviation training network. On the defense side, we deployed two-thirds of all new high-fidelity simulators, and we became a top-tier training system integrator. We expanded our offering in healthcare to pursue larger markets at a greater volume. CAE's long-term transformation has been profound for a company which recently derived most of its revenue from products. Our revenues are now highly recurrent, with over 60% coming from training. We're extremely well-positioned for superior growth, thanks to secular tailwinds in all of our markets, to our innovation leadership, and to our talented employees. As we look ahead, we will continue building on our positive momentum as a trusted partner for our customers.
We have an active pipeline of airline outsourcing opportunities. Our well-differentiated position gives us even greater potential for more long-term recurrent training partnerships for CAE. Air travel is expected to continue to grow. In civil aviation alone, we forecast that 300,000 new pilots will be required on a global basis over the next decade to support this growth and to replace retirements. More and more airlines are turning to CAE to help them recruit and train their cadets, their next-generation pilots. Southwest Airlines was the latest one. We announced that 2 weeks ago. As a leader in aviation training, we want to encourage young people to consider the noble profession of pilots. Trained pilots play a critical role in maintaining aviation as the safest mode of transportation, bar none.
To help those youngsters discover the profession and what the training journey entails, we held numerous recruitment drives globally. We created a pilot portal. We launched a CAE pilot account on Instagram and on Facebook. We increased our follower base by allowing our cadets, our customer pilots, and our instructors to take over the channel themselves every week to share their experience live, and it's working. We strongly believe that we have to tap into the full pool of talent in the industry, and that means that more women need to consider becoming airline pilots. Only 5%, to me a shocking number, only 5% of today's airline pilots are women. To develop ambassadors and role models for other women, we've launched the CAE Women in Flight scholarships. You saw that on the video a while ago.
Every year, these exceptional women will publicly share their own pilot journey. We've already announced the first three winners with our airline partners. You see them on the screen. Georgina Thomas-Watson, who's a cadet with easyJet, Daniella Saucedo Orozco, a cadet with Aeroméxico, and Bisma Petafi, a cadet with CityJet. We'll announce additional winners in the coming weeks with our partners, AirAsia and American Airlines. In defense and security, the market's also publicly supported with governments around the world placing a high priority on mission readiness and looking at partners like CAE to help create and maintain critical operations personnel, including, of course, pilots.
We're seeing good momentum as we convert a large bid pipeline into orders, and we expect to continue winning our fair share by building on the successes that we've established as a marquee training services provider. Finally, to make healthcare safer, healthcare professionals are increasingly looking at aviation and simulation-based training as a model. Who else is better positioned than the leader in aviation training to have an impact in this area? CAE, of course, and CAE has the broadest portfolio of innovative solutions, products, and services in healthcare. Our solutions are used by medical device manufacturers, hospitals, colleges, universities worldwide. We believe that the use of simulation will continue to expand. Already, value-based healthcare in the U.S., a model by which hospitals and physicians are paid based on patient health outcomes, which is a new impact.
That's opening up new opportunities for CAE by linking training to the effectiveness and, of course, the successful outcomes. I'm confident in the long-term prospects for healthcare to become a material part of CAE. What's always fueled our growth, and will continue to do so in the future at CAE, is our ability to innovate. Innovation is really in the DNA of this company. I always say it's our secret sauce. Last year, we made the bold commitment to invest CAD 1 billion in digital innovation over five years to revolutionize the way pilots, aircrew, and healthcare training is conducted. We will harness the power, and are harnessing the power of digital technologies to delight our customers and improve our customers' experience throughout their journey. To accelerate our ability to leverage data analytics, artificial intelligence, we've established this past year the Digital Accelerator team.
It's a focused team allowing us to build competitive differentiators to please our customers faster. We stood up that team. It's 100 strong now, really like you to be able to hear a little bit from them while looking at this particular video.
The Digital Accelerator is a new department here at CAE. There's several teams in the Digital Accelerator. There are developers, customer interface developers, designers, all those people work together to create a digital solution to a problem or a pain point that we have with our customers. We're going live with our products this next week and focus on customer feedback, and then we'll improve it based on the customer feedback. That's the process. You get a concept, validate, double-check. Looks good? All right. Next thing. It's a client-first thinking. It is customer-forward thinking. Here is a new solution that our customers now use to provide us with their training requirements in a quick, easy, and efficient way. Customers are loving it. Now, this new app allows pilots to prepare for their upcoming training events at a distance and before they arrive at the training center.
We've also created a way for instructors to show their clients real-time insights into how their session went, and then provide personalized coursework to enhance their development. We are very innovative and always looking to the future, and that's what the Digital Accelerator is all about, and that's why I'm excited to be a part of that. It's a small team that is powering a huge engine.
Well, not so small. There are hundreds and growing.
At the heart of our success are our people. We have a talented team. We want to continue to attract and retain the best employees by maintaining what we have. Well, how do we do this? Surely it is by continuing to be an employer of choice. Our one CAE culture, which is vital, places a high value on employee empowerment and engagement. We listen to our employees' feedback through biweekly pulse surveys. We react quickly. We have also increased our focus on wellness, and by promoting physical and mental health. We now promote employee development through regular conversations focused on coaching as well as agile goals. Things move quickly. We have started transforming our workspaces to optimize teamwork, creativity, and open innovation, all the while continuing to focus on collaboration, of course, on having fun at work.
Every day is different. That's why employees can choose the work setup that works for them. It's about the atmosphere. There's more focus on collaboration. The energy in these spaces is extraordinary. Shortly, there will be 1,500 employees in our Montreal offices who will be sharing different types of work environments. I very much believe that it is imperative that every single employee feels that they can contribute to our success with no exceptions, and that they can understand how personally they can contribute. Our diversity and inclusion initiative aims to build a more open and inclusive workplace where every employee can succeed.
Fulfill their potential. We therefore have placed our first focus on gender diversity. I'd say again, my personal mission is to ensure that everybody at CAE is able to realize their full potential and that they have every possible opportunity for advancement. We're making good progress. CAE was selected for the 2019 Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index. It is the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index for 2019, and that's not minor because we're side by side with 230 worldwide companies that are trailblazers in their commitment to transparency in workplace gender reporting, and they're recognized worldwide by Bloomberg. In conclusion, I would like to commend CAE employees for their dedication and their excellence, and I have to thank them for their contributions. We're one CAE together for our customers, and I'm proud to be leading this great company, which is an industry leader.
We play a key role in making the world a better and safer place for everyone. I would also like to thank all the members of our board. I would like to thank the members of the board in the U.S. for their precious advice and their support. Of course, I would like to thank you, our shareholders, for your trust. Thank you very much.
That will give you an idea why we, on your board of directors are also so proud and excited by what we're seeing happening here at CAE as it continues to transform itself in a transforming world. We're very proud to be part of it and very proud of what our employees and what our management team has been able to do.
We are now ready for the question period. You are entitled to ask a question if you are a shareholder of record or a proxy holder of the company. Please make your way to a microphone and identify yourselves as either a shareholder or a proxy holder, and give your name for the records of the meeting before asking a question. Do we have any questions from our shareholders?
Mr. Wilson, you may have a question. I'm not sure. You was to answer. Over here, yes.
Good morning. My name is Girabi. I'm a shareholder of the company, and I'd like to congratulate you, Mr. President and your team for the results that you have achieved over the last two years, which enabled me to maximize, of course, my investment in the company. My question is this, we're all familiar with the problem of the Boeing 737 MAX, and I'd like to know if CAE could be part of the solution. I have some questions about the management of this. We know all about simulation. My second question is not so much a question, it has to do with your website. I look through the entire list of simulation devices, Airbus or Boeing, Embraer, Bombardier, but what I'd like to know is this, are we training pilots for the 737, the 747, the Airbuses? Those are my two questions.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for your question. Thank you very much for your congratulations. We appreciate that. For the 737 MAX, we, of course, can't say what cannot be said because there are investigations underway. Right now we're working in close cooperation with Boeing, and they're very pleased with this. I've received personal letters of congratulations from the CEO of Boeing, who's thanking us and congratulating us to the work that we're doing with them. We will be part of the solution. That is when Boeing will have completed the design of their solution, and once it has been approved by the certification authorities throughout the world, then we'll be on the front lines in order to upgrade all of the simulators, whether these be the 737 MAXes or the new ones deployed at large, and also the remote controls.
No doubt we'll also be involved in the simulators in the 737s, which might be 737NGs. It all depends on the solution, they might be used for training. It's clear that we'll be part of the solution, and I think it's obvious that there will be a bottleneck once the aircraft are in the air. There will be a great need for training, and of course, we'll be on the front line so that we can meet with that demand, which will be considerable. As to the website, I think that is something we can certainly look at. I think we're doing this, Hélène Gagnon is here. I think she'll come and see you afterwards so that she can give you help with what you're looking at specifically, what you're looking for. Certainly, we train people on all of the flight simulators.
Thank you very much.
Is there a question? Other questions? Yes.
Yeah. My name is Gabor Mathias. I'm a shareholder. I know that these days there's a lot of protectionism in the world, especially protectionism policies coming from the U.S., and so CAE sells a lot of products and services to the U.S. and so I'm always worried about risk. Are there any programs or safeguards against increased protectionism coming at us from the U.S.?
I would tell you that we certainly have not been affected by any such measures anywhere. In fact, you would look at our business as testimony by the fact that we have our U.S. board directors here who have held very senior positions, all branches of the U.S. military. The Special Operations commander who was chairman of our U.S. board, General Brown. We have a U.S. proxy board that allows us to operate at the highest levels of security within the U.S. Department of Defense. I think it's testimony to the fact that we're not being affected, obviously, by protectionist measures. On the other side, I would tell you is that Canada itself is recognized as a key partner from that standpoint, and I realize that covers the defense side.
As a whole, I think that when you consider CAE, I could tell last year we supplied over 80% of the world's simulators, and we are the largest, by far, training provider in the world. We're truly global. We're quite essential to the whole training infrastructure in aviation, which is a regulated business. I think that we're well-insulated. You can never predict everything, but I think we're quite insulated, and we work with U.S. airlines, U.S. partners, and we have about 3,000 employees in the United States. A long answer, but we don't see it.
Do we manufacture any simulators in the U.S.?
What we do, we manufacture the bulk of what we do in simulators right here in Montreal, in this location. What we do in the United States, specifically, we have a facility in Tampa, Florida, where we basically integrate simulators specifically that we would, let's say we fabricate simulators for a military aircraft here. We'll typically send it over there. We do integration work, any sensitive stuff will be done there. Other than that, no. We'll do services to conduct e-training, that side, but not manufacturing.
Okay, thank you.
Okay.
Thank you for your question. Is there a question? Other questions? Seeing none.
With the consent of the floor, I declare this meeting concluded. Thank you very much for your attendance today. I would like to ask you to join us for some light refreshments that will be served in the lobby. Thank you very much, and congratulations, Mr. Parent, to you and to your team. Thank you.