CAE - Q1 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the CAE First Quarter Financial Results for fiscal year 2025 conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity for analysts to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star, then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Andrew Arnovitz. Please go ahead, Mr. Arnovitz.

Andrew Arnovitz (SVP of Investor Relations)

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's remarks, including management's outlook and answers to questions, contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements represent our expectations as of today, August 14, 2024, and accordingly, are subject to change. Such statements are based on assumptions that may not materialize and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially, and listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. A description of the risks, factors, and assumptions that may affect future results is contained in CAE's annual MD&A, available on our corporate website and our filings with the Canadian Securities Administrators on SEDAR+ and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on EDGAR.

With the divestiture of CAE's healthcare business in fiscal 2024, all comparative figures discussed here and our financial results have been reclassified to reflect discontinued operations. On the call with me this morning are Marc Parent, CAE's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Sonya Branco, our Chief Financial Officer. Nick Leontidis, CAE's Chief Operating Officer, is on hand for the question period. After remarks from Marc and Sonya, we'll open the call to questions from financial analysts. Let me now turn the call over to Marc.

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Thank you, Andrew, and good morning to everyone joining us on the call. Our performance in the first quarter reflects a continued healthy level of demand, you know, across our Civil market solutions, with some softness in commercial aviation training in certain regions compared to last year. Our results also demonstrate our ongoing progress to move our Defense business forward from the rebaselining last year, which just sets us up on a clear path to margin improvement. Testimony to our strong position in secular growth markets, we booked nearly $1.2 billion in total orders this quarter for a record $17 billion in adjusted backlog. In Civil, we delivered 8 full-flight simulators to customers during the quarter, and our average training center utilization was down a percentage point from last year to 76%.

We saw year-over-year growth in business aviation training, including the expected contributions from our more recent capacity additions, like our new Savannah, Georgia, training center for Gulfstream pilots, which we inaugurated in June. In commercial aviation training, utilization was three percentage points lower than last year on average, which is still robust, but it was lower still in the Americas, where we saw some incremental pressure on initial training and pilot churn as several airlines paused pilot hiring. This was mainly the result of the supply-side constraints on new narrow-body aircraft. For example, in the U.S., there was a nearly 80% reduction in pilot hiring among notable carriers in the month of June compared to last year. That being said, recurrent training is up year-over-year as the in-service fleet and pilot population continue to grow.

Commercial training utilization was lower in Europe, too, with seasonality being more pronounced than usual because of an extended summer flying season. This also relates to aircraft supply-side constraints and special events, namely the Euro Cup and the Paris Olympics, that altered normal travel behavior this season. Training demand in Asia and the Middle East has been tracking well, and we're seeing solid growth there in line with our expectations. We continue to demonstrate our ability to win our fair share in a large secular growth market, which sees highly differentiated training and flight operations software solutions. We booked $771 million in orders with Civil customers worldwide for an impressive 1.31x book-to-sales ratio, which is on revenue that's 9% higher than Q1 of last year.

We also had strong order activity in our JVs this quarter, representing another approximate $103 million of training service orders, which are not included in the adjusted order intake figure, but are reflected in our record $6.6 billion total Civil adjusted backlog. We received orders for 11 full-flight simulators in a quarter and signed long-term training services and next-generation flight operations and crew management software solutions, contracts with commercial and business jets operators worldwide. In Defense, our financial performance was in line with our expectations at this point on our path towards margin improvement this year, and I'm quite pleased with the progress that our team has made to deliver on our commitments.

We booked orders for $422 million, or a 0.87x book-to-sales ratio, giving us a $10.4 billion Defense-adjusted backlog, which is up markedly from $8.4 billion in Q1 last year. Notably, including in the adjusted backlog, but not the Defense-adjusted order intake is CAE's share of the $1.2 billion, 25-year contract for Canada's future aircrew training program that was awarded to the CAE SkyAlyne Joint Venture. We're now in the process of finalizing CAE's contract subcontract work under the JV for simulation-based training solutions that will be delivered by CAE. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Sonya, who will provide additional details about our financial performance. Sonya?

Sonya Branco (CFO)

Thank you, Marc, and good morning, everyone. Consolidated revenue of 1.07 billion dollars was 6% higher compared to the first quarter last year, while adjusted segment operating income was $134.2 million, compared to $143.3 million in the first quarter last year. Our quarterly adjusted EPS was $0.21, sorry, $0.24 in the first quarter last year. We incurred restructuring, integration, and acquisition costs of $25.6 million during the quarter. This is comprised of $10.8 million for the integration of AirCentre, which is expected to be completed in the second quarter, and $14.8 million in additional restructuring program to streamline CAE's operating model and portfolio, optimize our cost structure and create efficiency.

We expect to record approximately $20 million of additional restructuring expenses in the second quarter in light of the expanded scope of the organizational and operational changes that have been actioned. They are intended to further strengthen our execution capabilities and drive additional cost optimizations and synergies in CAE's Defense and Civil Aviation businesses. This primarily involves the removal of management layers and the consolidation of several shared services groups across the organization. We expect to fully achieve an annual run rate cost savings of approximately $20 million by the end of next fiscal year. Net finance expense this quarter amounted to $49.5 million, which is down from $52.4 million in the preceding quarter and down from $53.1 million in the first quarter last year.

This is mainly the result of lower finance expense on long-term debt, partially offset by higher finance expense, finance expense on lease liabilities in support of training network expansion. Income tax expense this quarter was $8.3 million, for an effective tax rate of 14%. The adjusted effective tax rate was 17%, which is the basis for the adjusted EPS. Net cash from operating activities this quarter was -$12.9 million, compared to -$49.3 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2024. Free cash flow was -$25.3 million, compared to -$110.3 million in the first quarter last year. The increase was mainly due to lower investment in non-cash working capital and lower maintenance capital expenditures.

Free cash flow performance in the quarter was in line with our expectations outlook. We usually see a higher investment in non-cash working capital accounts in the first half of the year, and as in previous years, we expect a portion of this to reverse in the second half. We continue to target an average 100% conversion of adjusted net income to free cash flow for the year. Capital expenditures totaled $92.6 million for this quarter, with approximately 75% invested in growth, mainly to add capacity to our global training network to deliver on the long-term training contracts in our backlog.

As a reflection of our agility and disciplined approach to investing, we have adjusted our total CapEx outlook in fiscal 2025 to the low end of our previously indicated range of $50 million-$100 million higher than fiscal 2024, which totaled $330 million. Our net debt position at the end of the quarter was approximately $2.1 billion, for a net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 2.01x at the end of the quarter. Accounting for impact of legacy contracts, net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 3.11x.

During the quarter, CAE repurchased and canceled a total of 463,500 common shares under its normal course issuer bid, which began on May 30, 2024, and at a weighted average price of $25.21 per common share, for a total consideration of $11.7 million. Now, turning to our segmented performance. In Civil, first quarter revenue was up 9% to $587.6 million compared to the first quarter last year, and adjusted segment operating income was down 11% to $106.4 million versus the first quarter last year, for a margin of 18.1%.

The two main differences in our financial performance this quarter compared to last year involve an approximately $10 million lower adjusted segment operating income contribution this quarter from flight operation services, our software business, as we are now going through an expectedly more intensive period of SaaS conversion. The second main difference comes from the incrementally lower demand in the short term for initial type training in the Americas that Marc alluded to, and the extended summer flying season in Europe that has made the seasonal dip in training activity more pronounced than usual. We enjoy a highly recurring revenue profile and significant degree of operating leverage in the training business, and we expect a meaningfully positive impact on margins as volumes increase in the second half of the fiscal year.

In Defense, revenue was up 3% to $484.9 million, while adjusted segment operating income was up 14% to $27.8 million, giving us an adjusted segment operating income margin of 5.7%. It's right on plan and the team is executing well. On the legacy contracts, we are right on cost and schedule and anticipate being able to close out a couple of them in the near term. With that, I will ask Marc to discuss the way forward.

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Thanks, Sonya. For Civil, the secular demand picture for aviation training solutions remains very compelling. It's underpinned by growth in air travel, demand for pilots, and the need for them to stay current with always advancing aviation technology and regulations. Our business is driven primarily by the regulated training required to maintain the certification of pilots and crews who operate the global in-service fleet of commercial and business aircraft. It's notable that both Boeing and Airbus recently published their latest 20-year commercial aviation forecast, and they project that the number of in-service commercial jets will approximately double over the next two decades. The demographic realities of an aging pilot population, mandatory age-based retirements, and the continued secular growth outlook for air travel are immutable, and they really underlie our continued confidence in the long-term outlook for CAE.

As for the short term, the airline industry is currently managing through what we believe represents the peak of narrow-body aircraft supply headwinds, and we assume the industry will begin to benefit from some easing of these supply constraints, and that we're also seeing pilot hiring, hiring begin to resume in the second half of our fiscal year. We're already seeing an uptick in traffic training bookings for the third and fourth quarters that are consistent with that view. As we think about what else underpins our expectations for a stronger second half of the fiscal year, I think it's important to consider that these factors have been affecting only a portion of our commercial aviation training sub-segment, and that we've taken initiatives to drive additional operational cost efficiencies to partially mitigate the effects of incrementally lower initial training demand in the shorter term.

At the same time, we expect the second half to benefit from seasonality and to show continued strong performance in business aviation training, higher profitability in flight operations solutions, and higher volume and profitability from full flight simulator deliveries. Within that context, we expect approximately 10% Civil annual adjusted segment operating income growth in fiscal 2025, with an annual adjusted segment operating income margin between 22% and 23%, with ample room to grow beyond the current year on volume, efficiencies, and mix. Our growth and our margin expectations this year also account for the ongoing ramp-up of our newer training centers and recently deployed full flight simulators, which are performing well. In Defense, we're also in a secular growth market as the sector enters an extended upcycle marked by rising budgets across NATO and allied nations.

Key trends include the heightened focus on near peer threats, greater government commitments to Defense modernization and readiness amid geopolitical tensions, and a growing demand for the training and simulation solutions that we provide. Our expertise in both Civil Aviation and Defense positions us well to meet these needs. We're seeing a consistent demand driver across regions for our training solutions, a shortage of uniformed personnel for Defense, which has led militaries to rely on industry partners like CAE for training solutions to ensure readiness. The Canadian FAcT and RPAS programs are prime examples, and we're well-positioned over the next year on several similar strategic programs across the Indo-Pacific regions, Europe, and in the United States.

These programs require the type of technologies and proficiency that are CAE's strengths, and we intend to leverage our position on these generational programs in Canada to enable multi-domain training in secure synthetic environments across our global network. Our expectations for fiscal 2025 reflect the rebaselining of the business and the enhanced visibility that this has given us. We're highly focused on simplifying the organization and driving more operational excellence, and we'll continue to prove it through execution in the coming quarters. We continue to expect annual revenue growth in the low- to mid-single percentage range and annual Defense segment operating income margin to increase to the 6%-7% range, and like Civil, be more heavily weighted to the second half.

As Sonya mentioned, our Chief Operating Officer, Nick Leontidis, is already having a great impact on the business and has identified even more opportunities than originally thought to further streamline our organization, remove duplication, and optimize CAE's cost structure. As COO, he now has purview over all of CAE's divisions, which enabled us to remove management layers in both Civil as well as our Defense businesses. We've also further streamlined support functions, engineering services, and our footprint to drive additional synergies across the enterprise. Before opening the call to questions, on behalf of myself, CAE's board of directors, and the entire executive management committee, I wish to express my sincere appreciation to Sonya Branco, our outgoing CFO, for her numerous contributions to CAE's success over the last 17 years.

I and we have benefited greatly from Sonya's stewardship, her insightful mentorship of her colleagues, and her deep commitment to our great company. At the same time, I wish to welcome Constantino Malatesta, or Dino, to the role of interim CFO. Dino has worked closely with Sonya for many years, and he has a deep knowledge of CAE's business and an extensive background in finance that will provide continuity and stability at CAE. I have full confidence in his ability to oversee the company's financial operations and strategy as we move forward with our search for the CFO role, for which we'll consider both internal and external candidates. With that, I thank you for your attention. We're now ready to answer your questions.

Andrew Arnovitz (SVP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Marc. Operator, we'll now take questions from financial analysts.

Operator (participant)

Certainly. We'll now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. You'll hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Our first question is from [Fadi Chamoun] with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Fadi Chamoun (Equity Research Analyst)

Yes, good morning. Thank you. Sonya, congratulations and all the best. And a couple of questions. One, if I look at the Civil guidance of 10%, then I assume this quarter that we're in right now is gonna, your seasonally most weakest quarter. It feels like you need almost 65% of the EBIT growth to happen in the second half of this year, which is highest that we've seen in 10 years, I think, outside of COVID year. How much visibility do you have into this growth in the back half of the year? And maybe a little bit on this commercial aviation issues, it feels like a lot of it may be deferred revenues at this stage.

Is it kind of coming back quickly, or is it kind of more protracted in how it comes back?

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Well, thanks, Fadi. Let me take that. You know, I think we said last quarter that, you know, the factors that are affecting the Civil business, mainly commercial. I mean, we factored some of this when we gave our guidance last year. We anticipated some OEM-related challenge in the overall guidance, and you've seen hiring has slowed. We talked about more significantly, specifically in this fourth quarter. It was slightly more than we had anticipated in the Americas. But, you know, really pertaining to the rest of the year, I mean, this is how we see it to breaking down. Number one, first, in the second half, as you well know, we always have a stronger second half, and that's been proven out year after year for, you know, quite a long time.

That's really. We expect that this year. That's gonna come from an expected stronger performance in business aviation, and that's gonna be throughout the year, bigger in the second half, and we always have a strong fourth quarter, and that's expected this year as well. In terms of simulator deliveries, we expect more full-flight simulator deliveries in the back half. That's usual as well. We have, you know, obviously very high visibility on that because, you know, it's a production line, and we have committed delivery dates to customers. Another factor here is not insignificant, is the cost optimization efforts that are gonna begin to flow through more significantly, obviously, in the second half. As well, you know, we got a hit, as I said, by about $10 million year-over-year from our software business.

Now, we anticipate a stronger profit contribution from the software business, especially in the, in Q4, we'll have a more on-premise work at that time, you know, as we continue at the same time to move to our SaaS conversion in this business. And lastly, and I think that's probably, you know, going back to our, you know, our assumptions about the market here that you mentioned, our guidance is predicated on seeing some recovery in initial training in the Americas, specifically. As I mentioned on the call, we saw, you know, many carriers in the, in the United States really almost halting, in some cases, pilot hiring in June. Now, we're seeing some of that recovery, and that's driven by some improvements that are anticipated in narrowbodies, deliveries, and availability of aircraft.

Now, we're seeing that materialize in our bookings already. I mean, that could change, and if it does, we'll keep you updated. But I think those are all the factors that underpin our confidence in the full year.

Fadi Chamoun (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, that's great, Marc. You know, maybe a quick one for Nick. I mean, you've been in this seat now for a little while. Nick, maybe if you can provide a little bit more kind of insight into the opportunities that you see to improve efficiency as you try to kind of streamline, you know, the operations and streamline kind of the shared operation across the CAE all five segments.

Nick Leontidis (COO)

Well, I think, as I think Marc made comments in his remarks, the... So now the way you need to think about us is there's five segments that we manage. By doing it that way, in particular in Defense, we have taken out a couple of layers of, I'll call overhead, which were related to the fact that we had a, we had a, a combined segment, in the Defense, in the Defense world.

... you know, right now, you know, there's support functions. There's some corporate costs. I mean, there's some things that have been addressed. Now, as Marc said, you know, this is kind of coming through. It's starting to come through the results. Some of it is gonna be directly impacting improvements in Defense. Some of it's gonna help the whole company because these costs are spread. And so from a cost perspective, I think we just need to let the cost savings flow through. Now the focus is more around us doing, you know, doing things one way, between Civil and Defense, supporting each other in programs where we have commonality.

I think you may have heard a program called HADES, that is essentially a Bombardier 6500 training program for the Air Force that the, you know, the Civil guys and the Defense guys are cooperating in. So things like that, that allow us, you know, to leverage the investments we make in these programs and these simulators across the two businesses. So there's a number of these on the list, and, you know, we're tackling all of them one at a time. And, you know, we should start to see more improvements in the results.

That's part of the reason we think, you know, there's better improvements in the results, because some of this was when the plans were built, the assumptions that were made were that these were gonna be, you know, separate investments, and we were gonna have to essentially spend money on certain things twice, which at the time, I guess, made sense, but obviously with our austerity, we want it to be once.

Okay, thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Sheila Kahyaoglu with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Sheila Kahyaoglu (Aerospace and Defense and Airlines Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you, Marc, and congratulations, Sonya, and Andrew, for all the help with initiation.

Operator (participant)

Thank you.

Sheila Kahyaoglu (Aerospace and Defense and Airlines Equity Research Analyst)

In terms of the Civil guidance, I just wanted to follow up on the first question. Just as we think about the second half margins, is there one factor that really helped drive up margins? Marc, you mentioned a slew of things, so there's the factor of you know, just full-flight simulators, the exposure, in terms of the market, or is it cost optimization? Is there any way you could quantify that? And as we think about the full year guidance, the exit rate implies about above 25%, 26%, and in the press release, you noted ample room for improvement. So is that sort of the new run rate we should think about?

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Well, I won't get ahead of myself on future run rate, except to say that I expect it to trend higher, you know, based on the higher, higher basic overall flow through of revenue in our business as it grows, and that's what we fully expect as we ramp more assets across the network. But that'll be going to next year. But look, it goes back to your question, Sheila. I think for this year, it's a little bit of everything that I talked about. I don't think there's any one factor that really swings it. Obviously, pilot training has got to come back. We have visibility on that.

The other factor I think that's very important is the cost savings are coming through, some of which Nick just talked about, which is the streamline that we do, the simplification of the business, which you know, I echo that Nick is doing a fantastic job eliminating, you know, complete management layers, which not only improves the cost structure, but simplifies the business and gives, you know, better velocity on improvement of everything across the board. But we're also doing, you know, quite a strong effort at reducing costs across the whole organization, and we're seeing some strong benefits of that, and that's reflected in the higher restructuring expense that we talked about. So it's got to be all of those factors. But again, I... You know, what we're seeing now gives us the confidence to reiterate that outlook.

Sheila Kahyaoglu (Aerospace and Defense and Airlines Equity Research Analyst)

Great. If I could ask a follow-up on the A320 comments you made. You know, the AOGs at an industry level have held steady for the past few months. Can you just provide color on how you're seeing the impact to your business and perhaps regionally?

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Yeah, I'll start it off, and maybe, Nick, you can expand, you know, on our individual customers that are affected here. Look, what our expectations on this from our read of the market, and talking to our customers is that, you know, we expect that we're at peak right now. We're at peak of the impact of, you know, the geared turbofan issues that are affecting the customers, Neo specifically, and as a result, our customers. Maybe, Nick, I'll let you expand.

Nick Leontidis (COO)

Well, we have, we have obviously a number of customers that are being affected by the, by the grounding of of these aircraft, you know, waiting for their, their slot to come for their engine, engine checks. So, you know, for a while, the airlines just continued to hire, but you can't hire pilots for forever, you know, you... Because they need a minimum number of hours, they need to be trained. So at some point, you have to kind of say, "Okay, I'm gonna need to slow down my hiring." And, and that's what's happened to us. We, we, you know, a lot of this information is public. You, you can figure out who the, who the, the customers are, but we have a lot of customers that have some pretty, significant impact on these aircraft.

Now, the good news is, from what we see, is the number is not getting any bigger. You know, the industry is making headway in this area. And so this will be something that we'll see improvement over time now. I don't think... I mean, I think we've hit the peak now in terms of numbers of grounded aircraft and opportunity to improve.

Sheila Kahyaoglu (Aerospace and Defense and Airlines Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Konark Gupta with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Konark Gupta (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks, and good morning. Thanks, Sonya, for all the help over the past decade, and all the best to you. First question for me maybe is on Defense. You know, the margins started to rebound, I guess, like last quarter on normalized basis, and we saw that kind of continue in Q1. It seems like it's heading in the right direction here, and obviously it's very gradual this year. I really want to understand, like, Marc, what do you think, and maybe Nick, you know, in terms of, you know, the legacy contracts and the timing for rolling off those contracts over the next two, three years, how much more visibility do you have today?

You know, do you think within the next couple of years or three years, is there a possibility that as some exchanges, can you hit 10% sort of margin Defense, or that would be more sort of a longer-term story?

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Look, I'll start with the first part of your question. I mean, we haven't really specified the timing on, with regards to, you know, when we get to the 10%. It's certainly going to be around that time frame. That's our anticipation without being overly specific on it. But what I would say, going back to legacy contracts, specifically the ones that we called out, the eight contracts we called out, we have very high visibility, as you would expect, on those contracts and with the effort that we have, not only on those, but, you know, obviously very specifically, you know, on the ones that we highlighted. And what I would tell you, look, everything is on schedule. Everything is on-- we're achieving the milestones that we have.

And if anything, I'm hoping that we're gonna outperform our estimates, and that's what I'm seeing now. We've. If I look at the 8 contracts that we identified, we'll exit two of those pretty darn quickly, you know, within a short time frame, and the rest are going to roll off, you know, as we expected them to over the next few quarters. So look, I'm. I couldn't be more pleased with the progress that our teams are making, and as well with the acceleration of the benefit through cost savings and streamlining that Nick has put in place.

Konark Gupta (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, that's helpful, Marc. Thanks. And, just switching gears to the Civil. You know, I understand, some of the weakness we are seeing lately, and it's not too much, I guess, but still coming from, like, the U.S. and then Europe, kind of traditional markets you have. But you know that Asia and Middle East are doing good. Is there any opportunity to redeploy some of the training assets back to Asia and Middle East, which I think you got back over the pandemic, I guess? So any thoughts on how can you tap on this demand in Asia and Middle East, while U.S. and Europe are weak?

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Sorry, going to your question, you're talking about, are you referring to moving assets? Is that what you start referring to?

Konark Gupta (Equity Research Analyst)

So, yeah, moving assets to Asia and Middle East.

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Sure. I mean, that's always things that we look at, and we may, we may move some, and whatever we plan in that is factored into the outlook that we have. Look, I think what we're going through is some short-term effects here. Like, very specifically, if I was to look at our business. Let's go back to when we think about our Civil business. There's four components to it, as I said before. If you look at it by revenue, about a third of the business comes from delivering simulators. So a third of revenue comes from delivering simulators, a third comes from commercial aviation training, a third comes from business aviation training, and 10% comes from our software business.

If you're to look at it from a you know profit standpoint, without getting overly you know very specific, about half of the profit comes from business aviation. As I look at what's happening now in Q1, which explains you know kind of the margin, let's say, difference year-over-year, one part, okay, as I talked about is you know lower profit coming from you know our software business. That's one, and that's what we expected, and that's what you should expect as we go through this SaaS conversion, going moving from on-premise work. But very specifically, when we look at the utilization, we're only like 1% down, but what that really masks the effect is what we're seeing in the United States, specifically, with airlines pausing hiring in the short term.

What that results in is less initials, you know, you know, pretty much almost immediately, because as the regionals themselves stop pausing hiring, and you see more recurring training, but the initial training, which occupies a lot of similar simulator time in North America, specifically on aircraft, for example, such as CRJs, that activity has dropped disproportionately 3 or 4 percentage points. But again, as soon as we see pilot training coming back and we see signs of bookings in that regard, that comes back. So it's a, it's important, but it's not all of our business commercial. And to your point, we're seeing very strong activity in other regions, for example, in Asia specifically.

Konark Gupta (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Kevin Chiang with CIBC. Please go ahead.

Kevin Chiang (Director of Institutional Equity Research)

... Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Just wondering, you know, you have some longer-term margin aspirations, and if memory serves me correct, you know, I think within Civil, you saw a line of sight coming out of the pandemic and into the kind of mid-20% SOI margin. And obviously, you continue to target kind of 10, 10% or low double digit in Defense. Just with the restructuring you're doing now and some of the synergies and cost savings associated with that, does that change the long-term margin profile in either segment or any of these segments, just given the incremental cost savings?

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Well, look, I think we don't want to get into giving longer-term guidance today. But clearly, all things being equal, the cost savings that we're putting through are only, are only gonna help our bottom line performance. Then it becomes a question of volume, and I think, as I said, you look at what's happening in, you know, in terms of aircraft deliveries over the next 20 years, and I think it, you know, and with the position that we have in the market, I think that portends very well for margin improvements still.

Kevin Chiang (Director of Institutional Equity Research)

Okay, that's helpful. And then I apologize if I missed this, but did you disclose what percentage of your Defense revenue were from the legacy contracts? And then just with the significant increase in your backlog quarter-over-quarter, reflecting the addition of your proportion of the new Canadian Defense win. Does that specific contract have a different margin profile than what you'd be targeting for overall Defense? Is that something we need to be thinking about?

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Well, let me... Maybe I'll just turn it over to Sonya. I think, the first part of your question, is we don't disclose the revenue.

Kevin Chiang (Director of Institutional Equity Research)

Okay.

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

It's relatively small.

Sonya Branco (CFO)

Yeah. So we don't necessarily disclose, but as Marc said, on cost, on schedule, what we have disclosed is that it continues to have, although it's on target, a dilutive impact, because essentially, we were at relatively breakeven, and that was at 0.2% this quarter.

Kevin Chiang (Director of Institutional Equity Research)

Mm-hmm.

Sonya Branco (CFO)

Which gets us to a margin of close to 60% for the quarter.

Kevin Chiang (Director of Institutional Equity Research)

Yeah.

Sonya Branco (CFO)

Ultimately, on FAcT, would you want to add to that, Marc?

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.

Sonya Branco (CFO)

In fact, very much aligned with the accretive target that we have for Defense. So this is a highly accretive generational program that will be contributive right out of the gate, CAE to Defense.

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Yeah, just to be adding a little about that to what Sonya is saying. And by the way, I might have misspoken. I talked about the backlog there. I mean, it's a very sizable increase in the backlog that you saw. You know, it's up from $5.4 billion in the last quarter, so it's quite dramatic in its impact.

Kevin Chiang (Director of Institutional Equity Research)

Mm-hmm.

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Demonstrating what I talked about, the appetite for governments to outsource their military pilot training, and we see quite a few of those kind of opportunities as we look at the outlook in the next few years. But for us, I mean, the first part of that backlog, which is going to play out over the next, you know, actually from now to about the next three or four years, is the recapitalizing of the whole training infrastructure. And what that means is we're going to be building quite a number of simulators and other training devices here in Montreal to service that need. That's going to go in Moose Jaw, it's going to go in Winnipeg and other bases, where the Canadian military is going to be doing pilot training.

I mean, the margin profile on that product, as Sonya said, is very accretive to the margin expectations that we have in the bank.

Kevin Chiang (Director of Institutional Equity Research)

That is very helpful. Thank you very much. And Sonya, best of luck as you move on to your new endeavors there. Thank you.

Sonya Branco (CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from James McGarragle with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

James McGarragle (Senior Equity Research Associate)

Hey, good morning, and thank you for having me on. So on the Defense margin guide, you know, it implies a pickup in margin in the back half of the year. So can you just provide some additional color on what's driving that? You know, is that seasonality or is that operating improvement? Just trying to better understand what the margin exit rate is into fiscal 2026. Then as a quick follow-up to that, is that $20 million in savings highlighted in the press release, is that incremental to that margin guide into fiscal 2026?

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Hi, this is Nick. So, to answer the first part of your question, the margin improvement in Defense in the second half just comes from both cost savings and from just the backlog that we're going to be executing in the second half. It's a much improved. It's a more improved backlog, so it's just normal backlog business that gets executed, and we will see some benefit from cost savings. As far as the cost savings are concerned, I wouldn't call them incremental, but they are going to, you know, give us more confidence around what we need to deliver in the second half.

James McGarragle (Senior Equity Research Associate)

Thanks. Thanks for the color then. I just had a question on, you know, some of the additional restructuring expenses, that you guided to in Q2. You know, we've seen these restructuring expenses, you know, here the past few quarters. So when we're looking at free cash flow, trying to model out for, the rest of fiscal 2025, can you just provide some color on, you know, potentially the magnitude of these expenses kind of after Q2 into the remainder of the year? And, after that, I can turn the line over. Thank you.

Sonya Branco (CFO)

... So it's on the restructuring expenses, so last year a large portion of those were non-cash, so about half. For this upcoming quarter, most of them will be cash costs, and that's reflected in our free cash flow, continued free cash flow item. And in terms of the savings as Nick spoke to, you know, some of that will flow through this year and part of the H2 pickup. And for in terms of a whole, it's a payback period of about a year and a half for that investment.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Benoit Poirier with Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Benoit Poirier (VP and Industrial Products Analyst)

Yeah. Good morning, everyone. Just to come back on the software business, it's been almost 2.5 years since the closing of the transaction. You and you're obviously some restructuring costs. You made some investment to turn into a SaaS business. So could you talk about what remains to be done? What kind of growth we should expect from that business in terms of operating income? And maybe if you could share some color on the return on capital employee target in light of those additional investment, that would be great.

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Okay, let me start it off, Benoit. Look, there's still some heavy lifting to do, you know, on this SaaS conversion perspective, and, you know, that's in line with what we talked about. We talked about, you know, we see that playing out over this two... Well, starting last year, two, three years, as we, you know, execute this move from on-premise to SaaS. So the good news is that, you know, we have a growing pipeline. We're seeing the results take hold. You know, the premise that we have, that airlines would readily, you know, see CAE as a trusted partner in this business, has really come to fruition. I would say above my expectations, which were already pretty high, actually. But, yeah, and that's testimony to what indicators, I can tell you, order intake.

We've won roughly $700 million in contracts over the last couple of years, which really points to great top and bottom line growth post-implementation. Again, 18-24 months timeline is what I really anticipate us going through this SaaS conversion. And we're talking some pretty big carriers here that in this $700 million, I'll point to Air India, which is, you know, consolidated a very large airline in the past year, Wizz Air last year. I don't know, Nick, if you want to add anything more. That's my view on that.

Nick Leontidis (COO)

Yeah, I think the way this works is, you know, these contracts are in the backlog now, and we have to convert them to revenue. And the way you convert them to revenue is you implement the contracts that you've signed, and that gives you a revenue stream going forward. So these, this, all this has to be processed, and as Marc said, you know, we've got good line of sight and order intake, so obviously we know what contracts we've won. We know what they're gonna deliver every year, and as we look forward, you know, we'll start to see the growth in revenue.

Benoit Poirier (VP and Industrial Products Analyst)

Okay. With respect to Defense, we saw some program delays impacting the Liberal government's budget cuts. I was wondering if there's any cuts that that was impacted at CAE. Also in terms of ramp-up of those transformative contracts, Marc, you've been talking about the big improvement towards the 15% revenue contribution. If you could provide an update on this opportunity, that would be great. Thanks.

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

You know what? I'm not seeing as it relates to the Canadian, the Defense, contracts related to us, I don't see any delay, but I see acceleration. You know, I personally met our Minister of National Defense, Bill Blair, just about a month ago, and I can tell you that he is very focused on basically, after approving, the money that they've earmarked for places like, for example, support to Ukraine, as one specific one, the programs that affect us are only going up.

You know, a testimony by obviously, the FAcT contract is one, but, you know, I could point to others like we've been selected to do all the training for the fleet of remotely piloted aircraft that the Canadian government has bought from General Atomics, and we are General Atomics' partner for all the training on the whole international deliveries of that platform, so everywhere outside the United States, and that's a very prolific platform, so high expectations there, and obviously, a big contract here in Canada. Other contracts that are out there in Canada of recent years, you saw Canada buy the P-8 aircraft, and we are Boeing's partner in on that aircraft.

In fact, we've done every P-8 simulator that exists out there, also selected during the same contract for Canada. That's not in our backlog, by the way, yet, because although the Canadian government bought the P-8, our contract with Boeing is with not only in Canada, but it's on Norway and Germany, where also sold the aircraft. We'll be seeing that contract come through. So let's just go back to the question. I'm quite pleased with the amount of resources, effort, and dollars that the Canadian government is putting towards Defense. And I think we're getting our very good share of it as the largest Canadian-owned Defense contractor in the country, and obviously with a strong number two presence in the world in virtual-based training for aircraft.

Benoit Poirier (VP and Industrial Products Analyst)

That's great color, Marc, and maybe just the last one. Congrats for the FAcT contract with over 25 years. Sonya, could you maybe provide some color about the, the timing in terms of ramp up and whether the CapEx associated to this contract will be, how sizable will it be?

Sonya Branco (CFO)

First question, there is no CapEx, so this is a capital light, no CapEx to deploy here. We are finalizing the subcontract and other contracts with the joint venture, and we don't have any contribution yet from FAcT, but it's part of the ramp up in the second half that we expect.

Benoit Poirier (VP and Industrial Products Analyst)

Okay. Thank you very much for the time, and all the best, Sonya.

Sonya Branco (CFO)

Thanks, everyone.

Operator (participant)

With less than 10 minutes remaining, callers are asked to limit themselves to a single question. The next question is from Cameron Doerksen with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

Cameron Doerksen (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah, thanks. Good morning. You talked a little bit about this off the start as far as the visibility and outlook into the second half of the year, but I'm wondering if you can go into a little more detail on what you're seeing in the business aviation training market. It sounds like things are still pretty strong there, but anything that's notably changed from the last quarter? And I know you've got a, you know, a few newer training centers there in business aviation that maybe still be ramping up. Can you just update us on the progress that you're seeing there in ramping up those centers?

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Well, you're right. I mean, a big piece is coming up from the ramp up those centers, and I can tell you we're very pleased. Las Vegas, you know, doing extremely well, as we expected it to be. It's a great location for a training center. Ramping up Orlando, which is a joint venture that we have on SIMCOM with Directional Capital. We just opened up. We had, you know, really great opening ceremony of our Savannah training center in just a few months, just actually 3 months ago. All those simulators are ramping up quite nicely, and the level of activity is still very high. It's higher than pre-pandemic. It has come down, you know, and that's... We expected that.

So I think, I mean, I'm seeing the parking lots are pretty full. Look, it, there will be, and there has been, and in fact, you know, when I talk about reduced pilot hiring, that has enough, an outcome on effect, because if the airlines are hiring less, that has an impact on business aircraft. Overall, we expect that, so we're watching that, but the level of activity is still very high, and the bookings are very high. Maybe, Nick, you're very close to it. You want to add, something to that?

Nick Leontidis (COO)

Yeah, I think business aircraft has had a good, a good quarter, and you know, we're not seeing... I mean, there's a little bit of change in terms of the mix of the business, but the, but overall, it continues to perform as expected.

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Actually, you know what? I think what we should point out is the level of order intake in Civil has been, again, very strong this quarter, and disproportionately in business aircraft. It has quite a number of very large contracts.

Nick Leontidis (COO)

Yeah, correct. Part of the driver-

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Yeah.

Nick Leontidis (COO)

Yeah, part of the driver for the order intake this quarter being at 135 with business aircraft. So we have a lot of long-term contracts that got signed that created a disproportionate, you know, backlog order intake for civil.

Cameron Doerksen (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. No, that's, that's great detail. I'll, I'll keep it to one question. Thanks very much.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Kristine Liwag with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Kristine Liwag (Managing Director)

Hey, good morning, everyone. And, Sonya, you know, really, looking forward to your endeavor. Best of luck. We'll miss you. Maybe, Marc, following back up on the first question from today's call on understanding the risk to the Civil outlook for the rest of the year. So the first one is, when you look at the bookings, you said it's improving, but how much of how much of your guide for the second half of the year is already booked, meaning that you have complete visibility and there's no risk?

And then the second follow-up to that is, it seems like this slowdown in pilot hiring is related to the rate in which new airplanes are being introduced, which means that should we see further delays on new aircraft deliveries, could there be a continued slowdown in this new pilot hire? How should we think about that in terms of downside risks? Thank you.

Marc Parent (President and CEO)

Okay, let me start it off, and maybe I'll ask Nick to pick it up. Reiterate the elements that you know really really anchor the outlook that we have and what we control and what we don't. Look, I think if you think about the elements that are you know very very much in again our control deliveries of simulators. Deliveries of simulators, I mean, we know our production line, we know where those simulators are at, we know which customers are taking them, if they're gonna take those simulators. There's always a potential that you know one or two of those could be deferred. It happens.

We don't see it right now because we talk to those customers, and, you know, the customers that we're delivering those simulators to, you know, we know that they're getting their aircraft. They know they're getting aircraft. So that, you know, pretty high confidence there. Business aircraft, we just talked about. That's bookings. The dynamic in business aircraft, and, you know, I'm a business aircraft pilot myself, and I train in our training centers. The dynamic there is still that if you can get a booking, you don't cancel it. Because obviously, if you have to do your training, your recurrent training typically every six months, and if you lose your booking and you can't get another one, then chances are you can't renew your license, you can't fly. So people are quite conservative in canceling bookings.

So it can always happen, but, you know, what we see there is, again, you know, strong demand, and that portrays our outlook in business aircraft. The other element that portends our outlook is how much, if you like, drag, you know, like, this is more of a drag than anything else, is our conversion to software as a service in our software business. And we have very high visibility. There is an expectation there, and it's based on things that we control, which is that if you like the drag of $10 million that we saw in Q1, will lessen by the end of the year. And the reason for that is because we have more on-premise work that's going to be done, you know, in the second half. Again, we have very high visibility there.

Now, if you look at downside risks, to your point, is the fact that we are expecting some resumption of pilot hiring, specifically in the Americas, and that is underpinned by the bookings that we have. Now, bookings, you know, bookings can always be moved. That can happen, but, you know, we're, we're talking to those airlines and, you know, that's what, that's what they see, that's what we see, and it's based on their expectations of when they're gonna get their aircraft. Whether they get- that comes from narrow-bodied aircraft from Boeing, whether it comes from airplanes coming back, you know, from engine overhaul or those kind of factors. So I think those are the components, and I think the last point that's important here is we're trying to manage our own destiny here, and that's with the cost savings that were put forward together.

We're being realistic. You know, we had assumed at some of this last year, which is why I think we were conservative in the outlook that we gave for the growth of the business, for the margins of the business. We've talked about that. It's also the fact, you know, when we look at what we're seeing now, it's also, you know, the reason we gave you a range on CapEx last year, and now we're moving to the lower end of that CapEx. As you know, we basically look at, you know, the conservatism that we built in, you know, I think there was good basis to do it.

Sonya Branco (CFO)

Great. Thank you very much.

Andrew Arnovitz (SVP of Investor Relations)

Operator, yeah, operator, sorry. We have our AGM today as well, so we will have to be a bit more of a stickler in terms of sticking to schedule. I wanna thank all of the participants who joined us today, and remind you that a transcript will be made available later on CAE's website of the call. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

This brings to a close today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.