Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the IBI Group First Quarter 2022 Results Conference Call. Please note that IBI's complete financial statements and management's discussion and analysis for the three months ended March 31, 2022 were filed on SEDAR and have been posted on IBI's website at www.ibigroup.com. During the formal remarks, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. To ask a question, please press star followed by one. As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. Some of the statements on today's call might contain forward-looking information. Listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, since a number of factors could cause the actual future results to differ materially from the targets and expectations expressed. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, unless expressly required by applicable securities law. For further information on risk factors, please view the company's annual information form filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators and available on the company's website, SEDAR, or by contacting IBI directly. All amounts discussed today are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Scott Stewart, Chief Executive Officer for IBI Group. Please go ahead, Mr. Stewart. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. IBI's Chief Financial Officer, Stephen Taylor, is with me on today's call. We are pleased to share an update on IBI's performance in the first quarter of 2022 and give updates on each of the three business segments. Please note that throughout this call, reference to adjusted EBITDA refers to adjusted EBITDA net of IFRS 16 impacts, unless otherwise stated. I wanted to highlight a few key metrics for this quarter, which shows the results of our strategy that's been in place for the past four years and which has set the stage for IBI to continue evolving, growing, and delivering shareholder value over the next five years. During the first three months of 2022, I'm proud to share that, A, we delivered 9.3% organic growth with 11% total growth of net revenues over the same period in 2021. IBI grew adjusted EBITDA 15% year-over-year and 27% over Q4 2021. Recurring billings increased by 13% over Q1 2021 and by 19% over Q4 2021. We increased diluted EPS by 91% year-over-year and by 75% over Q4 2021. Our backlog increased 6% relative to year-end of 2021 and sets the stage for a robust runway for projects over the next 17 months. Based on the strength of these results, we have also increased our 2022 net revenue guidance by 3.5%. Stephen will speak to this later in the call. In the first three months of 2022, our intelligence sector, led by Kevin Bevenek, grew revenues by 5% over Q1 2021 and realized 13% recurring revenue growth. The sector is continuing to deliver impressive results and pave the way for some exciting new opportunities. We commenced work on several key intelligence projects, including the rollout of a next-generation toll back-office system for Halifax Harbour Bridges, as well as the Traffic Scotland traffic operations center JV with Egis. The rapid deployment of our cloud-based integrated traffic management system for seven major toll corridors in India concluded at the end of the quarter. All of these projects will contribute in future to recurring revenue. New project wins that underpin recurring revenue going forward include the development of a system software package for Florida Department of Transportation express lanes, securing a new toll client in Mexico for the Juarez City bypass road, and two additional Travel-IQ clients, the Nevada Department of Transportation and Monroe County, New York. Substantial progress has been made on the build out of CurbIQ, our platform for the management of curbs in urban environments. With data on over 25 different cities in North America, CurbIQ enhances our ability to compete for projects. We're currently engaged with the City of Toronto and are working with Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and Ann Arbor. Another intelligence solution gaining traction is Nspace, which allows firms to better manage the use of their office space for flex work hours or hybrid office arrangements. Our client base includes notable large organizations like BDO and United Way of Canada, and we successfully added five new clients in 2022 already. All contributing to IBI's growing recurring revenue base. We see the market for such workspace management software continuing to expand post-COVID as organizations optimize real estate costs and downsize their footprint by adopting workplace management systems. IBI's building sector, led by Mansoor Kazerouni, has had a stellar start to 2022. In addition to 16% net revenue growth in Q1 year-over-year, I'm pleased to report this sector is fully booked for 2022 and over the longer term. It's supported by more than 5,000 acres of land currently in planning and approvals. Our buildings team has realized ongoing growth both organically and through acquisitions to keep pace with the increasing volume of work. Rising interest rates continue to be a headwind for much of the economy, including housing affordability. We've seen a significant increase in purpose-built rental projects as the demand for rental housing continues to grow across Canada. In addition to these projects, our building sector has realized ongoing demand related to development along transit corridors, redevelopment of malls, plazas, and shopping center sites, and continued development of the GTA and other regions in the 905 area code. Montreal and Ottawa are also increasing in activity given their enhanced affordability. Recent project wins and buildings include major transit-oriented community projects in Ontario, which involve approximately 50 million sq ft of development across residential and retail uses. These include the Orbit community in the town of Innisfil and the recently announced Langstaff transit-oriented master plan development along the Markham Gateway. The latter, recently approved by the government, includes some 20,000 residential units. Also in Ontario, IBI is developing the master plan to redevelop a shopping center north of Toronto into residential uses. In Western Canada, we're working on shopping center intensification with residential towers in Brentwood Town Centre in Burnaby, BC. South of the border, we've commenced construction on the Ford Dearborn Research and Engineering Center in Michigan, along with a residential development in San Francisco and a winter resort in Utah. As highlighted last quarter, our healthcare practice is extremely busy with seven hospital projects underway, five of which are in the U.K. alone, and we have a major correctional facility in design in British Columbia. In our infrastructure sector, led by Carl Clayton, we're pleased to report solid performance in the quarter with backlog and staffing at near-record levels. We are also benefiting from collaboration across our many offices. Significant infrastructure projects continued to move forward during the first three months of the year. These include our design build projects for Hurontario LRT in Mississauga and the Broadway Subway project in Vancouver, along with the Scarborough Subway Extension and Yonge North Subway Extension in Toronto, where we are the technical advisors. Major new infrastructure wins are highlighted by IBI's second basement flooding protection program, this time for Etobicoke, Ontario. This Etobicoke contract is similar in size and scopes to the Toronto project awarded in February. These projects include the upsizing of sanitation and storm sewer systems, as well as wastewater infrastructure. We were also successful in winning climate change assessment-related work in BC, including climate resiliency work for the Cariboo Corridor program. IBI is also assisting the province of BC in the development of best practices and recommendations related to systems-based approaches for climate resilient infrastructure, all part of a national initiative. I'm extremely pleased with the planning and vision that our teams have demonstrated as IBI continues to prepare for the future as a technology-driven design firm. We encourage you to join us at our AGM later this morning, where we will set the stage for IBI's new strategic plan during the presentation after the formal meeting concludes. Within the AGM presentation, we will share a high-level overview of the strategic direction and longer-term targets for growth, performance, and results. This will be followed later in the year in September, in our smart city, sandbox at 55 St. Clair, where we will showcase the details of the strategic plan, the tools, tactics, solutions that will take IBI to the next level. This in-person event will allow our investors, the investment community, and all of our stakeholders to experience firsthand many of IBI's solutions that we provide to our clients. It will also be an important opportunity to meet our executives and senior management teams. I now hand the call over to Stephen Taylor for some additional context regarding IBI's performance in the quarter. Stephen? Thank you, Scott. Overall, our first quarter financial results were excellent. Organic growth of 9.3% for the quarter was among the highest in recent history, accompanied by strong double-digit improvements in EBITDA and diluted EPS. We achieved this while backfilling even more work than we'd completed. Our order intake has been quite strong in the quarter. Accordingly, we've elected to increase full-year 2022 net revenue guidance by 3.5% to CAD 473 million, reflecting our strength to date and the visibility into projects and work going forward. Despite the potential for inflationary pressure, which has been a thematic topic for several quarters now, our overall EBITDA margins improved meaningfully relative to the last quarter of 2021, led by significant expansions in the building and infrastructure sectors. IBI Intelligence reported 5% growth in net revenue relative to Q1 2021 at 1% over the previous quarter. While our recurring billings posted a 13% and 19% respective increase over Q1 2021 and Q4 2021. As a core driver of our business, our intelligence sector continues to integrate with buildings and infrastructure through the application of software systems and support, particularly in mobility areas such as tolling, traffic management, and traveler information. Within intelligence, we intend to continue investing in products, marketing and data monetization opportunities that can accelerate growth, expand margins, and increase annual recurring revenue. In Q4 of 2021, we acquired the intellectual property and technology assets of Telenium, further building on our Travel-IQ information solution. We completed the full integration of these assets during the first quarter, setting the stage for IBI to enhance recurring revenue through the balance of 2022 and beyond. The acquisition of RLC Architects also closed at the end of March, adding a foothold in Florida's residential building segment and more significantly, additional supply chain and industrial engineering expertise. Combined with our Michigan engineering practice, we see this transaction driving significant future value from the growth of the economy in the state of Florida and the trends we're seeing in the industrial onshoring of supply chains across the United States. It's worth noting that RLC has a client base that stretches across the United States. It's not just Florida-based. Subsequent to the end of the quarter, IBI participated in another equity financing round into SWTCH Energy, the EV charging and management solutions company that we originally invested in back in November 2019. The SWTCH investment enables us to create a channel to market for this innovative technology while providing new services for our clients and creating a new revenue stream. Ultimately, it illustrates IBI's mission to create cities of the future that are sustainable and efficient. As people are the engines of our success, we've continued to build out and enhance our teams with strategic hires, particularly as we see ongoing tightness in the labor market. Consistent with our commitments to ESG, IBI launched our inaugural Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging scholarship and is working with our Indigenous Engagement Committee for future scholarship awards. We see the ability to provide funding for the educational aspirations of Indigenous people as an ideal mechanism for building financial success, ownership, and stability for First Nations communities across Canada. I'll turn the call back to Scott now. We're now able to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star two. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from Benoit Poirier of Desjardins. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning, Scott. Good morning, Stephen. Congratulations for the good quarter. Hi, Benoit. Yeah. Morning, Benoit. Just looking at the recurring revenue, it was up to see an uptick in the growth, up 13% year-over-year. Just wondering, is double-digit kind of a sustainable level going forward? Did the growth drive an improvement in margins for Intelligence? Benoit, I think 13% is something that is likely not to be replicated. I think what we've said to the market in past is that we expect this to grow at or slightly above the 6%-8% intelligence growth that we forecast for the sector overall. Sorry, Scott, did I would agree with that. I was just gonna say that, the second part of your question, Benoit, that as we continue to build out SaaS solutions and the customer base increases, the natural expectation is that the margin increases because we're basically taking on more customers, creating more revenue, but with the same cost base. Okay. That's great. When we look at the amount of sub-consultants and direct costs, it seems to be low this quarter versus last quarter, which obviously has been positive on the net revenue. What was the main driver behind this performance? Benoit, we have been working on a number of larger transit projects where we have a group of subcontractors working with us. We've now moved into a different phase on some of those larger projects. We're currently in the sort of mid to later stage of some of those in our work, and therefore, our subcontractor amounts have dropped off. That's the reason why it's gone down. That combined with the fact that we have increased and continue to increase the collaboration of our work amongst our offices, which then results in greater utilization across IBI and less need for us to be using subcontractors. Okay. I just wanted to add a bit of color on the latter point, Benoit, and that is that. Yeah It is clearly an objective of IBI that we take on more and more of the top line revenue by delivering services internally as opposed to having the work be subcontracted out to sub-consultants. It is a general direction that we wanna take, and we see achieving that through acquisition or by strategic hires to be able to take on more and more of that work internally. Okay. That's great color. Do you feel that this is kind of. If you look at the ratio, this is kind of a sustainable level going forward? Or given you're currently in the later stage, you should be back maybe to a circle level with respect to the sub-consultant work? I think you need to watch what we announce in terms of major project wins 'cause it's the major projects that drive that number to go up. When we announce something new in terms of transit, you may see that number go back up again. Okay. Last one for me, just in terms of organic growth, any color from the, with respect to the pricing. Have you seen any loss in productivity in Q1 due to the Omicron variant in Q1? That has not been a problem for us, by and large across the organization. As we talked about previously, we have been quite rigorous and successful in terms of building any inflation in costs into being able to charge that into our projects and therefore recover it. Okay. Thank you very much for the time. Thanks, Benoit. Thank you, Benoit. Your next question comes from Michael Tupholme of TD Securities. Please go ahead. Hi, Michael. Thank you. Good morning. Hi, Michael. First question is, just regarding the revenue generation in the quarter, what was the contribution from acquisitions owned less than a year to revenues in the quarter? Sorry, the contribution to revenues? Yes. That would be in the vicinity of, I would say about, between CAD 6 million and CAD 7 million. Okay. When we look at the revised- Sorry. I qualify that. You said within the. I'd included Cole in that number, so it's less than that when we take Cole out. It's only in the vicinity of about CAD 2 million if you take Cole out of the equation, 'cause we bought that in December of 2020. Got it. That's more than a year, right. Okay. When we look at the revised revenue, net revenue guidance for the year of CAD 473 million, can you give me a sense for what you've included in that in terms of contribution from revenue? For acquisitions owned less than a year in 2022 as a whole in that guidance, just trying to get a sense for how much of that is gonna come from recent acquisitions. It's gonna be less than CAD 10 million, Mike. Okay. Just last one on this sort of line of questioning. The RLC acquisition, I know the release, I think, talked about the size of the firm from an employee perspective, if I'm not mistaken. Can you give a sense for what that firm is generating in terms of kind of run rate revenues as well as any commentary on the margin profile of that firm relative to IBI's margins? Scott, do you wanna answer that or do you want me to comment? If you could, yeah, please, Stephen. Yeah. I think, Mike, that you will see, sort of, in a full twelve-month period between kind of CAD 5 million and CAD 7 million a year in revenue addition from that acquisition. I will say that its margins are fairly consistent with what we generate in our buildings practice. Okay, perfect. Just as a, Michael, a further commentary on RLC, there are two driving considerations in the acquisition. One was strengthening our presence, especially in the residential market in Florida, which is a major growth area from a residential development standpoint. The other thing that is really important, it's especially important in our strategic direction as we're looking at more onshoring, reshoring, and challenges around the supply chain is that RLC has a client base that are very heavy into distribution centers. Distribution centers are changing radically as we see more urban in tighter urban environments, value of land going up, and the nature of the distribution centers is changing into smart facilities. As Stephen had mentioned earlier, which is a perfect complement to our whole idea of bringing technology into the building so that they're smarter. As Stephen had mentioned earlier, their client base is an organization that has not only major presence across the United States, but as is typical of the case of supply chain companies, they tend to be global. We really did see this as an opportunity for us to, with RLC, get leverage off of our global footprint in terms of office locations across North America and globally, to be able to expand our array of services to them in a much broader worldly environment. You know, that's definitely helpful. Thank you, Scott. I guess maybe to build on what you were just discussing there. There's been a lot of talk with respects to your focus on acquisitions, really being around the intelligence area. And I guess what you just described with respect to RLC makes a lot of sense, and there is, you know, a linkage even there to bringing technology into the built environment. I guess what I'm wondering is if you can comment on the acquisition sort of pipeline and outlook generally, but also as we move forward and as you look at further acquisitions, should we expect the focus to be, you know, more so on intelligence, or could we see other acquisitions like RLC? The acquisition plan and program that we have in place has a few components to it. The first is foremost the U.S., and the U.S. is a priority growth area for us. In terms of physical presence, we're looking at operations that are in the Sun Belt and along the coast, especially up the East Coast and also along the West Coast. Because we do find that local presence is important in being able to provide any array of services that we can then deliver from anywhere in the IBI world. Those are important. RLC fits into that. The other dimension or perspective on acquisitions, again, in the U.S., but not just the U.S., but maybe in Canada as well, is companies that are part of the delivery program of services to urban environments. It's mobility. Mobility can include technology in mobility. Water resource management. The projects I just cited earlier in Toronto and Pickering, on the basement flooding programs are major projects, and they were brought to us as a result of the acquisition of Cole. Mobility, water resource management, power, green power, and we've certainly made a few small acquisitions that assist us in the policy areas on green power. Then finally, communications, because we see all four of those areas as being central to an effective, safe, and efficient urban kind of environment. The other component or consideration in those acquisitions is that those services can be sold independent of location. Location along the growth areas of the Sun Belt, along the coast, and then acquisitions that have services that we can expand out of. They could be in the Midwest, but we can take those services into Texas or Florida or wherever. As for the technology side, we will still be looking for technology acquisitions. They will tend to be smaller, more nimble, where they can be integrated into what IBI does and where we can use the IBI buildings and infrastructure practice as a route to market. Some of the models, our acquisition of Aspyr, a small firm that has since doubled in size since we bought them. But more than that, they've added really important value to our traditional buildings and infrastructure services, where we're now doing healthcare in a different way than we used to do it before. We're getting work because we have this capability. We're getting traditional architecture work because we have this capability. The Ford hub is one of those examples where we would have not really been able to take on the role that we did without that kind of tech capability, but it was not a big tech acquisition. Okay. No, that makes sense. Appreciate all the detail, and I'll get back in the queue. Thank you. Your next question comes from Frederic Bastien of Raymond James. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning, guys. You were quite successful attracting talent in a year that proved challenging for the average company in 2021. Has that momentum carried into this year? Well, that's certainly a core consideration, Frederic, and the whole pivot to technology. Our attraction of talent is certainly it's been really beneficial in bringing in young talent who wanna be part of a firm that is really forward-looking, that's efficient, there's a great environment to work. It's sort of the Google of, not that I'm a big fan of Google, but it's like a Google of the A&E industry, where we tend to look more at what we do as data that we can then manage, where we're creating digital twins and applying tools that take away the drudgery of the work that is so often the case in A&E. That's been very beneficial. The other thing that we've been able to do is attract senior talent, and senior talent that understands the thesis of being able to bring technology into everything that we do, changing the conversations that we're having with clients. The senior talent that appreciate that find that a really unique quality of IBI and have been attracted to IBI because of it. Great. Thank you. My second question, you did highlight in your prepared comments some recent successes with climate-related work in British Columbia. Were these gains organic, or were they the result of sort of the recent deals that you did complete in the province more recently? Hoping to get a bit more granularity here. Well, in the case of BC, it was a strategic hire that was focused on infrastructure and sustainability. With that, we were able to then secure the work. That too is part of our direction. The other environmental consideration that may not have been as apparent in the prepared comments was the two major multimillion-dollar projects that we secured in basement flooding for the City of Toronto. They are all related to the environment and the sustainability and making infrastructure sustainable, able to withstand the climate events that are taking place. It is a major thrust for us, and we're embedding it in virtually everything that we do in various ways, either to reduce greenhouse gases or to design environments and buildings that are more sustainable. Great. Okay. Good color. Thank you, and good results. Thank you. Thanks, Frederic. Your next question comes from Masa Song of Laurentian Bank. Please go ahead. Thank you for taking my question. Good morning. Morning. Morning, Masa. Congrats on a great quarter. Just wanted to get a sense of, you know, given your strong backlog and the pipeline on the buildings side, how comfortable are you in terms of your staffing level? I know you made some progress last year. Is the focus this year to continue that hiring trend, or is it going to be further improving on the utilization side? I think it's both. One of the things that we have benefited from with the tools that we have put in place going back to 2018, 2019 is the collaboration that's taking place across the firm. Before we put the platforms in place, we had and we call collaboration the sharing of revenue from any office to other offices. The measurement and metric that we had was 15% of the revenue in any given office on average was shared with other offices. We're now at over a 30% level. We've doubled that. What that does is to take the peaks and valleys out, allowing for much better utilization across the firm, so that it doesn't matter if it's someone from India or L.A. When we're working on a project, it is as one project team. Now, that also has supported us in doing some other major things, such as we built out a design studio in our buildings side, the architecture. The design studio is helping us with the workload in other locations, and most notably here in Toronto, working with Mansour. Mexico was known for great designers, great architects, so we have a design studio now in Mexico. Similarly, on the infrastructure side, we have an infrastructure team in Greece building off of our Greek presence. A lot of highly skilled capabilities in engineering areas, given the amount of construction that took place and design that took place in Greece, through the early 2000s. It's a combination of having the right tools, improving margins, and attracting the right kind of talent, but also using the tools to be able to get collaboration across the entire IBI platform. Thank you. That's great color. Just another one on the strong margins from the buildings side. What was driving that, and how do you guys see this play out for this year? I think it's a function of the fact that, as we stated in our prepared remarks, that we've got a very full book of business for the year. Maintaining and growing margin is all dependent on being able to effectively get it done if you've got a full workload and meet your clients' demands. We're currently doing a very good job of that. We've got very good spread of work in the buildings group across the entire firm. As you know, Scott had alluded, the collaboration of the work is helping us achieve that. We're just very, very busy at the moment in the buildings group, and that is translating into strong and growing margin performance. I wanted to offer a comment on the backlog. I mean, certainly, you may have heard us in the past say, oh, 12 months is a great backlog, and it is. We're operating in an area that is growing in urban environments, for example, that are growing and affected by immigration, and there's tremendous demand. What is also noteworthy when we look at our backlog and we look at what we have done in the planning area and what that sets up as long-term tails of opportunity for us. You look at the CN lands in Toronto, you look at Liberty Village, where we were the planners on those lands that then ended up as 20 years-25 years of design work in infrastructure and building subsequently. We now have in excess of 5,000 acres of land that are under planning and review process now. We've had recent announcements that I mentioned earlier in the prepared statements. Those projects where we get that kind of approval, not only does it result in design work that supports the 17-month backlog, but it sets a tail that goes years. It's measured in years. Langstaff, as an example, is potentially 15 years worth of work as that gets built out with infrastructure and new buildings. The position that we're in is really quite compelling, and maybe the new reference for IBI is going to be in that kind of 15+ months of backlog on a continuing basis. Very powerful situation. All supported, I should say, by the amount of immigration coming into Canada and migration that's taking place in the United States to the Sun Belt areas. In Canada, of course, we've had the increase in immigration now targeting 400,000 people a year. That is creating a demand for in excess of 150,000-200,000 residential units. A huge backlog of demand. Thank you. That's super helpful. My last question is just on the, you know, given how strong your balance sheet is, do you have any additional color on the size of the M&A and also the working capital and CapEx expectations for the year? You know, previously, what's the best way to think about whether it would be a higher investment on the softwares plus the intangibles or you guys will keep it steady. Our investment in software is expected to be in the vicinity of approximately CAD 3 million, which, you know, our total CapEx will be in the range between CAD 8 million and CAD 10 million, of which CAD 3 million of it will be the software. Our M&A, we have an in-house corporate development capability now that we didn't have 12 months ago. We have a healthy pipeline of opportunities that we're working on, and we expect at least 1 to 2 more acquisitions to come in the door over the coming months. Our debt, as we've said before, we would be comfortable at anything up to sort of 2 to 2.5 times EBITDA. We've got a long way to go in terms of getting close to those numbers. One thing I also wanted to mention is that, when you ask about working capital, we had a slight growth in days sales outstanding, and that was largely the result of some receivables on a couple of larger projects that crossed the line from sort of 60- to 90-day receivables into 90 days plus. Those were collected in the month of April. Any growth that we had in over 90-day receivables in particular reversed itself just very shortly after the quarter. As I've said before, I think 54 days of DSO was a very, very good result for us. I think that you will see fluctuation anywhere between that 54 number and as high as 60 as we move forward from quarter to quarter. So far, you know, we continue to have very good success in terms of getting work done, getting bills out the door, and getting cash collected. Awesome. Thank you very much. I'll jump back to the line. Your next question comes from Michael Tupholme, TD Securities. Please go ahead. Thank you. Wanted to ask you about the competitive landscape. I guess one of the things we've heard a lot about on this call, and I think from other companies, is just how strong the environment is right now, how busy you are. With that kind of backdrop, you know, firms have the ability to be more selective in terms of what they bid on. Are you seeing less competition than you would have historically seen on projects you're bidding? You know, I know no one's ever gonna suggest that there's. You know, the environment isn't competitive. I suspect it still is to a degree. Just wondering if you've seen less competition just because of the volume of opportunities out there. If you can comment on that'd be helpful. I would say we haven't seen any reduction in there or change in the competition, other than maybe we're more competitive because we have a better offering. Sorry for the plug. No, I think that we're still seeing competition. There may be, you know, maybe we're seeing less sensitivity on the pricing where people are not looking to go to the bottom line now because it is so competitive. Not so competitive, but because of concerns related to the cost of being able to deliver. There isn't maybe as much of a focus on lowering the price, which one of the great lines that I've always adhered to in times of inflation like this, that if you've got a great quality, you never really suffer. We think we have a great product and we're not seeing any reduction. Though, to answer your point more clearly, Mike, we're not seeing any change in the number of firms competing, but it's less of a focus on driving the price down. Okay. That's great. Thank you. Your next question comes from Ian Gillies of Stifel. Please go ahead. Morning, everyone. Hi, Ian. I have- Hi, Ian. I have a bit of a two-part question to start with on M&A. The first part is there's always been a pretty meaningful reset in public equities valuations for engineering firms. In your discussions or as you pursue M&A opportunities, have you seen a commensurate reset yet on the private side, or is that still an ongoing conversation? I would say it's still an ongoing conversation. It depends on the firm, it depends on the circumstance of the firm. There are a lot of smaller firms out there that were started back in 2000 that managed through the challenge of 2008, 2009, and then the pandemic comes along, and they get hit again. The owners are in their fifties, and they're looking to get out and retire. There's a number of those kinds of opportunities. We always have thoughtful conversations. We're not going to go and buy something that is a higher multiple than what we are. What we are seeing, that's maybe more important in the professional services business is that what the owners are looking to do is to find a good home for their staff when they do sell. Not only a continuing career for themselves for a period of time, but also for their staff, so the staff feel much more attracted to a firm like IBI as opposed to, for example, private equity. And that's to our benefit, relative to private equity coming in. The second part, some of you alluded to it in the first part, was that you've often said you need any deal to be accretive, which is pretty obvious. But when you think about accretion, it? Is that on the multiple and not just on the earnings number? 'Cause given the cash position, making something accretive is going to be pretty straightforward. Stephen? I think it's a bit of both, Ian. I mean, clearly we're going to buy something for a multiple that is less than what we're trading for. We're also talking about it being accretive because we're buying things that fit well into the rest of IBI and enhance our ability either to cross-sell services between sectors, between geographies, and in particular, to infuse the technology into whatever we're buying. For those reasons, I'd say it's a bit of both. That's helpful. The last thing I wanted to touch on was the NCIB. You used a very modest amount of it in the first quarter. Is that a more plausible use of cash now given where the share price is, or is that more so done to offset any dilution that might have come from shareholder comp in the first quarter? It has nothing to do with dilution from shareholder comp. It has everything to do with, you know, we have restricted liquidity in the marketplace. A small overhang of our stock on any given day can cause a precipitous drop in the price, which takes quite a while to recover. We, as we have said before, use the NCIB as a way of supporting the share price in the market when there are overhangs. Having said that, we do think that the money that we've spent to buy back shares, as the price of our stock has been decreasing recently, has been money well spent, 'cause we think our stock is extraordinarily undervalued. Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. I would share that same view. Thank you very much. I appreciate the detail. I'll turn the call back over. There are no more questions on the telephone lines. I would like to turn the conference back to Mr. Stewart for closing remarks. Well, thank you very much, everybody, for joining today. We do have our AGM meeting later this morning, and we would certainly invite you to participate. We will be providing insight into the direction of IBI continuing as a technology-driven design firm, something that we launched five years ago and that we have seen copied by many other firms in the industry as they've tried to catch up. We see that the future for IBI is strong, and we look forward to you joining the meeting. There may be some interesting direction and conclusions from that that you might find helpful as you look forward to where IBI is heading and the investment kind of environment for IBI. Thank you. Have a good weekend otherwise. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for this morning. We would like to thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your line.