CGI - Q2 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to CGI's Second Quarter Fiscal 2024 Conference Call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Kevin Linder, SVP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Linder.

Kevin Linder (SVP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Joelle, and good morning. With me to discuss CGI's second quarter fiscal 2024 results are George Schindler, our President and CEO, and Steve Perron, Executive Vice President and CFO. This call is being broadcast on CGI.com and recorded live at 9:00 A.M. Eastern Time on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Supplemental slides as well as a press release we issued earlier this morning are available for download, along with our Q2 MD&A financial statements and accompanying notes, all of which have been filed with both Cedar+ and Edgar. Please note that some statements made on the call may be forward-looking. Actual events or results may differ materially from those expressed or implied, and CGI disclaims any intent or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

The complete Safe Harbor statement is available in both our MD&A and press release, as well as on CGI.com. We recommend our investors read it in its entirety. We are reporting our financial results in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS. As always, we will also discuss non-GAAP performance measures, which should be viewed as supplemental. The MD&A contains definitions of each one used in our reporting. All of the dollar figures expressed on this call are Canadian unless otherwise noted. I'll now turn it over to Steve to review our Q2 financials, and then George will comment on our business and market outlook. Steve.

Steve Perron (EVP and CFO)

Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to share with you the results of our second quarter of fiscal 2024. In Q2, we delivered CAD 3.7 billion of revenue, up 0.7% year-over-year, or stable when excluding the impact of foreign exchange. The strongest CGI segments were: UK and Australia at 5.1% constant currency growth, Asia-Pacific at 5%, Northwest and Central East Europe with 4.2%, and U.S. commercial and state government at 4.1%. From an industry perspective, we had the highest growth in government with 5.7% constant currency growth, while we continue to experience softness in industries more sensitive to interest rates, particularly in the banking subsectors. In addition, the majority of our geographies were negatively impacted by one less billable day in the quarter. IP as a percentage of total revenue was 22% in the quarter.

Our IP continues to resonate with clients with vast majority contracted as longer-term recurring engagements, with over 60% delivered as software as a service. Our overall bookings in the quarter were $3.8 billion, for a book-to-bill ratio of 100% and 113% on a trailing 12-month basis. Booking ratios for the quarter were led by: Finland, Poland, and Baltics at 127%, Western and Southern Europe at 115%, and UK and Australia at 109%. Global backlog reached $26.8 billion, or 1.9x revenue, helping to support our overall business resilience. Turning to profitability: We continue to manage with discipline despite the current macro environment, delivering solid year-over-year improvements. Earnings before income taxes were $577 million, for a margin of 15.4%, up 20 basis points year over year. Adjusted EBIT in the quarter was $628 million, up $28 million year over year.

This represents a margin of 16.8%, up 60 basis points year over year, mainly as a result of a larger proportion of IP-based revenues and benefits being realized from our previously announced cost optimization program. This program, which was primarily focused on SG&A, has now concluded as planned. We delivered strong margin geographically as follows: Asia-Pacific at 31%, North America at 17%, and Europe at 14%. Our effective tax rate in the quarter was 26.1%, and we expect our tax rate for future quarters to be in the range of 25%-26.5%. Net earnings were CAD 427 million, for a margin of 11.4%, up 10 basis points year over year. Diluted EPS was CAD 1.83, representing an increase of 4% year over year when compared to CAD 1.76 in Q2 last year.

When excluding specific items, net earnings improved to CAD 459 million, up CAD 24 million when compared to Q2 last year, for a margin of 12.3%, up 60 basis points. Specific items for the quarter were mainly expenses associated with the cost optimization program. On the same basis, diluted EPS was CAD 1.97, an accretion of 8.2% when compared to Q2 last year. In the quarter, cash provided by operating activities was CAD 502 million, up 7% year-over-year, representing 13.4% of total revenue. On a trailing 12-month basis, cash provided by operating activities was CAD 2.1 billion, also up 7% year-over-year, representing 14.6% of total revenue. DSO was 40 days in the quarter, five days better than our target, mainly due to quality delivery and our mix of business.

As a reminder, Q2 generally produces the lowest DSO each year due to a higher volume of IP maintenance payments from clients.

In Q2, we used our cash to invest CAD 103 million into our business, including in AI, and invest CAD 260 million to buy back our stock. In the quarter, we continued to deliver a strong return on invested capital at 15.9%, up 30 basis points year-over-year, demonstrating our proficiency and discipline on deployment of capital. Looking ahead, with CAD 2.8 billion of cash liquidity available and access to more if needed, our capital allocation priorities are: first, investing in our business; second, pursuing and closing accretive acquisitions by leveraging CGI's strong balance sheets, evidenced by a leverage ratio of 1.1 and a net debt-to-capitalization ratio of 16.4. Finally, as appropriate, cash will be used to repurchase our stock and/or pay down our debt. Now, I will turn the call over to George to further discuss the insights on the quarter and outlook for our business and markets. George?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. In the second quarter, our team again embodied CGI's discipline and agility by prioritizing actions for delivering shareholder value and partnering with clients to position CGI for profitable growth opportunities. With continued strong profitability and cash generation, our financial strength reflects CGI's resilience and capacity to invest in our build-and-buy growth strategy. Our team's discipline management practices contributed to our strong balance sheet, even as macroeconomic uncertainty continued to impact some of the industries where our clients operate. Margin improved as we grew the mix of recurring revenue, with IP revenue up 6.5% in constant currency and managed services revenue up 2.1% on the same basis. As planned, actions completed through the cost optimization program also contributed to margin expansion.

Utilization was up year-over-year as we continued to align talent to those industries that are growing, such as government, transportation, and utilities. Delivery quality remained high, and client satisfaction again increased across every dimension we measured. Clients continued to partner with us to address their most complex enterprise and ecosystem-wide digitization initiatives. This operational excellence also led to deeper employee engagement, as the proportion of employees who are shareholders rose to 87%, further expanding our culture of ownership, which is a differentiator for client partnerships and CGI talent attraction and retention. In Q2, the diversity of new client awards affirmed CGI's positioning as the go-to partner for driving outcomes. Large project awards contributed to the higher proportion of SI&C bookings in the quarter.

We also saw increasing demand for our emblematic business and strategic IT consulting offerings, including CGI's framework for responsible use of AI, as well as change management and CIO advisory services. Client demand for managed services remains robust, in line with the buying trends we have seen over the past year. Importantly, on a trailing 12-month basis, the managed services bookings were up $1.6 billion compared to the same period a year ago, for a 21% increase. We do see clients continue to exercise caution in their spending on IT services, which is most acute in the banking and manufacturing subsectors. However, this cautionary approach is not diminishing clients' interest across every industry to explore with CGI the opportunities for cost efficiencies through managed services and for ROI-led system integration projects.

We also see an industry-wide trend related to timing of decisions, notably in delays for large engagements with enterprise clients. We remain well-positioned as the partner of choice to help clients achieve the tangible and trusted business outcomes they seek. Example awards in the quarter included: LocalTapiola, one of the largest insurance and financial services companies in Finland, extended their strategic managed services partnership with CGI for five years in an agreement valued at $284 million. CGI will apply new technologies, including AI and automation, to help drive operational efficiencies across their enterprise. The Digital Department of the UK Government Cabinet Office appointed CGI as a strategic digital transformation delivery partner in an agreement valued at $162 million. As part of this new partnership, CGI will provide a range of consulting, data, and digital services to help the government innovate and drive value from digitization.

The U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs renewed its 10-year agreement for CGI to deliver visa services across nine countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Under the $75 million award, we will continue to leverage CGI Atlas360, our AI-powered customer relationship management and business process IP, to help the Bureau efficiently facilitate visa applications. The City of New York expanded its partnership with CGI in a five-year base plus two option-year agreements to maintain the city's parking violation system, which runs on CGI's Advantage Collections IP platform. Under this contract, CGI will partner with the city's Department of Finance to administer the adjudication, payment, and collection processes for summons violations issued by the city. Through the use of the CGI platform, the city expects to collect nearly $1 billion in annual revenue.

Looking ahead now to the demand environment: Client budgets indicate continued investments in digitization over the next year, according to CGI's most recent proprietary research. When we asked clients about their budget plans, more than 70% indicated they intend to sustain or increase their IT budgets. CGI's pipeline over the next year validates this finding, as the value of new opportunities grew by nearly 30% on a year-over-year basis. This overarching finding is part of the preliminary insights we have identified based on more than 1,800 discussions with current and prospective clients. More than 80% of our discussions were with C-level business and IT executives at organizations located in every geography in which we operate. These annual Voice of Our Clients discussions were initiated during the second quarter as part of our strategic planning process and concluded just a few weeks ago.

There are three preliminary findings that we see shaping client demand over the next 12 months. These findings underscore the tight alignment between CGI's current investment priorities and those of our clients. First, clients across industries have indicated their intent to rebalance their business priorities from primarily cost savings to a renewed focus on also driving revenue growth. Second, executives noted that the alignment gap between business and IT within their organizations has largely been eliminated. Digital leaders in every industry have significantly widened the gap with their peers in realizing the benefits of digitization. Relating to the first finding, business executives globally cited driving revenue growth as their top priority for the next year. This is closely followed by the need to drive innovation and introduce new products and services. Both of these priorities are new to the top five this year.

While these top business priorities are growth-oriented, business and IT executives maintain their focus on modernization, optimization, and cost control, each of which ranked within the top five priorities across most industry sectors. This resurgence in growth as a client priority, along with continued focus on efficiencies, is well aligned to CGI's end-to-end services and solutions portfolio. We expect this dual-focused client agenda to drive an expansion of new opportunities for both SI&C and holistic managed services over the coming year. Moving to the second preliminary finding of our client interviews, business and IT are now tightly aligned, as client executives noted that the alignment gap has effectively been eliminated. Over the past six years of research, this is the first time there's been such a steep increase in the alignment ratings, indicating a new shared agenda between business and IT teams.

We believe the primary driver for this finding is the combination of business efficiency focus and the promising potential of digital technologies, including AI and cloud. For CGI, this alignment is expected to generate larger value engagements as business and IT address enterprise transformations to integrate technology and operations. We see early signs of larger value opportunities within our pipeline as the average deal size increased significantly for enterprise clients as compared to this time last year. And lastly, digital leaders are increasingly realizing the benefits of digitization and widening the gap compared to those organizations in the earlier stages. This enables digital leaders to accelerate investments in driving revenue growth.

Our findings show that these digital leaders are more successful in expanding their data strategies, modernizing legacy systems and applications, driving agility into their business models through a higher reliance on managed services, and implementing advanced technologies, including generative AI. For digital leaders, this will drive increasing demand for all CGI services as they reinvest savings garnered from their modernization and optimization initiatives into new capital spending to drive future growth. And for those organizations in the earlier stages of their digitization, the expanding gap in producing ROI will continue to generate new demand for CGI's end-to-end services, with a stronger emphasis on transformative managed services and the full suite of our IP business solutions. These three preliminary findings are connected by the continuing critical role of technology and digital acceleration.

Again this year, nearly three-quarters of our clients cited digital acceleration as the most impactful macro trend for their organization, with CEOs rating the impact the highest. Not surprisingly, the rise in client interest for AI and GenAI solutions amplifies the importance of digitization across all aspects of society. CGI continues to progress our AI investments, focusing first on talent development and hiring, which is already enabling us to enhance our end-to-end service offerings and strengthen our operations. For example, we are improving the quality and speed of service delivery and software development for our clients through the use of GenAI, embedding AI across our IP portfolio, and leveraging GenAI for more efficient development and maintenance of our 150+ business solutions. Leveraging GenAI to enhance our bid and proposal capacity, and experimenting and applying GenAI to optimize internal processes and transactions, including in our procurement, risk, and HR functions.

In Q2, our bookings that integrated AI technologies were again over $200 million, including wins with a large U.S. financial and mortgage institution to create a cohesive GenAI strategy to drive portfolio-wide technical capabilities. A global car manufacturer to design and create data and AI platforms and products. Multiple European space industry clients to leverage real-time AI to improve data transmission rates in lunar and deep space missions. And a multinational telecommunications company to deliver AI-powered solutions for cost savings and improve customer satisfaction. Notably, bookings in the quarter utilizing our global alliance partnerships are up double-digit on a year-over-year basis. Our client interview findings highlight that overall implementation of GenAI remains in the early and experimental stages, but it is ubiquitous, with nearly 80% of clients stating that they are actively exploring AI technologies.

In line with this demand, CGI's active engagements that incorporate AI continue to increase across all lines of service. Turning to the buy side of our profitable growth strategy, we continue to prioritize investments in M&A to deepen our resilience and serve as a catalyst for future organic growth. We are in active dialogue with merger targets at each stage of our pipeline. We remain committed to merging with like-minded companies that are complementary to our geographic footprint, client base, and end-to-end portfolio capabilities. Our strategy remains focused on a range of merger opportunities from metro market to transformational. As always, we will be disciplined to make sure that all mergers create value for each stakeholder. Our operational strength, stability, and financial capacity will enable us to move quickly with discipline on the right opportunities.

In closing, now more than ever, CGI's culture, capabilities, and commitment to deliver tangible and trusted business outcomes are highly valued by clients as they navigate the current market environment. We are well-positioned to remain a partner and expert of choice for clients, an empowering environment for our consultants and professionals, an engaged, ethical, and responsible corporate citizen, an investment of choice for our shareholders. Given our operational strength, resilient model, talented team, and the alignment of our priorities with those of our clients, we remain committed to driving shareholder value through the disciplined execution of our strategy. Thank you for your interest and support. Let's go to the questions now, Kevin.

Kevin Linder (SVP of Investor Relations)

Thanks, George. If you're well, we can now pull for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star, followed by the one on your touch home phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star, followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. Your first question comes from Richard Tse with National Bank Financial. Your line is now open.

Richard Tse (Managing Director)

Yes, thank you. George, I was just wondering if you could maybe talk about the extent of kind of expectations for a second-half pickup that are predicated on sort of rates coming down across the board. You did a great setup in terms of the opportunity down the road. I'm just kind of curious to see, shorter term, what's sort of really driving that pickup here.

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, no, it's a great question. I don't have necessarily the clarity that I'd like to have on that. The green shoots are increasing in most industries and geographies for new project work, but they're just not uniform or consistent right now. So the short term, it really is still overall managed services and IP demand is what's generating the opportunities. But as I mentioned, it's still offset by some cautionary spending in SI&C and overall slow procurement decision-making, and even project startups. So it's just not uniform yet, and we don't have that clarity of visibility.

Richard Tse (Managing Director)

Okay, fair enough. You've done, obviously, a very good job at taking margins up over the course of the past few years. Has your business changed in the way the mix of service delivery, meaning sort of on a geographic basis, are more customers willing to sort of offshore to get more attractive pricing, or is it pretty much the same as it was a year or two years ago?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

No, I would say that we've seen an ongoing trend to moving more of our work. What I would still say is a global delivery model. So it's not just offshore, but certainly offshore, and you've seen that consistently grow faster than the rest of our business, again, in this quarter showing that growth. But also the nearshore centers, which continue to pick up specifically in Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, and even in Latin America. So it really is a combination of factors.

So we always had a global delivery, but I think it's even more powerful now in the way we deliver our solutions. And of course, automation continues to play a role and will continue to evolve as we drive more technologies into the delivery that we do for our clients.

Richard Tse (Managing Director)

Okay. And just one quick last one from me. Can you talk about sort of staffing levels here as we look ahead to next year and maybe the degree of wage inflation and how it may have moderated here recently?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, well, I mean, wage inflation has certainly moderated in most countries in which we operate. And we have a couple of different levers that we use. One is what we just discussed around global delivery in rotating some of our work and then rotating our people to the higher-end work that we can get the additional wage rates in various locations. We also have our intellectual property that we can leverage, and so that allows us not to be so linear to people and salaries. And so we've got a couple of ways to manage that as we continue to build out the company. So that doesn't factor in a big way as I look at the next year.

Richard Tse (Managing Director)

Sounds great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Daniel Chan with TD Cowen. Your line is now open.

Daniel Chan (Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Hi, good morning. George, the U.S. federal bookings came in a little bit weaker again, I think, for the second quarter in a row now. I think the expectation was that for it to accelerate as we get closer to the elections. Any color on that?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, here's what I would say. I went back, I looked at this, and cyclically, a light booking quarter for us just due to the federal government procurement cycle in the U.S. There are many more RFPs in this quarter, and we have a large number of outstanding RFPs out there. And then the award in the second half. Maybe they shift that to more awards in Q3. That's certainly something that we're looking at. But I'll just remind you, our trailing 12-month book-to-bill in U.S. federal is at 136%. So yes, it was 72% in the quarter, but I think our average in this quarter is usually between 70%-80%, and we're right in that place.

So yeah, the election isn't necessarily having the effect that I thought it might have. It will have an effect as we move through the year and get closer. One of the phenomena that we're seeing is that there are a lot more bridges for longer periods of time, just given the concern about how that election cycle and the stability might occur. So a lot of our outstanding RFPs right now were less sole-source bridge awards. They just haven't happened yet. So we'll look for that in the second half of the year.

Daniel Chan (Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Yeah, thanks for all those details. That makes sense. Maybe a question on the margin side of things. Obviously, the margin strength you mentioned from a higher mix of IP. Just wondering if there's anything else to call out there and whether you think the margin profile, this is the run rate going forward, or if there's more to go.

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, so here's what I'd say. It's a combination of the improved IP business mix, but also the cost optimization. That's what's driving some of this margin. Some of that will stick because of the cost optimization and certainly has that payback. But some of that's going to be offset by continued investments in AI, business development, and the growing mix of SI&C. So as we move, as things pick up, you're going to see that change a little bit. We're still committed to the incremental margin expansion, but we had a nice uptick in this current quarter just given what's going on. So some of that's sustainable, and then we'll continue to expand.

But some of that, we're going to give up for the right reasons on investing in AI and business development and what we believe will be a return of the SI&C here. You heard that some in that voice of the client insights I shared.

Daniel Chan (Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

One more, if I may. You mentioned that the sales cycles remain a little bit longer than expected. Just wondering if you can reconcile that with one of the findings in your recent client survey saying that there's good alignment between business and IT. You would assume that when there's good alignment, you would get these projects approved faster. What do you think is causing that slight disconnect?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

It's a good question. I kind of highlighted that. The finding, historically, has led us to believe that they're bigger deals. So business typically, they do shorter ROI deals. IT tends to do big modernization, but it's more focused on technology and, as you said, not always 100% aligned. But when they get aligned, it drives bigger ROI, quite frankly, less price-sensitive, more outcome-focused deals, but it's at the highest levels. So it's transformative. It affects everybody. I've personally been championing some of these through the process, and there's a lot of different stakeholders within the organization to get aligned.

So even though business and IT agree, you still have to get the individuals and the sign-off because it's going to hit more departments across the organization. So the more complex deals, just by their nature, take longer, and so that's what we're seeing. And again, this is the fresh information, so it's more about the go-forward than where we've been.

Daniel Chan (Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks, George.

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yep.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Paul Treiber with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Paul Treiber (Equity Research Analyst)

Oh, thanks very much. Good morning. Good morning, George. Just in regards to AI and Gen AI, it does seem like everyone is evaluating it at this point. Do you believe that there may be a pause related to other initiatives, just as companies are trying to evaluate AI relative to those other initiatives?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

It's a great question. I'm not sure if that's exactly what I see. What I do see is, given kind of where we've been economically, everybody's been a little more focused on the cost cutting and saving. And so I think that most organizations are taking advantage of that current backdrop to do that investigative work. And so I don't think they're necessarily related one-for-one, but I do agree with you. That evaluation will drive. We see that as a catalyst for driving the next wave of digital spending.

When I say digital spending, it's not just discrete AI spending. It's the next wave of digitization. Most of the CEOs that I speak with, COOs that I speak with, and heads of lines of business, they all talk about they think of this as just the next iteration of what technology can bring to them. And so they're viewing it in a pretty holistic way, not just as the discrete services. And I think that's also why you don't see just this big spending indiscriminately on the AI. I think they're really thinking about that as the next wave of where they're going with digital.

Paul Treiber (Equity Research Analyst)

That's helpful. Still regarding AI, you call it a number of internal use cases. Where do you see or what magnitude of potential efficiencies do you see AI driving over time?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, well, definitely it will drive some over time. Right now, it's really still discrete. So holistically, you're not seeing a lot yet dropping to the bottom line. But the reason you go through this work is to actually get to that point. So that's why I highlighted some of those areas. Right now, it's less about cost and just more about effectiveness and efficiency. So you think about the bid generation element I spoke to. It's really about getting better quality of bids out there, so leveraging all of our information and making that available so that the individuals can spend their time really crafting that and customizing that for the individual client opportunity. So it's more about that than it is right now about cost savings. I think over time, you're going to see some of that.

And by the way, this is what we see a lot of our clients looking at. They're really now looking at this as more about the business impact to this, not just from a cost savings, but from an opportunity perspective of driving the business forward. So that's what we see right now.

Paul Treiber (Equity Research Analyst)

And then one last one for me. Just in terms of the M&A environment, there's news around several companies for sale, and it spreads across the quality and valuation spectrum. What's your thoughts in terms of leaning one way or the other in terms of or deviating from your historical to lean more either towards quality or more towards lower valuations?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, well, at the end of the day, we're resolute in making sure that we're going to drive the EPS accretion and do that in a definitive way throughout the process. So I've mentioned this before. It's why areas like the gross margins, the rate equation versus the salary equation become very important. You can do a lot on the SG&A side. You can't do as much on the gross margin side. And that runs the gamut then, right? Because you can have companies that are stronger and companies that aren't that are in that manner. But we do see and assess all the market deals on an ongoing basis, and we'll act when there's something that makes sense for us and our shareholders.

Paul Treiber (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks for taking the questions.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Robert Young with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open.

Robert Young (Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning. Just a couple of questions around utilization. The headcount drop year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter, just trying to understand the dynamic. Is there a shift towards low costs where you're hiring, or are you just is there more attrition, or where hiring is not offsetting the attrition? And then how is that dynamic impacting your utilization? I think you said utilization had improved.

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, utilization is actually up. A big part of that drop is us getting ahead of it on the cost optimization. As you're probably aware, two-thirds of that cost optimization was focused on SG&A. It's why you can see that even though you see the drop in the people, you don't see a drop in the revenue. At least we're staying consistent with the revenue. And then I think, in general, we're not as linear because of some of that IP. And so you see the IP growing faster and not being dependent necessarily on the people. Having said that, yeah, we are seeing some of that shift to global delivery. Interestingly enough, to get the same revenue, you actually have a higher headcount when you're using global delivery.

So that's not really what's going on at the current point in time. But utilization is up, and that's what you see ultimately in the margin, despite the deceleration on the revenue.

Robert Young (Equity Research Analyst)

Does it appear to say that there's more benefit to come from utilization, just as some of these don't have as many new employees coming in, maybe maturing the consultants you have today?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

I don't necessarily see that. I think we've got a great team. We continue to train and reskill our talent. We're doing a lot around the AI reskilling of talent. We're bringing new talent in all the time, including through some of the outsourcing deals. Over 100 new employees joined us through several outsourcing agreements this quarter. Attrition is under control and is down on a year-over-year basis, and it's right in the range that we would expect. So other than cost optimization, I think we're managing it very well.

Robert Young (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, and this last one for me is I think you said that large project awards were a bigger than normal contribution to SI&C bookings. And what exactly does that mean? Is that a long-term composition change, or maybe just unpack that, and then I'll pass the line.

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, yeah. It's more just a phenomenon in the quarter, and I mentioned it because it did drive kind of a change. When you look at our managed services bookings, we're down versus what I'm talking about in the pipeline and the sentiment. And it just was a function of some higher concentration of SI&C bookings that were large, essentially what I would call recurring T&M project renewals. So they show up in the SI&C, but they're really large project T&M recurring revenue. And then we had some timing delays on several larger managed services deals that I mentioned. So I think it's more of a phenomenon of just a quarter. It's why we always look at bookings on a trailing 12-month basis, why I highlighted the strong trailing 12-month bookings in managed services. It's just a function of where we are right now.

Robert Young (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, thanks.

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yep.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Jérôme Dubreuil with Desjardins. Your line is now open.

Jérôme Dubreuil (Research Analyst)

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Trying to reconcile what we are hearing from other companies in the ecosystem. We heard from Microsoft just last week that they are boosting their Azure CapEx as a result of strong demand, not exactly what we're seeing in IT services. Do you think there's a chance that maybe enterprises are directing bigger portions of their budgets through maybe the data center, cloud power that you might not benefit as much from right now, but that may eventually come back to boost demand?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

I think it's a good question. I do think that some of what we see our clients doing is preparing for the future. And so they're back to setting up their data strategies, their architectures, and ultimately their infrastructure to allow for that next wave of digital spending. So maybe in this case, we're on the tail end of that. And I think you saw that even on the slowdown on the other direction. So I think that's what we're seeing. So time will tell. Like I said, we're not seeing anything uniform or consistent yet. But I think it matches some of the sentiment you heard from me on our voice of our clients' feedback that we just concluded.

Jérôme Dubreuil (Research Analyst)

Great. Second question for me. You provided at the beginning of the year guidance in terms of double-digit EPS growth. Not that consensus is there right now, but can we agree that double-digit EPS growth would be on the higher end of your updated expectations?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, well, obviously, we don't give guidance. But double-digit EPS accretion does remain a target for us. We do have the tail end of the cost optimization, improved business mix. But I think what we're looking for is some return to improvement in the market conditions, which would then allow us to be able to reach that.

Jérôme Dubreuil (Research Analyst)

Great. And then last for me, maybe one for Steve. Can you remind us of the CAD/USD impact in terms of your reporting? Obviously, offsets because of costs that are in USD as well, but maybe a bit of a tailwind in the coming quarters with the weak Canadian currency?

Steve Perron (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, in the next quarter, because if you look at it last quarter, in fact, the US dollar versus the previous year, it was not positive. But currently, yes, with the current exchange rate, you would see a positive sign coming from the effects in Q3. Great.

Jérôme Dubreuil (Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Thanos Moschopoulos with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Thanos Moschopoulos (Managing Director)

Hi, good morning. George.

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Hi, Thanos.

Thanos Moschopoulos (Managing Director)

You referenced, hey, George. Thanos. You referenced the growth in IP. Maybe just to clarify what's driving that. Is a lot of that weighted to government, given where we are in the cycle, or is it from some other sectors as well?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah. Yeah, Thanos, you hit that one right there. There certainly is. Highest growth was in government, both in North America but increasingly in Europe. We had some nice growth in Europe as well, both in the bookings and in the revenue. Operations-focused. That's where a lot of our IP plays. So HR payroll, secure data document handling, data intelligence solutions. We also had some growth in banking as well, Trade360, Wealth360. But think really more focused on those operational systems, just given where we are. So that's what's continuing to generate the growth.

Thanos Moschopoulos (Managing Director)

Great. It seems like your R&D investments on IP is up a good amount year-over-year. Is a lot of that focused on AI or other areas of investment as well?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, well, we actually had a 30%+ increase in the CGI-funded investments to enable IP within our AI. So everything from Momentum to the Customer Advance and other elements. And again, just to remind you, some of that is just a reallocation, reprioritization of the spend as we go through that. But yeah, AI will continue to be a driver, as I mentioned.

Thanos Moschopoulos (Managing Director)

Great. I'll pass the line. Thanks, George.

Operator (participant)

Yep. Your next question comes from Divya Goyal with Scotiabank. Your line is now open.

Divya Goyal (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning, everyone. Hi, George. I actually wanted to get a little bit more color on this H2 optimization. I know at the time of the last quarter, we were talking about it. It looked like there could be more upside coming out of H2. But considering where the rate environment is right now, do you think it's fair to build in any sizable optimization whatsoever, or should we expect a flattish growth for this remaining quarters ahead?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, well, as you know, Divya, we don't give guidance. But just again, what I see, I just don't see the clarity right now. The pipeline looks strong. The interest is there. We're getting in front of our clients, which is extremely important. And there are green shoots. They're not very consistent, even across industries or geographies. So right now, I can't really call that. Maybe it shifts to the second half of the calendar year versus our fiscal year. I don't know. But that's what I see right now.

I'm just sharing. And that's why I share the metrics that we have, where the pipeline is, where the bookings are. And then, of course, what we're hearing on the voice of the clients, which is positive on a go-forward basis. I just don't know when some of that's going to show up.

Divya Goyal (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah, no, that's a fair comment. And I wanted to get a little bit. I know you talked about the margin sustainability, and you gave some commentary here on margins. What is a fair run rate for margins now that the cost optimization program is predominantly behind us?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Steve?

Steve Perron (EVP and CFO)

Look, it's a good question. But ultimately, as George mentioned, yes, we will have an uptake in the margin with the cost optimization, probably not to the level that you saw this quarter, because, as George mentioned, we continue to invest. We want to invest in AI. We want to train our folks. So we are spending at the right place to continue to ultimately grow the EPS. That's the ultimate goal. Something like 20 bps would make sense.

Divya Goyal (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah, no, that's helpful. One question on the BFSI weakness. George, you did mention that the BFSI segment saw some weakness. We have been hearing commentary from some of the global banks indicating increased investments in IT. Are you seeing that show up in your bookings, given the stronger SI&C bookings? Are you seeing more momentum on the AI side, or is it broadly digital core modernization where you see more of that spend coming out?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

We're still seeing a lot more in the digital and general modernization projects. That's what we're seeing. Again, we're seeing some elements of kind of some of that spending, but it's still early days. And so I'd say more it's on the modernization. I think people are still setting up for what that next wave of digital spending is going to be.

Divya Goyal (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

That's helpful. And my very last question here is, considering where the stock price is today as compared to where it was a few weeks ago, do you think there are any plans to expedite the share buybacks?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, well, as we've always discussed, our capital allocation priorities don't change. So investing in the business is number one, accretive acquisition is number two. But to the extent that we have the capital available, and I believe we do, Steve, yeah, we would be looking to return that through share buybacks. And we don't base it primarily on price because we're basing it on where we're going as a company. But certainly, you should expect us to continue to be aggressive on all fronts.

Divya Goyal (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Stephanie Price with CIBC. Your line is now open.

Stephanie Price (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, good morning.

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Hi, Stephanie.

Stephanie Price (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. I was hoping you could comment on bookings converting into revenue. I think you made a comment to an earlier question just talking about slow project startups. What are you seeing in terms of that managed services pipeline converting over?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, well, we are seeing a lot of decent growth. If you look at some of the geographies and some of the industries where we're seeing growth, a lot of that is now being driven by the managed services. It's just being offset by some of that slower SI&C spending. As that returns, I think it's going to be an accelerator because we are starting to see good growth on the managed services side.

Stephanie Price (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, great. And then just in terms of IP revenue, there was a comment that 60% of IP is now SaaS-based. Curious if you could talk a little bit about the evolution of those IP solutions. I know a lot of them might have been considered mature or you've had them for a long time. Interesting that they're now SaaS-based.

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, yeah. No, I think there's a bit of a resurgence from both introducing some of the new technologies, including AI, into some of these operational intellectual property elements and then offering them as a software as a service has given some of them a new life. We've also spent some time combining some of our independent IPs and then offering that as a software as a service that has increased opportunity and demand for the IP. We've been pretty rigorous of going through an architecture review and continuing to invest only in those IPs that we think do have that future. You're seeing the results of it these last several quarters.

Stephanie Price (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Suthan Sukumar with Stifel. Your line is now open.

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Good morning, George. The first question I have is, I guess, on your partner ecosystem. I've been seeing more headlines in recent periods about partnerships. Just kind of curious on what role your partner ecosystem has been having on your business in terms of driving client relationships and growth overall.

Yeah, no, it's a good question. They're an important element, an increasingly important element in the ecosystem and certainly for CGI. It's why we elevated that whole process several years ago. That continues to pay dividends. You saw that the bookings from that network is up double digit in the quarter and will continue to play an important role. We have a unique position with some of those partners in that we do have those 150-plus intellectual property solutions, which are attractive. They're synergistic, working together on those. They're not generic announcements. They're very specific opportunities. Having said that, you've seen that we've made some of those announcements in the past. You'll expect to see more of those types of partnerships because I think they are an important part of the ecosystem.

Now, having said that, we'll continue to be agnostic and work with our clients in what the right solution is for them.

Suthan Sukumar (Managing Director)

Okay, great. Thank you. Next question, I guess, is just more on capital allocation optionality. Just in terms of returning cash back to shareholders, beyond the NCIB, would a dividend ever be an option you would consider longer term?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Well, given where we are and what I just shared with you with the voice of the clients, the AI as a catalyst for growth, the opportunity that continues to be out there and eliminate the position, that's not the number one place that we would go to drive the accretion we believe shareholders are looking for. And we review it regularly with the board. That's the current thinking of the board. But if that were to change, we'd share it, but not right now.

Suthan Sukumar (Managing Director)

Okay, great. Just one quick one from me. Given your ambitions around growing your IP business and also MMA as a growth driver, is there potential for pure play for deals around pure play IP and software?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, what we've found when we look at pure software, we evaluate them often. The issue is that they don't necessarily have the relationships with the clients that we're looking for. When we're looking at MMA, we're looking to complement and expand the relationships we have with clients so we can sell through the full suite of CGI services. And a lot of the pure play software just don't have that. Now, there are some firms that are closer to that. We're looking at how to make that happen. But in general, you don't see that. Same thing on pure AI firms. You've got to sift through a lot of firms that are masquerading as AI firms, but they're not really at the end of the day, they're not really AI firms. And that's the issue with software firms. Do they have the relationship with the client, so?

Suthan Sukumar (Managing Director)

Okay, great. Thank you. I'll pass the line, I guess.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Jason Kupferberg with Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Jason Kupferberg (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, good morning, George and Steve. This is Tyler DuPont on for Jason. Thanks for taking the questions. I know we're sort of putting up on time, so I'll try to be quick here. I know this has sort of been asked before as well, but to put a slightly different spin on it, based on my back of the envelope math, it looks like SI&C revenues declined for the first time in quite a few quarters of strong growth. I know you commented on green shoots that you're seeing. But when we think about sort of an inflection positive, are you seeing that more as a 3Q phenomenon, 4Q, or just any trends that are worth considering as we look through 2024?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, well, and that's what I've tried to explain. It's difficult to predict. I'm not going to predict. We don't give guidance. That's why I shared with you the data points that I have. What we're really just focused on is staying in front of our clients with the value propositions that will help them now and in the future, so. But I don't really have an answer there.

Jason Kupferberg (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Understandable. That makes sense. I appreciate the color there. Just as a follow-up, it looks like as we're continuing to see sort of an increase in larger and longer-duration deal wins, can you just maybe balance the difference between what you're seeing from the TPV growth side and the ACV growth side? As we look at CGI as a whole, how should we anticipate this trend to evolve and sort of any disconnect alongside that last between those two growth rates? Any sort of trends there worth calling out?

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Yeah, well, it's interesting.I guess maybe what I'd come back to is what I shared with you from the voice of the client, that there's more of a dual-focus agenda that's coming into shape, so both the cost savings and the growth drivers. And so I think you're going to see that normalize back to something that you're going to have the stronger SI&C growth for point projects, but also those larger transformative managed services deals. So that's what I would say that that data point would point to.

Jason Kupferberg (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, great. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press star one. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to management.

George Schindler (President and CEO)

Thank you, Joelle. And thanks, everyone, for participating. As a reminder, a replay of the call will be available either via our webcast or by dialing 1-888-660-6264 and using the passcode 43710. As well, a podcast of this call will be available for download within a few hours. Follow-up questions can be directed to me at 1-905-973-8363. Thanks again, everyone, and looking forward to speaking soon. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating in us. If you please, disconnect your lines.