Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Jim Hankison, Chair of CAE's Board of Directors. 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 joining us for the live video 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 the chair in French or in English. With me on the podium today are Mark Perron, President and Chief Executive Officer and Director of the company Sonya Branko, Chief Financial Officer and Mark Hounsell, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and Corporate Secretary. In fiscal 2018, management once again strengthened the company's financial and operational results. This included new records in order intake and backlog and solid growth in our return on capital employed. The evidence is unequivocal.
We have a strong management team implementing the right strategy. This meeting gives shareholders an opportunity to not only see and hear from the Board and management in this formal setting, but also allows for informal discussions during the reception afterwards. Members of the Board and the company's senior executives are in attendance. All are wearing name tags and they look forward to spending time with you following our meeting. At this time, I would like to introduce our current Board of Directors seated in the 1st row.
I would ask them to stand and remain standing as their names are called. Please withhold any recognition until all have been introduced. Margaret Bilson who resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Honorable Michael Forte from Montreal. Alan McGibbon from Toronto.
The Honourable John Manley from Ottawa, Francis Olivier from Montreal, Michael Roche from Montreal, General Pete Schumacher from Tampa, Florida, Andrew Stevens from Gloucestershire, U. K. And Katherine Stevenson from Toronto. These persons, Mr. Perrault and myself are your current Board of Directors.
Thank you. I'm very pleased to highlight Michael Roche as a new addition to our Board since last year's meeting. Michael was President and Chief Executive Officer of CGI Inc. He is an experienced business and technology leader and has extensive leadership experience in Canadian Public Technology Focused Companies. Welcome.
I'm also pleased to present to you a new nominee to our Board, General Norton Schwartz. General Schwartz is currently President and CEO of Business Executives for U. S. National Security and is a retired United States Air Force General having served as its Chief of Staff from 2,008 to 2012. General Swartz was until very recently a Director on the CAE USA Board.
We also have the independent directors of CAE's U. S. Board with us today. And I
would like to introduce them to you and ask them to stand as I call their names.
General Douglas Brown from Dade City, Florida, Chair of the USA Board General Frank Gorrance from Yorktown, Virginia Admiral Tim Keating from Virginia Beach, Virginia and the Honorable Sue Peyton from Colorado Springs, Colorado. Thank you. General Goranst recently joined the Board of Directors of CAE USA. He is a highly decorated retired General in the United States Air Force and rose to the highest levels of leadership in the United States military as one of 12 Air Force 4 Star Generals and to the highest levels of NATO as one of 6 commanders within the NATO command structure. I would like to thank General Schumacher who is not eligible to stand for reelection to the Board consistent with our Director age limit requirements.
I recognize his consistent and wise counsel and his many years of dedication and contribution to CAE. I know that Pete will be greatly missed by all members of our Board. This was also my last year as Chair of CAE's Board of Directors as I too am not standing for reelection as a Director. Before proceeding with the formal portion of today's meeting, I would like to highlight that during my 23 years on CAE's Board, I have seen this remarkable company evolve and mature beyond many people's expectations. It has been an honor to lead a Board of this caliber and I would like to thank our shareholders for their in CAE's ability to generate meaningful economic, social and environmental benefit for shareholders.
I feel confident that with your ongoing support an even brighter future awaits this company. I am pleased to announce that the Honorable John Manley will be appointed as Chair of the Board of Directors immediately following this meeting. Mr. Manley is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Business Council of Canada and Chair of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. From 2004 to 2,009, he served as counsel to McCarthy Tetrault, a national law firm.
Prior to that he had a 16 year career in politics serving as Deputy Prime Minister of Canada and Minister in the Portfolios of Industry, Foreign Affairs and Finance. Mr. Manley has been an asset to the Board since his election in 2,008 and we trust that CAE will continue to thrive under his strong leadership. Congratulations, Sean. Details of the business to come before the meeting are set out in the management proxy circular that was previously mailed to shareholders, having asked to receive it.
Copies are also available at the registration desk. I will now call the annual meeting of the corporation shareholders and Mr. Mark Hansel will act as secretary of the meeting. I have here the certificate of our transfer agent Computershare Trust Company of Canada 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 Gerard of Computershare as scrutineers for the meeting. CAE's bylaws provide that a quorum of shareholders is present at a meeting of shareholders if 2 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. I now declare that this 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 Mark Perron and Sonia Branko, our Chief Financial Officer.
And she will provide the financial update. An opportunity will be provided at the end of the presentation for shareholders to raise general questions. You are entitled to address the Chair if you are a shareholder of record or proxy holder of the company. Please make your way to a microphone and identify yourself as either a shareholder or a proxy holder and give your name for the records of the meeting before asking a question. I would ask that you keep your comments and questions brief and to the point, so that everyone wishing to participate in the meeting has an opportunity to do so.
If you wish to speak to an executive directly, please do so after the meeting. 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. 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 allows 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 shareholder or proxy holder and you have not already voted by proxy, you 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 vote. 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 the votes may not have been counted or a final report may not yet be available. I will do that to keep the pace of the meeting. 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.com in the coming days.
In order to facilitate the flow of the meeting, we have also asked particular shareholders or proxy holders to move or second the motions placed before the meeting. I hereby table the minutes of the Annual Meeting of Shareholders held on August 10, 2017, which will be inserted in the minute books of the corporation. Copies of the minutes will be made available upon request. The next matter is to place before the meeting the financial statements and auditors report thereon for the year ended March 31, 2018. Copies of which were made available to shareholders of 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 term of office of the directors is from today until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until such time as their successors have been elected or appointed. The management proxy circular contains a list of nominees recommended for election as Directors. The nominees to be elected as Directors are Margaret Bilson, the Honorable Michael Forte, Alan McGibbon, the Honorary John Manley, Francis Olivier, Marc Perron, Michael Roche, General Norton Schwartz, Andrew J.
Stephens and Katherine Stevenson. Pursuant to a resolution adopted by the Board of Directors, the number of directors has been set at 10 and 10 eligible candidates have been nominated. I will now ask that Mr. Collebautista move to elect each of the nominees as directors. I so move.
Thank you, Gene. Would Robert Amio second this motion? I second the motion. Thank you, Robert. I would now ask each shareholder or proxy holder to record his or her vote on the ballot provided by indicating whether you vote for or 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. As mentioned earlier, proxies received by our transfer agent before this meeting by mail or electronically allow me as proxy holder to determine the outcome of each of the motions that will go to a vote today. I therefore declare the motion carried and I declare that the 10 directors identified in the management proxy circular are hereby elected for the next year. The next item on agenda is the appointment of auditors. I will ask Andrew Arnovitz 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 directors to fix their remuneration.
Mr. Chairman, I so move. Thank you, Andrew. With Dan Sharkey second the motion? I second the motion.
Thank you, Dan. I would ask each shareholder or proxy holder to record his or her vote on the ballot provided by indicating whether you vote for or withhold from voting on the resolution appointing Pricewaterhouse LLP as auditors. As previously indicated, ballots will be collected and counted following the last item of business. The motion is carried and I declare that PricewaterhouseCoopers 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 the AGM.
The current Board of Directors believes that the company's compensation system is appropriate and that it is directly linked to personal and corporate objectives. We will now vote on the following resolution. Result on an advisory basis and not to diminish the role and responsibilities of the Board of Directors that the shareholders accept the approach to executive compensation disclosed in the management proxy circular. I understand that Nick Lee and Tidus wishes to propose a motion for
the approval.
Thank you, Nick. Would Helen Guagnon second this motion?
I second the motion.
Thank you, Helen. I would ask each shareholder or proxy holder to record his or her vote on the ballot provided by indicating whether you vote for or against the resolution. As I described earlier and based on the preliminary tabulations of our scrutineers, I declare this motion carried and the results to accept the corporation's approach to executive compensation duly approved and confirmed. The next item on the agenda is the renewal of the shareholders protection rights plan agreement for an additional 3 year period. A summary of the principal terms of the shareholder protection rights plan agreement can be found in Appendix B to the proxy circular.
I understand that Pascal Grenier wishes to propose a motion.
I so
do. Thank you, Pascal. Would Marc St. Hilaire second the motion?
Mr. Chairman, I second this motion.
Thank you, Mark. I would ask each shareholder or proxy holder to record his or her vote on the ballot provided by indicating whether you vote for or against the resolution. As I described earlier and based on the preliminary tabulations of our scrutineers, I declare this motion carried.
Please now hand your completed ballots to the nearest attendant.
The next item on the agenda is the President's address to shareholders. Before I turn the podium over to our CEO, Marc Perron, let's watch a short video.
Thanks again, Jim, for that introduction. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
Greetings, everyone, and welcome to our headquarters. It gives me great pleasure to welcome you here once again for CAE's Annual Meeting of Shareholders. More than ever, CAE leads the industry as the training partner of choice for an ever growing number of airlines, defense forces and health care professionals. Every year, we train more than 120,000 pilots and we work with more than 300 airlines and major business aircraft operators as well as more than 50 defense forces. Our training network, the largest in the world, has more than 65 training centers and flight schools.
We are present in 35 countries on
4 continents.
Taking a look at our financial results for fiscal 2018, it's quite clear that we are on a strong growth curve.
We are yet in our 7 decades history. We generated record revenue and order intake and we ended the year with a record backlog. I think we can be have every reason to be very proud of the work that the employees of CE have done and what we've achieved and our outlook for the future. In Civil Aviation, our orders are at an all time high. Following an extensive process improvement program, our flight simulators are more competitive than ever.
As testimony to that, we sold 50 full flight simulators, once again leading the market with one of our best years ever. In training, we increased our momentum. We signed comprehensive long term training agreements with AirAsia, Jazz Aviation, Air Transat and Virgin Atlantic Airways, and that's just to name a few. We also won long term training contracts with Business Aviation customers worldwide, including Elite Avia and Flexjet.
Among other highlights, we inaugurated new training centers in Minneapolis in the U. S. And in South Korea. We acquired AirAsia's share of the Asian Aviation Center of Excellence at Kuala Lumpur and we signed an agreement to establish a joint venture training facility in Singapore, which we finalized this month. We also launched this year both CAE RISE, our newest pilot training innovation and the CAE Master Pilot Training Program for Business Aviation Pilots.
We are the leaders in civil aviation training. And the reason for that is that we continuously innovate to open up new horizons in training.
In Defense and Security, our training systems integration capabilities and robust bid pipeline drove historically high orders for the 3rd consecutive year and generated a healthy backlog. The Royal Australian Air Force, the U. S. Navy and the U. K.
Ministry of Defense extended their training contracts that we had with them. We also signed contracts to deliver comprehensive helicopter training systems for both the Brazilian Navy and the Qatar Air Force. And then also signed end to end training centers for remotely piloted aircraft for the UAE Air Force. We also delivered the world's 1st high fidelity Predator mission simulator for the Italian Air Force, a simulator we jointly developed with the manufacturer of the Predator General Atomics. We continue to strengthen our reputation as a training systems integrator of choice for defense and security forces around the world.
Customers are increasingly turning to us for our flexibility and our wealth of experience operating and delivering training systems across a range of business models.
In Healthcare, we returned to growth in fiscal 2018. Our innovative training solutions also brought us prestigious awards and strengthened our position as a leader in simulation based healthcare education and training. CAE Lucina, the world's first childbirth simulator with augmented reality and the CAE Vimedix AR ultrasound simulator, both make use of the Microsoft HoloLens to transform the way we train health care professionals. The work of our engineers to develop these products is so impressive that Microsoft itself uses CAE's Ultrasound Simulator to showcase the HoloLens capabilities at its headquarters in Redmond, Washington. This year, CAE Healthcare launched CAE Juno, a clinical skills mannequin for nurses, the sector's largest market in the field.
And we also signed new partnerships with professional medical associations and institutes, increasing our reach and ability to help improve patient outcomes worldwide. A good measure of a company's value is to ask the following question. How does it contribute to society? At CAE, our mission is ultimately about making the world safer. And this is a noble endeavor.
We work hard every day to fulfill our mission to ensure that flights are safer, to prepare defense forces for their missions and to help medical personnel save lives. In addition to sustainable and profitable financial performance, investors expect companies like ours to model social responsibility and to benefit society. I'm very proud to say that we are such a company and we believe CAE's noble purpose and profits go hand in hand.
As an example of our leadership, we launched a diversity and inclusion program for our employees this year. And at the recent Farm Bureau Air Show, we introduced the CAE Women in Flight Scholarship Program, demonstrating our commitment to providing the advancement of women in the aviation industry. Women currently represent less than 5% of civil aviation pilots and instructors. And given the industry challenges, I. E, a worldwide shortage of pilots, it's just natural and important to be tapping into the wider talent pool.
So CS program encourages passionate and exceptional women to accomplish their goal of becoming professional pilots. And this year, we raised the bar in social responsibility. We redefined the next phases of our corporate social responsibility program and our journey and established a 5 year plan that will enable us to make our world an even safer, cleaner and better place for all of us. Now I'd like to ask Sonya Branco, our Chief Financial Officer, to provide us with an overview of our financial results. Sonya?
Thank you, Mark, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. CE had a strong financial dollars or $1.11 per share, excluding the impacts of the income tax recovery related to the U. S. Tax reform and net gains on strategic transactions involving our Asian joint ventures. This compares to net income in the year prior of 278,400,000 or $1.03 per share before specific items.
On this basis, annual EPS was up 8%. We received orders valued at $3,860,000,000 for a record total backlog of $7,800,000,000 Once again, Civil Letter growth with year over year revenue increasing by 5 percent to $1,600,000,000 and segment operating income growing 12% to $306,200,000 for an operating margin of 18.8 percent excluding the impact of the net gains related to our Asian joint ventures. We also booked record orders valued at $2,300,000,000 In Defense, we generated revenue of 1,090,000,000 dollars up 5% compared to the prior year. Our segment operating income rose 6% to 127,700,000 dollars for an operating margin of 11.8%. We received total orders of $1,400,000,000 for a book to sales ratio of 1.29 times, making the 3rd consecutive year that we annual orders exceeded revenue.
In Healthcare, revenue was up 4% to $115,200,000 and segment operating income was up to $8,800,000 versus $6,600,000 the previous year. Overall for CAE, our strong operational performance translated into good year from a cash flow standpoint. We generated $288,900,000 of free cash flow for the year, which represents a cash conversion of 97%, excluding the impacts of the items mentioned earlier. This is in line with our annual average conversion customer driven accretive investment opportunities in fiscal 2019 and beyond to continue our growth.
And now let's briefly look at our financial results for the Q1 of 2019. Progress made in the Q1 is in line with our outlook for the year, which remains unchanged. We continue to benefit from sustained demand for the solutions offered by CAE in a strong market. Overall, our Q1 revenue increased by 10% compared with the previous year's Q1, reaching 722,000,000 and operating income was 98,500,000. Net income attributable to shareholders was 69,400,000 or 0.26 dollars per share, up 18% compared with the previous year.
Our financial position remains strong with a net debt to total capital ratio of 26% and a net debt of 811,500,000 at the end of June. Our backlog of 8,050,000,000 leaves CAE well positioned for future growth. In addition to the share buyback program that we continue to offer, I am pleased to announce that our Board of Directors has approved an increase of 11% in our quarterly dividend, which goes from 0.09 to 0.10 dollars per share. This is the 8th consecutive year that we have increased the dividend. Between the dividend increase and the share buyback, we have almost doubled current shareholder returns in the past 3 years.
This demonstrates our confidence in CAE's future prospects. Thank you for your attention. And I now turn the podium over to our CEO, Marc Paron.
Thank you, Sonia.
Thank you, Sonia.
I presented here at the AGM our pivot to training strategy. I think it's useful to look at how we've done since then. We continued over that period to lead the market, selling a record 153 full flight simulators in the market of which you see the customers on the screen, quite an achievement. On the defense side, 90 high end flight simulators and tactical training devices were 1. Our strategic shift to training has allowed us to accelerate our growth by accessing much larger markets.
We won 8 major training systems integration contracts in defense, illustrating how defense forces are increasingly outsourcing their training to CAE. And in Civil Aviation, we signed 8 new airline training partnerships. Since our pivot to training 3 years ago, our training network is larger than ever and CE shares have gone up by 80% to reach $7,300,000,000 market cap. And looking forward, our outlook continues to be positive. In Civil Aviation, air travel is going to continue to increase at about 4% to 5% for the next 20 years.
This past year alone, it grew by an unprecedented 7.5%. New city pairs are being opened up by airlines every single day and airplanes are full. The order backlog of commercial aircraft is equivalent to about 10 years of production. Imagine waiting 10 years for your next car. That's where the situation is.
That's a lot of demand. And for CAE, that means we have a lot of pilots and aircrews to train. In fact, in addition to the large existing market, more than 300,000 new commercial and business aviation pilots will be needed over the next 10 years, and half of them haven't even started to train yet.
Our customers value the fact that we are a pure play training company. Everything we do is training.
We're a
pure play. And they recognize CEE as an innovation leader with the broadest training network and the most comprehensive offering of cadet to captain training solutions. As testimony to our momentum, in recent months, we have signed a series of important long term airline training partnerships, which speaks to CAE's credibility and market reach. These contracts include our joint venture with Singapore Airlines, which is now operational and our new joint venture in Colombia with Avianca Airlines, which further strengthens our position in Latin America. We signed long term exclusive training agreements with Jetstar Japan and Asiana Airlines, both of which specifically selected CAE as an innovation leader, offering capabilities like the CAE RISE training system.
Our pipeline of airline outsourcing opportunities remains highly active. And our recent successes give us even greater potential for more long term recurring training partnerships for CAE. And we continue to have solid momentum in Business Aviation, too. And we are well positioned to provide customers with an excellent experience and to continue gaining market share. And in simulator sales, we're off to a strong start with 26 full flight simulator sales already signed halfway through our Q2.
Budgets continue to be on the rise worldwide. And in the United States, they are at historical highs. We're making very good progress with our training systems integration strategy, and I'm especially pleased with the acquisition of Alpha Omega Change Engineering announced earlier this month, which expands our position in the U. S. Defense market, which is obviously the largest in the world.
Much like our acquisition a few years ago of the NATO flying training contract in Canada, This acquisition enhances our core capabilities as a training systems integrator and allows us to grow our position on enduring platforms such as fighter aircraft. This pure play services contract and business also expands our ability to pursue higher level security programs in the United States and opens up a nearly $3,000,000,000 larger addressable market, which means that our worldwide defense market, which is addressable to us, now stands at $17,000,000,000 Another important measure is the level of our current bids and proposals that we have in front of customers' awakening decision, which is standing today at over $4,500,000,000 Governments around the world are placing a very high priority on mission readiness, and we continue to be successful converting those bids into orders to serve our customers' needs. Just last week, we announced a new contract of over $50,000,000 including options to provide the Royal New Zealand Air Force with CA's latest 700 MR series flight training devices for the NH90 helicopter for their training purposes. In healthcare, simulation is also increasingly seen as a way to reduce preventable harm in hospitals and improve patient safety, which is going to continue to stimulate our market.
And our innovative new products are also well received by this market. Our latest being a CA Ares emergency care mannequin, which we launched just a few weeks ago. Now one of the main areas of strategic priority for CAE is innovation. As I've always said, it's in our genes. And our next horizon in training innovation is focused on digital technology.
CAE is a market leader in Aviation Training with a record of more than 70 years of industry first. We're now developing digitally enabled solutions to transform the way aviation training is done. These solutions enable us to deliver the best possible customer experiences and to grow our share in large and growing markets with even greater differentiation as the worldwide training partner of choice. Our latest innovation, CE Rise, is testimony to that. It's a revolutionary training system that enables the objective assessment of pilots using live data during training sessions.
This system harnesses the power of cloud based computing and analytics that provides CA with unique and deep insights that we could share with our customers and bring their experience to the next level.
And we've just got started. Last week, we announced in partnership with the Government of Canada and of Quebec, Project Digital Intelligence, a digital transformation project to develop the next generation training solutions for aviation, defense and security and healthcare. CAE will be investing $1,000,000,000 over the next 5 years in innovation, one of the largest investments in the aviation training sector in the world. Let's now take a few minutes to watch a video that sums up the high points of our announcement.
We're trying to figure out how can we maximize the value to decision makers by optimizing both the quality and the experience of instructors and pilots.
So what we've accomplished, we've reimagined what it's like to learn as a pilot.
I can tell you that our Prime Minister is a budding pilot as a result of that experience. So as you've seen, this is not just word, we started, we're at the forefront at CE of digital technology. And as the industry's thought leader, this strategic investment will really take our company to the next level. By seizing the power of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, augmented reality and the Internet of Things, which people by awake now call the Internet of Everything and applying them to the science of learning, we're going to revolutionize the training experience of pilots, aircrews and health care professionals. And most of all, that will help us to continue to help improve the safety of air travel and help save lives.
Here today with us are some of the employees who work on our research and development projects, and they are key players in CAE's success. Project Digital Intelligence depends on their knowledge and expertise. As part of our investment, we will create for them an innovation campus right here at our CAE Montreal facilities. There will be cutting edge labs and collaborative workspaces where we will be able to develop our future technological breakthroughs.
We'd like to thank our employees. It's their knowledge and their passion that has made CA the leader it is today, and it will help us take training and CA to the next level. Before turning over the mic to our Chair, Jim Hankison, I'd like once again to sincerely thank him for his dedication to our Board. As you've heard, Jim has been the Chair of Sea's Board of Directors for the last 5 years. And quite unprecedented today, Jim joined the Board as a Director 23 years ago.
Jim, you lead CAE, a financially strong company with rigorous governance processes. You provided absolutely invaluable strategic counsel to me and to the whole company and a legion of personnel here in management as CE transformed itself into the aviation trained leader it is today. It's truly been an honor and a privilege for all of us to benefit from your support. As you've heard from Jim a few minutes ago, I'd also like to welcome CAE's new Chair, the Honorable John Manley, who has been a CA Director for the last 10 years and brings extensive company knowledge and continuity to the fore. And you know John's resume, it bears not me summarizing here, but suffice to say that we have every confidence that under his leadership that CAE will thrive over the years to come.
In addition, I would like to thank all the members of our Board for their advice and support and of course you, our shareholders for your trust.
Last
time, Jim, the podium is yours. Thank you.
Thank you, Mark, for your presentation and your very generous comments to me. We are now ready for the question period. Please use the microphones and state your name before asking a question. In the interest of fairness, we also ask you to please limit yourself to one question. Do we have any questions from shareholders?
Yes, my name is William Wiesenthal, I'm a proxy shareholder. The question is about the languages that CAE works with around the world. How do you manage to translate effectively all equipment and enable so many different countries using different languages to be effective? Is that a clear enough question?
Yes, clear. It's one that I certainly can't.
So Mark, over to you. Well, the one thing I would tell you is the great thing about CAE is we 1st of all, I would say, 1st and foremost, I mean, internationally, the language of aviation tends to be English. But we operate around the world, we're in about 35 countries at any given time. We have customers in over 50, and we tend to be local. The major well, it's the bulk of our international operations, our training centers located in various countries, and our staff tend to be locals.
So we basically generate value, human value in the countries that we operate. So if you go to our training center in Korea, people will be speaking Korean by and large, except when we come to training with English because aviation is English around the world. Pretty much summarizes how we do it. And of course, our products and services are translated for training purposes into the language that they need to be for the training that we do.
Any other questions? If not, that concludes the formal business of the meeting. Thank you all for joining us today, and I invite you to join us in the lobby for some light refreshments. Thank you.