Good day, everyone, and welcome to the TELUS conference call. I would like to introduce Robert Mitchell. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on short notice. Earlier this morning, TELUS announced that we have entered into an agreement to acquire LifeWorks Inc. News release is available on telus.com/investors. On our call today to discuss this exciting development, we will have remarks by TELUS President and CEO, Darren Entwistle. Darren is joining us from Bucharest, Romania, where he's visiting our TELUS International team at the moment. This will be followed by remarks from LifeWorks President and CEO, Stephen Liptrap, and concluding comments by TELUS CFO, Doug French. We will then move to the Q&A session, where we'll be joined by LifeWorks CFO, Grier Colter, and by Daniel Martz, Vice President, Virtual Care, TELUS Health. Briefly on slide two, today's discussion will include estimates and other forward-looking statements.
These statements speak only as of today and are subject to uncertainties and risks that may cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Accordingly, investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements and carefully review the disclaimer contained in today's news release with respect to forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements made during today's call are qualified in their entirety by the information contained in today's news release, presentation deck and TELUS and LifeWorks and other publicly available filings with securities commissions in Canada and the U.S. With that, let me turn the call over to you, Darren.
Thank you, Robert. Today is another exciting step in our TELUS Health strategy with the announcement of our plans to acquire LifeWorks, a globally leading provider of employee and family total health and wellness, as well as benefits administration and retirement planning. This acquisition undoubtedly will materially strengthen TELUS Health's position as a leading digital health provider. Myself and the team are grateful to the LifeWorks board of directors and the leadership team, including Stephen, for their partnership in bringing this important agreement to fruition. I look forward to welcoming the talented LifeWorks team, as well as the 36 million employees and their family members that they support into our TELUS Health family. Importantly, they're gonna be joining an organization that truly cares about empowering every person to live their healthiest life through world-leading technology and data analytics services combined with a caring culture.
TELUS was drawn to LifeWorks as an organization that shares and exemplifies our deep commitment to improving health outcomes through better health access and information across the continuum of care. Together, we can dramatically improve the mental health and physiological well-being of our fellow citizens around the world through the faster deployment of next-generation digital healthcare capabilities. In particular, we believe that the importance of ensuring the health and wellness of employees and their families cannot be overstated, including through remedial and preventative healthcare solutions within the realm of physical, functional, and neurological sciences. We've seen an unprecedented shift in what is required to support employers in addressing the evolving health and well-being needs of employees, including a greater focus on supporting mental health. Notably, with increasing competition in the global talent market, employers must seek opportunities to attract, develop, and retain top talent.
This includes taking a more meaningful role in promoting the mental health and physical well-being of employees and their families. This responsibility has become even more acute as government capacity to fund healthcare is pressured and support for mental wellness alone is costing our economy CAD 50 billion annually. Disconcertingly, pandemic-related pressures have also created a tsunami of burnout and poor mental health. Similarly, substance abuse and other negative coping behaviors are on the rise. We believe that the cost and accountability for making healthcare, particularly mental healthcare, more accessible, will increasingly fall to employers in this environment. Given the significant return realized from investing in employee well-being and preventative care, there is little doubt that employers will embrace this challenge. Importantly, employers who offer employees and their families innovative, digitally-enabled health and wellness programs will inevitably experience more effective recruitment and employee retention.
Will experience a healthier employee base, leading to reduced absenteeism. They'll experience a stronger corporate culture with higher employee engagement. They'll realize enriched customer and stakeholder interactions. They'll drive improved team member productivity and ultimately and cumulatively, stronger investor returns. Employers are increasingly looking for digital-first solutions that are available from wherever an employee may be working, whether they're at the office, in their homes, or when they're on the move. By combining the collective skill of our teams and leveraging the exceptional capabilities of TELUS International, we will effectively answer the evolving needs of employers and their team members. Indeed, together, LifeWorks and TELUS Health will create a transformative portfolio of digital-forward healthcare services and solutions available on a global basis.
Notably, employers, employees and their families will benefit from leading primary virtual care, comprehensive mental wellness support, and internationally recognized EFAP, a leading-edge virtual pharmacy, digitally enabled remote health monitoring, and nationwide preventative-minded healthcare centers, all of which collectively can provide well-being support to over 50 million individuals worldwide. Powered by TELUS Health's commitment to elevate outcomes through data-driven care and in potent combination with TELUS International's proven expertise in digital transformation and client service excellence, our health benefit management, collaborative patient record, and clinical solutions offer the potential when brought together with LifeWorks to unlock sustainable value in data-centric, preventative and mental health care for both employer and public sector markets across our 115,000 clients globally.
Over the course of more than half a century, LifeWorks has established a legacy of success in respect of helping employees proactively manage their health and wellness, and that, importantly, of their families. This includes both with their unmatched high-touch and in-person solutions, as well as LifeWorks' 15-year focus and investment in leading digital healthcare capabilities and platforms that are second to none globally. In fact, TELUS has enjoyed a long-standing partnership with LifeWorks, including benefiting from their expertise, their team members, and the talent that they have in employee health and wellness as a customer of theirs for the past 15 years. At TELUS Health, we have a proven track record of developing rich, digitally native and technologically innovative healthcare experiences for individuals, patients and practitioners delivered across the healthcare continuum over our world-leading broadband networks and our exciting IoT capabilities that we are developing for the health vertical.
Combined, LifeWorks and TELUS Health will effectively deliver on our shared goal of providing employers across the globe with simple, convenient and effective digital primary and data-driven preventative health and wellness solutions for their employees and their families so that they can lead their healthiest and most productive lives. Indeed, our respective teams are exceedingly passionate about the important opportunities inherent in our combined organization. These include benefiting from the tremendous synergies associated with our shared vision of empowering employers with world-leading digital tools and solutions to effectively support the overall health, mental wellness and well-being of their employees and families. It includes leveraging the significant benefits of scale and scope as a combined digital-centric organization with TELUS' world-best broadband network underpinnings.
They include utilizing our respective international footprints and long-standing relationships, including that of TELUS International in particular, to extend our reach and drive improved health outcomes for people around the planet. Finally, they include capitalizing and expanding upon TELUS' and LifeWorks' proven leadership and customer service excellence to ensure that our clients receive best-in-class healthcare support. Importantly, our strategy continues to be guided by our shared and deeply rooted commitment to improving societal outcomes in Canada and on a global basis. Clearly, the scale of a combined LifeWorks-TELUS Health organization, backed by the skill of our TELUS International team and their own health vertical, represents an unparalleled market opportunity to further differentiate TELUS Health and TELUS Corporation in the hearts and minds of even more employers, employees and their families across Canada and globally.
Together, we will offer the most comprehensive suite of employee and family preventative healthcare, mental health and physical wellness services across our world's best networks, across our machine-to-machine applications, and leveraging our dynamic data insights to drive better health outcomes. Today's announcement allows TELUS to further progress our goal of leveraging the power of technology in action and in combination with our caring culture and the strength of our brand to create better health experiences across the entire health and wellness ecosystem. Importantly, the potent combination of LifeWorks and TELUS will represent one of the largest health IT companies globally, with over 50 million lives covered by our healthcare programs. It will represent a leader in helping people proactively manage their health and that of their families through more than 140 digitally driven health and wellness services.
We will be a leading global total health and wellness organization with nearly 10,000 talented team members and almost 30,000 independent health practitioners, improving health outcomes for over 115,000 customers in more than 160 countries around the world. Moreover, we have an important opportunity to leverage our expansive TELUS and TELUS International footprint spanning 32 countries, as well as the tremendous skill of our 70,000 international team members to further expand the effectiveness and critically, the efficiency of our health services on a global basis. As leaders in the healthcare industry, the combined LifeWorks and TELUS Health organization will focus on shaping a healthcare system for future generations to come, one that benefits employers, benefits employees, their families, and critically, all of our societies.
Clearly, there are boundless opportunities before us to generate improved health, wellness, mental health, and preventative care outcomes for citizens around the world, leveraging data-driven insights and TELUS International's strong AI capabilities along the way, while supporting the positive financial, economic, and operational strength of our organization. Today represents just the start of our journey together, and we are tremendously excited for all that is yet to come and what we intend to realize together. On that note, I'm gonna turn the call over to Stephen. Stephen, over to you.
Thank you, Darren, and good day, everyone. We, too, are very excited about the journey ahead for LifeWorks and TELUS. This is truly a win-win for both of our organizations. The transaction represents an exciting new chapter for LifeWorks. The acquisition advances both LifeWorks and TELUS' strategic plans to create unparalleled leadership in employee wellness. The combination of TELUS Health and LifeWorks really does represent an unmatched opportunity to create a global leader in employer-focused healthcare, with the differentiator of also having our unmatched high touch and in-person services. Together, we will accelerate our shared vision of empowering individuals to live their healthiest lives by unifying both organizations' continuums of care through digital-first innovations as well as unmatched and unparalleled high touch care. There will be many on this call today who may not be familiar with our company.
Let me take a few minutes to talk about our focus and our strategic direction to illustrate why this transaction makes a lot of sense. LifeWorks is a world leader in providing digital and in-person solutions that support the total wellbeing of individuals, mental, financial, social, and physical. We deliver a personalized continuum of care that helps our clients improve the lives of their people, and by doing so, improve their business. It's the idea that by improving a person's life, we improve how they perform at work. We combine technology and deep expertise to deliver results. Our solutions combine the global depth of our in-person expertise and technologies and make complex solutions simple, accessible, and intuitive for people, HR leaders, and business leaders. When people need support, we can intervene proactively. When someone is at risk, we can help with recovery and avoid problems in the first place.
Every individual has different wellbeing needs and expectations. We always start with where people are and work toward their goals by understanding their needs, then providing options for the support they need. We deliver a guided journey for positive total wellbeing, all toward maximizing organizational productivity. We empower people by supporting their wellbeing. We're there for people at the most critical moments in their lives. When welcoming a child into a family, when buying a house or starting a pension plan, when a partner gets ill, during a crisis, and at retirement. We are there when it matters. LifeWorks helps deliver results in the workplace in areas such as engagement, talent retention, and productivity. We help to manage healthcare, absence, and disability costs. We help organizations adapt to a changing and challenging world. As a global enterprise, we have the reach to support organizations around the world.
We take equal pride in having the agility of a startup with the game-changing solutions for today's digitally connected organizations. Our teams have capabilities for delivering quality and innovation in employee and family assistance, health and wellness, recognition, pension and benefits administration, retirement consulting, actuarial, and investment services. Our client base is 25,000 strong, supporting 36 million individuals around the world. In addition to our leading in-person solutions, we have long been investing in our digital capabilities. We have been investing in digital for more than 15 years, where we launched the first app in this space, to today, where we have the first substance use SaaS solution on a well-being platform. We see an amazing opportunity in the mental health space, where one in three are at high risk in their mental health, and as high risk drinking in the workforce has increased fourfold.
Beyond that, more people are aware of the need to actively invest in their mental health and appreciate employers who also invest in their mental health and well-being. Combined with TELUS's long-standing track record of developing rich, digitally native, and technologically innovative healthcare experiences for individuals, patients, and practitioners delivered across the healthcare continuum over world-leading broadband networks, the opportunity to be the world leader in well-being and wellness is very clear, and that is exciting. I'll now talk a bit about the deal and our process. As our news release outlined today, TELUS entered into a definitive agreement to acquire LifeWorks, with our shareholders having the option to receive CAD 33 per share in cash, TELUS shares, or a 50/50 mix of both, subject to proration.
With the assistance of our financial and legal advisors, headed by a special committee of our board of directors, a thorough evaluation was made of TELUS's proposal, along with a comprehensive process focused on maximizing value for LifeWorks shareholders while taking into consideration the interest of all stakeholders. The transaction with TELUS is an excellent outcome for LifeWorks shareholders and for our clients, partners, employees, and other stakeholders. LifeWorks shareholders will benefit with the value add of a tax-free rollover option if the shareholder elects share consideration or mixed consideration. In addition, our shareholders will have the option to gain exposure to a broader base of industry-leading businesses and benefit from continued exposure to next-generation healthcare innovations driven by the skill and expertise of our combined organizations, along with benefiting from TELUS's long-standing dividend growth program.
We are pleased that this transaction has received the full support of LifeWorks' board of directors and has been recommended unanimously. The transaction remains subject to court, regulatory, and LifeWorks shareholder approvals, and we anticipate completion on or about the fourth quarter of 2022. I'll end with an important component of the success of both of our organizations, one that we share, and that's our corporate cultures. We are both purpose-driven organizations committed to improving the lives of people around the world. TELUS is driven by its vision to connect all citizens for good and is a global leader in social capitalism. LifeWorks' purpose is to improve lives and improve business with an aspiration to improve the lives of one billion people around the world.
On all fronts, we are very excited by bringing these two companies together for the benefit of our employees, shareholders, and all of our stakeholders. I'll now turn it over to Doug.
Thank you, Stephen, and good morning. We are very excited by the prospect of TELUS Health and LifeWorks coming together to create a leading and comprehensive, technology-driven, end-to-end focused health and wellness platform on a global basis. The transaction is financially and strategically attractive to TELUS and a natural complement to TELUS Health. Our news release outlined TELUS has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire LifeWorks for total consideration of approximately CAD 2.3 billion and the assumption of approximately CAD 600 million in LifeWorks debt. The transaction will be financed with a balance of debt and equity, funding the purchase price with 50% cash and 50% TELUS shares.
With over CAD 2.6 billion of available liquidity at the end of the first quarter of 2022, combined with an incremental bank facilities of CAD 1.9 billion, TELUS has more than enough capacity to finance the cash portion of this transaction. Pro forma leverage is not anticipated to increase materially, rising by an estimated 0.16, giving LifeWorks robust cash flow generation and the combined synergy opportunities. Furthermore, our leading dividend program, which was recently extended through 2025, targeting annual growth of 7%-10% remains in place. We anticipate closing the transaction on or about the fourth quarter of 2022 once we receive the appropriate approvals and other closing conditions are satisfied.
We will assess any impact to our annual GAAP guidance concurrent with the closing of the transaction. This transaction adds significant scale to TELUS Health with a combined annual revenue of approximately CAD 1.6 billion, underpinning continued growth and profitability along with a customer and geographic diversity, including a significant U.S. presence. The U.S. and other international markets will represent about 30% of our health revenue upon closing of this transaction. In 2021, LifeWorks reported consolidated revenue and adjusted EBITDA of over CAD 1 billion and CAD 195 million respectively, representing nearly 6% of TELUS's consolidated revenue and 3% of adjusted EBITDA that we reported in 2021. We have identified readily available synergies and anticipate being able to drive significant cross-selling opportunities between our respective organizations, including and leveraging TELUS International's extensive capabilities and client base.
These cross-selling synergies, alongside with the related operating expenses, are expected to accelerate once we complete the integration, reaching an annual run rate in excess of over CAD 170 million over the next three to five years, enhancing our profitability and free cash flow growth. To conclude, we expect to drive strong future growth from our combined TELUS and LifeWorks Health organizations as a global leader in digital healthcare provider backed by TELUS's leading customer-centric culture, best-in-class customer experiences, global leading wireline and wireless broadband networks, and our leading execution excellence. With that, I'll turn it back to Robert for the Q&A.
Thank you, Doug. Mihai, can we proceed with questions, please?
Yes, of course. First question comes from Jérôme Dubreuil from Desjardins. Please go ahead, Jérôme.
Thanks for taking my question. Congratulations on the deal. First question on the synergy front, Doug, the CAD 170 million just alluded to. If you can segment this, with regards to, the cross-selling opportunities and OpEx, what portion is which? Also on the regulatory approval, what are we expecting on that front? Are we expecting maybe a smooth sailing proceedings or any obstacles here you could foresee? Thanks.
Doug, why don't you take that and I'll top up as required.
Yeah. On the cross-selling, we're extremely excited on the opportunities for our customer bases. More than two-thirds of the synergies will be the cross-selling and customer experience opportunities, and that will continue to build immediately, but by continuing to hit its peak in that three to five-year period as we do the integration. On the regulatory approval, there is very little overlap on the services between our organizations, both in Canada and internationally. We expect very smooth sailing on that front, as our organizations are call it a perfect fit from a puzzle perspective.
I think that covers it, Jérome.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks, Jérome. Mihai, next question, please.
Yes, of course. Just to remind everyone to queue up for a question, please press star one. The next question comes from Drew McReynolds from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks very much. Good morning. Congrats on this. Just obviously very consistent, I think, with what's been mentioned in terms of the journey here for TELUS Health. Could you provide a little bit of perspective just in terms of this increased scale now of the two companies coming together? You know, where does that now kind of sit for you in terms of the scale of this asset versus where you think you need to be? Obviously that is in context of, you know, a journey to ultimately maybe crystallizing TELUS Health in some way, shape, or form. Then second, on the international kind of component here, it certainly takes TELUS Health outside of Canada in a more meaningful way.
You know, perhaps, I think we can fully understand the employee health and wellness vertical outside of Canada and obviously the synergy with TI. You know, do you see other different types of health services that you can also scale and take outside of Canada? Thank you.
Maybe I'll hit this one on the head, and Stephen, if you wanna top up, feel free. You know, clearly one of the things that attracted us about this particular opportunity was the opportunity for scale. We need that within this particular business. When you look at the combined skills and capabilities across TELUS Health, LifeWorks and TELUS International, you know, we become a globally leading IT healthcare organization.
When you think about the number of lives that we cover in the 50 million zone and 150,000 clients that we can support and progress along the way, these get to be very, you know, interesting numbers for us, and our ability to enjoy economies of both scope and scale are tremendously exciting. We love the scale that we're getting on the product front. The product portfolios of both companies are highly complementary and highly synergistic, and that is deeply attractive. Next, we like the financial strength that this particular combination gives us. You know, there's a lot of organizations that are undertaking digital activities in various verticals around the world.
Not a lot of them have both size and profitability in terms of the economics of their business. Whether it's top line profitable revenue or EBITDA or the cash flow of this organization, we're combining the digital aspirations, the excitement of a well-broadened product portfolio with fantastic economics underpinning that business. That is, I would say, quite rare. Really like the international component in terms of the geos that we're gonna be covering here. It's exciting because the health challenge that our employers are facing around the world is quite homogeneous. This is not, you know, a challenge that's unique to North America. It's one that's confronting every employer on a global basis.
They're in a war for talent. If we can differentiate positively their ability to attract better talent and retain better talent because of what we can do on the healthcare front for the employee and their family, that's potent. If we can give up hygiene factors like reducing absenteeism. One day of reduced absenteeism at TELUS Corporation is CAD 13 million of EBITDA. We think that if we can address both the physical and the mental wellness components, we drive higher productivity. Better productivity, better execution, better share price. Lastly, we can speak empirically at TELUS to the extent to which you can give employers better engagement because of the key principles that you're driving on the health and wellness front.
The R squared between engagement and the stock price of the organization has been well proven. This platform I think is terrific and it's indicative of the path that we've blazed before with TELUS International. We've got the strength on the strategy front, the product front, the client base front, the financial front, so on and so forth. Now it's about driving the execution of this particular combination. It's continuing to see organic growth combined with some tuck-in acquisitions along the way that expand our product set, our capability set, our talent base and our customer list. Then look at what we might do prospectively with the capital markets.
As we have communicated previously, TI is a good example in terms of what you can expect from this organization in terms of TELUS Health. I'll sign off there, Drew, and I'll just give Stephen an opportunity if he'd like to top up.
That's great, Darren. Thanks so much. As Doug said, I think these are puzzle pieces that really fit well together. I think you rarely find such a good fit when we kind of map out the product portfolio and the roadmaps of where we both need to go in the future. I think that solution is just so much needed, as Darren said, more than ever before with talent wars, talent shortages, and where the world is going from a mental health standpoint. We've seen really strong international and U.S. growth, as has TELUS International. I think there's tremendous opportunities between them. As Darren said, tremendous strengths around the product roadmaps, where we're going, and the people.
At the end of the day, I think we're gonna be able to significantly differentiate and make a difference in society with our clients and with our incredible talent between the two organizations. Thank you.
Thanks, Drew. Mihai, next question, please.
Next question comes from Graham Ryding from TD Securities. Please go ahead.
Can you just talk about the process here, whether this is sort of multiple bidders involved or how did this deal come about? Any color on that front?
Stephen, do you wanna handle that one?
Sure. More than happy to. Morning, morning Graham. As you can imagine, we set up a special committee of our board of directors, and they went through a process where they really ensured that this made a lot of sense for LifeWorks shareholders. It was a very robust process. At the end of the day, the special committee was very impressed with what came back and the fit. That went to the full board of directors. As we mentioned, that received unanimous support.
Thank you.
My other question, if I could just, can you talk about the technology integration here, how you're thinking about what's involved here on the front end in terms of sort of client portals and, you know, apps that clients would use on the front end and then also on the back end? You know, does LifeWorks eventually move over onto sort of a TELUS platform, or how are you thinking about this from a technology perspective?
I think first order of business for us is to get the acquisition consummated. To get the closing conditions met, to satisfy the regulatory process in terms of bringing the two organizations together. As it relates to the post-acquisition integration, whether it's the technology platform, us migrating products onto the LifeWorks platform, or vice versa, I think we can talk about that prospectively down the road, answering the immediate challenge of actually getting the deal done. I think it'll give us an opportunity down the road to better share what we think the synergies are in both technology, product and on a client basis.
Also give some semblance as to what we're doing on the humanistic component in terms of combining the talent from both organizations to get the right resulting company that is set up for success on the strategy front. I'd ask for you to be patient in terms of what that's gonna look like at a specific level in terms of technology, products and people and allow us to get the near-term challenge of the deal being consummated put behind us.
Thanks, Graham. Mihai, next question, please.
Next question comes from Tim Casey from BMO. Please go ahead, Tim.
Yeah, thanks, Doug. Could you walk us through a bit of a picture here on profitability? You know, a combined revenue base of CAD 1.6 billion or so looks like LifeWorks does margins around 19%. How should we think about TELUS Health's margins and what they'd be pro forma? As a follow-on, do you expect any investment required, either OpEx or CapEx to optimize the deal? Like, is there. Should we think about J-curves or, do you think you can combine these and get into accretion, you know, quickly? Thanks.
Doug, you might be on mute.
Oh, yeah, I will take that. We have not disclosed the combined EBITDA margins yet. To Darren's point, once we've closed the deal, we are in the development and call it initiation of what a PPA plan might look like. We will update our guidance accordingly by the end of the year. TELUS, the advantage that we see with this combination is both organizations are creating EBITDA. As we bring them together, it's going to be an acceleration of that through the synergies I mentioned. I think we'll leave the margin discussion till after closing and a formal update of our guidance.
It's very positive as you get through the savings that we talked about from cross-sell to OpEx to CapEx savings that we actually do see as we align platforms. There might be an integration CapEx that we see over the next two to three years, but in the big scheme of things, it is very, very insignificant, as both organizations had a capital platform that was to take us into the future on digitization. Leveraging both of those capital buckets will actually get us substantially where we need to go.
Just topping up on that, given what we've traditionally done within the core telecoms area, by contrast, LifeWorks is an organization that has a materially lower CapEx intensity supporting some of the economics that I was alluding to earlier. As we strive to deliver annual synergies in the CAD 170 million-CAD 200 million zone, against a cost to realize those synergies of about a quarter of that over a 24-month period, so circa just over CAD 50 million on cost of synergy realization between 2022 and 2024, I like that particular ratio in terms of the amount to achieve the synergies at over CAD 50 million over a two-year period, striving to realize annual synergies approaching CAD 200 million.
You know, there is no heavy lifting, so to speak, that's required to be able to move forward expeditiously in terms of driving LifeWorks' product set through TELUS Health's channels and our client base, and then taking TELUS Health's digital product set and driving it through the LifeWorks channels and product base. Our opportunity to bring winning digital products to warm customers synergistically between the two organizations is very compelling financially.
Can I just confirm that CAD 170 million-CAD 200 million, is that EBITDA or revenue?
That is the annual amount at a monetary level related to our total synergies that we're looking to realize, and that's an annual number. The realization of that annual number has a three to five year time horizon on it. The CAD 55 million, 50+ is related to cost of bringing those synergies to fruition through 2024. Cash number.
Thanks, Tim. Mihai, next question, please.
Of course. Next question comes from Matthew Griffiths from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
All right. Thanks for taking the question. I just was curious, you have expanded your kind of suite of capabilities in TELUS Health. At this stage, I know there's work to be done on combining them and cross-selling, but are there any capabilities you feel are missing that would be kind of the target of a future tuck-in? Or do you feel as though the suite of capabilities is fulsome and will be what you go forward with as you continue to build scale and work towards the eventual, you know, kind of TELUS International outcome of the IPO?
Secondly, if I could, is there any light you could shed on the revenue model for LifeWorks, whether how the revenue generation relates to either lives covered or contracts signed or the suite of capabilities, how that enhances the revenue generation? Just any kind of details on that would just be helpful if you could please.
Stephen, why don't you take the second question first, if you will, where you and Grier combine.
That's great, Darren. Thanks. Yeah. The majority of our business at LifeWorks is per employee per month. And we've got about 96% recurring revenue. A very solid base that we built from, and then we add on new wins every year to that, which really relates to our growth at the end of the day. The vast majority would be per employee per month.
In terms of tuck-in opportunities that we still see in this space that we think are interesting, there's more opportunities still to be driven on the preventive front that I think are quite exciting and lend themselves potentially to the digital thesis. There's more capabilities that we're looking to bring to market in respect of mental health. These developments are both organic and inorganic in terms of the capability set. There's a big opportunity on geo expansion. We don't have all products across all markets, and that's an organic activity that's non-trivial. There's opportunities to do better on distribution strength and our channels to market to support the overall product thesis.
Those are the areas that we're interested in. There's more to be done as it relates to specialization, whether it relates to a demographic, whether it relates to a gender, ethnicity. There's lots that we can do in terms of specialization, activity, age-related capabilities that would be particularly interesting with the grain of our society. That specialization push is also something that's front of mind for us. But I, you know, I think the thing that would strike anyone looking at this combined organization, all of those increments in terms of capabilities are on top of what is today, from the get- go, a world leading product set. We're approaching 150 services within this particular space.
When you look at the existing capability right now, it's differentiated from the competition, it's hunting well on the customer base, and the appetite for these capabilities based out of employer to employee necessity is growing at an incredible rate, and it's doing that on a global basis. You know, it's one heck of a foundation for us to consider both organic and inorganic expansion opportunities. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, Matt. Mihai, next question, please.
Of course. Next question comes from David Joyce from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. A couple more questions, please. I was just wondering if there's a margin differential among the product mix of the two different entities currently. I was also wondering if this is gonna be presented as a new segment for reporting purposes upon closing. Finally, also on the CapEx front, are there going to be particular countries or regions where you're going to be focusing on the investment you know after integration is basically complete? Thank you.
Doug, do you wanna take that and I can top up on some of the topology comments?
The first one on margin. TELUS' margin set is different. We have such a end-to-end suite of products that the margins are different depending on the product set. From an average perspective, as we talked about, we will put more formal direction to that upon closing and our guidance, either adjustment or 2023 guidance, depending on the closing date. We'll give you more insights to that. But it does vary significantly within the TELUS portfolio from our HBM services to our virtual care services as an example. On the segment side, no determination has been made yet. It's very much an accounting definition. As we get through the closing and corporate structure, and how we run the business into the future, we'll make the assessment of the segment at that time as well. We'll be clear when we do, upon closing at the end of the year, when that happens.
In terms of topology, clearly for us, you know, we've got a wide footprint, now when you look at the number of countries involved. From a weighting or prioritization perspective, clearly lots of opportunity for us within North America. Lots of opportunity U.K., and on the continent. Very interesting opportunities within the Commonwealth topology, including Australia. We'll be looking to leverage those along the way. There'll be a, you know, a strong focus also within the immediate opportunity within the Canadian market on digital expansion.
When you look at, you know, the fact that LifeWorks has a relationship with, you know, three-quarters of the TSX 60, and you think about our B2B heritage at both TELUS Health and TELUS, that opportunity is pretty exciting. When you think about what we can do to support the digital health applications because of our broadband capabilities, both fiber and 5G, but also what we're doing on the IoT applications, that's tremendously exciting. Then trying to push our products down market, so expanding, you know, beyond, you know, some concentration on the enterprise front, and looking at material opportunities in mid-market and small business to complement what we're already doing on direct-to-consumer, that's pretty exciting.
Stephen made a comment, you know, at the end of the opening commentary around SaaS capabilities. The exciting thing about this product portfolio is when you've got intellectual property and product differentiation at a SaaS level, your ability to export that capability on an international context is very exciting, both in terms of speed to market and the associated economics. TELUS also has channel relationships in many of these markets, either whether it's telco to telco in terms of pursuing franchising and licensing opportunities for our digital health solution or TELUS International and the capabilities that they would bring to bear and the fact that they've got their own health vertical. You know, we are spoiled for choice from an opportunity set. You know, we're gonna work our way through the immediate prioritization of that, but it should support the type of speed to growth that I know we're all aspiring to.
Al right. Thank you, Darren. Congratulations.
Thanks David.
Thanks David. Mihai, we have time for one more question.
Of course. Last question comes from Vince Valentini from TD Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks very much. I wanna try to clarify a couple things on the synergy. Doug, you had mentioned over two-thirds of the CAD 170 million, that I think that's the public number. Darren's been mentioning CAD 200 million, but we'll use the CAD 170 million. Over two-thirds of that being revenue synergies over five years, that would be about CAD 120 million. I just wanna clarify. That would mean about CAD 500 million-CAD 600 million of incremental revenue at a 20%-25% margin is what you're talking about. Is that correct?
Sorry. Not quite.
You are on mute. Yeah.
Yeah, it's not quite. Some of the cross-sell will actually be in our telecom services as well as we're leveraging the customer base as we highlighted earlier. Some of those benefits will actually be at a margin level on our wireline, wireless services concurrently. It'll be a different mix than what you suggested, Vince, but directionally correct.
The cost synergies within that, Vince, right? Don't do the quotient purely on the revenue generation front. There's also cost synergies that are non-trivial for us to realize as well. Despite my age, my memory is still fairly good. I said approaching CAD 200 million or CAD 170 million-CAD 200 million, and I will be disappointed if we're not approaching CAD 200 million within that three to five -year timeframe. That's the goal that will be set for management.
Yeah, no, understand the aspiration versus the target you put in the press release. That's totally clear. The other question I was gonna ask on the cost synergies. Yeah, you back out the two-thirds as revenue, that leaves you with about CAD 50 million. Two-prong question on that. One, is that still as long as a three to five- year timeframe to achieve, or can some of that CAD 50 million in cost savings potentially come within the first couple of years? Secondly, that also, I guess, is a mix of some of that is on the TELUS Telecom side and some of it is just simply expanding the margins of the LifeWorks operations?
The answer is the latter. It can come earlier. The second part of the answer is yes.
Okay. That's clear enough.
Okay. Are you clear, Vince? Are you clear with that? It is the latter. It can come quicker. Yes, in terms of your supposition that you were postulating.
Perfect. The last little clarification I have then, and I'll leave it off, it's been a good long call. Is the CAD 50 million in costs you mentioned over the next two years to get at the synergies, is that mostly OpEx or a healthy mix of OpEx and CapEx?
I think we'll draw the line on that one, Vince, and we'll get back to you. It won't be long before you hear from us, again, and you can poke at the delineation between OpEx and CapEx at that point.
Fair enough. Thank you.
Thank you, Vince, and thank you everyone for joining us this morning. Please feel free to reach out to the IR team with any follow-ups and take care, everyone.
This concludes the TELUS conference call. Thank you for your participation and have a nice day.