Alithya Group (TSX:ALYA) Q4 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Alithya's Fourth Quarter and Full Fiscal twenty twenty six Results Conference Call. Thank you for joining us this morning. The press release, along with the MD and A containing condensed financial statements and related notes, was published this morning and is now accessible on our Web site. The presentation can also be found on our Web site in the Investors section. Please be advised that this call will contain forward looking statements, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These statements include our estimates, plans, expectations and statements regarding future growth, operational results, performance and business prospects that do not solely relate to historical facts. These statements may also refer to future events, including expectations around client demand, business opportunities, leveraging our services, IP, AI and expertise to meet client needs, excelling in a competitive market, achieving our three year strategic plan and deploying our SmartShore capabilities.

1:01 For more information, please refer to the cautionary note included in our presentation and the forward looking statements and risk and uncertainties sections of our MD and A, which are accessible on our website. All figures discussed on today's call are in Canadian dollars unless stated otherwise, and we may refer to certain indicators that are non IFRS measures. Please refer to the cautionary notes included in our presentation and to the non IFRS and other financial measures section in our MD and A for more detail.

1:32 The conference call will be followed by a question and answer period. Only question from the financial community will be addressed. To raise or lower your hand, please press star followed by 5. You will hear a confirmation once your hand is raised. Presenting this morning are Paul Raymond, Alithya's president and chief executive officer Bernard Dokrill, Chief Operating Officer and Pierre Blanchet, Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Paul Raymond. Paul?

2:02 Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Dominik. Thank you for joining us today. Before reviewing our results, I want to begin by thanking our teams for their continued discipline and commitment to our clients' success. Their expertise and dedication remains central to our ability to deliver mission critical projects and to advance our long term strategy. In the fourth quarter, we remained and maintained a strong focus on execution while continuing to shift our business towards higher value services and improving our gross margin profile. For the full fiscal year, we made progress in strengthening our business fundamentals. Revenues and gross margin increased year over year, and adjusted net earnings remained stable.

2:47 These results reflect the discipline of our teams, the continued evolution of our portfolio, the steady increase of AI activities, and the integration of the recent eVerge and XRM Vision acquisitions. We remain focused on advancing our industry first approach and supporting our clients in their AI and digital transformation initiative. Demand for integrated capabilities across data, enterprise application, and cloud continues to evolve, and we are well positioned to meet these needs as a trusted adviser.

3:19 In parallel, we've continued to strengthen our internal capabilities with AI and upskilling for everyone to enhance how we deliver for clients and drive efficiency across our operations. And with that, I will now turn it over to Pierre for the financial highlights of the quarter, followed by Bernard with an update on operations. Pierre? Thank you, Paul, and good morning, everyone. Before looking at our fourth quarter, I want to provide an update on the divestiture of On March 31, we sold all the shares of Datum. Datum in exchange for a minority equity interest, the capital of Medivra Holdings. Prior to the transaction, we recorded an impairment of intangible of $3,100,000.

4:05 In fiscal twenty twenty six, Paytm represented close to $15,000,000 in revenue and $1,200,000 in EBITDA. This transaction is aligned with our long term strategy as we are focused on the growth of our core activities. I would also like to highlight an important update on our internal controls. As disclosed in fiscal twenty twenty five, we had identified a material weakness related to control activities in our revenue processes for fixed fee and time and material arrangement applying the input method. This weakness did not result in any material errors. During fiscal twenty twenty six, we enhanced the design and implementation of controls.

4:55 Management completed testing of the operating effectiveness of these enhanced control during the fourth quarter, and we have concluded that the material weakness has been remediated. Now turning to financial highlights for our fourth quarter's results. In the quarter, we delivered $113,800,000 of revenue, down 9.2 year over year. It is important to note that the fourth quarter for fiscal twenty twenty five was unusually strong as higher number of project go lives drove elevated revenue in that period, creating a tougher year over year comparison. Gross margin as a percentage of revenue reached 37.8% in the quarter, up from 36.8% last year.

5:49 Both periods were positively impacted by the recognition of tax credits. There was a more significant contribution in Q4 twenty twenty six as 5,800,000 of non refundable tax credits were recognized as they are available for carry forwards. While this supported a year over year increase of our gross margin as a percentage of revenue, our margin remains solid at 32.7% when excluding the recognition of the tax credit in Q4. Looking at our performance by segment, revenues in The United States reached $55,600,000 up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year.

6:38 In constant currency, the revenue would have been $58,200,000 in Q4 twenty twenty six, up 7.5%. The increase was due primarily to revenue from eVerge since its acquisition and organic growth in enterprise transformation services. This was achieved despite a lower contribution by Datum, which was disposed on 03/31/2026, reflecting momentum in our US segment. In The US, gross margin as a percentage of revenue decreased compared to the same quarter last year, primarily due to a lower contribution by Datum, partially offset by the increase of, use of our smart shoring capabilities.

7:26 In Canada, revenues were 49,700,000, down 24% on a year over year basis. This change is mainly due to reduced revenue from government contracts and client projects reaching maturity as we have chosen not to renew lower margin work awarded primarily on price. Gross margin increased as a percentage of revenue compared to the same quarter last year, mainly due to the recognition of non refundable tax credits and proportionally larger decrease in the use of some contractors compared to permanent employees. In our international segment, we delivered 8,500,000 in revenue, up 49.1% compared to the same period last year.

8:16 In constant currency, the revenue would have been 8,000,000 in q four, up 39.2%. Gross margin as a percentage of revenues increased compared to the same quarter last year, mainly due to additional enterprise transformation services delivered in this segment. Now looking at SG and A. In the fourth quarter, SG and A totaled 31,800,000, an increase of 2,100,000 or 7.1% year over year, primarily driven by SG and A related to the Everge acquisition, as well as higher share based compensation, professional fees and employee compensation costs. This resulted in SG and A as a percentage of revenue of 28% compared to 23.7% in the same period last year.

9:13 Turning to adjusted EBITDA. We reported a $12,700,000 or 11.1% of revenue in Q4 compared to $80,000,000 or 14.4% of revenue last year. The decrease reflects lower revenue and gross margin as well as higher SG and A expense as explained earlier. The recognition of non refundable tax credit in the amount of 5,800,000 net of the triggered variable compensation of $4,500,000 had a positive net impact of $1,300,000 in the adjusted EBITDA for the three years ended 03/31/2026. Net loss for the quarter was $8,700,000 compared to net earnings of $8,000,000 in the same period last year.

10:06 The increased loss was mainly driven by the decreased gross margin caused by lower revenue and decreased utilization rate, partially offset by the recognition of non refundable tax credit related to prior years available for carry forward, increased selling, general and admin expenses, increased business acquisition, integration and reorg costs, and increased income tax expense, partially offset by the decreased depreciation and amortization of intangible and increased foreign exchange gain. To conclude on our results, adjusted net earnings came in at $7,700,000 or $08 per share compared to $12,200,000 or $0.12 per share in the prior year.

10:57 Turning to cash flow and financial position. Net cash from operating activity was $3,500,000 in the quarter compared to 17.1 for the same quarter last year. The variance is explained mainly by lower cash conversion in Q4 due to unfavorable working capital variation and a lower profitability.

11:25 In the fourth quarter, we pursued our normal course issuer bid, which allows us to purchase shares under certain conditions set by the TSX. As of 03/31/2026, approximately 3,200,000 shares were purchased for cancellation.

11:44 This number includes approximately 2,500,000 shares purchased for cancellation as part of the Dayton transaction. As of as of 03/31/2026, our net debt amounted to $1,800,000 and our leverage ratio came out at 2.4 times net debt over the trailing twelve month adjusted EBITDA, all within Alithya's targeted level leverage levels. We believe this provides sufficient flexibility to support our operation and strategic priorities going forward. I will now turn things to Bernard for operational highlights. Merci, Peter, and good morning to everyone with us today. I wanna begin by thanking the Alithya team for their commitment and execution throughout fiscal twenty twenty six.

12:36 In the fourth quarter, we continue to execute with discipline while investing in our industry led offerings, partnerships and IP that strengthened our ability to deliver higher value transformation work and better long term margin potential. To support this strategy, we strengthened our leadership team in two areas that are central to our execution with the addition of Benoit Gaudemire and Sassadar Nayadu. Benoit is aligning our business and IT consulting teams across Canada, The United States and France to strengthen industry led offerings, improve go to market consistency, and support the Canadian segments return to healthier growth. SASSAVAR is working across all Alithya divisions to strengthen our industry go to market strategy, improve account planning, and accelerate cross selling into larger multipractice opportunities.

13:28 Together, they bring deep IT services growth experience and strengthen the commercial capabilities we need to improve sales execution, increase cross sell, and build a higher quality revenue mix. We'll now turn to bookings. Fourth quarter bookings were $94,300,000 and full year bookings were $434,200,000 representing a book to bill of 0.83 in the quarter and 0.91 on a trailing twelve month basis. Excluding revenue associated with the two long term contracts acquired in the first quarter of fiscal twenty twenty two, fourth quarter book to bill was 0.90 and trailing twelve month book to bill was 1.0, which better reflects the current period commercial activity.

14:18 Fourth quarter bookings were $33,900,000 in Canada, $56,700,000 in The United States, and $3,700,000 internationally. Our pipeline of qualified opportunities was stable sequentially. Within that pipeline, client conversations continue to shift toward modernization, cloud transformation, and AI adoption as organizations recognize that AI value depends on addressing legacy applications, data, workflow, and business rules. As a result, modernization is becoming a strategic business priority rather than discretionary technology spend. We are seeing demand concentrate around application modernization and cloud transformation with AI increasingly serving as a catalyst for broader, higher value transformation programs.

15:12 I will now turn to our US and Canadian operating segments where the performance dynamics remain distinct. As Pierre noted, The US segment continued to grow supported by demand across both our Oracle and Microsoft practices in our core industries, health care, financial services, and manufacturing, and by the broader enterprise transformation needs of our clients. One year after completing the eVerge acquisition, integration has progressed well, and the combined capabilities are expanding our access to larger enterprise opportunities that neither neither organization could have pursued as effectively on its own. We continue to see an emerging opportunity in construction and engineering, where investment in data centers, energy infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, and other large scale projects is increasing demand for end to end project visibility and control.

16:08 These clients need integrated platforms that improve capital allocation, cost control, resource planning, and governance while reducing execution risk. Alithya's capabilities in ERP, EPM, scheduling, and operational analytics align well with these complex higher value transformation needs. In our Microsoft practice, we achieved the Microsoft Copilot specialization, which strengthens our credibility in enterprise AI deployments. Together with close Microsoft alignment, this is helping us expand Copilot and AI related work, including assisting nine Fortune 500 companies as well as health care and public sector organizations. Clients are increasingly looking to deploy AI inside core enterprise platforms, not as isolated pilots, but as part of broader efforts to improve productivity, automate workflows, and modernize business processes.

17:06 For a leading global development bank, our Copilot literacy and adoption program drove strong results with 90% of users actively using Copilot in their daily work. The client saw productivity improvements throughout reduced manual effort, faster access to information, and quicker execution of core tasks. For our manufacturing client, we developed an AI agent that gives sales leaders real time mobile access to customer and pipeline data, helping align production more quickly with demand. This is a good example of how AI can extend the value of existing enterprise data and workflows. We also continue to invest in AI enabled delivery assets. In the fourth quarter, we introduced Alithya Fabric Express, a proprietary accelerator that shortens the time required to prepare data for analytics and AI.

17:58 For clients, it enables faster access to reliable data. For Alithya, it supports more reputable delivery, reduces execution risk, and can improve delivery economics over time as we scale across our client base. In Canada, our repositioning toward higher margin services continues to progress. We have deliberately exited low value commoditized work, particularly in the Quebec public sector, where we are no longer competing on price alone. That decision continues to weigh on revenue in the near term as higher quality replacement work has taken longer to ramp in the current Quebec market. However, the mix is improving, and we believe this repositioning is necessary to support a healthier margin profile over time.

18:49 Our AWS partnership in Canada supports this repositioning by improving our access to modernization and cloud led engagements with stronger economics and deeper client relationships. During the quarter, we achieved the AWS migration and modernization competency, which strengthens our credibility in large scale cloud modernization pursuits. Cross selling is also expanding the opportunity set in Canada. The addition of Salesforce capabilities through eVerge is creating momentum in Quebec and across the broader Canadian market, contributing to a pipeline of larger, multipractice opportunities with stronger margin potential. Outside Quebec, performance remains steady in nuclear and financial services supported by renewals with key accounts.

19:37 For one of Canada's six largest banks, we renewed a long term Azure cloud support contract covering application deployment, automated CICD pipelines, and ongoing support. To close, we continue to strengthen our delivery model. Expanding Smart Shoring and increasing the use of AI delivery are improving efficiency, scalability, and execution consistency. Our SmartShore centers now represent approximately 13% of our workforce, giving us a stronger platform to support profitable growth and more scalable delivery. In parallel, we completed our mandatory AI training across our workforce, incorporating our teams to apply AI more consistently in client delivery and internal operations. Overall, we are encouraged by the consistency of our execution.

20:27 While some parts of the business remain in transition, particularly in Canada, we are making deliberate choices to improve revenue quality, strengthen delivery scalability, and build a higher value business with better margin potential over time. I will now turn it back to Paul for closing comments. Paul?

20:46 Thank you, Bernard. So to conclude, this quarter reflects the discipline of our teams as we continue to execute on our strategic plan. Across the organization, we're strengthening our foundations and continuing to evolve our business towards higher value engagements. Our industry first approach, combined with our investments in AI, data, and proprietary capabilities, is enhancing our position as a trusted adviser for complex transformation initiatives. While the environment continues to evolve, we remain focused on what we can control, execution, delivery excellence, and the continued advancement of our model. We believe the actions we are taking today support the long term strategy of the business. And with that, I will now open the line for questions. Dominic?

21:32 Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. As discussed earlier, only questions from the financial community will be addressed. To raise or lower your hand, please press star followed by 5. You will hear a confirmation once your hand is raised. When it is your turn to speak, your line will be unlocked, and you will hear a notification. At that point, please unmute yourself by pressing star 6.

22:01 And the first question would be from Kevin Krishnaratne at Scotiabank. If you aren't able to unmute yourself, please press star followed by 6. Hey there. Hey. It's Kevin. Can you hear me? Yeah. Hey. Good morning, Kevin. Hey. Hey. Good morning. Hey. Quick question. Did you did you mention that you you grew

22:32 organically in The US? And, you know, I think that's despite some of the tough comps. So number one, is that what you said?

22:38 And if so, can you just talk about the the main drivers in that? Was there anything onetime in nature? Because I also think, you mentioned that you still saw a lower number of, go live year over year.

22:53 Yes. Thank you for the question, Kevin. Yes. There was some organic growth in The US. That growth and that we provided the numbers in constant currency because it impacted by currency in q four. Part of the growth came from the Everge acquisition, and part of it was organic across the board in both Oracle and Microsoft business.

23:14 The the the comment on the go lives is just that last year in the same quarter, we had a a record number of go lives, and that's why the year over year comparison we said is tough to tougher to beat, as I mentioned in previous calls. And, Kevin, it's Pierre. We also, in the prepared remarks, we identified that our data subsidiary

23:40 was a detractor in the q four in terms of growth. So so so we have to take the, 7% year over year in constant currency. You have to take take into account that it includes a declining Datum subsidiary. Yeah. If you remove data, the the organic growth is actually a lot more significant.

24:02 Yeah. No. And and that that's that's good to hear. And so even though you're running a lower number of go lives, you also talk about, you know, the combined entity now is able to compete on larger opportunities. So are are you seeing, like, the average deal style deal sizes ticking up? Well, I can give you an example specific to Everge. So when we acquired Everge, as we mentioned, they had two two businesses. One was Oracle, specifically in the construction engineering sector and a Salesforce practice. Today, we're going after Salesforce projects that are almost the size of Everge total revenue at the time we acquired them. So the the combined entity gives us access to much larger projects that Alithya could not have chased alone, and Everge could not have

24:53 chased alone either. So, again, we're we're trying to demonstrate the power of platform when we do the, the, right acquisitions. Gotcha. Okay. Good good to hear. The second maybe related question, then maybe we can talk about where you think you're gonna go going forward. You you did mention that your pipeline was stable sequentially. I don't know if that was for The US or the company overall. But, you know, do do we start to see that pipeline grow, you know, in the in the next quarter? And then remind us if you're still seeing the dynamic where, customers,

25:30 maybe, you know, phasing, their projects and, you know, maybe you're getting recognition smaller recognition upfront, if you're still seeing that dynamic. And, again, just just comment on what you're seeing in the pipeline. So so two two questions in there. The the first one, and maybe I'll go back to Bernard's comments earlier in the in the state and the study road. If you look at our bookings in The US versus Canada and you do the quick math, our our book to bill in The US is above one, and our book to bill in Canada is below one. Again, there are two things in that. One is it reflects the mix of business. So in The US, we're a 100% focused on the higher margin, mission critical enterprise software, projects, which are growing because as Bernard was mentioning, people who wanna roll out AI at scale need a, a system of reference that has, that has clean and coherent data across the enterprise.

26:35 In Canada, we're still in a transition, especially in Quebec. So the the the the bookings,

26:42 and the funnel has changed. But if you look at our overall sales funnel, it's very, very consistent in terms of size, but the type of deals in there have changed. So in Canada, again, they're evolving to higher margin type projects. In The US, it's growing the same.

27:04 Thanks very much. I'll I'll pass the line. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Next question will be from Jerome Drey at Desjardins Capital Markets.

27:23 Please go ahead, Jerome. You can unlock your mic, by pressing star followed by six. We can't hear the user at all. It's a star six to unmute. Hey. Ovi, can you hear me? Yeah. Yeah. Good morning. Alright. Great. Good morning, everyone. First

27:47 question for me is is a broader question on AI, and it's really industry wide, so not specific to Alithya necessarily. But one would think we could see urgency from from the companies to organize their data to eventually benefit from AI, but we're not quite seeing it in the industry's results so far. So it seems maybe like AI solutions aren't mature yet or or not mature enough to convince, the corporate side. What do you think is is giving the buyers pause at this time wide? Great question, Joel. And as you've heard on this call before, and if you've read any of the writings that I've published, I've been saying since the beginning that, you know, there's a lot of hype in the speed of adoption. I am a strong believer AI is gonna change everything.

28:36 However, the speed of adoption, I I think, has been has been overhyped in certain areas. So let me give you a few very easy examples.

28:46 Bernard mentioned the, Copilot adoption. So we're one of the, select few at Microsoft that are certified to roll out Copilot in large organizations, and we do that in very large organizations in The US, Fortune 1,000 type companies. And and the size of those projects are not significant. I mean, they're not in the millions of dollars. So even though we have several dozens,

29:16 opportunities in the funnel and, and completions of those types of projects under our belt, I mean, they they don't move the dial on a larger scale. They will eventually as people start using it and then see the potential, but they they don't move the scale in the short term the, the needle in the short term. The the issue is and the world that we're in, there are two speeds of adoption of AI. And and, again, I've been saying this. In regulated industries,

29:48 you know, changing, how you, do work and what you automate is very much driven by regulation. And in regulated environments, it is very difficult to make sure that you follow all the regulations, you get all the authorities to approve what you do and so on and so forth. So,

30:09 is it gonna get there? Absolutely. Are there areas so if you're in a software development world today, huge change. Right? Because you can automate coding. We're not software developers. We're integrators. So it's it's impacting everything that we do. We can do things faster. If you look at the the company headcount today versus what it was five years ago, we're we're significantly lower, but we're doing higher value type work. So so you're gonna keep seeing that where we see the opportunity. The biggest opportunity in in our industry as system integrators and regulated

30:45 industries, and I've mentioned this before, is gonna be the modernization of legacy systems. The the tools that from companies like AWS and and and Google and Microsoft today enable us to modernize legacy in a cost effective way that was not possible four years ago. So, however, before a bank or a large insurance company or somebody decides to modernize all of their legacy platforms, as you can imagine, there's a lot of regulatory hurdles that you have to go through to make sure you don't break anything along the way. So I I think that's gonna be the biggest opportunity for for companies like us, and it's not gonna happen overnight. It's gonna be gradual. That's why we've invested in that. That's why we're working with hyperscalers like AWS, the the new certification that Bernard just mentioned, why we're actually helping Microsoft, AWS, Oracle develop their own AI tools and AI agents and interfaces to integrate their tools better. So so that's

31:47 where we're we really are positioning ourselves for the long term by by getting embedded with the hyperscalers around these things. So, yes, it's gonna get there and not at the speed that that a lot of people are hyping. That's that's my view of what's happening out there. That helps. Yeah. That's that's a great answer, Paul. I have two more.

32:08 Can you dive a bit into the agentic model? I think Bernard mentioned that you've built agents for for some of client. What is the model exactly for for monetization? Are are these kinda still time and materials type of work, or or is there some some sort of recurring revenue that that can be earned from, from the agents you've built?

32:32 I can, I'll I'll let Bernard answer the, the client side, but I'll give you a a simple example for a very, very large grocery chain in The US. We basically replaced their, customer call center, completely. So it's all AI driven. It's on the Microsoft platform. Somebody calls that, organization.

32:55 It's, you're not talking to a human. You wouldn't know it, but you're not talking to a human. The the the resolution rate has gone up dramatically. The client satisfaction rate has gone up dramatically. So I think there's some areas like that that are very easy to do. I'll let Bernard comment on the on the contractual model.

33:16 Yeah. So on on the commercial model, Jerome, it's a number of things there. I I know your your question is specific to, you know, are we looking at recurring revenue from, agents? Right now, again, on the adoption stuff, it's more on the services side, which could be on a outcome based fixed price or time materials model.

33:34 And the other areas we are is extending our our partners' IP as well. And in my prepared remarks, I also spoke about Fabric Express, which is an AI enabled product that we build internally, which, again, it helps us, in our delivery. So, again, we go to outcome based pricing there. It allows us to to change the economic models, as we continue to reuse this product across our our client base. But right now, I I don't see a in our portfolio, a large volume of recurring revenue from the deployment of agents. I do think the market will get there over time. Hey. Great. And then last one for me. Last quarter, you made sure to highlight that, that 4Q was a tough comp.

34:21 Any comments you wanna be making on on the first quarter, which ends, in nineteen days? Yeah. Good good try, if you should know. Or I mean, we we don't provide guidance. I mean, we never have. And I know I know it's something that people would like. It's just at the size of the business that we're at, we don't we don't see it as as something that would add value. Yep. Fair enough. Thank you. Next question will be from Gavin Fairweather. Just one moment. I will unlock your line.

35:16 Mister Fairweather, please, unmute yourself, by pressing star followed by 6. Hey. Can you hear me? Yeah. Good morning. Yes. Hey. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just on Canada, can you just put some more meat on the bone, you know, in in terms of the the plans under new leadership, you know, maybe touching on kinda your workforce skills and how well aligned they are with, you know, where you're trying to take the business, maybe talk about the the go to market evolution and and what verticals you're you're targeting for growth, and any comments around, timelines on the plan? Sure. I'll I'll let Bernard comment on that, and I'll add a little thing at the end. Yeah. Great. So with with the with the new leadership, it really you know, one of the things that's core to our our our plan here is to cross sell more of our higher value enterprise transformation services into the the Quebec and Canadian market.

36:10 So with the addition of Benoit, looking to bring that and and really accelerate our cross selling. And and SASE's position is directly related to that too as far as pushing, some of these enterprise transformation services into the into those markets. We will continue to focus on the markets where we have strong presence in the Canadian markets with financial services and insurance and and energy, nuclear will definitely be core focuses for us, as we continue to grow. As you know, we also have a a large agreement in the in the telecom space as well. So those will be our core focuses. The other area where enterprise transformation is really strong is in the manufacturing space. So, where we can bring those higher value services into the Canadian market, that is a strong focus for us.

37:01 Okay. I I and, yeah, at the end of the day, Gavin, may maybe just to add to that, what really matters to us is, is the mix, and the mix is improving. And, you know, Bernard, we brought in new, new leadership in Canada. So the team is focused on rebuilding the Quebec business, but we're rebuilding it on a healthier margin, right, and better revenue quality rather than chasing volume. Yeah. Understood. And then may maybe for Pierre, could you just, help me understand the tax credits and how that work? Is this just a seasonal factor that comes up every Q4? Is that something which can play out in the other quarters of the year? Should we expect it next year? Maybe just help us understand that because it does seem to create some volatility here in the fourth quarter in particular.

37:50 Yes. Kevin, I can explain. There is two parts to the credits. There's a refundable and a nonrefundable. Refundable, we, we accrue based on the work that we do. It's a it's a it's a subsidy subsidy on the on salary, basically. But at the end of the year, there's a, when you total it up, there's a nonrefundable portion. And this quarter, we recognize nonrefundable that we will be able to apply on future years, And we will repeat that every year, keeping the pool of nonrefundable on our balance sheet until it's depleted.

38:36 So so it's going to be a recurring. The size won't be the same. They well, it's based on our our forecast profile and and the tax profile for the future years, but it's gonna be recurring. And there's two components. So one is every quarter. The other one we assess at year end. Very helpful. And I'm not sure what to take this, maybe Paul or maybe Bernard. But if you look at your revenue breakdown, you are largely still a ton and material business, but we've been talking about the shift to value and outcome based pricing models. Maybe you can just discuss, you know, how those conversations are going with clients, how open they are to it, and and how you expect your mix to shift over time.

39:30 Well, yeah. Yeah. Great question. The another thing that, that made a lot of noise in the past few months, we're not seeing a lot of it, Gavin. We about 40% of our business today is is is fixed price or managed like a fixed price, but I I think we're still far from outcomes based, personally. We do, we do offer it to some clients. Where it, where it gets complicated is when the procurement department gets involved, and they have no way to deal with that yet. So I I'm looking forward to the day where outcomes based is driving everything that we're doing, but, it's still it's still significantly time and material based. That's it for me. Thank you. Alright. Thank you.

40:20 Thank you. Next question will be from Rob Goff at Acumen Capital. Please press star followed by 6, and go ahead. Yeah. We can't hear you, Rob, so you have to do star 6. Okay. Good morning. Can you hear me now? Yeah. Good morning. Very good. I was extremely insightful while I was muted there, just just so you know. Sorry. Bad joke. A question and this isn't a forward looking question so much, but it helped that we were aware that Q4 a year ago was an exceptional quarter for new bookings.

41:14 How would you characterize Q1 of twenty six when we are looking well, just how would you characterize q one of twenty six in terms of bookings levels or new launch levels? Good good try, Rob. You've been talking to your role too much. Yeah. No. We we we we don't we we're not gonna provide guidance on our our visibility on q one. Sorry. Okay. No. It wasn't so much on this year, but rather just for last year, but I will jump ahead. Can I ask you on the m and a side? Are Sorry. Sorry. Sorry, Rob. Last year is public. If you go in the the press release, I don't remember by heart the last year, but it's available on our hours.

42:01 Okay. I will do. Yep. In terms of acquisitions, how was the pipeline? How are valuations? What is your thinking? Well, if if our valuation is any indication, the market the market is very interesting right now. You can see our counterparts in the whole industry, the way things are looking. We have a healthy funnel, so we're always always pursuing. It's in our strategy. We, we've mentioned it before. However, all three key conditions have to be, to be met. One is we have to agree on the price. Two, they have to be for sale. And three, we need to find a tuck in where management wants to stick around and grow. And we've had the examples in the past, and you've been witness to them that have worked very well and others that haven't worked so well. And, usually, it's because one of those conditions, didn't pan out. So we're we're very, very disciplined on, on, spending our money wisely, given we're doing them mostly in cash right now.

43:11 So but I think there's, nice opportunities out there. Very good. And and how would, you characterize the early stage RFP, pipeline? It doesn't seem to be strengthening, shifting in any way? I'll let, I'll let Bernard take that one on, Rob. Thank you. Yeah. As I mentioned, our pipeline is stable from last quarter. So I think that's remains kind of where we were consistent basis. Maybe Bernard can't comment on the way the deals are being broken up by some clients. Yeah. I think it was a question that Jerome had asked earlier as well on the breakup of deals.

44:01 And and we are seeing that. So deals enter a pipeline much larger than than how the original deal closes, and it closes over multiple phases. It's a the trend we've talked about on this call several times previously, and, it continues to happen as as we we get there. You know, there's a cautious, step forward. But we do eventually sign the the full size of the deals. We we prove out the first phase, second phase, and then typically by the third phase, the full contract is signed. So we do see that in the larger enterprise transformation deals. Thank you, and, good luck. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we have no other question, which concludes our conference call for today. We'd like to thank you for attending and ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have a good day.