CGI Inc. (NYSE:GIB) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Richard Tse: On the acquisition question, you talked about sort of having opportunities in different markets and IP in different geographies. You look back over the years, CGI has done acquisitions geographically and in IP. And IP, I guess the big one would have been AMS in terms of sort of changing and being transformational. If you kind of assess those acquisitions of the past, whether it’s IP, large, small, medium size, like, is there a ranking in terms of returns in terms of what’s better? Or I don’t want to say worse, but the best returning assets from an acquisition standpoint?

George Schindler: Well, it’s a good question. They’re all a bit different. And as you know, AMS had a lot of long term client relationships that were invaluable, just like the IP was very valuable. So it’s kind of hard to rank those. It’s funny that you mentioned that because, in a couple cases in our pipeline, we said this looks like an AMS company as far as having a combination of IP and services. But, look, again, just go back to what we’re looking for when we’re doing an acquisition, we’re looking for, first and foremost, the cultural alignment. And the cultural alignment typically means for us having talented individuals within the company that have close relationships and bringing value to their clients. And that value, it’s hard for me to rank whether that value is from a consulting which is very valuable, IP which is very valuable, SI which is very valuable, and managed services.

But the key is that they have that close relationship, and that it’s dynamic, and they continue to bring value. And that’s what brings value to CGI in the long term.

Richard Tse: Just one last one for me. With respect to acquisitions, again, no doubt you have considerable strength in government. So when it comes to acquisitions, is that, let’s say, one area that you think that you would sort of even further fortify your presence, given it is fairly sizable of the mix today? Would you just prefer to diversify the business away from that?

George Schindler: Yeah. So, it’s a little of both. I think the diversification is important. We’re now at 35% government, which is a great place to be. But as we continue to grow the business and make acquisitions on the commercial side, it’s going to be important for us to continue to grow in the government space. And the deals quite frankly are getting bigger in government, and so you need to have a certain scale. So we will continue to look at both.

Operator: Your next question comes from Stephanie Price from CIBC.

Stephanie Price: I was hoping you could talk a little bit about the visibility you have into the cost structure here, both in terms of pricing, utilization and attrition. Just curious if you’ve seen some normalization here versus the last few quarters.

George Schindler: Normalization of the pricing and the cost structure, it’s still pretty dynamic. Like I said, there’s still the tight demand for some of the hot skills. And so, there is still some wages that are increasing. We’ve been managing that, as I mentioned, through the combination of global delivery, the college hires, etc. And then being able to pass that along. We’re still seeing price elasticity point in time for the value added skills that our clients are looking for. So I think it will moderate over the next couple of quarters, but we haven’t seen wholesale moderation yet in that environment.