Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to CGI's second quarter fiscal 2026 conference call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Kevin Linder, SVP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Linder.
Thank you, Sylvie. Good morning. With me to discuss CGI's second quarter fiscal 2026 results are François Boulanger, our President and CEO, and Steve Perron, Executive Vice President and CFO. This call is being broadcast on cgi.com and recorded live at 9:00 A.M. Eastern Time on Wednesday, April 29, 2026. Supplemental slides, as well as a press release we issued earlier this morning, are available for download along with our MD&A financial statements and accompanying notes, all of which have been filed with both SEDAR+ and EDGAR. Please note that some statements made on the call may be forward-looking, actual events or results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. 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.
The complete safe harbor statement is available in both our MD&A and press release, as well as on cgi.com. We recommend our investors read it in its entirety. We're reporting our financial results in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS. As always, we will also discuss non-GAAP performance measures, which should be viewed as supplemental. The MD&A contains definitions of each one used in our reporting. All of the dollar figures expressed on this call are Canadian unless otherwise noted. I'll turn the call over to Steve to review our Q2 financials. François will comment on business and market outlook. Steve.
Thank you, Kevin, and good day, everyone. In our second quarter of fiscal 2026, we continued to create value for our shareholders while executing on our AI strategy. In the quarter, we delivered CAD 4.2 billion of revenue, up 3.3% year-over-year, or up 1.6% when excluding the impact of foreign exchange. Growth was driven by our recent business acquisitions and continued demand for our APAC delivery center, especially from our North American clients. APAC reported growth of 7.2%, supported by DigiOps, our award-winning AI-powered offering for the delivery of managed services. In our U.K. and Australia segment, with our acquisition of BJSS, growth was 16.5%. In our Western and Southern Europe segment, growth was 8.3%, led by our acquisition of Apside, which added scale for our software engineering services.
Our U.S. Federal unit took a bit longer to recover from delays in decision-making and the ramp-up of new contracted work following the fall U.S. government shutdown. This segment improved sequentially, and based on what we see in the pipeline and our booking strength in Q2, we expect that CGI Federal will return to positive organic growth in Q3. We also were impacted by delays in decision-making across Europe, mainly with the Nordic countries. Bookings in the quarter were CAD 4.3 billion, or a book-to-bill ratio of 104%, led by a strong return in our U.S. Federal segment at 122%. Other notable segments were concentrated in Europe, with Germany at 114% and Scandinavia, Northwest and Central East Europe, and WSE both at 111%.
Managed services and SI&C each had a book-to-bill ratio of 104% in the quarter. For SI&C, this represented a continued sequential improvement over the last 3 quarters. SI&C projects are shorter in duration relative to managed services, but realize revenue much sooner after their booking. On a trailing 12-month basis, bookings reach a record high of CAD 18 billion, up 6% or nearly CAD 1 billion. Book-to-bill ratio was 108%, with North America at 117% and Europe at 102%. On the same basis, managed services had a book-to-bill ratio of 118%, and the SI&C book-to-bill ratio was 98%. Our contracted backlog stands at CAD 31.5 billion or 1.9x revenue.
Of the CAD 31.5 billion, we have almost CAD 12 billion in already contracted revenue to be realized over the next 12 months. Turning to profitability, adjusted EBIT in the quarter was CAD 692 million, up 3.9% year-over-year for a very strong margin of 16.6%, up 10 basis points. Including acquisition and related integration costs of CAD 41 million, earnings before income taxes were CAD 618 million for a margin of 14.9%. Our effective tax rate in the quarter was 26.6%, an increase from the 25.9% in the prior year when excluding the tax impacts from acquisition and related integration costs.
The increase is mainly explained by the new corporate tax surcharge in France. Based on enacted rates at the end of the quarter and our current profitability mix, we expect our tax rate for future quarters to be in the range of 26%-27%. Adjusted net earnings were CAD 483 million for a margin of 11.6%. On the same basis, diluted EPS was CAD 2.27, an accretion of 7.1% when compared to Q2 last year. Net earnings were CAD 445 million for a margin of 10.7%. Diluted EPS was CAD 2.09, an accretion of 10.6% when compared to Q2 last year. Turning to cash.
On the back of strong cash generation in our first quarter with CAD 180 million of prepayments from clients, in Q2, we generated CAD 451 million, representing 11% of total revenue. Our cash on a trailing 12-month basis was CAD 2.5 billion, representing 15% of revenue. DSO was 40 days, unchanged when compared to the prior year. In Q2, we continued to deploy our capital and invested CAD 105 million back into our business, which includes strategic investment in advanced AI, CAD 397 million to buy back our stock, and in addition, we returned CAD 36 million to our shareholders under our dividend program. Yesterday, our board of directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of CAD 0.17 per share.
This dividend is payable on June 19th, 2026 to shareholders of records as of the close of business on May 15th, 2020. At quarter end, CGI had over CAD 2.2 billion in capital resources readily available and a net debt leverage ratio of just over 1. Yesterday, we increased our credit facility by CAD 1 billion, now totaling CAD 2.5 billion, providing additional financial capacity for our build and buy growth plans. Our capital allocation priorities have always remained consistent to deliver shareholder value. Investing back in the business, pursuing accretive acquisitions, and share buybacks. Now, I will turn the call over to François to further discuss insights on the quarter, the progress on our AI strategy, and the outlook for our business and markets. François?
Thank you, Steve. Good morning, everyone. Today, I will focus on our first half performance, the demand outlook for the second half, and our enterprise AI growth strategy. Year-over-year, for the first half of 2026, revenue was up 5.5% or 2.5% in constant currency to more than CAD 8.2 billion. Adjusted EBIT was up 5.4% to CAD 1.35 billion. Adjusted EPS was up 7.4% to CAD 4.38. Cash from operations total over CAD 1.3 billion, up by more than CAD 238 million, representing 16.1% of revenues. Each of these results represent a record high for half year performance, demonstrating CGI's proven discipline and agility to deliver shareholder value.
Importantly, these results also underscore our financial strength and our ongoing capacity to invest in profitable growth to position CGI for the future. CGI's financial health remains a differentiator in the current market for shareholders and for clients. Thank you to our experts, engineers, and consultants around the world for earning the trust of our clients every day. Your expertise, insights, and commitment made these results possible. During Q2, many clients again face an unpredictable business environment. To help them navigate these conditions, many turn to CGI as a trusted, steadfast partner to help them consider new strategies and delivery approaches, notably to address the opportunity to integrate advanced AI at the enterprise level.
Our positioning contributed to strong first half bookings of nearly CAD 8.8 billion, up CAD 141 million year-over-year, even with temporary decision delays impacting some larger agreements, mainly in Finland. Specific to government sector bookings, we saw a return to strong awards in the quarter with a book-to-bill of 111%. This was led by our U.S. federal segment at 122% as our team closed a combination of large managed services wins, as well as IP and AI-led monetization engagements. The strong quarter raised the U.S. federal's trailing 12-month book-to-bill to 111%, the first time this metric has been above 110% since Q4 of fiscal 2024. With these new projects in U.S. federal, we expect this segment to grow organically in Q3, as Steve indicated.
From a services perspective, bookings were driven by robust demand for our AI and IP integrated managed services, which totaled CAD 10.5 billion on a trailing 12-month basis for a book-to-bill of 118%. Clients continue to expand core system modernization to drive operational efficiencies and generate savings to reinvest in new priorities, requiring more systems integration and consulting services such as AI advisory and change management. Continuing the trend we signaled last quarter, demand for SI&C rose in Q2 with a book-to-bill of 104%. This also represents a sequential quarter improvement of 5.5%. Strong SI&C wins in H1 contributed to a trailing 12-month increase of more than CAD 800 million compared to the previous period.
Representative Q2 wins included: The U.S. Social Security Administration expanded its relationships with CGI through a $188.98 million contract to provide 24/7 support of mission-critical infrastructure, serving more than 75 billion beneficiaries. This reinforces CGI's role in operating large-scale secure government systems. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs extended its partnership with CGI to advance financial management's transformation using CGI's Momentum Enterprise Suite. In Germany, Schneider Electric expanded its agreement with CGI to deliver end-to-end AI-enabled solutions for energy providers across 3 countries, combining consulting, integration, and managed services to help utilities optimize operations and navigate regulatory complexity. A subsidiary of the Saint-Gobain Group in France selected CGI's Retail Suite IP to modernize point-of-sale systems across 68 locations, improving checkout efficiency, transaction security, and real-time operational visibility.
CGI's global alliance relationships are also contributing to our bookings. Our pipeline of opportunities is up more than 180%. Recently, we expanded our joint go-to-market collaboration with AWS, OpenAI, and Google Cloud. We also continue to deepen our existing partnerships with firms like Microsoft, SAP, Databricks, and Salesforce through advanced certifications and recognitions. These developments reinforce CGI's position as a preferred global integrator. Throughout the first half, our financial strength enabled us to continue strategic investments in our business, including M&A. In the quarter, we announced the acquisition of Stratfield Consulting, further strengthening CGI's position in Atlanta, a key U.S. growth market. The consultants who joined CGI bring expertise in areas critical to embedding AI at enterprise scale, including digital engineering and technology strategy. I would like to warmly welcome the new consultants who joined CGI from Stratfield.
CGI's buy strategy remains a critical element of our growth plan, ensuring we are in proximity with existing and new clients to understand and adapt to their needs. We remain in dialogue with a number of firms, from metro market to transformational opportunities. All opportunities we consider are in line with the evolving skills needed for the future, as well as client relationships where we can bring CGI scales and global offerings. As always, we will be disciplined to ensure that mergers will be accretive to each of our stakeholders. I will now turn to the market dynamics, how these shape the outlook and our positioning to drive growth, notably through the continued progression of embedding AI across client enterprises. Throughout Q2, we met with more than 1,800 current and prospective clients, mainly C-level business and IT executives, as part of our annual strategic planning.
In discussion about their budgets for the next year, two-thirds of executives indicated they plan to sustain or increase their IT budgets. Our pipeline over the next year validates this as the value of new opportunities grew by over 40%. Executives we spoke with also noted that the alignment gap between business and IT within their organization is starting to expand again, making it more challenging to achieve the expected ROI. Over the years, we have measured this ROI metric, and this year the results show a plateau. To jumpstart their results for modernization, clients are increasingly turning to AI and managed services, particularly at the C-suite level. Enterprise AI adoption rose compared to last year, with one-third of organizations now at the implementation stage, notably for generative AI, and a top emerging priority remains agentic AI integrations.
These findings, a growing alignment gap, stalled ROI, and accelerating use of emerging technologies are a natural effect of earlier-stage AI adoption. All of these findings create new opportunities for CGI to deliver a wide range of end-to-end services. To understand these shifts and what they mean for CGI growth, it is important to recognize the complex systems underpinning our clients' operations. Introducing AI doesn't simplify this complexity overnight. It increases the need to manage and integrate it properly. As a result, standalone AI tools are not a substitute for enterprise IT. They accelerate tasks and processes but don't solve integration at scale. This complexity is driving new clients' behaviors. For example, organizations continue to move toward fewer trusted IT partners who can deliver end-to-end outcomes. These shifts play directly to CGI's strength.
We are positioned at the center of this change because of how we operate, our enduring client relationships, industry expertise, and end-to-end value proposition. This enables us to meaningfully embed AI directly into the systems and processes that run our clients' organizations. CGI's AI-first approach is based on two core tenets: we make AI real and outcome-focused. At the core of every enterprise, including our own, we transform how value is created, how work gets done, and how the future is built. We remain well-positioned to drive new growth leveraging this AI-first approach in four ways. We help clients operate more efficiently, we transform their legacy technology estate, we launch new services and solutions to capture net new areas of spend and growth, and across all of these areas, we deliver consulting services.
These four areas are closely integrated, and together, they offer significant opportunities for CGI to grow in this market environment. I will now go deeper in each of these elements. Clients continue to focus on driving efficiency as a top business priority. Through our managed services and IP solutions, we embed AI into IT operations, software delivery, and business workflows, reducing manual effort and improving performance. For example, CGI transformed customer service for a global financial institution by deploying an AI-driven operations platform integrated with core systems to handle and self-resolve over 500,000 interactions annually. For a healthcare organization, we implemented an enterprise AI platform to automate workflows and optimize claims, driving higher efficiency, increased savings, and establishing a scalable foundation for broader AI-driven transformation. Today, every new CGI managed services proposal embeds advanced AI as the rule, not the exception.
The majority of our contracts are outcome-based, where the margin gains translate into benefits for both clients and CGI shareholders. As Steve mentioned, our AI-powered managed services platform, DigiOps, was recently recognized with the top innovation honor for helping clients drive practical agentic AI adoption. DigiOps integrates CGI IP, accelerators, and alliance technologies, spans nearly 200 agents and 400 workflows to automate and improve enterprise operations. As clients realize operational efficiencies, those savings are not all removed from IT budgets. They are often reinvested. Clients have significant backlogs of modernization programs, AI is now enabling them to tackle those programs faster. This creates a continuous loop to drive growth where efficiency creates new demand for transformation of clients' legacy technology estates. AI cannot be scaled on fragmented data and outdated systems, we are focused on the foundation: preparing data, simplifying architectures, and modernizing applications.
This is core to what CGI delivers as it relies on high-end engineering that is designed and scaled for mission-critical complexity. For example, CGI embedded AI across a utility serving nine million customers, replacing rule-based audits, forecasting to improve grid reliability, faster technician onboarding, and enabling self-service analytics. A leading financial institution partnered with CGI to modernize legacy systems using CGI InstaCode, our production-grade generative AI platform for code conversion. The project is accelerating the transition to a cloud-native architecture, reducing development and testing effort by at least 50% and improving system scalability. As clients modernize, they typically invest in new areas to drive their growth and improve stakeholder values. This requires new services and capabilities from CGI, which helps them address emerging priorities that cannot be resolved without new technologies like AI.
For example, CGI developed and deployed the AI FELIX platform for NATO to modernize large-scale document processing and task management across secure air-gapped environments. The system reduced processing time from an average of 7 minutes to 27 seconds. CGI launched a Finnish national security compliant sovereign AI platform, enabling enterprise and public sector clients to develop and deploy scalable AI solutions with full data sovereignty, regulatory compliance, and secure integration within a locally hosted environment. These new services and solutions are not examples of isolated pilots. They are scale AI offerings built for complex enterprises to achieve measurable outcomes. Across these areas, consulting plays a critical role as clients seek guidance on where to apply AI, how to structure their operating models, and how to embed new ways of working. This is why we are seeing strong demand for consulting services.
In fact, Q2 booking for our consulting services were up 16% year-over-year. This performance and a double-digit pipeline increase is led by our signature consulting offerings, notably advisory services and AI, change management, and risk and cybersecurity. For example, a leading telecom operator partnered with CGI to scale agentic AI in a secure, on-premise environment by defining and deploying a roadmap, framework, and use cases. CGI partnered with a large European bank to translate its AI strategy into operational governance aligned with regulatory requirements. This created structured processes, improved compliance, and enabled faster, more consistent adoption of AI across the organization. In closing, we continue to see indicators of gradual improvement for the rest of the year. Our positioning as the AI-to-ROI partner for our clients is deliberate. It reflects how we help clients move from potential to performance, and it enables our future growth.
Clients today are not looking for generic AI capabilities. They want solutions tailored to their industries and that operate within their constraints, all with a trusted partner who has the capabilities and longevity to be part of their transformation journey. We combine expertise and domains plus technology, including AI. We work inside complex mission-critical environments. We have the proximity and sovereign services and solutions. We deliver results that are measurable, repeatable, and tied to business outcomes. While the headlines may focus on how easy AI has become, the reality for large enterprises is very different. The real challenge is mastering complexity, and that is exactly where CGI is built to lead and to grow. Thank you for your continued interest and support. Let's go to the questions now, Kevin.
Thank you, François. Sylvie, we can now poll for questions. I would ask that each participant hold to one question in light of the time we have remaining.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do have any questions at this time, please press star followed by one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by two. If you're using a speakerphone, you will need to lift the handset first before pressing any keys. Please go ahead and press star one now if you have any questions. Thank you. First, we will hear from Suthan Sukumar at Stifel. Please go ahead. Please unmute, Suthan.
Hello, Suthan.
Thank you, Jen. Thank you, Jen. Apologies, I was on mute. Yeah, got to my first question. Just wanted to talk about AI and, you know, you guys have announced some recent partnerships with folks like OpenAI and Google. What would you call out as being different about these partnerships, relative to, you know, what your, you know, some of the more traditional tech partnerships that you have today?
I don't necessarily see some differences. You know, it's, you know, for sure, you know, we are close to them. They want us to use their tools and to create platforms that are relevant by industries. That's really what we're working, especially with Google and OpenAI. It's really to help them. We had our CTO that went to the Google event last week in Vegas, and that's exactly what he was working with the team of Google, is to work on platforms and solutions that are relevant to industries.
Great. Thank you.
Next question will be from Jerome Dubreuil at Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead, Jerome.
Hello, Jérôme.
[Foreign language] Thanks for taking my question. On the SAP call last week, their management team said that the adoption of AI migration tools could possibly reduce system integration budget. Maybe it puts a bit of pressure on integrators to adapt quickly and be nimble. If this materializes, what would be the net impact of the introduction of AI migration tools in terms of absolute margin per project in the long term? Maybe does it change the total addressable market of tech adoption in general? Thanks.
Thanks, Jerome, for the question. For sure, and I did indicate it at the last call that, you know, on the life cycle of a project, we are seeing some saving by using AI. You know, we were talking about, you know, close to 50% of a project where we can use AI to reduce, and we see some saving between 20% easily to 40% and sometimes 50% on that, on these portions. For sure, it's reducing the number or the cost of doing these implementation. The good news on that, it's creating, you know, the funnel to do more.
You know, some of these clients then, you know, when I'm talking to some of these clients doing these SAP implementation are costly, and some people are postponing or trying to delay. This will just create new demand to go faster on these implementation. We're seeing that as potential new projects for the future.
Great. [Foreign language]Merci beaucoup.
Next question will be from Kevin Krishnaratne at Scotiabank. Please go ahead, Kevin.
Hey, hey, good morning. François, you talked about, you know, your clients are expressing new behaviors, you know, with the, with the, this new technology, AI. They're talking to fewer IT providers. I'm wondering, could you talk about maybe your win rates when it comes to some of these AI projects? Where do you feel you may be better positioned than some of your competitors? It seems like everyone, is signing a partnership with, whether it's Anthropic or OpenAI. I'm just curious as to like what you what you bring relative to the others in the industry. Thanks.
Thanks for the question. First of all, it's our model, proximity model, right? We are close to our client. We know our clients. We understand their complexity, so we're the best-suited people for our existing clients to apply and help them with their AI implementation. We, you know, we're also built by industry, so we have the capability and the understanding of the industries. Again, bringing that expertise to new clients also is a way to showcase that, you know, you cannot just use a tool for the tool. You need people and expertise to implement that. Again, we are also very good in complex environment. We know we are working with big companies.
We're understand how to manage complexity. All that together, you know, I feel that it's giving us, you know, a advantage to win and grow in that, in that area.
Thank you.
Next question will be from Stephanie Price at CIBC. Please go ahead, Stephanie.
Hi, good morning. Maybe a broader question for you, just characterizing the macro backdrop here. You mentioned the contract signing delays in Europe, but it sounds like U.S. federal is expected to return to growth next quarter. Just curious macro-wise what you're hearing from clients and how that varies by geography.
Yeah. Well, I would say, you know, first of all, in North America, demand is still good, very good. You know, very happy about the U.S. federal turning back. We are seeing, you know, a lot more momentum on the procurement side, on the federal side. We saw it in the bookings, and we're seeing it in the pipeline, and that's why we're pretty comfortable to say that they'll come back to organic growth. That's still very relevant. Government, I would say across the world, is still a growth factor with all the investment that they want to do in the defense, for example, is potential growth for us in the future.
I would say the financial sector are still, you know, as we know, a lot of AI and investment, also very, you know, GCCs managed services is still a lot of discussion on that side. We're seeing a lot of momentum. I would say, you know, the one that is still in flux is the manufacturing, especially in France and in Germany. As we know, Germany, it's a tough economy for now. That's where we're seeing some softness on that side. Like I'm saying, government and financial sector, we're still seeing some good momentum on that side.
Thank you for the color.
Next question will be from Richard Tse at National Bank Capital Markets. Please go ahead, Richard.
Yes, thank you. In your comments you talked about continuing on sort of both the, the build and buy strategy. You know, with AI in the backdrop, how does that impact how you assess and then sort of value these prospects? You know, has anything sort of changed in terms of that process, you know, given sort of the potential disintermediation in the market? Just kinda wanna understand how you're thinking about that now.
Well, for sure, you know, like any other merger and acquisition that we looked at, you know, expertise is something that we're always looking at also. It needs to be, you know, yes, we're buying client relationships, where, yes, it's important, but we need also to be sure that we have the right expertise. For sure, when we're looking at these companies, AI and how much they are advanced in AI technology and AI expertise is a criteria when we're looking at them. That's for sure, one. As you know, evaluations are down, so it's a pretty very good market for now.
You know, we're there for long term, so we are always strong still believers that this industry will grow in the future, if you have naturally the right relationship and the right technology. That's what we're looking when we're doing, we're doing M&A.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Next question is from Paul Treiber at RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead, Paul.
Hi, good morning. You mentioned earlier, you know, AI is driving productivity and cost savings for managed services. Can you speak to the pricing, how you're pricing those productivity gains in terms of, you know, either how much you're passing along to customers? Also, you know, is there an opportunity for you to capture some of those savings with higher margin as a result?
Oh, clearly. You know, I would say two-part. You know, we have our existing one that we signed, right? Where we promise, you know, a percentage of saving. Because again, like, I'm always saying, we're mostly all outcome-based pricing, especially in the managed services. We promise a saving percentage and, you know, having AI now, it's helping us in accelerating that production of savings. That's our way of giving it back to clients, but naturally producing our gross margin and our EBIT margin for us. For new ones, but naturally, you know, we will take that and put that also in the pricing.
With always the goal to produce our EBIT margin of 16% and up, that won't change. We are capable of doing both, and that's how we. And that's why also it will create new demand, I'm convinced, new demand for managed services because people will see that, you know, they can achieve these savings. And it's not everybody who wants to do it by themself. They'll need experts. And so that's why, yes, it will create new savings and cost reduction, but it will create brand new demand in managed services.
Thank you for taking the question.
Next question will be from Thanos Moschopoulos at BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead, Thanos.
Hi. Can you update us with respect to AI in the context of your IP portfolio? To what extent is that helping accelerate development cycles, helping to bring maybe new offerings to markets, creating some upsell opportunities with your existing base, just with respect to your IP solutions? Thanks.
Yeah, for sure. Thanks for the question. You know, most of our development of IP is done in India. For sure, you know, we deployed all these tools in India to help them to go faster on these upgrade or new version of our tools. For sure, the cost of producing these new version of IP is going down big time. We are also naturally putting agents in our IPs for clients, so that's another big focus. You know, we were talking about, you know, agents, so we have more than 400 agents that is included in our IP, included in our service delivery, like I was saying, like DigiOps. So, we continue to implement these agents for clients and naturally using them for our own development.
Great. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, a reminder to press star one should you have any questions. Thank you. Next is David Kwan at TD Cowen. Please go ahead, David.
Good morning. I was wondering, you talked about customers likely using some of the savings that you'd help generate from the AI as it relates to, on the managed services side. Do you see that as, I guess, as a net neutral or maybe even a net positive in terms of the managed services trajectory? The growth has come down here, but I was wondering when you could see that potentially reverse and to what extent, you know, customers spending savings on new projects could be either neutral or net positive for you.
Yeah. I'm seeing it for the future as a net positive. You know, again, today, you know, when you're meeting with a CIO, most of the time he'll say that, or she'll say that they don't have enough budget. You know, maintenance is, what, 70%-80% of their budget. You know, it's giving them 20%-30% for new projects. It's never enough. When they are capable of reducing the maintenance or the running costs of their application, they'll use these savings to invest in new product and new services for their own clients. That's, you know, when I'm meeting CEOs and meeting business people, that's what they're expecting and want from their CIO department.
We see that as future growth. Like I was saying before, it will increase also the demand for managed services. Because I am saying it's not every company who will try to do it by themself. It's complex, it's not easy tools to implement, and they'll need experts like us to help them to achieve their goals.
Just everyone, my apologies. It's Kevin here. I know it's 9:42, and I thought we'd run out of time, but it looks like we have more time. If folks on the line have other questions, please feel free to pick up in the queue.
Yeah.
Thank you. Next question will be from Robert Young at Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead, Robert.
Hi, good morning. Revenue per employee looks like it's still going higher, and I guess AI will help that. Then you said you target 16% plus EBIT margins going forward. Looking back to a target you, I haven't heard you mention it in a while, but the double-digit earnings per share growth that was a target in the past, is that something that you can get to, or is that, you know, a function of the top line growth today? Are there other tools you have, operating margin expansion or, you know, buyback, et cetera, that could get you back to that double-digit earnings per share growth? Thanks.
Thanks for the questions, Robert. Yes, it's still our aspiration to do double-digit EPS growth, and that will always be the aspiration. You know, on that end, you touch all these levers. I think the first one naturally is growth. Like I was saying, we are seeing a gradual improvement on that growth side. We're very active on that side. You know, evaluations are down, so that will help on the accretion, buyback. You know, we are producing excess cash. We are producing, you know, CAD 2.4 billion-CAD 2.5 billion with free cash flow is close to CAD 2 billion.
Before acquisition, when, you know, we can do both acquisitions and share buyback. For sure, you know, the EBIT margin will continue. We have some levers, at least on the long-term basis. It's not all the segments that are at 16%. We have segments of the business at 20%, 21% and 18%, but we have other ones that are still in the low teens. If we can improve these segments and bring them back to a 15%-16%, you know, we would be able to come back to an accretion of 10%-15% in the future.
Okay. Thank you. Can I ask a second one? The seems to be a little more focused on cybersecurity. I mean, there's some, you know, worry around Mythos, et cetera. Can you just touch on, you know, where you're seeing opportunities related to that in your business, and then I'll pass the line.
That's a very good question for sure. A lot of the conversation on cybersecurity, you know, and when we were saying that consulting is picking up, a lot of it is on the cybersecurity side, like you said, with Mythos and all that. For sure, a lot of, even when I met the CEOs lately, that's top of the mind, on their mind. That's a source of future growth for us for sure, because of this.
Thank you.
Next question will be from Jérôme Dubreuil at Desjardins. Please go ahead, Jérôme.
Yeah, thanks, Kevin. You know I can ask questions all day. Two more for me. You touched on the buybacks on a previous answer, but you did a lot of it over the last year, but you did slow down in March. Still doing a lot, but still a material slowdown there, despite the share price being depressed. I'm wondering if there's a particular reason. Then the second follow-up I have, you for sure heard about the Ford deploy engineering, where it seems like software companies' model may be evolving a bit closer to an IT service model. How do you compete with those software companies, and have you seen this trend materialize so far? Thank you.
Yeah. I'll ask Steve to answer the first one, and I'll answer the second one. Steve?
Thank you, Jerome. On the first one, on the NCIB, look, what you're looking. Each quarter we're looking at the cash, the free cash flow that we're generating. It's really based on that, first of all, as you know, we want to grow with good M&A. We are making sure that we deploy our cash with M&A. In a quarter, if there is no cash outflow coming from the M&A, we'll look at our free cash flow and we'll purchase some shares. We did, yes, less than Q1, but the free cash flow was less, so it was done really by design. That's really it. We are really looking at our cash generation in a quarter, and based on that, we are adjusting our NCIB program.
Jerome, for your second question, I would say, you know, we are a company of field-deployed engineers. Again, you know, our model, you know, with the proximity, you know, what we will do better than all of these companies is that because of the proximity, we know our clients, we know their complexity, we know their industries. That's what we're bringing. You know, I think that's something that it's harder for these software companies to do. Again, it's not the first time. I'm a little bit older than you, Jerome.
you know, it's not the first time that these technology companies try to go into services, and it never happened because it's a tough, you know, they're good and they're tools, and they're fantastic to know their tools, but it's not the expertise to manage complexity and manage understanding these industries.
Absolutely. Makes sense. Merci.
Next question will be from Steven Lee at Raymond James. Please go ahead, Steven.
Hey, François Boulanger. Hi, Steve Perron. François Boulanger, I heard you on the green shoots. Do you have enough visibility to see positive organic growth exiting the year? Thanks.
Again, as you know, I'm not giving guidance, Steve, but, you know, we are seeing improvement and a gradual improvement. I think the fact that, you know, example, you had federal government that was pretty tough 2 quarters ago at minus 12%, this quarter at minus 7%. The fact that, you know, no acquisition on their side, so it's all organic. The fact now that we, they were pretty convinced that they'll be able to come back to organic growth this quarter, for sure that's helping the overall results of the company. We are seeing these improvement, coming back and so that's why we're positive to say that, these improvement will continue in the next, several quarters.
Perfect. Thank you.
Next question is from Suthan Sukumar at Stifel. Please go ahead, Suthan.
Hi, guys. Just a follow-up from me. On the discretionary spending segment here, sorry, SI&C and more so discretionary spending, what changes in priorities have you guys been seeing from clients compared to recent quarters? The second part is, you know, some of your offshore peers have been talking about pricing compression. What are you seeing in the pricing environment and, you know, where are you seeing pressure specifically? Is that more of a function of kind of the softer discretionary spending backdrop, or is it more structural from AI or the shift to kind of outcome-based pricing?
You know, yeah, for sure, clients are asking more and more on outcome-based pricing. You know, already us, and I did state in the, in the past, you know, we're more than 60% of our business, close to 65% of our business, is outcome-based pricing. I would say to you that in India, we have, there also, the majority of our business is outcome-based pricing. That's, that's naturally, we're different than these very large Indian firms where they are input-based pricing. That's, that's helping on our side. You see still good growth in the, in the quarter, in India and Asia Pac.
A lot of demand still for Asia Pac, and I don't see that demand to reduce in the future. That's where we have also a lot of talents. That's why we are happy with where our position of our Indian region. We are seeing that as a growth lever for the future.
Thank you.
Next question is from Stephanie Price at CIBC. Please go ahead, Stephanie.
Hi. Follow-up for me just is on the Canadian region. Curious if you could talk a little bit about the environment there. Is Canada one of the regions where you're seeing a solid government pipeline, just given the push to buy Canadian? How should investors think about potential upside in Canada?
Thanks, Stephanie. For sure, Canada, we are seeing a very good pipeline for government. I think it's just, you know, they need to produce these RFP and going to the market. We have good discussion with clients on the government side and they want and they need to invest. You know, example on the defense side, we have very good defense capabilities across the world. As you know, in the U.S., but also in Europe with NATO. NATO is a good client of ours. In U.K., we have a lot of defense projects there. The fact that Canada wants to be closer to Europe, we see that as a great opportunity for us to help them to achieve their objectives.
Thank you.
Next question will be from Richard Tse at National Bank. Please go ahead, Richard.
Yes. Thank you. You know, you did have this nice rebound in terms of the U.S. federal bookings. Have the type of services of those sort of new bookings changed at all in terms of like the profile or are they pretty much like a continuation of the stuff that was kind of held off, you know, given what's happened in the past year?
You're talking on the federal side or overall?
Yeah, yeah. On the federal side. Yeah.
Okay. On the federal side, I think, you know, as we know, last year, you know, a lot of slowdown in the procurement in general. A lot of agency put their projects on the side and waiting a bit how it would resolve with Department of Government Efficiency and everything else that was happening. You know, now it's a little bit back, I would not say to normal, but at least procurement is now going out with RFPs. You know, that's helping to improve the pipeline and naturally the bookings. Like I said, it's now close to two years that we didn't have the booking of that level in the federal government.
We are seeing, you know, RFPs going out, so continue to go out. That's why I'm saying, on the federal side, and some agencies are even hiring now. I think you'll see that continue in the future, and that's why we're positive on the federal side.
Okay. I just have one other question. Like recently you had a kind of a local sort of, call it AI data sort of sovereign win locally. Do you think CGI is in a position to kind of, you know, compete globally in that sort of sovereign AI data market, you know, looking ahead here as more and more countries and regions look to that?
For sure. Again, you know, when you're talking especially in Europe, everybody is talking about sovereignty. Again, it's not saying bring everything back, but naturally they're looking at their data. The most important data, that's where they're saying, "Perhaps I need to, you know, change a bit where we are with that and coming more with the sovereign solutions." The fact that we are in these in each of these regions, the fact that we know these clients, we are well-positioned to help them to achieve that. Again, the idea is not to compete anybody, it's to help them to put that in like the Finnish one that we announced yesterday.
It's really to help the Finnish government to help them to bring back some of that data back on, in the country and having some of these solution running in their environment instead of having it in the public cloud.
Okay. Thank you.
Sylvie-
Next question.
We have time for one question, please.
Certainly, sir. Our last question is from David Kwan at TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Hi. I'm just wondering if you've had conversations with clients and kind of what they're thinking about as it relates to the Iran conflict, and how that's impacting their business and their intentions on doing more business with you.
Well, you know, for sure, Iran, it's giving some pressure on the manufacturing side. It's putting pressure some in the airlines side. It's putting pressure also a bit even on the supply chain for hardware, for example. We are seeing some of that pressure and slow down because of the hardware. Naturally again, it's giving us the opportunity to see how we can help them on the cost reduction side, especially on the manufacturing side, and even on the airline side because, you know, it's putting pressure, and they need to increase costs and increase price. That's really, you know, the opportunity for us to go and see these clients and showing how we can help them in the cost reduction side.
Are you seeing any slowdown in sales cycles?
Not for now. I would not say that I'm seeing a slowdown on the sales cycle because of it, no.
Great. Thank you.
Yeah.
At this time.
Thanks, Sylvie.
we have no other questions.
Okay. Thank you, Sylvie, thanks everyone for participating. As a reminder, a replay of the call will be available either via our website or by dialing 1-888-660-6264 and using the pass code 74539. A podcast of this call will be available for download within a few hours. Follow-up questions can be directed to me at 1-905-973-8363. Thanks again everyone. I look forward to speaking soon.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for attending. At this time, we ask that you please disconnect your lines. Enjoy the rest of your day.