Good afternoon, and welcome to the M.P. Evans Group PLC Annual General Meeting. Throughout your recorded meeting, attendees will be in listen- only mode. This meeting will commence shortly.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is now 12 noon, the time appointed for the annual general meeting. I have pleasure in welcoming you to the meeting, in the delightful Tallow Chandlers' Hall, our familiar venue, after our splendid 150-year anniversary celebration, which I know many of you attended at Mansion House last year. A quorum of two members is required, and I confirm that more than this number is present. Well done for squeezing in. I think there's only one spare chair. I'm also pleased to inform you that the meeting today is being live streamed and recorded, so that shareholders and other stakeholders who cannot be present can view it live or watch it on the company's website in due course.
I'm pleased to confirm that I'm joined today by all my colleagues on the board, who are available, like me, to answer questions and to meet shareholders afterwards, I think, in the parlor next door, as we're sadly not blessed with the usual tropical weather we have. Now, I just wanted to comment briefly on one or two board changes which had been announced last year, and which have now come into effect. Firstly, you may recall that Philip Fletcher, who happens to be my brother-in-law, retired last year at the end of July, after 41 years of loyal and magnificent service to the group. And he played a key and pivotal role in creating the company that we have today.
Although I know I paid tribute last year, I'd like to pay tribute again. Philip, it'd be right to stand up for a moment and just say thank you again to Philip for all your magnificent [audio distortion] When Philip stepped down at the end of July, Luke had joined the company a year earlier as CFO and joined the board. We're delighted to have his contribution, which is fantastic to have your input on the board, Luke, so it's good to have you aboard. At the same time, there was a sort of board change in that, Chandra, you might just stand up for a second, Chandra. Oh, no, Chandra, you're here. Yes, you're here! Yes, yes, yes, yes. Right here.
Anyway, here's Chandra, yes, who remains a director, being an executive director, and having been President Director of the Jakarta operations, i.e., running the Indonesian show since 2008, and then moved across just last year from an executive to a non-executive role, but also a consultancy role, helping out the PT Evans Indonesia team as and when helpful. So it's great to have Chandra's continuing input both on the board as a non-exec and indeed locally in Indonesia. But also a huge thanks and tribute to Chandra in his executive capacity as PD, for all he did also to make the company what it is. So, I mean, Chandra played a massive role in implementing the strategy set out in the early 2000s. So thank you, Chandra.
And into the role of PD has stepped Ravic handran, who... Where is Ravi? There we are, Ravi. Yeah, yes, yeah. Discreetly there towards the back. So Ravi is now our new President Director, already doing a magnificent job, running the Indonesian operations. And so do say hello to Ravi afterwards. And on the subject of board changes, there's been a small change announced. You may have spotted in my statement that I'm moving seamlessly across from the role of Executive Chair to Non-Executive Chair. I've sort of been diminishing my role as executive, going from full-time to part-time and more part-time, and it just seems as a natural shift to move on from executive to a non-executive role.
And it is, it is a change of role, and I promise not to interfere too much, but I will nonetheless be, as agreed with my colleagues, sort of engaged non-executive. So I, I particularly look forward to continuing to, be in touch with, with shareholders and, and other stakeholders. So that is, that, that is, I think, all that I was going to say, on the, on the board.
I'd also like, just like to say from a personal perspective, thank you to all the shareholders who were kindly in touch to give their sympathies following the death of my late mother, who was 98, so she had a very good innings, and she used to come to these AGMs year-on-year and go around the plantations with my father for years and years and years. So I know we all miss her, but thank you so much. Now, as you may be aware, the company released a trading update this morning covering the first 5 months of 2022 - 2024, and copies of the announcement have been distributed, so hopefully you should have a chance to see that.
And I might just highlight that the key points from that, which are, that pleasingly, crops were on average, 8% higher. Actually, crops from our own majority-owned areas were 10% higher, and we make the highest margins from our majority-owned areas, which account for about 57% of the total areas and the crops that we process from smallholders, both our own scheme smallholders linked to the projects and independent smallholders. But a pleasing 8% increase in crop, a pleasing 10% increase in crude palm oil production, and also pleasingly, and a credit to both the agronomic and the engineering teams, that oil extraction rate has increased from 23%, already a very commendable 23% - 23.4%, for the first 5 months.
So all credit to them for achieving that, not least as it includes crop bought from independent smallholders, where typically the extraction rate tends to be lower. In terms of sales price, virtually identical to last year, the Rotterdam price for the first five months was around $1,000 per ton, and the ex-mill gate price, the price we actually get in our pockets for our, CPO, was, a smidge, below 780 last year, and this year was at 770. So a very similar price, but an increased volume, which is all to the good.
And the final point I'd just like to highlight from the announcement is the recent, very recent acquisition that we announced, and this was the purchase of 5% of the majority of our Indonesian plantations, or the companies which the subsidiary companies owned by the group, which own the majority of our Indonesian plantations. So we now own 100% of the vast majority of our Indonesian plantations. The rules in Indonesia did actually change in recent years, allowing a foreign investor to own 100%. But we're extremely grateful to our local partner, Praba Madhavan, with whom we've partnered on very good and cordial terms, and we wish him all the best, and I'm sure we will stay in touch.
But, just to give an idea, the purchase of these shareholdings amounts to the equivalent, about the purchase of 1,700 hectares of our own land at an average price of $9,000 per planted hectare, which is actually, in a sense, very similar to what we run in parallel in terms of the share buyback program. Right. Moving back to my script, I will now pass across to Matthew, our Chief Executive, who's going to make a short presentation.
Thank you very much, Peter. Perhaps before I start with my presentation, just to refer back briefly to what Peter was saying in terms of changes to the composition of our board. Peter was mentioning the seamless transition that is taking place in terms of his own role as he moves from an executive to a non-executive role from the start of next month. As Peter mentioned, this is very much a continuing role, and Peter will continue to play a very important and a very significant role within the business. But I think it's only right that we pause and do just at least acknowledge briefly the enormous contribution that Peter has made over many years as an executive within this group.
I'm sure you'd all want to just join me in a round of applause for Peter. Thank you.
Thank you.
That wasn't scripted. Thank you. So, in terms of our presentation today, I just wanted to say a very few words, brief words. And I'm conscious that with the screen here, and the length of the room that we have, some of the material may be a little bit difficult for people to see further back in the room. And with that in mind, I would like to remind you that all of the material is also available on the group's website. And I heartily recommend the group website to you for lots of interesting material on the group in terms of presentations, in terms of video material, and of course, all of our reports.
So, anything that I'm discussing with you today is, of course, also available via the group's website. So first of all, a quick reminder, in terms of what we've been achieving in 2023, and everything I discuss with you today is all based around the four key strategic pillars that we have as a group. Those are responsibility, excellence, growth, and yield. Everything that we do is based on one or more of those key strategic pillars. So in 2023, we absolutely grew as a group, and we grew quite significantly. One of the reasons we were able to grow is because we bought some more hectares, and we introduced over 10,000 new hectares into the group. We made two acquisitions.
We made one in northern Sumatra, where we bought new estates that accounted for just over 2,000 new hectares, adding to our Simpang Kiri property there. We also bought, towards the end of the year, a further just over 8,000 hectares in East Kalimantan, close to our existing property called Kota Bangun. In particular, at Kota Bangun, that's gonna make a very big difference to us as we're able to increase the crop supply to the 2 mills we already have in Kota Bangun. We have 2 mills, one called Bumi Permai, one called Rahayu, in Kota Bangun. Acquiring those 8,000 hectares is going to make a very big difference to those mills. As you can see, we now have 6 palm oil mills. We opened our sixth mill in early 2023.
As a result of now having 6 mills, we've been on a big investment journey in terms of opening new mills in recent years. That means we now process 95% of our own crop in our own milling facilities, and that's a fantastic position to be as a group in terms of strategy, in terms of operations, in terms of our sustainability story, but also in terms of margin. On this slide, and the graph that you can see here really tells you the story of where we've been and where we think we can get to as well. So the chart shows you the crop that we've processed over the last 10 years and where we think we may be able to get to over the next 5 years as well with our existing hectareage.
So this slide doesn't assume that we buy any more hectares. We hope that we can, but we don't assume that. So even from our existing hectareage, we think we can carry on increasing crop over the course of the next five years, and you can see what that means in terms of being able to really fully utilize the mills that we've invested in. The line on the chart represents our maximum milling capacity from those six mills that we've invested in. So we think we've got a fantastic opportunity, really, to increase the mill utilization from those mills that we've invested in and get them fully utilized over the course of the next five years. And of course, alongside that growth in crop, we've seen a growth and an increase in terms of returns for shareholders in recent years.
This is, this is a chart we're extremely proud of. This is a chart that features in every presentation that we give, and I'm sure that many of you in the room will have seen this chart before, but we're very proud of it, and we're gonna carry on showing it to you. So this is a chart that shows the evolution of our dividend profile over the last 30 years. And as you can see, it's a one-way story, a one-way track record of only ever holding, maintaining, or more importantly, increasing returns for shareholders. And you can see the acceleration of the increases in, dividends for shareholders over the last several years. So if you go back to 2017, so I think it's 2016, 2017, dividends per share were 15p.
This year, as you know, dividends in respect of 2023 are 45p, and we very much hope there's more to come in as we move forward and crop continues to grow, and we're able to process more and more in our mills. Now, of course, that's very much focusing on growth in our operations. Of course, we also focus very much on our responsibility as a sustainable producer, and I'm sure you will have seen our recently published ESG report that goes through that in a lot of detail. There'll be another report coming out soon, our second TCFD report, so look out for that coming around to you all soon.
But of course, a lot of what we delve into in detail on those reports is about the E of ESG, but I think it's important to remember very, very clearly the S of ESG. We have a substantial responsibility when it comes to social side of what we do as a company, given the number of employees we have. We have well over 12,000 employees across Indonesia, some of them in pretty remote locations in rural Indonesia, and so we need to make sure that we're investing in our social commitments in those remote locations. Now, we were in Indonesia a couple of months ago.
We visited our Bumi Mas location, which is on the very eastern tip of East Kalimantan, and we were very pleased to see the progress that has been made and the investment in a new clubhouse facility for our staff and workers in East Kalimantan at Bumi Mas. And that's the new clubhouse that's just been opened in Bumi Mas. It provides an opportunity for people to gather together, have community gatherings, have some time out, and enjoy time together as a community. There, as you can see in the foreground, there's a very nice swimming pool, there's sporting facilities, there's lots for people to do when they have time away from work.
We were very lucky to participate in the opening ceremony, while we were there, where there was lots of fun to be had, singing and dancing. There's a shot showing the dancing that took place. You'll be very grateful that you don't get to enjoy or rather endure any examples of singing that took place. Certainly the staff were doing some mighty fine singing. The less said about the attempts at singing from the directors, it's probably glossed over at this stage. We'll move on very quickly. But also, whilst we were at Bumi Mas, we were very, very fortunate to have a visit to one of the schools there. And the school continues to develop and expand at Bumi Mas as our workforce continues to expand.
And the team there are doing a fantastic job when it comes to making sure that the children of the families living on the estate have an excellent education. And the school there is continuing to grow, and more and more classrooms are being added, and we have a fantastic workforce of educators, leaders, teachers, who work very hard at Bumi Mas. So I will stop at that point, but hopefully, that's a useful overview in terms of not only our financial performance, but our commitments to the workforce that we have in Indonesia. And at that point, I'll pass back to Peter.
Thank you very much, Matthew. And actually, just on the subject of the clubhouse, I might just mention that it was formally opened by David Wilkinson. And David joined us now, he's just... in fact, just a little over 25 years ago, and ran our Malaysian operations, then moved across to Indonesia to set up the Jakarta office there, before then handing the reins over to Chandra. And but continuing to be involved with us ever since, not least in helping us to design and develop, this is the third, I think, is absolutely the pièce de résistance of our clubhouses, and has done a fantastic job there, and is also extremely passionate on environmental matters, and is assisting us with a biodiversity project on Bangka.
So David, just if you might just stand up for a moment. Sir, thank you for 25 years. Now, my colleagues and I shall be pleased to deal with any general questions or particular points on the report and financial statements which shareholders at this meeting would like to raise. So please raise your hand, and wait until the microphone reaches you before speaking. If there are any questions. Yes?
Mark Atkinson, private investor. Firstly, congratulations. I've just got 2 questions, please. The first one, on acquisitions. What synergies do these provide in this extra scale that we've got? Or is it synergy light? And secondly, on the yield, and by that, I mean, the extraction rates, how far can we go with the extraction rate? What further progress can we make? And, what's the factors behind this, the various mills? How does this compare with the industry in general, please? And just looking at our third-party mills, our extraction rates are ahead of those, and it only looks like a couple of percent, but the way the percentages work is that the difference between 20% and 24% is actually 20%.
Not casting any aspersions on the third-party mills, but what auditing do we have in place that these lower rates are indeed accurate?
Do you... That was more than two.
Yes, that was-
Makes sense.
Yes, yes. Well, thank you for that. I mean, on the question of acquisitions, we'll start. I mean, Matthew, why don't you take both the points on the synergies? There are certainly synergistic benefits on the acquisitions. And I'll hand over to Matthew just to elaborate a little bit. And on the, you know, high oil extraction rates, Matthew, you might briefly comment, but it might be appropriate for perhaps Chandra or indeed Ravi, if he has the microphone, to speak a little bit more on extraction rates and how we compare with the industry. So if you want to just keep on going, and forgive us if we don't answer every part of those questions.
Yes, absolutely.
So I mean, first of all, to your point, Mark, about acquisitions and synergies, what we're prioritizing at the moment and really focusing on is the opportunity, as I was indicating, to acquire additional hectare, which is close to our existing properties. Particularly with the priority of looking for opportunities to acquire additional hectarage around the mills that we've already developed, where we see there's an opportunity to do at least one of, if not both of, two things. One is where there is still some spare capacity to fill up that spare capacity, and that's where absolutely there's a clear synergy available to us.
Or alternatively, the opportunity to look at when we think about where we're currently sourcing crop for those mills from, the opportunity to potentially bring in crop from areas that we then own and manage for ourselves, rather than relying on filling up spare capacity with crop from independent suppliers. And that's where we would make a significant difference to the efficient running of our mills. And this plays slightly... If I can sort of bring this and connect this to another question you were asking.
When you think about extraction rates, there are all sorts of factors here in play when it comes to extraction rates, because when you look at the extraction rates that we're currently achieving in our mills, that extraction rate that we disclose is, of course, a blended average extraction rate for all of the inputs that we have to our mills. We know for a fact, and it's very clear from all of the evidence that we have, that the crop that we bring in from the areas that we manage is of much higher quality than the crop that we buy in from independent suppliers.
So the more we're able to change the balance and bring in more and more crop from the areas that we own, and rely less and less on crops that we buy in from outside suppliers, so we would expect our extraction, our blended average extraction rate, to go up. Now, if we then think about the sort of opposite side of that equation, and think about when we sell to outside suppliers, when we quote to you in our report, the fact that we are receiving a certain extraction rate for crops that we sell, that is an assumed extraction rate.
So we may be reporting. It used to be the case, it no longer is, but to give you an example, it used to be the case that when we sold crop outside in South Sumatra and Riau Islands, and we would report that we were selling it on the basis of an assumed extraction rate of 20%, roughly, that's what we would get, and that would be the assumed amount of oil that would be produced from that crop. Now, we knew that our crop was better than that, but that's all the outside miller would be willing to pay us, which was frustrating, because they were able to make a bonus margin when they processed it and got more oil, 'cause our crop was good stuff. Which was why we were dead keen to build our own mill.
And now you can see, if you look at the 2023 report, what was the actual extraction rate we were getting from that mill, it was much higher. So we know when we report to you that the extraction rate from an outside mill is X, whatever X may be, that's the extraction rate they pay us based on. It's not the actual- we don't know how much they're squeezing out, of course, 'cause we're not running that mill. We can only tell you what they're paying us based on. Chances are, they're doing better, 'cause our crop's good stuff. So that's, that's kind of how it works, sort of inbound and outbound. I hope that's sort of helpful for several elements of your question. So look to Peter to help with what-- remind me what other parts were.
No, I think that's pretty thorough. I mean, just on the question of whether we can do even better, then I'd like to think we can, not least because we want to take more and more of our own crop, particularly as we increase our areas, so our own crop generally has a higher extraction rate, and because standards are improving all the time. Would you agree, Chandra?
Yes.
Yep, yep. Okay. Fine. Well, we
Thank you.
Sure. Any other questions? Yes.
Good afternoon.
Hello.
My name is Phil Clark. I'm a long-term shareholder. First of all, thank you so much for the way that you've grown this group. It's completely spectacular, and we all owe a burden of debt to you, so thank you very much for that. I've got three very brief questions, if I may. First of all, it's interesting to see how much purchased material that you're running through our mills at the moment. I just wonder if you can indicate how profitable that is compared to the-
Sorry. So incorrect. What you say was prof- Sorry? Is what?
Sorry.
Third party.
Oh, the third party. Sorry, sorry. Yeah. Yep.
Apologies for whispering. I hope this is better.
Yeah. Sorry, yeah, yeah.
Just, yeah, the question was guidance as to just how much money we would make-
Yep
... from purchased material.
Yep.
Second question, it's interesting that you purchased back $9 million worth of shares, but unfortunately, your debt increased by $5 million. And, you know, I'm happy with you to buy back shares when we've got surplus cash, and we're not able to reinvest it, don't know what to do with it, but I think it's a terrible idea to actually borrow money to buy back shares. So can you please desist? And finally, I think on page 25, it shows the accident or the injury rate, and that's increased from 4.2 - 7.5. So none of us want to see people getting hurt in the operation of our business. So can you tell us a bit about what we'll do to improve the safety performance of the group? Thank you.
Thank you very much. I might, are you happy, Matthew, to talk initially-
Mm-hmm.
Or Luke, on the profitability of independent third-party crop? Would you like to take that first part, Luke?
I hope you can hear me. So on the independent crop, I think we've, you know, been quite clear that there is a lower margin to that crop than our own crop, hence strategically us trying to sort of move away from that independent crop with extra hectare. It can vary in terms of the independent crop margins we can achieve, mill by mill, and that's really to do with supply and demand mechanics. If there's a number of different mills in the area that might be competing for that independent crop, that may mean that we, it costs us a little bit more to purchase it. But in some locations where maybe we are the only mill, that allows us to have a bit more purchasing power and might be able to achieve a slightly higher margin in those locations.
So it can vary. But you're probably, on average, looking at around about a margin of sort of 10%, which we'll see is quite dilutive to the overall gross margin that we have for the group. So that's a rough figure, but that just gives you an idea of the sort of margin that we see on independent crop.
Okay. Yes, I mean, just on second question, regarding share buybacks, I mean, thank you for that comment and view. And, you know, I guess, one can sympathize with it. I mean, in a sense, we, I mean, we're, we, you know, our debt levels tend to be very low and limited, anyway. And if anything, share buybacks are really quite modest, they've tended to be, and we see it more as the opportunity, as with our just buying out our joint venture partner.
I mean, in a sense, there's very little difference between doing that, buying back hectares that we know to be excellent because they are ones we already own and manage, and we have the opportunity to buy those hectares back at what we feel is well below its market price. And that's effectively what we're doing when we're buying back our own shares, just as we were doing that by buying out our partner at a similar sort of price, similar discount to the market price. But nonetheless, there are differing views on share buybacks, and we do proceed cautiously. And as I say, we tend to be pretty conservative in our approach, but we'll certainly take on board your comment. Thank you on that.
Perhaps, again, Matthew, on the accident and injury, would you like to take that?
Yes, absolutely. And thank you for highlighting it. It's something that we reflected on when we were disclosing information in this year's report on performance evaluation. And we wanted this year to start to disclose more information in this section under performance evaluation, because in previous years, it had been very operationally focused. We acknowledge the fact that it's important to start introducing more information in a broader context on how we monitor our operations, and how we think about performance evaluation in a wider context. So we introduced a couple of things this year. One around carbon intensity, which obviously we report elsewhere, but to emphasize the importance of that in managing and monitoring the overall performance of the business, and one related to employees.
And we selected this measure in terms of injury frequency rate. A couple of things I would say, one is, yes, you're right, it went up compared to last year, but the number disclosed is an injury frequency rate used as a standard measure when expressed using a multiplier of 200... And this all gets a bit, a health and safety speakish. I know, so I apologize, but a standard multiplier of 200,000. So it's the number of injuries reported via our occupational health and safety team per 200,000 hours worked, so it's 7.5 per 200,000, which is sort of a, you know, a very low statistic overall.
And we also comment on the fact that, when we then measure it in terms of injury severity rate, which is another health and safety measure, the injury severity rate went down in the year. So important to note that.
Any further questions? Yes, there's one towards the back. Oh, there's one here. Sorry. Yes, yes.
My name is Thorsten Polleit. I represent a long-term investor in your firm, and first of all, I would like to thank the management and the board for their outstanding performance in 2023. I think you did a number of very important decisions that will benefit us very much in the years to come. I would like to ask two questions. The first question is, looking globally, new palm oil plantations seem to have slowed after a long period of rather rapid growth. How does a period of slower growth affect the market dynamics for palm oil in the years to come, from your point of view?
Mm-hmm.
My second question is, palm oil prices have stabilized around about $900 per ton over the last two years. Are these prices sustainable for the industry? If not, what would have to change for palm oil prices to trade back to, let's say, $500 per ton? Thank you very much.
To do with the palms. Are you sure? Unless anybody else. Okay, well, well, I think Matthew is happy to take both, both those parts, so starting-
Fine.
with the market dynamic. Yeah.
First of all, in response to your question on market dynamics, I mean, I think you're quite right to point out that there is a slowing of new areas being planted to oil palm. When you look at the sector as a whole, of course, Indonesia and Malaysia dominate. So Indonesia and Malaysia together account for certainly more than 80, you know, more like probably 85% of the world's supply, and for slightly different reasons. There's a reduction in both locations in terms of the appetite for new planting and, therefore, for new supplier coming on stream, for oil palm.
So, I mean, the question then comes, when you think about the supply/demand dynamics within the industry, you know, how do we see things moving forward? And certainly on the demand side, there's no reason to think that we won't see a sort of tick up in demand for vegetable oil and certainly for palm oil as we move forward. You know, the underlying macro factors are still there, that cause us to expect there to be a continuing increase in demand for vegetable oil and certainly for palm oil as the major vegetable oil within that overall complex. And so therefore, from the supply side, the challenge is how's that demand going to be met?
Interestingly, that's where we think we've got a significant role to play, 'cause we would say we're a very efficient producer compared to the vast majority, and certainly compared to the significant part of the market, which is made up of independent producers. You can see that in a lot of the material that we provide in explaining precisely this point, where when you look at our average for 2023, we produced more than 5 tons of oil from every hectare of land that we cultivated. We think it's more about that and doing more of that and getting the opportunity to, again, think about our growth strategy, where we bring in land that's perhaps not being used to its optimum potential, and start to really increase the way in which that land is being managed.
And think about introducing more smart agronomic practices that we can actually play out, admittedly, a small part, but play our part in managing that dynamic as we move forward. I'm sorry, I've spoken about the first half of the question, so -
It was about price potentially coming down.
Oh, sorry. Yes, exactly. And in terms of the pricing dynamic, I mean, it's interesting. If we look at a price chart over the last few years, clearly there was a big price spike as a result of what's going on in the wider world and impact on commodity prices a couple of years ago, predominantly because, you know, in vegetable because of concerns in Ukraine around the supply of sunflower oil coming out of Ukraine. That's largely abated now. Sadly, things haven't resolved by any stretch in terms of what's going on in that part of the world.
But we've seen precisely to your point, a period of stability at around, slightly above, slightly below, $1,000 a ton, CIF Rotterdam, which has enabled us to enjoy very healthy prices mill gate to us. As things currently stand, we see no reason why that wouldn't continue for a period of time to come. Of course, there are gonna be short-term changes in that, depending on what's going on from a supply and demand, mix perspective. But from our perspective, and we very much hope that that period of stability will extend for a period of time to come.
Thank you very much for your kind comments also. Any more questions? Yes.
Yeah. Yes, good morning, meeting. Davies, ordinary shareholder. When the mills are in operation, do they run 24 hours a day? And are the mills shut down for a proportion of the year when there are no crops available? And how long is that stoppage for?
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for your question. And obviously, you know, milling is becoming an ever increasing, ever increasingly important part of our operations. Mills can run for 24 hours per day if required, at a particularly peak period of cropping, but that's not what we design them to do for the longer term. Typically, we would expect there to be a period of downtime each day, over the course of the long-term running of the mills. And also, you know, looking at it the other way around, we wouldn't expect periods where the mills need to shut down because there's no crop available, because, of course, palm is a permanent tree crop.
We are harvesting every single day of the year, so there is crop available to be put into the mill and processed through the mill all the time. However, there will be brief periods, during the course of the year, where we will have planned maintenance to do, so that we make sure the mills are kept up to an optimal standard, and that you can make sure that you've then, again, to the points we've been discussing, maintain those very high extraction rates.
Very good. Lovely. We might, if you don't mind, just take a couple more questions. I'm conscious there are a number of people standing at the back. And now you can, by all means, continue to ask us afterwards, but we have one question at the front. Thank you.
Ordinary shareholder. May I ask a question about the resolutions at this point? I'm just rather intrigued, actually, on the proxy votes. I can understand the disapprove, the, votes against the chairman. I can't understand and can't approve of what's happened with Mr. Shaw. He's only been here five minutes, and he's got a considerable number of people voting against him. Is it some sort of, shareholder convention that's, anti him? Can you clarify, please?
Well, I mean, yes, I mean, every shareholder has the every right to vote how they see fit. I have no idea either, and it's in the overall scheme of things, as I mentioned, well over 99% of those who voted, voted in favor of every single resolution. So, whilst it was... I mean, I have no idea what the reasons are, and, but I can't really comment. But, overall, there was huge support for each one of the resolutions. Anybody else? No. Right. Well, thank you so much. Some really good, interesting questions, and thank you, Matthew, for fielding most of them. Let's move on to our formal business of the meeting, which shouldn't take too long.
As the notice of the meeting has been in the hands of shareholders for the period, may I please take it as read? Thank you. The independent auditors' report to the members of M.P. Evans Group PLC is set out on pages 58 - 63 in the Annual Report and Accounts. The report is on the group financial statements, including the parent company financial statements. May I take it as read? Thank you. Voting today will be conducted on a show of hands. May I remind you that shareholders who are present here in person or by corporate representative are entitled to one vote on a show of hands. Anyone who is present and has been duly nominated or appointed by a shareholder entitled to vote, also has one vote on a show of hands.
Please, please do not raise your hand if you're not a shareholder or a formally appointed representative or proxy. Resolutions 1 - 6 are proposed as ordinary resolutions and require a simple majority to be passed. Resolution 7 is proposed as a special resolution, which requires a majority of 75% to pass. We have received proxies in respect of 25,045,583 shares. Copies of the schedule detailing the proxy voting instructed for or against or withheld, received in relation to each resolution have been distributed. A vote withheld is not a vote in law, is not counted in the calculation of the proportion of the votes for and against. With that in mind, of the votes cast, not less than 99% are in favorable resolutions, with further details in the printed out schedule.
The reports and financial statements have been sent or made available by digital means to all members, and I hope they provide shareholders with a clear explanation of the group's strategy, its activities, and profit and financial position as at the 31st of December, 2023. I now propose as resolution one, that the report of the directors and the audited financial statements for the year ended 31st of December, 2023, now laid before the meeting, be received. I put the resolution to the meeting. Those in favor? Those against? I declare the resolution carried. I now propose, as resolution two, that the Directors' Remuneration Report, as set out in the annual report and audited financial statements for the year ended 31st of December, 2023, now laid before the meeting, be received. I put the resolution to the meeting. Those in favor? Those against?
I declare that resolution carried. I now have great pleasure in proposing as resolution three, that Mr. Luke Shaw be elected as a director of the company. I put the resolution to the meeting. Those in favor? Those against? I declare the resolution carried. Now, I might nominate Matthew to put the resolution four to the vote.
Thank you, Peter. I have pleasure in proposing as resolution four, that Mr. Peter Hadsley-Chaplin be re-elected a director of the company. I put the resolution to the meeting. Those in favor? Those against? I declare the resolution carried. I'll now hand back to Peter.
Well, thank you. I now propose as resolution five, that a final dividend of GBP 0.325 per share be declared, payable on or after the 19th of June 2024, in respect of the year ended 31st of December 2023, to all holders of shares on the register of members of the company, at the close of business on the 26th of April 2024. I put the resolution to the meeting. Those in favor? Those against? I declare the resolution carried.
I now propose as resolution 6, that BDO LLP Chartered Accountants and Registered Auditors, be appointed as auditors of the company to hold office from the conclusion of the meeting until the conclusion of the next general meeting, at which financial statements are laid before the company in accordance with Section 4371, Companies Act 2006, at a fee to be determined by the directors. I put the resolution to the meeting. Those in favor? Those against? I declare that resolution carried. I now move on to the special business of the meeting, proposed as a special resolution, the resolution as set out in the notice of meeting number 7. This resolution gives authority for the company to purchase up to 10% of its own shares during the coming year, as and when the directors consider it appropriate.
I put the resolution to the meeting. Those in favor? Those against? Okay, one or two against, but nonetheless, significant majority in favor. Yes. I declare the resolution carried. Before concluding the business of the meeting, it's always been customary for a vote of thanks to be proposed by a shareholder to our staff and workforces throughout the world, who continue to play a vital role in the activities of the group, and in the furtherance of their strategy. So I'd be delighted if somebody... Mr. Moore, Christopher Moore, who I perhaps hope I'm not being indiscreet. A very, very long time shareholder and former director of one of our associated companies, Jitra, who has recently celebrated his ninetieth birthday.
Thank you very much, Chris, and thank you for your vote of thanks. Okay. Now, I have pleasure inviting you all to join us for some light refreshments. Sadly, not in the courtyard, but next door in the parlor, and we'd be happy to answer any further questions that you may have on an informal basis. Thank you very much.
Could I please ask attendees not to close this session, as you will now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback and management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few minutes to complete, but some shall be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of M.P. Evans Group PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's Annual General Meeting, and good afternoon to you all.