Accenture delivers Q1 revenue growth of 6%, strong EPS rise, and strategic investments in AI and acquisitions for long-term market leadership.

Capture growth not only through the work we do in helping our clients use AI, our primary business, but also in the opportunities created by companies building. The infrastructure to power AI. And this quarter we also invested $374 million primarily in six strategic acquisitions. We're scaling our capabilities with CPAL Integrated Product Support business in Italy which brings deep defense and aerospace engineering experience, expertise for mission critical programs and Total eBiz Solutions in Southeast Asia which adds AI, cloud and digital workplace innovation that strengthens Avanade's position in the region. And we're scaling new growth areas with NeuroFlash in the US a Salesforce and advanced AI leader whose Agentix solutions expand our reach into the mid market Atomy in Japan which enhances LearnVantage with AI learning and reskilling capabilities to help clients build AI ready workforces and Deco in the UK and Ranger Data in the US which strengthen our Palantir. And advanced AI capabilities. In summary, we are pleased with how we delivered the quarter and continued to strengthen our foundation for long term growth. Over to you Angie.

Thank you Julie and thanks to all of you for joining us on today's call. We are very pleased with our first quarter results with revenue at the top of our guided range as well as strong adjusted margin expansion, adjusted Earnings Per Share (EPS) growth and free cash flow. These results reflect the execution of our strategy to be the reinvention partner for our clients. We continue to invest for long term market leadership while delivering significant value for our shareholders. Now let me summarize a few a few highlights for the quarter. Revenues grew 5% in local currency reflecting nearly 4% organic growth and were broad based across geographic markets and types of work. Excluding the 1% impact from our federal business, our revenues grew approximately 6% in local currency in Q1. The adjusted operating margin was 17%, an increase of 30 basis points compared to Q1 results last year and continues to include significant investments in our business and our people. We delivered adjusted Earnings Per Share (EPS) in the quarter of $3.94 which represents 10% growth compared to Earnings Per Share (EPS) last year. And finally we delivered free cash flow of $1.5 billion and we returned $3.3 billion to shareholders through accelerated repurchases and dividends this quarter. We also invested 374 million primarily attributed to the 6 acquisitions in the quarter. With those high-level comments, let me turn to some of the details starting with new bookings. New bookings were $20.9 billion for the quarter representing 12% growth in US dollars and 10% growth in local currency with an overall book-to-bill of 1.1. Consulting bookings were $9.9 billion with a book-to-bill of 1.0. Managed services bookings were $11.1 billion with a book-to-bill of 1.2. Turning now to revenues, revenues for the quarter were $18.7 billion at the top of our guided range, reflecting a 6% increase in US dollars and 5.

A foreign exchange impact of 1.4%. Consulting revenues for the quarter were $9.4 billion, up 4% in US dollars and 3% in local currency. Managed services revenues were $9.3 billion, up 8% in US dollars and 7% in local currency, driven by high single digit growth in technology managed services which include application managed services and infrastructure managed services and mid single digit growth in operations. Turning to our geographic markets in The Americas, revenue grew 4% in local currency, excluding the 2% impact from our federal business Americas grew 6% in local currency in the quarter. Growth was led by banking and capital markets, industrials and software platforms, partially offset by a decline in public service. Revenue growth was driven by the United States. In EMEA we delivered 4% growth in local currency led by growth in banking and capital markets, insurance and life sciences. Revenue growth was driven by the United Kingdom and Italy. In Asia Pacific, revenue grew 9% in local currency, led by growth in banking and capital markets, communications and media and public service revenue growth was led by Japan and Australia. Before I move on, I want to briefly update you on the business optimization actions we initiated last quarter and completed in Q1 as part of executing our talent strategy. This quarter we recorded $308 million in costs primarily related to employee severance, bringing the total for these actions over the past six months to $923 million. Our business optimization costs impacted operating margin, tax rate and eps. The following comparisons exclude these impacts and reflect adjusted results. Now moving down, the income statement gross margin for the quarter was 33.1% compared with 32.9% for the same period last year. Sales and marketing expense for the quarter was 10% compared with 10.2% for the first quarter last year. General and administrative expense was 6.1% compared to 6% for the same quarter last year. Adjusted operating income was $3.2 billion in the first quarter, reflecting a 17% adjusted operating margin, up 30 basis points. Compared with results in Q1 last year, our adjusted effective tax rate for the quarter was 23.9% compared with an effective tax rate of 21.6% for the first quarter last year. Adjusted diluted earnings per share were $3.94, compared with diluted EPS of $3.59 in the first quarter last year, reflecting 10% growth. Days sales outstanding were 51 days compared to 47 days last quarter and 50 days in the first quarter of last year. The free cash flow for the quarter was $1.5 billion, resulting from cash generated by operating activities of $1.7 billion, net of property and equipment additions of $157 million. Our cash balance at November 30 was $9.6 billion, compared with $11.5 billion at August 31. With regard to our ongoing objective to return cash to shareholders in the first quarter, we accelerated our share buybacks and repurchased or redeemed 9.5 million shares for $2.3 billion at an an average price of $245.32 per share. Also in November, we paid a quarterly cash dividend of $1.63 per share, a 10% increase over last year, for a total of $1 billion. So in summary, we are very pleased with our Q1 results and we are focused on delivering Q2 and the year before I turn it back to Julie Let me provide an update on our commercial models. Our large base of fixed price work continues to grow and is a strong foundation for how we believe our commercial models will continue to evolve. In FY23, about 60% of our work was fixed price, which is up about 10 points over the last three years. This reflects the increasing role of our proprietary platforms over a long period of time and clients wanting greater certainty in cost and delivery. This is where our scale expands.