All participants, thank you for standing by. Your meeting is ready to begin. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the CGI third quarter fiscal 2018 conference call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Lorne Gorber, Executive Vice President, Investor and Public Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Gorber.
Thank you, Julian, good morning. With me to discuss CGI's third quarter fiscal 2018 results are George Schindler, our President and CEO, Francois Boulanger, Executive Vice President and CFO. This call is being broadcast on cgi.com and recorded live from Montreal at 9:00 A.M. Eastern Time on Wednesday, August 1st, 2018. The press release we issued earlier this morning, as well as our Q3 MD&A financial statements and accompanying notes, all of which are filed with both SEDAR and EDGAR, are available for download on our website along with supplemental slides. 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, 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, except as required by applicable laws.
The complete safe harbor statement is available in both our MD&A and press release, as well as on cgi.com. We encourage our investors to read it in its entirety to refer to the risks and uncertainty section of our MD&A for a description of the risks that could affect the company. We are reporting our financial results in accordance with international financial reporting standards, or IFRS. 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 turn it over to Francois now to review our Q3 financials, then George will comment on our operational highlights and strategic outlook. Francois?
Thank you, Lorne, good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to share our results for Q3 fiscal 2018. Revenue was CAD 2.9 billion, an increase of CAD 104 million, or 3.7% compared with Q3 last year. On a constant currency basis, revenue grew 3.8%, of which 1% was organic. Bookings in Q3 were CAD 3.5 billion, or 118% of revenue, of which 57% were new projects or new clients. Over the last 12 months, total bookings were CAD 12.9 billion, or 114% of revenue, bringing the total backlog to CAD 22.4 billion, up CAD 358 million sequentially, CAD 1.6 billion over the last 12 months. Adjusted EBIT was up in Q3 to CAD 435 million, compared with CAD 399 million last year, representing a year-over-year increase of 9%. Adjusted EBIT margin improved 70 basis points from 14.1% last year to 14.8%. Regarding the restructuring program announced last year, we incurred expenses of CAD 20 million in the quarter.
To date, we have expensed CAD 169 million, or approximately 90% of the program, and expect to complete all remaining actions before year-end. We incurred integration expenses of CAD 8.5 million in Q3 as we fully implement the CGI model into the operations associated with our most recent acquisitions. Turning to income tax, our effective rate in Q3 was 25.7%, down from 27.1% last year, largely the results of U.S. tax reform. We expect the fourth quarter tax rate to be between 25% and 26%. Adjusting for integration and restructuring expenses, net earnings grew to CAD 310 million in the third quarter, up CAD 31 million year-over-year, and resulting in a net margin of 10.5%, 70 basis points higher than last year. EPS on the same basis expanded by 16.1% to CAD 1.08 per diluted share.
On a GAAP basis, our Q3 net earnings improved to CAD 288 million, and EPS was CAD 1.00, up from CAD 0.92 in Q3 last year. Our operations generated CAD 317 million in cash during the quarter, or 10.8% of revenue. This is inclusive of CAD 22 million in restructuring payments. This compared to CAD 291 million last year, or 10.2% of revenue. Over the last 12 months, cash generated from our operations increased to over CAD 1.5 billion, or CAD 5.16 per share, representing 13.3% of revenue. We ended the quarter with a DSO of 50 days compared to 46 in Q2 2018, primarily due to the timing of large SI&C milestone billing. With more SI&C revenue in Q3, there are less prepayments from outsourcing clients, which temporarily impacted DSO. Our target remains at 45 days. We expect the mix to rebalance over the next several quarters.
In the third quarter, we continued making strategic investment that will advance our business goals. We invested CAD 85 million back into our business, including the development of our IP and the ramping up of new engagements. We invested CAD 43 million to acquire Facilité Informatique, an IT consulting services firm with a strong local presence of 350 consultants and digital specialists in Montreal and Quebec City. We invested CAD 347 million buying back 4.5 million shares at an average weighted price of CAD 76.64 per share. Net debt was CAD 1.7 billion at the end of June, representing a net debt to capitalization ratio of 19.6%. The increase in net debt was primarily due to returning value to shareholders through our recent share buybacks. This level remains well within our comfort zone.
With over CAD 1.5 billion in readily available liquidity and access to more as needed, we remain very well-positioned to continue executing our Build and Buy growth strategy. Now I'll turn the call over to George.
Thank you, François. Good morning. I am pleased with our team's execution in Q3, further strengthening our position as a leading end-to-end services partner for clients around the world. This quarter's results are once again underscored by the widespread demand for digital services by our clients, and CGI's ability to continue bringing the right combination of local experts and global insights to help our clients implement their enterprise-wide strategies. Last quarter, I highlighted some early findings from the 1,400 face-to-face meetings we held with business and IT executives around the world. These findings I shared with you included addressing regulatory compliance and securing data and systems is now a higher priority. We continue to see an acceleration of digitization across industries to meet consumer and citizen expectations. As a result, over half of our clients are increasing their overall IT budgets.
One conclusion remains clear as we continue to slice and benchmark the data. All signs point to continued growth and demand for our consulting and IT services. As such, our business outlook remains optimistic this year and beyond. We are effectively meeting the demand for digital with a holistic, integrated approach that spans our end-to-end portfolio of services. In fact, our CAD 3.5 billion in Q3 bookings were largely driven by engagements that support our clients' drive to create better and more secure digital customer experiences. Those engagements that support the optimization of operations through the use of cyber, intelligent automation, and emerging technologies. It is quite common for our digital mandates to include CGI IP and other enablers such as analytics and cloud to support our clients' strategies.
Our investments in emerging technologies and IP support our ability to win full end-to-end enterprise engagements, which in turn will evolve our balance of SI&C outsourcing and IP in line with our targeted business mix, creating value for all three stakeholders. With this strategic positioning as a backdrop, let's review the Q3 highlights of our global operations, beginning in North America. In the U.S. commercial and state government segment, revenue grew 8.4% in constant currency, driven by utilities, life sciences, and manufacturing. Following last year's metro market mergers, we are leveraging new and existing relationships to bring clients a full view of our end-to-end portfolio of services and solutions. As a result, our U.S. commercial business experienced double-digit growth in the quarter.
EBIT margin was 17.8%. As we mature the CGI model within our latest metro market additions, we expect continued improvement in the growth, profitability, and cash flow of this segment. Bookings were very strong in Q3 at over 160% of revenue, led by renewed activity in our state and local business. During the quarter, the California Department of Health Care Services awarded CGI a seven-year mandate to implement case management, payments, and other supporting services with a total value of over CAD 350 million. This new award is also an example of expanding our services from SI&C and IP into broader and longer-term outsourcing arrangements. In U.S. federal, we are seeing an increased pace of government award activity as evidenced by another strong booking quarter of over 150% of revenue.
Revenue contracted by 2.6% on a year-over-year basis, as we had some positive upsides in Q3 last year, including a large CGI Momentum license sale. EBIT margin was impacted by the same factors, though remained strong at 15.3% as we continue to improve the quality of our federal revenue mix. Notably in the quarter, we were awarded our first two Social Security Administration task orders under the IDIQ announced earlier this year and have booked and started the initial transition phase. The full value of these task orders is expected to be greater than $150 million and will be booked in the coming quarters. We continue to gain traction in cybersecurity. As announced earlier this week, we were awarded a $420 million task order under the Department of Homeland Security's Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation contract program.
We were also awarded one of the prime positions on the comprehensive agency-wide Department of Justice cybersecurity vehicle. We expect task orders to be competed over the coming quarters. In Canada, revenue grew 4%, led by continued demand from the banks in all areas of digital, including human-centered systems design, intelligent automation, and cyber consulting. In addition, we continue to introduce new IP in areas such as open banking. I'd like to recognize our recent metro market merger in Canada, Facilité Informatique, and extend a warm welcome to these 350 professionals. EBIT margin remains strong at 21.5% of revenue, and bookings came in at over 100% of revenue on the continued strength of the banking industry and with public sector wins in the West. Turning to our European operations. In Northern Europe, revenue grew 8%, driven by digital experience work for clients such as Finnair and OP Financial Group.
EBIT margin for this segment was 11.9%, now stabilized as the integration of Affecto into the CGI operations has been completed. The alignment of the Affecto operations to the CGI model and the expected benefits of the restructuring program will yield increasing margins throughout the remainder of fiscal 2018 and beyond. Bookings were 112% of revenue, and in the quarter, we were awarded a contract utilizing CGI IP for Fingrid, which is supporting a next-generation information exchange data hub to store and manage data from all of Fingrid's three and a half million energy consumption locations. In France, revenue grew 2.6% organically, with strength across all vertical markets. EBIT margin was 11.2% as we continue to evolve the business mix. Our IP is now gaining traction.
We had the first implementation of CGI Retail Xp360 and Système U, the €20 billion retail cooperative, and we are implementing CGI Open Finance in a Western European bank, which will enable open banking. In the U.K., we've returned to positive organic growth as planned, 1.5% in the quarter, fueled by the strong bookings in previous quarters. These new engagements are contributing to improved margin as we posted EBIT of 14.6%. Bookings for the quarter were just under 100%. Brexit progresses, we expect to see a near-term slowdown on procurement decisions due to a temporary focus on sovereign programs. Looking further ahead, we expect resulting upside opportunities in both public and commercial sectors due to these new programs. In Eastern, Central, and Southern Europe, revenue grew 4% as Germany continues taking advantage of a robust market with strong double-digit growth year-over-year.
Similar to other European segments, ECS' business mix continues to evolve, with EBIT margin increasing 130 basis points to 7% in the quarter. Bookings were strong at 113% of revenue, driven by vendor consolidation as we see more clients moving to enterprise-wide strategies with trusted global partners like CGI. Turning to our Asia-Pacific operations, revenue grew 5.6%, and EBIT margin was 22.8%. India continues to be an innovation incubator, particularly for agile delivery models, hybrid cloud management, machine learning, and intelligent automation solutions. Their expertise is a key element in supporting bids, winning contracts, and servicing clients around the world. Across all operating segments and through the first nine months of fiscal 2018, revenue is up CAD 471 million, or 4.5% in constant currency. Adjusted EBIT is up 6%, for a margin of 14.5%. Adjusted net earnings are up CAD 70 million, for a net margin of 10.3%.
EPS ex items are up 13.6%. Cash from operations is up CAD 147 million, and bookings are up CAD 1.6 billion, or 114% of revenue. In summary, we remain committed to our aspiration to double the company through our Build and Buy strategy. We will continue our metro market acquisition approach of focusing on companies with annual revenue under CAD 500 million and with deep client relationships in areas where CGI is currently undersized. We have opportunities in each of our operating segments, with a particular focus on the U.S., France, and Germany. We continue to see this strategy as a short-term driver of inorganic growth and a catalyst for accelerating organic growth in the intermediate term. In addition, we are at various stages of discussions regarding transformational opportunities with companies that have over CAD 500 million in annual revenue.
These transactions take patience and resolve to always ensure that we acquire the right company for the right price at the right time. All three without exception. We have 74,000 members, a net increase of 4,000 professionals from the same period a year ago, despite the impact of our restructuring program. We are successfully recruiting and developing in-demand expertise in proximity to our clients in all geographies. This expanding talent base should enable us to accelerate organic growth. Thank you for your continued interest and support. Let's go to the questions now, Lorne.
Just before the questions, a reminder, there'll be a replay of the call available either via our website or by dialing 1-800-408-3053 and using the passcode 5462251. That'll be available until September 1st. There'll also be a podcast for download within a few hours. As usual, follow-up questions can be directed to me at 514-841-3355. Julian, perhaps we could poll for questions now.
Certainly. We will now take questions from the telephone lines. If you have a question and you are using a speakerphone, please lift your handset before making your selection. If you have a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. You can at any time cancel your question by pressing the pound sign. Please press star one at this time if you have a question. Our first question today will be from Thanos Moschopoulos from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. With respect to the restructuring program, you mentioned you've incurred 90% of the total charges. Ultimately, was that the main factor in driving the margin expansion we saw relative to Q3, or is that more a function of other factors like utilization rates?
Yeah. Well, thanks for the question, Thanos. Really, remember, when we planned this out on the restructuring, we wanted to be at run rate savings by the end of the year, and so we're on track to do that. I would say close to 90% of the savings are in quarter, and yes, that is a driver. Yes, that part of the driver to do the restructuring was to increase the utilization. We are seeing the utilization come up. I also want to remind you that the benefits of the restructuring were not just cost savings. It was really to position ourselves for profitable growth in the new demand areas. We're seeing that, and I highlighted that with the addition of the 4,000 professionals through the first nine months of the year.
Also, we continue to automate and transform our infrastructure business to the asset light model. We will see additional benefits through that organic growth and transformation as we move into the future, and also then the benefits from the mix of business, which I've talked about before.
Great. I think you kind of alluded to this in your prepared remarks, but could you update us in terms of the cross-selling opportunities you've been able to capture with some of the Metro acquisitions? Still early days on that front, or are some of those coming to fruition and in the bookings numbers?
No, a number of those are coming into fruition, and you saw that the U.S. commercial and state government had very strong bookings in the quarter. It is a continuous process to drive the full breadth of offerings into those clients, but we are seeing growth. Had some recent success with some pharmaceutical firms from our Paragon acquisition in the Northeast. We have some success in the West, particularly around some of the digital skills around cloud-native applications in the West from our ECS acquisition in Denver. We're already seeing some of that, and you're seeing them in the bookings. Having that full breadth of offerings, I think we're seeing the same thing across the world. More SI&C right now, but still an opportunity to drive more of that outsourcing.
Great. Thanks, George. I'll pass the line.
Yep.
Thanks, Thanos.
Thank you. The next question will be from Steven Li from Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hey, George. Couple of questions from me. Your comments on the U.S. side. These tough comparisons, does it continue next quarter, or should we see your growth snap back?
Yeah, no, it's a great question. As you mentioned, the best predictor of future growth is the bookings. We continue to have some strong bookings, the reason I highlighted, we see the pace of award decisions in federal increasing. That's certainly helping us. We see a more normalized end of the quarter than we have in the recent past. What that means is the end of a government fiscal year, when they actually have budgets, they look to spend. There's a little bit of increase in spending on those budgets, it's twofold. It's both in bookings, also in some of the revenue ramp-up. Even though we had a ramp-up in revenue last year, it's not those one-time licenses that I mentioned. I think we've got some nice tailwinds. I'd also mention the SSA task orders. Those are ramping up.
We expected that to happen a little bit earlier, that's ramping up. Between the bookings, the end-of-year pickup, the Social Security task orders, I see federal having only increases in some of the momentum of the pace of revenue growth.
Great. Thanks. Just one more question. Your MD&A also called out the lower IP licenses, especially in the U.S., which I believe is your largest IP market. If you can update us, how are you tracking relative to your IP 30 target? Any regions that might be offsetting the lower IP in the U.S.? Thank you.
Sure. No, I'll break that down two ways. First, actually, the percentage of revenue in IP, remember we reset that to 21% in the recent quarter due to the acquisitions. That's now up to 22% of revenue. You see that momentum through the first nine months of the year. We've actually grown IP at over 6%. It's actually growth over our revenue run rate. That's good news. The IP licenses that were called out really is a different nuance. It's not the revenue, it's the type of revenue. We're introducing new IP. That's a good thing. All of that new IP is sold in more of a SaaS model. That doesn't have the same license fees as some of the mature IP. The mature IP, we're adding on services. I called out in federal the large Momentum license.
That license is driving more SI&C revenue in federal. I've always said about seven to one in services dollars to a license dollar historically. That number is much higher now, particularly in some of our mature IP, and particularly in an ERP like Momentum. We're experiencing that. More services. Another example of that is the big CMIPS win we had in California, just announced this morning. That's actually on the back of our Advantage IP, but we're now expanding those services to more systems, surround systems, as well as BPO. That's not licensed, but it drives, that sticky license sales is driving more revenue in the future. I'll just remind you also on the SaaS, the license margin is baked into there. Overall margins rise over time, you don't get those one-timers.
That's the comparators that we're going to have probably for a couple of quarters here as we transition through that.
All right, great. Thanks, George.
Thanks, Steve.
Thank you. The next question is from Richard Tse from National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. George, you no doubt have had a great couple of years in terms of SI&C. I'm just curious to see when you think those engagements are going to accelerate when it comes to converting to longer-term outsourcing engagements. Is that sort of one year out, 18 months out? Just kind of give us an order of magnitude on that.
Yeah, it's a good question. I think, Richard, I mentioned this before. I'm not sure I want to will that to happen too quickly because I want to keep building up that SI&C, which is the tip of the spear, if you will. If you do see in the bookings this quarter, actually it did tip the other way. It's about 55% outsourcing, and that's the first quarter in the bookings for a while that we've seen that. That's on the back of bookings like the one we announced this morning in California. We are starting to see that. I think it's still the early phases of that. I think it'll flip back and forth because still we're at about 55% revenue in SI&C overall, it'll take a little bit more time.
I think it's coming, and it will be a tailwind to our accelerating growth here in the future. I'd also want to highlight that 57% of the bookings this quarter were net new business. I think that's also an indicator when you look at those outsourcing. That's the transition from the SI&C to new outsourcing as opposed to a renewal of outsourcing.
Okay. That's helpful. I guess related to that, you've talked recently about what I think is sort of considerable margin expansion opportunity as we look ahead, given sort of some of the changes structurally. Can you sort of confirm that you're sort of still thinking that way in terms of that potential expansion? Because obviously that'd be very meaningful given the leverage in the business.
Yes, absolutely, Richard. As I mentioned, the reason we did the restructuring really was strategic to capture the net new business, as I mentioned, as that mix of business converts from the SI&C to the outsourcing, as we introduce the new IP and convert that to SaaS, there should be expansion of margins in every region and every geography in the world.
I guess, related to the margin expansion, what do you think today about headcount, ability to retain talent? Clearly everything we read now is that there's certainly a lot of lack of talent, I suppose, out there, or maybe I'm wrong, but it's a lot of discussion around wage inflation. Does that impact you in any way, and how do you bake that into sort of this prospects for margin expansion?
It's a good question because although we are obviously in the business solutions and IT services business, it's a people business. That's why I highlighted the net new professionals that we added, both organically and inorganically. I would say we have a couple of benefits here on the talent side. We have an ownership culture of accountability, and we're actually up now 83% of our professionals are owners of the CGI stock, but it just starts there. It's a mindset and it's a culture of ownership. It's very attractive, particularly on the entry-level hiring. We've had a very robust entry-level hiring. This is where you're getting the new talent. I always say that talent is a renewable resource. There's not a finite set of people. There are a number of entry-level hires graduating every year. Our referrals are up.
Because of that ownership culture and our focus and collaboration for and with our clients, which is what people really want to have, is they want to have an impact, and you see that in our client satisfaction scores are up. We have very high acceptance rates. I would not say that acquiring and retaining talent isn't paramount for a services firm, but we like where we are, and we continue to be able to add to our member base in the right areas.
That's great. Thank you.
Yep.
Thanks, Richard.
Thank you. The next question is from Maher Yaghi from Desjardins Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. George, congratulations on the strong booking in the quarter and actually the past couple of quarters. I'm trying to just understand or square off the increase in the backlog year-over-year, which is close to 8%. How much of that increase came from acquisitions versus bookings that you guys did organically? Again, I'm trying to just square off that growth of 8% with the 1% organic growth rate that the business is generating right now. When should we start to see acceleration of that organic growth?
Thanks for pointing that out. Just to your specific question on the addition to the backlog for our acquisitions. Yes, some of that comes from the acquisitions, but a much smaller percentage because most of these metro market acquisitions, by their nature, are shorter term SI&C consulting only offerings. We obviously are converting that over to the full offering suite, some outstanding talented members, but really focused on that front end of the SI&C. Some of it goes into the backlog, but not a whole lot of that. Most of that really is from those strong bookings that we've had over the last really several quarters in really all areas of the business in which we operate. Yes, you will see that coming in. It's why I also highlighted the 57% new business. It's a good indicator.
I can't predict exactly when all that comes in, but it's why I'm very optimistic about accelerating growth in the future.
Is there a part of the business that is acting as a counterbalancing that momentum and growth in the bookings, and so that organic growth rate is staying at the low single digit, or it's just a matter of, as you said, just getting through those, converting the backlog into revenues, and that's when we should start to see the acceleration?
Yeah. Well, I think it's a good question because there have been, over the last several quarters, there have been some counterbalances. Obviously, the U.K. and some of the initial fallout from just the shock of Brexit had an impact. You saw that was going down really over the last year. It's now returned to a smidgen of growth. That's gone. Federal in the quarter, and I explained that in the broader context of some of the comparables on IP licenses. I have been highlighting for some time, Maher, as we continue to transition our infrastructure business, that is a counterbalance in some of the segments around the world. Our SI&C is up everywhere organically. The infrastructure business, by its very nature, is down in virtually every place in the world. We're getting through that. That's why we accelerated the asset light.
It's less and less of a counterbalance, Which again, is why in the future I see accelerating growth.
Okay. Thank you. One last question to François. François, I ask you this question probably every quarter, but I'll ask it again. Any change in how you view capital allocation with the very increasing cash balance and your view on how dividend could fit into that capital model framework that you have?
Like I did say in the past, we're reviewing this every year. We did it in January, we'll re-look at again in the January timeframe. Just to say that we still like very much the flexibility of the share buyback, especially like George was saying, that we're very active on the buy side. For sure, we have a lot of opportunity on the buy side. We like to have the opportunity of having the capital ready when it's time to trigger the next big acquisition.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Maher.
Thank you. The next question is from Stephanie Price from CIBC. Please go ahead.
Good morning.
Hey, Stephanie.
Stephanie.
You mentioned in your prepared remarks that the restructure is partially to position CGI for new technologies. I was wondering if you could talk a bit about where you're investing and seeing growth.
Yeah. Well, thanks, Stephanie, for the question. It's really in a lot of the areas, as I mentioned, around digital customer experience. We're investing in some of that front-end human machine design, intelligent design on the front end, some of our IP in that area. We've invested in some new IP that takes advantage of some of the digital technologies and provides then the value proposition to our clients. We're also investing a lot in cyber, and you saw some nice strong bookings around the world. It's an area of obvious growth for us and need for our clients, and we saw that in the voice of the clients. We're also investing a lot in the all areas of what I call intelligent automation. Everything from the RPAs, straight through to some of the machine learning and other intelligent automation areas.
These are the areas that we freed up. When I say invest, our big investment is in IP. When I mention we invest in IP, even our new IP around open banking, our IP around central market systems, our IP in CGI Retail Xp360, always done in conjunction with our clients, we know the market's there. That investment, we already have a market, in some cases, pre-sold sales that we have. The other investments are in some of the skill sets required for us to deliver those offerings to our clients. It's not really a drag on the margin, but it is an opportunity to drive future margin expansion as we move to the higher-end services. Just want to qualify and quantify when I talk about those investments.
Great. Thank you.
Okay.
Then in terms of recent tuck-ins over the past year, can you talk about whether they're where you want them to be from a margin perspective, or if there's more work to do there?
They actually are absolutely getting to where we want them to be from a margin perspective. There's still some work to be done to drive that full offering suite into those clients. As I mentioned, we're seeing some of the successes, and you see that in the bookings, but we don't see all that yet in the revenue and the growth.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Stephanie.
Thank you. The next question is from Paul Treiber from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. I was hoping you can just clarify a comment on the U.S. business. You mentioned that the license sales were a tough comp, also in the MD&A, there was a comment about a favorable volume adjustment. Is that related to the license sales, or is it independent? Could you just quantify the dollar value or the percent value of those impacts?
No, that was relating to a BPO contract, it was unrelated to the license. It was a one-time related to the contract volume. A lot of that dropped to both the top line, but also the bottom line. François, I don't have the quantified numbers.
No, I don't have it here. We can follow up after.
If you take those out, federal would've been positive growth.
Of course. Yeah.
For sure.
For sure.
Okay. Then just looking at European, it seems like you're having strong growth in Germany, even though it's one of your smaller regions in terms of footprint. What's been the go-to-market strategy there? How do you source, or how have you been sourcing the resources to execute in that market?
Yeah. No, it's a great question. It's really, the demand is across the board, in all areas of digital customer experience, but also those digital operations that I talked about. It's leveraging new technologies, including RPA, as well as some innovative work on the front end. It's really being driven by this whole digitization demand by our clients around the world. That's happening in spades in Germany, especially with the strong economy there. Again, what we're seeing from clients is they're moving more away from that short-term cost cutting into medium-term transformation in order to grow. You're going to see that go fastest in the strongest economies, because that's where our clients are seeing the opportunities to grow themselves, which in turn drives growth for us through these digitization opportunities. Sourcing is really, as I mentioned, we're hiring. We're gaining.
We've hired, I think by the end of the year, we will have increased our member base in Germany by 20%+. That's a number of new hires, and that gives you some idea of that double-digit growth that I'm talking about in Germany. What we have done recently, I think that you're aware, is we're changing the leadership in that part of the world. We're looking to use those same strategies in Germany and Netherlands, and I'm pleased to report that Netherlands actually is on the path to growth. That's a significant element because what's been dragging down their margins has been utilization. The combination of the restructuring program and now the new bookings, we should see the improvements across the region, just like we're now seeing in Germany.
All right. Thank you. Have fun.
Okay.
Thanks, Paul.
Thank you. The next question is from Paul Steep from Scotia Capital. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks. Morning, George. One question. Could you talk a little bit about M&A and the go-to-market for smaller metro and sort of regional deals, the process there in terms of maybe as well the capacity to produce a much larger number of smaller deals, and then maybe compare year-on-year if you've ramped up that team dramatically? Thank you.
Yep. No, that's fine. I'll just remind you, our approach, we've always done this on the due diligence side of the M&A process, we moved the sourcing side of M&A also to the region. We're a decentralized model, each of the business unit leaders who are always responsible for the due diligence and working with our corporate M&A team, we've now moved a significant part of the sourcing now to those same business unit leaders. Each of our business unit leaders in each of our eight strategic business units around the globe have responsibility for sourcing. A lot of this comes from our voice of the clients, as I mentioned before. Some of this comes from existing partnerships and co-opetition opportunities, they're in the markets. They know the firms that are out there.
We've also expanded that sourcing to make sure that we're not missing those regions that maybe we're undersized in, we're also expanding the efforts. The actual, then, work of the due diligence, talking to various companies, that's all sourced out to those business unit leaders. It's part of their responsibilities. We've changed the model there. We added some to our corporate M&A team, I would say that we could ramp up and do 60 of these at the same time because we have 60 of those business unit leaders around the globe.
Sorry, just to clarify. Thank you. On the BU, in the BUs
Yeah
do you have a sense of how much they've been growing their capacity and their team to go hunt deals, I guess, is more where I was actually heading with it. Thank you.
Oh. You were going to their operations.
Exactly.
I don't have that. They all have that capacity. It's all part of the model. What I can tell you, we have a very active list that I review on a weekly basis with the presidents and the business unit leaders. There's no shortage of opportunities. Yeah.
Thanks.
Thanks, Paul.
Thank you.
The next question is from Robert Young from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead. Mr. Young, is your line on mute?
Okay, I'm here now.
Robert, go ahead.
You highlighted the benefits of the metro market strategy in the U.S. I wanted to see if there are any areas where that strategy could be extended, in the U.S., on the West Coast perhaps, or other places. Do you have any plans to do that?
Yes. We have our own IP that we built with every city located on it where there could be opportunities overlaid with CGI Business, CGI professionals, and available IT services companies. That becomes the source of that data. As you point out, there are a numerous set of areas in the West of the Mississippi and quite frankly, even in the Midwest, where we're undersized, and there are opportunities to grow, particularly in that Pacific Northwest.
Yeah, we think of you as a vendor with broad geographic footprint, but we think if you look at that IP, is how much of the opportunity is unmet inside the U.S. in the commercial space that you could address over the next little while or over the next several years?
Well, it's the largest market in the world, so both from an IP perspective and from a full offering suite, there's a lot of opportunity. It's just a very highly fragmented market, particularly in the U.S.
Okay. A follow-on on one of Paul's earlier questions around Germany. I think you highlighted in the monologue that you're seeing vendor consolidation as companies are moving towards global end-to-end partners, I've heard you mention that as a strategy or as a differentiator for CGI, I haven't heard a lot of actual examples of that happening. Is Germany an early mover, or is that something you're seeing across the entire footprint? Maybe if you could talk a little bit more about that.
Yeah, I would say that it's been more pronounced in Germany, it depends on where your starting point was. I would say less Germany an early mover, more Germany had a lot of large clients that had a proliferation of IT services partners. I think that's what makes it more pronounced in Germany. It is something we see around the globe.
Okay, last question from me. I think you mentioned the percentage of IP and the revenue. Can you provide the number in the bookings if you haven't already mentioned it, I'll pass the line.
Yeah. No, I did not mention the bookings. Again, because of the license change, I think it was about 16% of the bookings this quarter.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay.
Thanks, Rob. Thank you. The next question is from Howard Leung from Veritas Investment Research. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys, and thanks for taking my question.
Hi.
Just wanted to touch upon transformational acquisitions. George, I think you talked a bit about that. What do you see as kind of the biggest hurdle to getting those when you're in negotiations? Is it the right price, right time, right company?
Yeah. No, I think right now it is the valuations that are out there, and therefore the expectations that has created or just the hurdles that creates. That's why it does take some time, and we're not going to overpay. Especially for public companies, the valuations have to make sense. I would say that's the biggest hurdle point in time. That changes, that's why you start the discussions. I think it's less of what it had been. It was less about valuation, it was more about the mix of the business in some of these areas, particularly on the infrastructure side and the undifferentiated BPO side. That's changed a bit. I think we see some stronger opportunities now, the price has to be right.
Right. No, that makes sense. On the metro market strategy with the high-end consulting firms, you talked about how you had BUs trying to find their own companies to acquire as well. Is that throughout all of Europe and North America as well that that's happening, or is it more of a North American effort?
No, that's happening around the globe.
Okay.
I have those reviews weekly with every president around the globe.
Okay. No, that's great. Thanks, guys, and I'll turn back.
Okay.
Thanks, Howard. Julian, we'll have time for one last question.
Certainly. Our last question will be from Ralph Garcea from Echelon Wealth Partners. Please go ahead.
Thanks for squeezing me in here. Just some quick questions on the Advantage and Momentum business. As you look at those renewals, what's really driving, I guess, the growth in those contracts? Is it a move to the cloud and hybrid in some of those government areas, and you're wrapping a cybersecurity layer around that, or are they adding more modules to what they were using in the past?
Yeah, no, it's a great question. A lot of it is being driven by the introduction of more modern technologies, not just cloud, but some technologies that can change the way the users interact with the various modules. Data analytics is a big piece of that. As I mentioned, overlaying the BPO on top of it and even the interaction of our IP with other surround systems. It's really a combination of all of those factors.
On the commercial side, are you seeing more demand for Azure or AWS, or where are you seeing your clients sort of moving from a commercial cloud business?
Yeah. Well, as you know, we're agnostic. I don't have the numbers on that, but we really focus on making sure that we're taking advantage of the opportunities of the cloud and consulting with our clients to make sure that they're managing the hybrid cloud, because we see more and more hybrid cloud. It might be one or both of those flavors of public cloud plus some private cloud and/or internal infrastructure. It's all of the above.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you. This concludes today's meeting. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you all for your participation.
Thank you all for joining us.
Thank you.