Bombardier Inc. (BBDB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Interpreted] Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I'm Pierre Beaudoin, and I'm the Chairman of the Board of Bombardier. I welcome you to this Annual General Meeting and Special Meeting. Once again, we're doing this virtually, so that we can ensure the health and safety of our shareholders and of our employees. The global context is difficult and beyond the pandemic. On behalf of Bombardier, I want to say to all of those who have been affected by the many conflicts how concerned I am about the situation. Bombardier and the Armand Bombardier Foundation are proud to contribute to support humanitarian efforts, notably in Ukraine. I'm also very pleased to see resilience with our employees. Thanks to this resilience, whether it's in a service center or in a manufacturing center. Resilience in the sense of belonging to the communities in which we operate are deeply embedded in the DNA of each and every one of us at Bombardier. Thanks to this resilience, last year, we successfully transitioned to business aviation, an industry that now allows us to leverage our best talent and achieve our high technology, sustainability and social responsibility ambitions. We proudly remain a world leader in aerospace, and our products continue to set the bar for performance and quality. Although we will not be meeting you -- or with you in person today, we want to ensure that you attend our meeting and interact with us. I invite all of you, registered shareholders and proxy holders, to ask questions and to vote on each resolution on the agenda as if you are present in person. Our meeting will be conducted primarily in French. But allow me to say a few words of welcome in English. Good morning. My name is Pierre Beaudoin, I am the Chairman of the Board of Bombardier, and welcome to Bombardier's Annual Meeting of Shareholders. We have decided again this year to hold our meeting virtually to ensure the health and safety of our shareholders and employees. While we are not meeting with participants in persons today, our goal is to ensure that you can fully participate in the meeting and that we can exchange with you. I invite all registered shareholders and proxy holders to ask questions and vote on each agenda item as if you were present in person. While our meeting will be held mainly in French, a simultaneous translation is available on the live webcast, and you may ask questions in either French or English. At the top right-hand side of your screen, you can choose to listen to the meeting in English or French. [Interpreted] And now a few instructions, so that you can fully take part in this assembly. [Operator Instructions] I'd like to remind you that only registered shareholders and duly nominated proxy holders can vote during this meeting. [Operator Instructions] We'll try to take a look at the questions that deal directly to a resolution that is in the agenda at the appropriate moment. The more general questions will be kept for the Q&A session that we'll have at the end of the meeting. Once again, for those shareholders, and if you wish to do so, you can ask your questions as of now. As always, the questions will have to be related to the activities of Bombardier. We will not answer questions that deal with information about Bombardier that are not in the public domain or questions that are repetitive or have already been asked by other shareholders or lacking courtesy towards other people or offensive to third parties or having to do with personal complaints or asked in the in personal or business interest of the shareholder or that are inappropriate. Our platform provider for today will have a complete register and record of all questions asked, just in case we have not been able to deal with your questions. So we will make sure that we answer these questions after the meeting. These questions and answers will be found on our website and posted as soon as possible after the meeting and will be kept up for another week. The procedure for the vote will be explained by Ms. Torkia Lagace who is the Secretary of the meeting. Before beginning, I want to direct your attention to the notices that you have up on the screen. During the course of this presentation, including the presentation of the CEO, there might be forward-looking statements about future events or about the future financial performance of the corporation. Several hypotheses were prepared as we were looking to these forward-looking statements. We want to point out that there are risks where the outcomes might be very different from these forward-looking statements. This is my personal statement, but it's also on behalf of all the [ interveniens ] whose statements will be of a forward-looking nature. We may now begin. First of all, here are the directors that we have with us today. We have Ms. Annie Torkia Lagace, Senior Vice President, Legal Affairs and Corporate Secretary; Mr. Bart Demosky, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. Eric Martel, President and Chief Executive Officer. I will act as President of this meeting and Ms. Torkia Lagace as Secretary. As we did last year, we will have a moderator whose task will be to inform the assembly of the questions we receive online. Mr. Mark Masluch, Senior Director, Communications and Public Affairs, will moderate requests, questions and comments submitted via the dissemination platform of this meeting.

[Interpreted] Mr. Chair, I have before me a copy of the notice of meeting and notice of availability of proxy materials and form of proxy in connection with this meeting, together with an affidavit of a Director of Computershare Investor Services Inc. confirming mailing to all shareholders entitled to receive them as of the 7th of March 2022, the record date, all in accordance with the notice and access procedures. These documents will be kept on file with the company. I wish to point out that this Annual and Special Meeting of Shareholders has been called to transact the business specified at the notice of meeting. A simple majority of the votes cast by the holders of Class A shares, voting rights in Class B shares, subordinate voting, voting together by proxy or at the meeting by webcast will constitute approval of each of the matters, except for Matter 4 in the notice of meeting, which refers to the adoption of a special resolution authorizing the amend of the restated articles of incorporation of the company to consolidate the company's issued and unissued Class A multiple voting shares and the issued and unissued Class B, which must be approved by a majority of the votes representing at least 2/3 of the votes cast by the holders of the Class A shares and the holders of Class B shares voting together by proxy or at the meeting by webcast.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Madam Secretary. If there are no objections, Mr. Steve Gilbert and Mrs. Lesley Anne Alano of Computershare Investor Services Inc. will act as scrutineers for this meeting.

[Interpreted] Mr. Chairman, according to the report that the scrutineers gave me at the beginning of the meeting, they have confirmed that we have a required quorum to hold this meeting, both in terms of the number of shareholders present and the number of voting shares represented at the meeting, whether in person or by proxy.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Madam Secretary. I would ask you to place the scrutineers' report on file with this meeting. I therefore declare this Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Bombardier to be duly and validly called and constituted. As with every year, we encourage early voting. If you have already voted, you do not need to do anything else. However, any registered shareholder and any duly appointed proxy holder, who has not yet voted or who wishes to change his or her vote, may vote directly on the live webcast platform. I now declare the ballot open. You will see the Voting tab on the webcast platform along with all the proposals for the meeting. I would like to remind you that nonregistered shareholders who have not appointed themselves as proxy holders will not be able to exercise their voting rights virtually during the online meeting. You may, however, listen to the meeting by logging into the live webcast as a guest. I would now like to invite Ms. Torkia Lagace to review with you the terms of today's votes.

[Interpreted] Those of you who are registered shareholders or proxies entitled to vote at the meeting may access the proposals and vote. Voting will be available on all proposals at any time during the formal part of the meeting. So you can vote now. At the time of each proposal or wait to vote on all proposals after the last item on the agenda has been voted on just -- or just before the deadline. So a minute before. You will be able to change your vote until the ballot is closed. All votes represented by registered shareholders or proxies entitled to vote at the meeting will be counted and added to those received by proxy, and the preliminary results of the vote will be presented on the screen at the end of the formal part of the meeting. A report on the final voting results will be available on SEDAR, and a report on the final outcome of the election of directors will be issued by way of press release. If you have already voted by proxy prior to this meeting, you do not need to vote again today as your vote is already reflected in the total proxies received to date. However, if you wish to change your vote and you were the person named as proxy in the submitted proxy, the virtual vote will automatically cancel any previously completed and submitted proxy.

[Interpreted] I now submit the consolidated financial statements of Bombardier for the year ended December 31, 2021. The independent auditor's report thereon and the annual financial report to shareholders. These financial statements were previously made available to shareholders through the notice and access procedures. As these documents have been publicly filed and previously made available to shareholders, we will not read them. Madam Secretary, please attach copies of these documents to the minutes of this meeting. Mr. Masluch, do we have any questions on this?

[Interpreted] Mr. Chair, I can confirm that we have received no questions on this item.

[Interpreted] We will now go to voting for the directors of Bombardier. Bombardier's management proposes the election of 13 directors for the current year. We are proposing a new director, Ji-Xun Foo. A brief biography and other information on each of them can be found on Pages 10 to 14 of the 2022 management proxy circular as well as other information on each and every one of those directors. May I now have a proposal for the election of these 13 candidates?

[Interpreted] Mr. Chairman, my name is [ Shibi Chacko ], and I'm a shareholder of Bombardier. I move that each of the following 13 persons be elected as the Director of Bombardier until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders of the corporation or until his or her successor is elected or appointment: Pierre Beaudoin, Joanne Bissonnette, Charles Bombardier, Diane Fontaine, Ji-Xun Foo, Diane Giard, Anthony Graham, August Henningsen, Melinda Rogers-Hixon, Eric Martel, Douglas Oberhelman, Eric Sprunk and Antony Tyler.

[Interpreted] Does anybody wish to support this proposal?

[Interpreted] Mr. Chairman, my name is [ Mary Jane ] [indiscernible], and I'm a shareholder of Bombardier, and I support this proposal.

[Interpreted] The motion was duly made and seconded. Mr. Masluch, have we received any questions in relation to this proposal?

[Interpreted] Mr. Chairman, I can confirm that we received no questions regarding this item.

[Interpreted] Thank you. Shareholders are asked to vote on the election of each of the 13 proposed candidates for the position of director. I would ask the secretary of the assembly to remind the procedure of the vote.

[Interpreted] As the Chair mentioned, you must vote for each of the 13 candidates in the manner I explained earlier. The names of the 13 candidates are listed on the webcast platform. If you have already submitted your vote via the proxy form and do not wish to change your vote, you do not need to vote via the webcasting platform since your vote is already counted.

[Interpreted] We will now proceed with the appointment of Bombardier's independent auditors for the current fiscal year. You must also authorize the Board of Directors to establish their compensation. The Board of Directors and management of Bombardier recommend that you reappoint Ernst & Young as Bombardier's independent auditors and authorize the Board of Directors to determine their compensation. May I have a proposal to this effect?

[Interpreted] Mr. Chairman, my name is [ Julie Turko ], and I'm a shareholder of Bombardier. I move that Ernst & Young be appointed as Bombardier's independent auditors for the current fiscal year, that their term of office be until the close of the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders of the corporation and that the Board of Directors of Bombardier be authorized to fix their remuneration.

[Interpreted] Does anyone wish to support this proposal?

[Interpreted] Mr. Speaker, my name is [indiscernible], and I am a shareholder of Bombardier. I support this proposal.

[Interpreted] The motion was duly made and seconded. Mr. Masluch, have we received any questions in relation to this proposal?

[Interpreted] Mr. President, I can confirm that we have not received any questions regarding this proposal.

[Interpreted] Thank you. I would ask the secretary of the meeting to remind you of the voting procedure.

[Interpreted] Dear shareholders and proxies, please vote on the appointment of Ernst & Young as Bombardier's independent auditors for a term expiring at the close of the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders of the corporation and on the authorization of Bombardier's Board of Directors to set their compensation. As a reminder, if you have already submitted your vote via the proxy form and do not wish to change your vote, there is no need to vote via the webcast platform since your vote is already counted.

[Interpreted] The agenda now provides that the shareholders or their proxies be asked to vote for or against the adoption of the special resolution authorizing the Board of Directors to proceed at such time as it deems appropriate, but no later than May 5, 2023, with a share consolidation involving the issued and unissued Class A shares and the issued and unissued Class B shares in accordance with the share consolidation ratio to be determined by the Board of Directors, which shall, however, be within a range of 1 Class A share or 1 post-consolidation Class B share as the case may be for every 10 to 30 pre-consolidation Class A shares or Class B shares as the case may be by way of filing articles of amendment to the company's restated articles of incorporation and subject to the power of the Board of Directors to decide not to proceed with the filing of the articles of amendment and the implementation of the share consolidation. The background reasons and effects of the share consolidation can be found on Pages 16 to 23 of the 2022 management proxy circular and in the text of the circular to be found in Supplement B to the 2022 management proxy circular. For reasons set out in circular 2022, the Board of Director of Bombardier recommends that you, as shareholders or proxies, to vote in favor of the adoption of this resolution. This special resolution must be approved by a majority of the votes representing at least 2/3 of the votes cast, either in person or by proxy by the holders of Class A shares and Class B shares voting together. May I have a proposal for the adoption of this resolution?

[Interpreted] Mr. Chairman, my name is [ Julie Turko ], and I am a shareholder of Bombardier. I move the adoption of the special resolution authorizing the amendment of the articles of incorporation of Bombardier to consolidate the issued and unissued Class A shares and the issued and unissued Class B shares as set out in circular 2022 and as described at this meeting.

[Interpreted] Does any shareholder or proxy holder wish to support this proposal?

[Interpreted] Mr. Speaker, my name is [indiscernible], and I'm a shareholder of Bombardier. I support this proposal.

[Interpreted] The motion was duly made and seconded. Mr. Masluch, have we received any questions relating to this resolution?

[Interpreted] Mr. President, yes, there is a question involving the MEDAC. What does the adoption of this? Does that mean it's the end of multiple votes at Bombardier? Is it end of the control of the corporation by the Bombardier family?

[Interpreted] There is no relationship between the consolidation and the multiple votes of Class A and the single votes of Class B. The statutes of the corporation remain the same.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Mr. President. It would seem that there are no further questions on this topic.

[Interpreted] Thank you. I would ask the secretary of the meeting to remind you of the voting procedure.

[Interpreted] Dear shareholders and proxies, please vote on the special resolution authorizing the amendment of Bombardier's restated articles of incorporation to consolidate the issued and unissued Class A shares and the issued and unissued Class B shares in the manner set out in the 2022 circular and as described at this meeting. As a reminder, if you have already submitted your vote via the proxy form and do not wish to change your vote, it is not necessary to vote via the webcast platform since your vote is already counted.

[Interpreted] The agenda now states that the shareholders and proxies can be for or against the adoption of the special resolution authorizing Board of Directors to proceed at such time. You can take a look at the text on Page 24 of the circular. As explained in the circular, the approach means to maximize the performance of the corporation by relying on the individual strengths of its upper management, to recruit and to retain and motivate directors and to increase its value. The effect of this would be to support Bombardier's engagement to keep performance bonuses.

[Interpreted] My name is [ Julie Turko ], and I am a shareholder of Bombardier. I propose the adoption of this regarding Bombardier's approach when it comes to the remuneration of upper management at Page 24 of the circular.

[Interpreted] Does a shareholder or a proxy wish to support this motion?

[Interpreted] My name is [indiscernible], and I'm a shareholder of Bombardier, and I support this resolution.

[Interpreted] Now that it's been made and seconded, have we received any questions in relation to this proposal?

[Interpreted] Mr. Chairman, I can confirm that we received no questions related to this proposal.

[Interpreted] Thank you. I would ask the secretary -- you will now vote for to approve this resolution. I wish to remind you that this is an advisory and that it will not involve the Board of Directors of Bombardier. But the members of the human resources and pay committee will take a look at this when they next review the principles, policies, programs or arrangements having to deal with the salaries of upper management. I now ask the secretary to remind us of what to vote.

[Interpreted] Dear shareholders and proxies, you're invited to vote on this when it comes to remuneration of the -- of upper management. If you've already submitted your vote and you don't wish to change your vote, you don't need to vote on the webcast platform because your vote has already been counted.

[Interpreted] And now we'll be looking at the 3 resolutions submitted by the Mouvement d'éducation et de défense des actionnaires to be presented at the meeting and voted upon. The full text of these shareholder proposals and the reasons for them are set out in Supplement C to the circular. MEDAC has also submitted 2 other proposals, which will not be voted on as MEDAC has consented to their withdrawal, as explained in the circular. The full text of these shareholder proposals and the reasons for them are also set out in Supplement C of the circular. The Board of Directors of Bombardier recommends that you reject the 3 shareholder proposals submitted for a vote for the reasons set forth with respect thereto in Supplement C to the circular. As you were able to read them before this meeting, it is not necessary to read them out. I would now like to invite a representative of MEDAC to briefly comment and make a motion on each of the 3 shareholder proposals, so that we can then proceed to a vote on each of them. Mr. Gagnon, good morning. Could you please present your 3 proposals?

[Interpreted] Good morning, Mr. Chairman, can you hear me well?

[Interpreted] Yes, very well.

[Interpreted] Thank you. My name is Willie Gagnon, and I act for MEDAC, which is a shareholder of Bombardier. As you were saying, and as you said, Mr. Chair, we presented 5 resolutions, the 3 can be voted on today. I understand that we have to table the shareholder, we'll have to second them. Is that the case?

[Interpreted] Yes, exactly.

[Interpreted] And we are with a colleague here who is a member of the member and who's a shareholder, [ John Chambers ], who is here. I can see him here on the Zoom interface, and he'll be able to second our proposals. You wish us to go ahead?

[Interpreted] Yes.

[Interpreted] Mr. Chambers?

[Interpreted] Good morning. My name is John Chambers, shareholder, and I second the resolutions tabled by the MEDAC.

[Interpreted] Thank you very much. Now for the 3 resolutions. The first one is a representation of employees when making strategic decisions and to make sure that the processes are -- contain integrity and that this is done also in accordance with the best practices, like we have in the U.K. and Continental Europe, when it comes -- of formalizing the meetings to take into account the interest and of the employees when it comes to making strategic decisions. We believe that certain practices are best practices elsewhere and some of these practices should be integrated in the industry practices. And we would have liked that this could be done at Bombardier. And of course, we invite all the shareholders to support this. Number two is women in management, promotions and to have disclosure of the presence of women in upper management that that be improved upon. We would have wished that there had been more information that it'd be -- that there'd be a better breakdown of the various levels of management positions involving women. Many corporations who received this resolution accepted to do so based on the -- on models that was done in an exemplary fashion. This was actually at the Royal Bank. And we would like to see this information disclosed. And we would like to have it disclosed. And to date, we haven't been able to come to an agreement with the corporation on this resolution, and we would ask the shareholders to support this. And our third one is for the French -- that the French being the official language be part of its statutes. Bombardier was not targeted as a corporation that is acting in bad faith. Quite the contrary, Bombardier is doing very well in terms of languages in the current context, which is why we always have a little bit of a drama going on in the media every other month or so. So we would have Bombardier to adopt this measure. That is based on where headquarters are established and based on the response to social responsibility of the corporation. And we would like to be able to say that this will help us get out of this -- the crisis, but we were unable to come to an agreement with the corporation on this measure. And we will propose more in future to take into account when you're recruiting directors and disclosing the languages spoken by the directors. We would ask all the shareholders to support this resolution. There are 2 others, and I'll be very brief. We would like the disclosure of the social and governance issues, and the corporation suggested that once we have the matrix setup for the ESG, we'll review them periodically. We are happy to hear that. And also, the fifth one, it was parameters for setting the remuneration of the corporation, and that's been added for long-term incentives for the -- you have ESG measures that are not financial in nature, and we're happy to hear this. And thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for having granted us all this time.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Mr. Gagnon, for your presence and your interest in the good governance of Bombardier. So there is a motion that's been raised and seconded for the MEDAC. Mr. Masluch, have we received any questions regarding this?

[Interpreted] We can confirm that we received no questions regarding this.

[Interpreted] So once again, I'll ask Ms. Torkia Lagace to hold the vote.

[Interpreted] I invite you to vote on the 3 MEDAC shareholder proposals submitted for your consideration. If you have already submitted your votes via the proxy form and do not wish to change them, there is no need to vote via the webcast since your votes are already counted.

[Interpreted] So that being said, we have covered all the items of the agenda, and we invite you to vote if you have not already done so. We'll close the poll in 1 minute. [Voting]

[Interpreted] I confirm that the ballot is now closed. The scrutineers informed us of the following preliminary results. All directors were elected with more than 97% of the votes. I congratulate them, and welcome Ji-Xun Foo. Ernst & Young's appointment has been extended. A majority of the votes representing not less than 2/3 of the votes cast by the stockholders voted in favor of the special resolution authorizing the corporation to amend its incorporation article for the issued and unused Class A shares and the issued and unissued Class B shares and the manner set forth in the circular. A majority of votes were cast in favor of the nonbinding resolution on Bombardier's approach to executive compensation. In the end, a majority of votes were cast against the 3 shareholder proposals from MEDAC. A report on the final voting results will be available on SEDAR. Now that we have dealt with all the items on the agenda, I propose to close the formal part of the meeting before moving on to an address by Bombardier's President and CEO, Mr. Eric Martel, followed by a question-and-answer period. I therefore declare this meeting closed. I would now invite the President and CEO of Bombardier, Eric Martel to speak to you. He will share his vision and the goals and objectives of the corporation.

[Interpreted] Merci beaucoup, and thank you for joining us today. I'm very happy to give you a look at the last 12 months of Bombardier, very productive months and how we're going to continue to move forward. It is my pleasure to announce today that Bombardier is celebrating its 80th anniversary and is now very well placed to be successful in a business that is exclusively focused on business planes. In '21, the leadership team and I set out clear objectives for 2025. We plan to bring Bombardier revenue to $7.5 billion by that time with more than 1 quarter coming from our aftermarket business and converting this into strong EBITDA of approximately $1.5 billion and cash generation of more than $500 million. Our financial results for the full year 2021 and from what we've seen so far in 2022, show that we are well on track towards reaching these goals. An element of our plan that I would really like to underscore today is the servicing of the debt because in 12 months, we've progressed a lot. We were extremely proactive and acting with the determination to mitigate the risks of our activities. Our efforts have helped us to reduce our total debt by $3.4 million to save more than $250 million in interest and to give us more flexibility by putting off our next debt payment to December 2024. Some challenges. Overall, it has acted as an accelerator for our industry. As more people turned to business aviation when commercial flights were unavailable or as they sought to avoid crowded airport and commercial planes. We are benefiting from certain tailwind as a result. Business flight hours rebounded quickly from their initial drop in 2020. And since Q2 2021, they are actually exceeding pre-pandemic levels. This increasing demand has reduced the inventory of used planes, and this has helped us to build a solid backlog and to improve our prices. This is excellent news, and this makes us more predictable. Moreover, we've taken measures to reduce the effects of some crosswinds like the problems with the supply chain and geopolitical tensions and inflation. Jet is in excellent position to benefit from this increase in demand. I am more confident than ever in the smart choices we've made to protect and grow our market share. Our Global 7500 aircraft is the proven industry flagship, an award-winning aircraft that continue to stand alone in terms of performance and innovation. Our Global 5500 and Global 6500 aircraft are the newest in the successful and sought-after family of jets. Our Challenger 650 aircraft with its range, reliability and low operating costs remain a favorite with customer. And the newest member of our portfolio is the Challenger 3500 business jet, which is the evolution of our best-selling Challenger 350 aircraft. Bombardier announced a lot of good news in the past 12 months, events that demonstrated our leadership in the industry and our important role as an employer in the United States as well as in Quebec and in Canada. In September, we launched our business jet, Challenger 3500. And because we had so much success with its predecessor, which was the Challenger 350. We focused our efforts on the cabin experience, which is a very important aspect for the client. This new plane designed and built in Montreal was very well received, and we've already received a large number of orders. A few weeks ago, the Challenger 3500 won the Red Dot Award in the product design. We attended NBA in Las Vegas, the company's first major in-person air show since the start of the pandemic. In December, we delivered our 1,000 Global aircraft, 25 years after first flight of a Global business jet. This was a major milestone for our world famous Global platform. And just a few weeks ago, we delivered our 100th Global 7500 business jet. This aircraft, the flagship of the industry, is an amazing success story for us and puts our leadership and innovation on display around the world. The last 12 months have also been significant in terms of Bombardier's presence in the United States, where we have approximately 2,500 employees. The U.S. is the world's largest market for business aviation, both for sales and aftermarket services. We recently began a new chapter for our U.S. operation by designating our site in Wichita, Kansas as the official U.S. headquarter for Bombardier. As part of this announcement, our Wichita base specialized aircraft group will now be known under the name of Bombardier Defense. We see special mission aircraft as an area where Bombardier really sets itself apart. We have the best business jet to perform the most demanding mission, and we have the engineering skills to support this project. By creating Bombardier Defense, we are positioning ourselves for growth in this important area. As I said earlier, there's an increased demand also for the aftermarket, and this growth has come at a perfect time. The global service network at Bombardier is really taking off. We have increased our service area by 50%, and we have greatly progressed over the past year. We have expansion work going on in Singapore, London, Melbourne and Miami, to better serve our customers around the world. With this expansion and the increase in demand for new jets, we are recruiting throughout the corporation and worldwide. Bombardier has a very promising future in this jet industry. And we have amazing and diverse career path to offer. We have positions in manufacturing, engineering, services, design, marketing, IT and at Bombardier Defense, for example. A wide variety of rewarding careers. We are currently recruiting for more than 1,000 positions available today across the company. For the future, we believe that in Montreal we'll be able to fill at least 3,000 positions over the next 5 years because some of our colleagues are close to retirement date. And while we are -- our activities are in full swing. So it's very important for us to recruit the talent of the new generation. It's important to demonstrate good governance to communicate our values and to create the right workplace culture. This has been a priority for me since I came back to Bombardier, and we're making great progress here as well. Last year, we published our first ESG report, which speaks of these values. The next edition of this report is coming out this month. Well, we're positioning ourselves for the future. One of the driving forces of Bombardier is to make business aviation more sustainable. We are working with the industry to reduce our environmental footprint by being a leader in adopting sustainable aviation fuel, as an example. And we have committed to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. Closer to home, we are applying our considerable knowledge, experience and ingenuity to design the business jet of the future. What you see in this picture is a prototype of a new kind of jet where the wing and the body are made of one piece. This design is more aerodynamic and has the potential to significantly reduce emissions. These aircraft won't be entering service this decade, but we are actively working toward the future. Bombardier is collaborating with players in the industry and the academics and universities in Quebec in Canada to test these new aerodynamic designs, new materials that are lighter and new electrical systems. We are predicting up to a 50% reduction in greenhouse gases, and this is a wonderful challenge for our employees. Bombardier is positioning itself for continued success, and we're not waiting around for the future. We are building it. I'm very proud to be at the helm of Bombardier at this point. Thank you so much for being with us today.

[Interpreted] And we would now be happy to answer your questions and to receive comments from our shareholders. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, the questions have to be related to the business and activities of Bombardier and not be of a personal nature. And now Mr. Masluch, you have the floor.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Mr. Chair. The first question is in English. Future use of the Learjet brand and trademark. Will Learjet be removed from the day-to-day operations, including the use of the title of the U.S. entity feeding into Bombardier Corporate?

[Interpreted] I will go with your question. So clearly, we're extremely proud of the legacy of Learjet. The legal entity that we have in the U.S. will keep the name of Learjet to the Learjet brand. We are making sure that the legacy we had, the history of Learjet will stay alive. Our intention is to keep the brand as we will continue to serve thousands of Learjet flying around the world. We are very proud of that legacy. Our airplanes are flying, and we will be maintaining for decades these airplanes, of course, generating revenue and profit. So our intention is to keep the brand of Learjet with us. Thank you.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Mr. Martel. And now I can confirm that we have no further questions. Thank you.

[Interpreted] We are now done. And if because of lack of time we were not able to address your question, we will do our best to answer your questions after the meeting. The questions and answers will be posted on our website as soon as possible after the meeting, and they will remain available for 1 week once they have been posted. On behalf of the corporation, I want to thank you for having taken part in this meeting, and thank you for your continued commitment to Bombardier. I wish you all the very best to you and your families, and I hope that you will keep safe and keep healthy. Goodbye, and thank you. [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]