AGM 2025

Jan 29, 2025

My name is Benoit Dubé, and on behalf of the board of directors and senior management, I would like to welcome you to CGI's annual general meeting of shareholders. The meeting will be conducted in French and English, and simultaneous interpretation is available. Using the webcast settings at the top right of your screen, you can select your preferred language or listen in real-time without interpretation. The webcast platform allows shareholders to ask questions and allows shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders to vote during the meeting if they have not already done so. We would now like to draw your attention to the information on the screen. Our presentations and statements made during the meeting may be forward-looking and subject to risks and uncertainties. Therefore, we recommend that you review and consider all relevant risk factors identified in our continuous disclosure documents and not place undue reliance on them. We would like to remind you that only persons whose names appeared in register of shareholders at the close of business on Monday, December second, 2024, our reference date, and duly appointed proxy holders are entitled to vote at the meeting. If you have not already voted and wish to vote during the meeting, please follow the instructions in the notice of meeting in the management proxy circular, as well as the form of proxy or voting instruction forms. Please use the window on the right-hand side of your screen to review the items submitted for voting. You must make your selection and confirm each vote afterward. You can vote at each motion or wait until the last item on the agenda has been put to the vote. All votes cast by registered shareholders or duly appointed proxy holders during the meeting shall be counted and added to the votes received by proxy. Please provide your full name and, if applicable, the shareholder on whose behalf you are acting. Questions will be answered during the Q&A session following the adjournment of the formal part of the meeting. I would now like to invite Mr. Serge Godin, Founder and Executive Chairman of the Board, to open the meeting. Thank you, Benoit. Ladies and gentlemen, good day. I would like to welcome you all. We are very glad to have you with us today. Before we begin, I'd like to introduce my colleagues. Julie Godin, Co-Chair of the Board of Directors, Executive Vice-President, Strategic Planning and Corporate Development. François Boulanger, President and Chief Executive Officer. Jean-Michel Baticle and Timothy Harlebus. Steve Perron, Executive Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer, and Benoit Dubé, Executive Vice-President, Legal and Economic Affairs, and Corporate Secretary. As per the notice of meeting that you received, we will discuss the following 3 items. 1, the presentation of financial results for the fiscal year ended September 30th, 2024. 2, the election of directors. Finally, the appointment of the auditor. Thereafter, a shareholder will present a proposal, and we will close the meeting. A Q&A session will follow. Please note that I will act as meeting chair and Benoit Dubé will act as secretary. Benoit, were all notices and other relevant documents sent to the shareholders? Mr. Chairman, CGI made use of the Canadian Notice and Access when delivering the following documents to shareholders: the Management Proxy Circular, Management Discussion and Analysis, Annual Audited and Consolidated Financial Statements, as well as other materials related to the meeting. Shareholders received a Notice of Meeting and Notice of Availability of Meeting Materials. The latter notice explains how to access the materials online and request a paper copy of the documents and present the items of business for the meeting. Shareholders also received a voting instruction form or Form of Proxy. We also received confirmation that the relevant materials have been made available to the shareholders entitled to vote. As secretary, I am including a copy of the notice of meeting, the management proxy circular, the affidavit, and other documents distributed in relation to this AGM in the meeting record. Thank you, Benoit Dubé. In accordance with Section 8 of the company's bylaw, I hereby appoint Steve Gilbert and Karen Laberge of Computershare to act as scrutineers for the meeting, and I've been advised that we have a quorum. I ask that the scrutineers submit their report to the secretary as soon as it is ready. It can then be included in the meeting record with the minutes of the last annual general meeting of shareholders held on January 31st, 2024. The first item on the agenda is the presentation of the results for the fiscal year ended September 30th, 2024, including the financial statements, the auditor's report, and the management discussion and analysis. These documents were previously made available to shareholders, and a paper copy was sent to shareholders who requested it. The documents are also available on cgi.com as well as on its platform. They've also been filed with the appropriate regulatory authorities. Since you have had the opportunity to review them, I would ask the secretary to include these documents in the meeting record. The second item on the agenda is the election of directors. Before we proceed, I would like to note that André Imbeau and Michael Roach have decided not to stand for re-election this year. On behalf of the board of directors and all CGI partners, I would like to extend my sincere thanks for their valuable guidance, engagement, and outstanding contribution to our company's success. I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to CGI's co-founder, my dear friend, André Imbeau, who built the company with me from the very start in 1976. CGI would not be the successful company it is today without André's unwavering leadership, passion, and dedication. Thank you, André, for being an exceptional business partner and for your remarkable contributions to the company and your invaluable friendship over the years. My sincere thanks to Michael Roach, who served as CGI's second CEO for 10 years, and whom I also count as a dear friend. Michael's leadership was instrumental in driving the company's growth through strategic mergers and a forward-thinking strategy. Michael led our global team to successfully deliver significant value for all stakeholders, demonstrating vision and a deep focus on operational excellence. Thank you, Mike. Your legacy is deeply embedded in CGI's success, and it has been a privilege to work alongside you over the years. I declare the nominations open. On the recommendation of the Corporate Governance Committee, the board of directors proposes that the following 14 nominees be elected as directors of the company. I am proud to introduce the nominees for election to our board of directors. François Boulanger, Sophie Brochu, George Cope, Jacynthe Côté, Julie Godin, Gilles Labbé, Michael Patterson, Stephen Poloz, Mary Powell, Alison Reed, George D. Schindler, Kathy N. Waller, Frank Witter, and myself. I would therefore ask for a motion for the election of directors. My name is Gabrielle Villeneuve, and I'm a CGI shareholder. I move that the 14 people who were just introduced by the chair of the meeting be elected to the company's board of directors. Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. I will now ask for someone to second the motion, please. Hello. My name is Asma Moumni, and I'm a CGI shareholder. I second the motion. Thank you, Mrs. Moumni. Please note that you're asked to vote for each of the 14 candidates proposed for election to our board of directors. The next item on the agenda is the appointment of the auditor. The Board of Directors, upon recommendation of the Audit and Risk Management Committee, proposes that PricewaterhouseCoopers be reappointed as the company's auditor. My name is Cheryl Gliona, and I am a CGI shareholder. I move that PricewaterhouseCoopers be appointed as the company's auditor until the next shareholders annual meeting, and that the Audit and Risk Management Committee be authorized to fix its compensation. Thank you, Ms. Gliona. I will now ask for someone to second the motion, please. My name is Jeffrey Keller, and I am a CGI shareholder, and I second the motion. Thank you, Mr. Keller. We are now ready to proceed to the vote. Please vote on the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as CGI's auditor. At this meeting. We will now take a 1-minute break to allow those who have not already done so to submit their vote. The poll is now closed. The scrutineers have confirmed the following preliminary results. All directors were elected with on average 98.6% of the vote cast. PricewaterhouseCoopers has been reappointed as auditor of the company with 99.8% of the vote cast. The resolutions concerning the election of the directors and the appointment of the auditor are therefore adopted. A report on the final vote results will be available on the SEDAR+ website, and a report on the financial result of the election of directors will be published in a press release. We will now proceed with the presentation of the proposal submitted by MEDAC. It is reproduced on Appendix C of the management proxy circular, along with the response from our board of directors. It should be noted that had the proposal been submitted to a vote, it is possible that CGI would not have been able to avail itself of the exemption issued by the regulatory authorities in connection with the postal strike that occurred in Canada. Therefore, in order to avoid incurring considerable costs, MEDAC has agreed not to require a vote on their proposal, for which we are grateful. Consequently, no vote will be taken on the shareholder proposal at this meeting. However, we have agreed to hold a vote on the same proposal at our next meeting without MEDAC having to resubmit it. I would like to invite Mr. Willy Gagnon to present the proposal. Over to you, Mr. Gagnon. Hello, Mr. Chair of the meeting. Can you hear me? Yes. I hope that as every year, as you know, we have accepted to not to submit this proposal, not to put it to the vote in view of the postal strike in Canada. This proposal had been sent to you last year, we had obtained 16.94% in favor. Since there are multiple voting shares at CGI, depending upon the calculation systems, we could estimate that about 31% of the people approved of our proposal. Most companies to which we have submitted this proposal, we sent it to about 20 companies last year. They all agreed to hold their future AGM live and not preventing remote conferences. For many companies, especially banks, they've agreed to hold live meetings. At Air Canada, about 82% of peoples voted in favor of holding live events. Like yesterday at Metro Inc., I attended it. In Quebec companies like Power Corporation of Canada, they now hold their AGM only live. The, in the circular, you said that the board of directors has decided to keep holding virtual AGMs, as it is a more flexible way of doing things. We're not asking in the proposal to remove any remote broadcasting, but to also hold this live. Maybe it's more flexible to have a remote AGM, but you should also have live in-person AGMs. Like today, I cannot see you. You cannot see me. I cannot see the other shareholders. I don't know if there's anyone standing before a mic to ask a question. I don't know. I cannot see anyone who is either making a proposal or a motion. It's not the best way. We've talked to people in the industry, and they said that most companies will be holding live AGMs, and we hope that you will also opt for keep holding live meetings. Next year, we will again send that proposal to shareholders, unless you have already decided to hold a live event. Thank you very much for allowing me to speak. Thank you very much, Mr. Gagnon. Yes, it is unfortunate I cannot see you either, but you might send me a photo. The items on the meetings agenda have been covered. I declare the formal part of this annual general shareholders' meeting closed. There will be a Q&A session. I would now like to invite Steve Perron to present the financial results for the 2024 fiscal year and our first quarter of 2025. Thank you, Serge, and good morning, everyone. For the fiscal year 2024, we generated CAD 14.7 billion in revenue, which is a year-over-year increase of 2.7% or 0.9% if we exclude the impact of other currencies. Demand from our clients translated into CAD 16 billion in contracts for the 2024 fiscal year, representing 109.3% of total revenue. Let's take a look at profitability for the 2024 fiscal year. Earnings before tax were CAD 2.3 billion. This represents an increase of CAD 93 million over last year for a margin of 13.6%. Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes were up 4.5% for a margin of 16.5%. Net earnings rose 3.8% from last year for a margin of 11.5%. Diluted EPS was CAD 7.31, up 6.6% year over year. Adjusted diluted EPS was CAD 7.62, up 7.8% year over year. CGI's operating activities generated a cash flow of CAD 2.2 billion, representing 50% of revenue. Our strong cash flow and capital allocation in the 2024 fiscal year allowed us to make several profitable investments, including CAD 361 million reinvested in our business, including in AI, our IP-based solutions offerings, and new managed services contracts, and CAD 542 million for corporate acquisition, and CAD 935 million for share buyback. It should be noted that in the 2024 fiscal year, we achieved a ROI of 16%. Finally, during the last quarter of the 2024 fiscal year, we announced the launch of a dividend program, which is another way to offer value to our shareholders while continuing to maintain our financial flexibility to invest in our build and buy profitable growth strategy. At this point, we announce our result for the first quarter of fiscal 2025. We recorded revenue of CAD 3.8 billion, up 5.1% year-over-year, or 2.7% when excluding the impact of foreign exchange. Bookings were CAD 4.2 billion, representing a Q1 book-to-bill ratio of 110%. Earnings before income taxes in Q1 were CAD 592 million, for a margin of 15.6% of revenue. Adjusted EBIT in Q1 was CAD 612 million, up 4.7% year-over-year, for a margin of 16.2% of revenue. Net earnings were CAD 439 million, and diluted EPS was CAD 1.92, representing an increase of 15% year-over-year. Adjusted net earnings improved to CAD 449 million for a margin of 11.9% of revenue. Diluted EPS was CAD 1.97, an accretion of 7.7% when compared to CAD 1.83 in the same quarter last year. Cash provided by operating activities was CAD 646 million, representing 17.1% of revenue. On a trailing 12-month basis, cash provided by operating activities represented 15.3% of total revenue. In Q1, we used our cash to invest CAD 83 million into our business, CAD 30 million for business acquisitions, representing the initial payment for the Daugherty acquisition, a U.S. metro market merger announced in December, CAD 143 million to buy back our stock. Also in Q1, we returned CAD 34 million to our shareholders through dividends. In addition, yesterday, our Board of Directors approved the extension of our normal course issuer bid program until February 2026, authorizing us to purchase for cancellation up to 20.2 million of CGI shares over the next 12 months. CGI's Board of Directors also approved a quarterly cash dividend of CAD 0.15 per share. This dividend is payable on March 21st, 2025 to shareholder of records as of the close of business on February 14, 2025. In the quarter, we continued to deliver a strong return on invested capital at 16.2%, up 30 basis points year-over-year. As part of our profitable growth strategy, CGI's capital allocation priorities remain focused on investing back in the business and pursuing accretive acquisitions. I will now turn it over to our Chief Operating Officers, Tim and Jean-Michel, to share some examples of how our consultants and professionals have supported clients this past year. Tim? Thank you, Steve, and good day to everyone. In fiscal year 2024, our consultants and professionals around the world continued to deliver expertise, advice, and insights to our clients as they navigated a rapidly evolving geoeconomic and geopolitical landscape. Given these market dynamics, clients continue to focus on optimizing and modernizing their end-to-end business processes and platforms in order to drive operational efficiencies and accelerate their transformation agendas. As such, client demand remains strong for CGI's full range of end-to-end services and solutions, particularly for managed services, which represented nearly 60% of total 2024 bookings, up from 54% in the prior year. Managed services engagements awarded throughout the year included the digital department of the UK Government Cabinet Office appointed CGI as a strategic digital transformation delivery partner. CGI will provide a range of consulting, data, and digital services to help the government innovate and drive value from digitization. In Canada, Mackenzie Investments is transitioning the majority of its transaction processing services for account and plan administration to CGI in order to redefine processes and integrate advanced levels of intelligent automation into workflows. In the U.S., the Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs extended its relationship with CGI for the delivery of end-to-end passport application processing services to support the issuance of more than 21 million passports and travel documents annually. Each of these examples represent recurring revenue managed services engagements that enhance our resilience and stability for the future. As part of their scope, they regularly include intellectual property as well as consulting and systems integration services. This combination of CGI's end-to-end services reflects the demand for broader partnerships that help clients advance their digitization objectives. During the year, demand for IP solutions remained strong with a fiscal 2024 book-to-bill of 110%. IP solutions addressing the business needs of clients across the government and financial services were particularly strong over the past year. For example, new IP awards in these sectors included Harley-Davidson Financial Services selected CGI to modernize the company's loan origination system, replacing multiple IT platforms with the unified CGI Credit Studio solution. Under this agreement, CGI is delivering an AI-enabled platform that introduces greater flexibility for dealers and an intuitive buyer experience. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded CGI 2 modernization contracts covering a range of security, efficiency, and mission-oriented services. The project expands CGI's Momentum IP services to help the agency foster innovation and enable economic growth. A major North American bank selected CGI to modernize its wire room, leveraging the CGI All Payments solution, a modular and cloud-based platform. This solution will enable the bank to decommission legacy systems, drive efficiencies, and adapt to new industry standards and regulations. The City of New York expanded its partnership with CGI to maintain the city's parking violation system, which runs on CGI Advantage Collections IP platform. Under this contract, CGI will partner with the city to administer the end-to-end processes for summons violations. Through the use of the CGI platform, the city expects to collect nearly CAD 1 billion in annual revenue. Bladex, a foreign trade bank of Latin America, selected CGI as partner to accelerate its trade finance business evolution, enabled by the CGI Trade360 platform. Our platform will enable Bladex's corporate clients to manage their financial needs swiftly and accurately on a unified, integrated, and global platform. I'll now hand over to Jean Michel, who will present a few examples of new contracts concluded in Europe in fiscal 2024. Jean Michel? Merci, Tim. Thank you, Tim. In the European countries where CGI operates, our clients are focused on transformational value-generating investments that deliver operational efficiencies and drive innovation and sustainability. For instance, LocalTapiola, one of the largest insurance and financial services companies in Finland, extended their strategic managed services partnership with CGI. We will apply new technologies, including AI and automation, to help drive operational efficiencies across their enterprise. Michelin selected CGI to deliver an open and green IT ecosystem to enable business innovation and support enterprise-wide digital transformation. CGI will deliver a range of IT modernization services, including use of AI technologies through a combination of proximity teams in France and in the U.S., as well as global delivery teams in India and Morocco. Posti Group, the leading postal and logistics services provider in Finland, Sweden, and the Baltics, expanded their long-term collaboration with CGI through a new 10-year engagement to develop, modernize, and deliver secure digital messaging services across multiple channels and countries. We entered into an agreement with one of the world's largest manufacturers to jointly launch an international development unit based in Germany to support digital projects and their developers to enhance software performance. CGI's architects, developers, and consultants will deliver services and solutions grounded in technology expertise and manufacturing knowledge to help the client accelerate business outcomes globally. Our pipeline of AI opportunities continues to grow, particularly for data consulting, cloud migration, proof of concepts, and targeted use case implementations that drive business outcomes. We continue to work on these initiatives with our clients who are looking to move from experimentation to implementation and to accelerate the time to value of their AI investments. Examples of awards over the past year which leverage AI technologies include multiple European space industry clients to leverage real-time AI to improve data transmission rates in lunar and deep space missions. A top auto parts supplier headquartered in Germany to establish a GenAI center of expertise and help evaluate and optimize ROI-led use cases. The Government of Canada selected CGI to develop and deploy a virtual assistant tool to help clear a backlog of over 200,000 payroll cases, thereby reducing processing time and improving user experience. Finally, a clean energy technology company in the U.S. selected CGI to build a data-driven analytics platform using AI and machine learning for proactive plant monitoring and optimization. Our experts remain engaged in government initiatives around the world to reinforce CGI's commitment to responsible and ethical AI practices. In fact, during Q4 of fiscal year 2024, CGI signed the European Commission's AI Act Pledge to help shape the digital future of Europe. I'll now give the floor to François, our President and Chief Executive Officer, to discuss the outlook of CGI's continued growth in fiscal year 2025. François? Thank you, Jean-Michel Baticle. Hello, all of you. Good day, everyone. Clients around the world to help them deliver meaningful business outcomes through the power of technology. At CGI, building trusted partnerships with clients is linked with CGI cultures of ownership and accountability. Our collaborative working styles continues to be a strong differentiator for how we deepen relationships with our clients, attract and retain the best consultants and leaders, and operate as a responsible and ethical company. CGI's positioning as a partner and expert of choice for clients continues to be recognized by well-known external publications around the world. The work and commitment of our consultants and professionals, whom we call CGI partners, factored into multiple third-party recognitions for CGI. These included rankings as a best place to work in numerous countries and our inclusion on the lists for the Time magazine, World's Best Companies, and Forbes magazine, World's Best Management Consulting Firms. Today, I am pleased to share the outlook for CGI in 2025. Through our annual strategic planning process, we consult with our 3 stakeholders, our clients, our consultants and professionals, and you, our shareholders, to gain important insight that help inform our business plans for the year ahead. Many of our clients indicated to us that the current market conditions create operational and strategic challenges. This is requiring them to advance their digitalization agenda for improved competitiveness, efficiency, resilience, and customer experience. CGI is well-positioned to address these client objectives through our end-to-end services. CGI's deep and trusted client relationships are a central element of our growth agenda. Last year, client satisfaction was up on every dimension we measure. This includes CGI commitments to clients, as well as their intent to engage us again in the future. Both of these scores, which come from signed client assessments, were at record high levels of over 9.6 out of 10. The expertise, insights, and dedication of our consultants and professionals make this high degree of client satisfaction possible. Thank you to all team members worldwide for partnering with clients to help them achieve tangible business and mission outcomes. Let's continue with our 91,000 CGI partners. CGI's culture of ownership is unique in the market and enable us to retain and attract the best consultants and leaders. This was demonstrated this year as we saw more of our consultants and professionals become CGI shareholders, increasing from 85%-87% year-over-year. Looking ahead, our business plan for fiscal year 2025 includes ongoing and new investments in our end-to-end services to enable our consultants to tailor the most relevant solutions for clients. In managed services, we continue to evolve our client partnership models to create compelling offerings. This includes embedding AI in our managed services offerings to help clients unlock new value through innovation and by driving operational efficiencies. For IP, we continue to invest in our solutions portfolio to meet increasing client expectations for innovation and embedded AI functionalities. In business and strategic IT consulting and systems integration, we will focus in areas with stronger discretionary spending opportunities, such as large transformation projects and programs, including advisory services and responsible use of cloud and AI and cybersecurity. Across our portfolio of services, our business plan also incorporates investments to further our innovation agenda, particularly in AI and GenAI. In the first quarter of fiscal 2025, we continue to progress our AI investments in line with our 3-year plan. We are on track with this plan, which includes comprehensive AI learning journeys for all CGI partners and integration of new AI functionality across our IP portfolio. We also have advanced our go-to-market strategies and expanded our end-to-end offerings, notably with AI business consulting services. Our fiscal 2025 business plan also includes continued investment in M&A to accelerate our depth and breadth in strategic geographic segments around the world. Recently, we announced the following strategic acquisitions. In September, we completed the acquisition of Aeyon in the U.S., which expands our capabilities for national security and civilian agency mission clients. In December, we expanded our positioning with Fortune 500 clients in multiple U.S. metro markets through a merger with Daugherty. This morning, we announced a newly signed merger agreement, which will close in the coming weeks, pending regulatory approval. BJSS is one of the largest independent IT and software engineering consultancies in the U.K. This merger will accelerate our U.K.-wide expansion strategy to deepen our presence in key commercial industries such as retail, financial services, and energy and utilities. Upon completion, more than 2,400 highly skilled consultants will join CGI, bringing deep expertise in a range of services such as technology strategy, customer experience design, software engineering, and AI. I would like to warmly welcome the nearly 4,000 new CGI partners who have joined or will soon join us from these three mergers. We will continue our journey to build critical mass and strategic metro markets within CGI geographies through our buy strategy. I am pleased to say that the market conditions are favorable, and our pipeline of qualified opportunities is strong. As always, we will be disciplined to ensure that CGI mergers will be accretive to shareholders and will create value for clients and CGI partners. A key element of our business plan remains our focus on building a more sustainable and inclusive world through initiatives that are rooted in CGI's core values. In closing, clients across industries continue to invest in the modernization and optimization of technology in order to transform their business value chains as well as their operating models. CGI is well-positioned as one of the few leading independent global firms with the scale, reach, insights, and capabilities to help clients achieve tangible business outcomes. We remain focused on achieving our strategic aspiration of doubling CGI over the next 5-7 years through the disciplined execution of our build and buy profitable growth strategy. I will now turn it over to Serge. Serge? Thank you, François. In line with the comprehensive succession of strategies that CGI established several years ago, we announced earlier this morning that starting today, Julie Godin is Executive Chair of the Board, and I am Co-Chair of the Board. To ensure the continuity of CGI's success, we have built a robust succession plan model for all CGI partners at all levels. Together with the board, we also designed an incremental readiness program that encompasses a long-term learning path and a gradual increase of responsibilities for all CGI executive roles, including mine. For instance, my role has evolved over time from president to CEO from 1976 until 2006, after which I transitioned to Executive Chairman of the Board. Michael Roach then succeeded me as CEO, serving for 10 years. He was then followed by George Schindler, who led for the company for eight years. Last October, François Boulanger began his mandate as fourth CEO. For the result has been a seamless transition each time, thanks to a rigorous succession planning and our commitment to ensuring that every successful fully masters CGI's work practices and culture. The same logic applies to the appointment we are announcing today. Decision, decision is opportune. Last November, I turned 75, and I feel very fortunate to be healthy and engaged in the life of CGI. I am not retiring. I will remain on the Board of CGI, and I will remain involved in the company, working closely with Julie, François, and our executive team on transformational acquisitions and large-scale engagement with our clients. I will remain the controlling shareholder of CGI. Since joining CGI in 2009, Julie has mastered every dimension of our business and industry as the portfolio of her responsibilities expanded in line with an incremental readiness approach. She joined the Board in 2013, was appointed Vice Chair of the Board in 2016, and then Co-Chair of the Board in 2020. Within our operations, she has been responsible for leading a broad range of enterprise functions that drive the company's long-term strategic direction and our build-and-buy profitable growth strategy. Over the years, Julie led critical global functions spanning human resources, including the design of CGI's executive compensation program, strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, business consulting, enterprise information technology, marketing and communication, cybersecurity, and global business shared services. Julie is also responsible for the ongoing evolution of the CGI Management Foundation, which encompasses the key elements that define and guide the management of the company's operations. Over nearly 49 years, CGI has grown to now be one of the largest independent business and IT consulting firms in the world. Today, we are proud to stand at more than 91,000 highly talented CGI partners working across 400 locations in 40 countries to partner with more than 5,500 clients worldwide. Over the years, the trust of our clients is evidenced by the signed client satisfaction rating we receive with a fiscal 2024 rating of 9.6 on a scale of 10, a testament to the dedication of our CGI partners. For shareholders, since our into of our entry in the public market in 1986, CGI has delivered an average annual return on investment of 17% with a current market cap of a bit more than CAD 37 billion. CGI CGI is built to grow and last, and we remain committed to ensuring the company continues to thrive for the next decades. Today's announcements represents an important milestone in CGI's journey towards perennially. Before turning to Julie, I'd like to congratulate her on her well-earned appointment, and I'd like to forward to continuing our collaboration in pursuit of CGI dream. Julie? Thank you all. I wish to thank Serge and the Board for the trust. I am honored by this appointment and the unique opportunity I had to continue contributing to the success of CGI for years to come with my colleagues on the Board, our CEO, François, Chief Operating Officer, Jean-Michel, and Tim, with our executive team. As Executive Chair of the Board, I'll continue working with our global team of more than 91,000 CGI partners to build on the strong foundation that has enabled the company's success over the years. This means pursuing our work together to bring the CGI Dream to life, which is, as you've heard many times, to create an environment in which we enjoy working together and as we owners contribute to building a company that we're proud of. CGI strategic pillars will continue to be essential for ensuring our success and resilience. The first pillar is our position as a trusted and high-end consulting world leader, which is fostered by our commitment to be a continuous learning organization. The second pillar is the distribution of our revenue by metro market, by economic sector, and by type of services. The last 1 is the strong culture that unites all of us. I will start with the first pillar of our success and resilience, our position as a trusted and high-end consulting world leader, which has been earned over the years by demonstrating our industry knowledge and technology expertise. Since the founding of CGI, we have made it a priority to master both the industries of our clients as well as technologies and to be constantly abreast of emerging trends and technologies. Therefore, it is embedded in our DNA to enrich our knowledge as constant learners. This is why we can proudly say CGI is a continuous learning organization. A fundamental element that has helped us enhance our intelligence over the years is our annual strategic planning program, where we actively engage our three stakeholders, our clients, CGI partners, and you, the shareholders of CGI. Through our consultations with these stakeholders each year, we gain insights that help shape our three-year rolling strategic plan. As an example, in fiscal 2024, our operational leaders met with over 1,800 client executives through the Voice of Our Clients consultation. They shared actionable intelligence, which helped deepen our understanding of their industries, as well as identifying emerging macro trends, area for innovation and priorities for their organizations. Importantly, the insights from these consultations globally also are shared with our clients to help inform their own strategic planning. The Voice of Our Clients findings, including the key macro trends, enable us to anticipate our clients needs, such as current and future AI and generative AI strategies. Through our discussions and day-to-day collaborations, we have delivered high value services such as responsible AI consulting, data strategies, platform modernization, and process optimization. As a consulting firm, in addition to our strategic planning, our CGI partners at all level acquire knowledge by being exposed to our clients realities on a daily basis. This began at the entry level with opportunities for shadowing, coaching, and immersion in the client environment, so our people are equipped to engage in meaningful and constructive dialogue. Building on this foundational knowledge, several years ago, we took a step to further our industry of expertise. We invested in the development of industry-based marketing intelligence. First, we created industry-tailored blueprints to reflect the functional structures of typical enterprises in each industry. We then expanded these blueprints to map the higher macro-level view of each industry supply chain ecosystems. This now spans to end-to-end business processes and data architectures that drive and support the development and delivery of each industry's products and services. These assets equip and inform our consultants, providing them with a comprehensive understanding of each client's industry and preparing them for strategic discussions, starting at the executive level. In this period of rapid evolution, I strongly believe that all of these intelligence assets enable CGI to continue being a change agent, driving progress and helping our clients shape the future. Our commitment to continuous learning is what truly enables us to be trusted consultants to our clients. Moving now to the next strategic pillar that enables CGI's resilience. This is the distribution of our revenue by metro market, by economic sector, and by type of services. Our revenue is well balanced across each of these dimensions at the global level. As we continue to grow, our ambition is to replicate this balanced revenue distribution within each strategic metro market. By diversifying our metro market-based business across multiple economic sectors and services type, we will be even more resilient and well-positioned to profitably grow in all economic cycles through our build and buy strategy. As I wrap up my remarks, I want to return to the most important pillar of our success and resilience, our talented CGI partners, and the culture of ownership that unites all of us globally. Since CGI's founding, our corporate culture has been anchored in the principle of ownership. Currently, 87% of our CGI partnership holds nearly CAD 2.9 billion in CGI. This means that CGI partners are collectively the second-largest shareholder group of the company. As owners, they have a voice, amongst others, in establishing the defining elements of CGI, namely our fundamentals and strategies and cultures. This is why we refer to our employees as CGI's partners. Designation expresses the importance of the active role they play in the development of the company and the commitment to growth. Our culture is strong, lived in every day and everywhere we operate. In a few words, our proven resilient strategy and our unique culture provides a solid foundation of CGI's success and perenniality for decades to come. I'll now turn it over to Serge for his closing and questions. Thank you, Julie. Let's now go to the questions. We remind you that the shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders may submit questions by using the question box at the bottom left of your screen. Please note that questions can be asked in English or French. I will read them in the language in which they are submitted and may answer them directly or direct them to one of my colleagues. First question, I'm reading it. Does CGI plan to adjust its strategy in working with the U.S. federal government in light with the new administration? Tim? Thank you, Serge, and thanks for the question. For decades, CGI has been serving the U.S. federal government. Throughout that period, there's been a presidential transition every four or eight years. In fact, we worked through with our clients a transition to this exact president eight years ago. We are an apolitical organization. We serve our clients and help them deliver on their promise to the American citizens and our allies around the world, and we'll continue to do that. Any reasonable person could probably argue that the last week or even the last 48 hours has been perhaps more dramatic than those transitions. You can already see that in the coming days and weeks it'll start to settle down. Throughout that time, we'll continue to work with our long-term clients to continue to deliver for them. One final thought. Throughout those decades, we've operated in a culture that is grounded in CGI's core values. Among those values is respect, and that will never change. Thank you, Tim. We have another question. Since it's in French this time. CGI is a signatory of the voluntary conduct code and is responsible for the GenAI, and it was started last year. We're asking open companies to follow suit in the context for the AI concerning the massive investment plan that was announced this week by the White House. Perhaps, François? Thank you, Serge, for the question. If you listen carefully to what Jean-Michel had to say this morning, we didn't sign just with the Government of Canada, but also with the EU, which we signed in September for a practice for responsibility and ethics in AI. There's a big announcements in the U.S., investments in AI. I haven't seen all of the detail, there's no doubt that a great deal of the investment will be in infrastructure. As we know, AI requires a great deal of infrastructure, an important part of the investment will go there. We will naturally support the client if they request some support. Always considering, remaining responsible and being ethical in AI. Thank you very much. Any other questions? There are no other questions, I'm seeing that there are no other questions. I wish to thank the members of the Board of Directors for their thoughtful advice throughout the year. I would also like to thank our clients, consultants, and professionals, as well as our shareholders for their continued support and trust. For many years now. Enjoy the rest of your day, we hope to see you again next year. Thank you very much.