Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to your first speaker today, Chairman, Mr. Donald Mugecki. Thank you. Please go ahead.
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to AAKO's 2021 Annual General Meeting. I want to present. As it is now past 10 am and I have been advised that a quorum is present with no physical meeting. The decision was made taking into consideration state border closures, finds how to attend and participate in the AGM virtually. I'm chairing this meeting though and Managing Director will take over as Chair of the meeting until I'm able to reconnect.
Sole purpose of allowing Hugh to preside as Chair of this meeting. If I encounter any technical difficulties that prevent results in a number of members being unable to reasonably participate in this meeting, I will adjourn the meeting to continue to result in a number of members being unable to reasonably participate in the meeting. We will adjourn the meeting to adjournment that sets out the details of the next step. I would now like to introduce you, Killan, Mr. Tom Keane, Doctor.
Shahan De Asanyaka, Ms. Jessica Rehan, Neil's background and experience has been included in the notice of meeting Mr. Stuart Black. I'd also like to introduce Mr. Bruce Bennett, our Company Secretary and General Counsel.
Bruce will read about Goose representing Aaco's auditors KPMG. Scott Goose is available to answer questions relevant to the conduct of the audit and the preparation and content of the independent external auditors report. Frankie Gantner of Allens, our legal advisor and representatives of Linked Market Services Limited, our share registrar. Before moving to the formal part of the meeting, I will address some procedural matters and then we will proceed with the business of the day as set out in the notice of meeting. Following my address as Chairman, I'll invite our Managing Director and CEO, Hugh Killen, to present an operational report that gives shareholders an update on IAK's performance.
I'll offer shareholders the invitation to ask questions at the conclusion of these addresses. After Hugh's presentation, the financial statements and reports will be discussed. We will then deal with each of the remaining items set out in the notice meeting, being the remuneration report and the election of directors. There will be an opportunity for comments and questions in respect to each of these items of business. I will now present my Chairman's address.
Once again, welcome to Australian Agriculture Companies 2021 Annual Meeting geopolitical uncertainty and its impact on important Australian trade relationships and our industry operating profit and improved statutory EBITDA outcome versus the prior year That's helped offset reduced meat volumes in FY 2021. AOK's global retail opportunities and our ability to redirect beef to higher value markets helped meet this demand. This flexibility was important in responding to market constraint in East Asia as well as food service impacts across all regions. AAK's ability to capture these new opportunities was underpinned by several factors. Global demand for healthy, safe and high quality beef remains strong.
The world's middle class continue to demand our product, including a growing gourmet home cooking market. We expect underlying demand to continue growing. AAK's focus on our operations at home also supported our performance in FY 2021. We have been nimble across our supply chain, producing and delivering beef when and where required, and we have maintained strong cost disciplines during this uncertainty. Retail opportunities in FY 2021 were underpinned by ongoing investment in our brand equity.
As I mentioned, AAKO brands have driven annual price per kilo growth in recent years. New market opportunities have benefited from the strength of these brands. Strategic investment in our brand equity remains an important focus of the business. The value of AAK's underlying assets has also stood us in good stead over the year. At the end of FY 2021, our balance sheet is strong.
We continue to invest in safety, well-being and careers of all of our people. The value of our pastoral land assets continues to improve over the long term and this has continued to underpin the stronger balance sheet. And the quality of our genetics and our herd continues to improve despite challenging seasonal conditions. We've also driven progress against our sustainability commitment in FY 2021. As we approach our 200th year of operations, we are focused on preparing for the next 200 years.
In FY 2021, we pursued our goal of leaving the land in better condition than we found it. You can review our most recent sustainability update, which was released this morning under the dedicated sustainability section on our website.
The quality of
our people underpins all of our assets. Our team was asked to operate under very difficult conditions in FY 2021. We asked them to be flexible and adaptable. We've asked them to take greater ownership of AECO's high performance culture and they have responded tremendously. And I was pleased to see significant internal appointments and promotions in FY 2021.
We also said goodbye to our Chief Operating Officer, Anna Spiea. Anna made a significant contribution to the development of AYAKO during her time with us. We thank her for this and wish her all the best in her future endeavors. On behalf of the Board, I want to thank every member of the team for their commitment in FY 2021. And personally, I very much want to thank my fellow Board members for their vision and commitment over a challenging year.
As I mentioned earlier, this year has gone has thrown up unique challenges. AAK was demonstrated great resilience and adaptation. This has produced important financial outcomes in difficult conditions. And these outcomes reflect the value of our branded beef strategy. The challenges we face in FY 2021 continue into the current year.
Progress against COVID-nineteen varies around the world. Vaccine rollouts are progressing, but new variants are emerging and many places continue to suffer terribly. And recent events at home remind us how rapidly circumstances can change. Geopolitical uncertainty also remains a feature of the new financial year. Bilateral relationship opportunities have great potential.
We welcome the recent free trade agreement between Australia and the UK. At the same time, trade constraints in East Asia remain serious for many Australian industries, including our own. Seasonal conditions across AOCO's properties are mixed. This comes off the back of multiple years, which has impacted our calving rates over multiple years. And this has impacted our mature animal numbers and meat production volumes in FY 2021.
While calving rates have increased, we expect lower meat volumes will continue into the current year and supplementary cattle purchases will be required. Through these challenges, AAK's branded beef strategy remains a stronger pathway to value for you and our fellow shareholders. We will continue to monitor and navigate uncertainty in the year ahead. We will redouble our efforts to progress our branded beef strategy and we will remain focused on delivering long term value for shareholders. Thank you for your time today and for your support for the AAK team.
I will now hand over to Hugh.
Thank you, Donald. Welcome to this year's Australian Agricultural Company Annual General Meeting. We're disappointed to be holding our AGM remotely again this year, and this is a reminder of how volatile the Australian situation is at the moment. Thank you to the team for facilitating today's event. We appreciate that this is not ideal and I want to personally thank all of you that have joined remotely.
I'm proud to report that AA Co has delivered positive results in a very difficult year. We've been forced to navigate the effects of seasonal geopolitical challenges. And of course, the global pandemic has impacted every part of our business. Despite these challenges, we have delivered positive cash flow, improved profit and improved EBITDA outcomes. This reflects the value of our underlying branded beef strategy and it reflects the performance of our team.
For this reason, I want to start today by talking about the AA Co team. They make everything we do possible and I've been so impressed with the resilience and commitment in the year just gone. In all, there were 4 48 members of the AA Co team at close of FY 2021. We are one of the largest employers in the past strong industry. Our team includes people working with us for short periods right through to people who have built lifetime careers at AA Co.
And we want to make sure that every one of them is safe and feels part of our AA CO team. In response to COVID-nineteen, we acted quickly and effectively to protect our people, our communities and the welfare of our animals. We stood up our response team and implemented COVID-nineteen management plans. As a result, our people were able to keep working and we were able to stay connected through disruptions to movement and travel. Despite these disruptions, I'm pleased that our team reported an improved sense of engagement with AA Co over the year.
It was particularly pleasing to recommit to orientation week for 1st year staff. This event is important for our newest staff members to feel part of the team and it gives us a chance to reinforce our standards for safety, well-being and professionalism. We also focused on building the diversity of our team over the last year. In FY 2021, women represented over 39% of our overall workforce and 43% of all new appointments were female. In FY 2021, we launched the Women of AACO program.
This program provides opportunities to connect and share knowledge and it is a blueprint for supporting diversity across the business. We also launched a company wide well-being, health and safety strategy. Our goal is to support a more proactive approach to safety and well-being. And we've launched 3 programs to support this strategy and drive our safety culture. Our 1AA brand defines what our culture means to all of us.
Our Switch On program focuses on safety at work and our leadership development program includes a strong safety and well-being focus. Progress has been good so far. Near miss reporting increased 40% in FY 2021. Strong near miss reporting indicates the staff are taking time to identify and record risks. This helps us identify areas where we need to do better, and we use these insights to make our workplace safer.
As a result of this work, serious injuries have declined over the year. This is always the goal of our safety efforts and our results suggest we are moving in the right direction. We've also focused heavily on professional development for our team. This year we launched our Frontline Leaders program and we have delivered a suite of on station, job specific and industry partnership training programs as well. These initiatives have enabled 31 appointments from within the business in the last year alone.
We're also very proud of our graduate program. This program gives young men and women the opportunity to build experience by rotating through all different parts of our business over a 2 year period. We're giving them the foundation to become the future leaders of our industry. And we are also supporting 75 active traineeships with 34 completed in 2021. We could not have navigated a year like 2021 without our team.
I want each of you to understand how we value and support our team at AACo, and I want to thank each of them today. The result of our team's work in FY 2021 is our financial performance. In FY 2021, our operating profit was $24,400,000 up from $15,200,000 in the previous year. Our statutory EBITDA result was $99,300,000 up from $80,100,000 the previous year, and we secured a positive operating cash flow result. Now this is despite every one of our 16 foodservice markets being impacted by COVID-nineteen restrictions.
Ongoing geopolitical uncertainty impacting key market regions and the flow on effects of adverse seasonal conditions over recent years. Through all of this, Aaco improved our average meat sales price per kilo by 8 percent in FY 2021. We've continued to drive brand equity across our portfolio and we realized the benefits of these brands by increasing the proportion of meat sold through them. These results were supported by a stronger balance sheet position. AA Coast net assets increased to over $1,000,000,000 in value in FY 2021 and our net tangible assets per share increased to $1.75 from $1.53 in the previous year.
As I mentioned earlier, seasonal challenges in recent years significantly impacted A8Co in FY 2021. In line with the decrease in Australia's national herd, Aaco has faced lower calving rates from 2018 through 2020. This is a direct consequence of multiple drought years and the impact of the Gulf floods in 2019. While conditions have improved in some areas, drought continues to impact Aaco and recovery in the Gulf is ongoing with limited pasture results pasture response this past wheat season. These headwinds have impacted our herd composition in recent years.
With an average 3.5 year lifecycle for our F1 cattle, lower calving rates in 2018 have resulted in reduced mature animal numbers in FY 2021. And the consequence of being lower meat volumes available for sale this year. Our herd is rebuilding though. We saw a 47% increase in carbon rates in FY 2021. However, this will take several years to flow through to meat production and we expect lower volumes moving into FY22.
We will continue to monitor these ongoing challenges. In the face of these challenges, we remain focused on AACo's branded beef strategy. This strategy remains the best pathway to long term value for AACo shareholders. And I want to run through the elements of this strategy for you now, beginning with our brand portfolio. In FY 'twenty one, we further rationalized our brand portfolio.
74 percent of Aeaco's branded V sales were through our West Ham and Darling Downs brands in FY 'twenty one. And this has been critical to our financial performance, as I will discuss shortly. These brands sit alongside Wailara, our most exclusive brand, which is distributed to the world's top 5 dining restaurants. While this market has been heavily impacted by COVID-nineteen, Wailara remains a key strategic priority for AA Co. We also continue to develop our model for taking these brands to market in FY 2021.
We've drawn extensively in our global supply network and strong partnerships around the world. This has helped us develop new retail channels in response to food service constraints, including the growing Home Chef market. Global supply and partnerships have also supported adjustments in our market mix around the world. At home, we've continued to focus on optimizing our business operations and driving a simpler and more efficient AA code. This includes maintaining cost discipline across our supply chain.
And this produced around $76,000,000 in savings in FY 2021 compared to the previous year. Sustainability remains at the core of our business. I'm excited to say that we released our sustainability update this morning. This document gives you an update on the tangible progress we've made in this space. And I'll explore this in more detail at the end of the presentation.
Finally, as I mentioned at the top of this presentation, our people and our culture drive our strategy at Aaco, leadership across the business. And our strong internal promotions in FY 2021 underscore the value of this work. I want to focus now on Aaco's brands. As I mentioned above, our brand portfolio is critical to our financial performance. Together, the Westham and Darling Downs price per kilo has improved on a compound annual basis by 17% each year since 2019.
This has driven an annual 8% improvement in overall price per kilo over the same period. In FY 2021, these two brands accounted for 80% of our premium loins and rumps beef sales. And overall, West Home sales increased from 11% of total beef sales to 25% over the year. These brands improved price per kilo because we invest in these brands. This includes targeted digital marketing campaigns to raise awareness as well as improving improved branding in store and also on menus.
This work was particularly evident in our results in North America and in Asia in FY 2021. In North America, the price per kilo of our branded beef sales increased 14% over the year. This was driven by continued investment in brand awareness, particularly West Home. A really powerful focus on retail sales channels also drove this result. This included capturing new channels that emerged in response to COVID-nineteen, such as growth in fine dining at home.
The AAK team was able to secure a strong partnership with the leading online gourmet e marketplace to support this emerging opportunity. And we invested in digital marketing for West Home, including profiling new restaurant meal kits from Aaco's chef customers. In Asia, Aaco drove a parallel investment and focus for our Darling Downs brand. In Korea, Darling Downs is already known through our E Mart Retail Partnership. In FY 2021, we completed a major brand refresh.
And as a result, we achieved 5% improvement in average price per kilo of meat sold for the region. At the same time, we've intentionally focused on redirecting quality product out of China and towards lucrative markets in North America with success. China is traditionally a commodity based sales destination. Geopolitical uncertainty has impacted this part of our production. But investment in our retail brand sales in South Korea and redirecting higher value loin products to alternative markets has helped balance the impact of these constraints.
Now Australia is our spiritual home. We are focused heavily on adjusting our market mix at home to elevate our quality brands here. At the same time, we're focused on directing product where it will generate the best return to growth and also growing brand awareness over the year. Finally, Europe and Latinx revenue. And this has resulted in a decline in AAK's price per kilo in the region that AAK has been a pillar of our branded beef strategy for some time.
In recent years, we saw $76,000,000 reduction in costs. At the same time, a similar this included transitioning product from foodservice to retail and from lower value to high value markets around the world. One of the indicators of this progress is the ongoing improvement in the value of our underlying assets. Through drought and flood, we've been able to improve the genetic and phenotypic quality markets of our herd. The value of our pastoral assets has also improved consistently over the long term.
At the end of FY 2021, our strong balance sheet position reflects this investment. Underpinning this investment is our commitment to leave the land better than we found it. As a nearly 200 year old company, sustainability is in our DNA. The release of our benchmarking report in 2020 represented our awareness that environmental and social pressures on agricultural and food systems present a challenge for our business and our world. And that we are committed to finding unique and high impact solutions across our value chain to help address these challenges.
As I mentioned previously, we've now taken the next steps in our journey with the release of our sustainability update. In this document, we bring you an update on the tangible progress we have made and the initiatives we have bought online over the past year with measurable outcomes. We're also well down the path of grounding out our robust sustainability strategic framework and also governance structure. In this framework and governance structure, we're developing a core set of indicators to report against in coming years. This will allow us to forge a clear pathway into a sustainable future and we will be releasing this later this year.
Governance and transparency are fundamentals of sustainable business practices and alignment to international reporting standards. We aim to align our strategic framework and governance structure with the principles for reporting standards by 2022. This year, AACo took our first steps with the registration of AACo's Beef Cattle Herd Carbon Management project, and it will run for 7 years. Through this methodology, we can objectively measure the these include targeted investments in infrastructure and practices with the goal of production cycle, improving animal handling to reduce animal stress and increasing the weight and we've demonstrated carbon abatement of more than 97,000 tons of CO2 Equinimal Health and Welfare. In FY 2021, we launched the AECO Animal Health and Welfare Committee Standards and Opportunities for Improvement And we also continue to progress our poll program.
We're also continuing to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. In FY 2021, we achieved a 26% conversion of bores to solar power. We continue to explore new tangible steps to drive sustainability. And we are focused on positioning AOCO for our next 200 years. Now I've only touched on a few of the initiatives underway to AOCO in the sustainability space today.
And I encourage you to read through our latest update to find out more. And this can be found in the dedicated sustainability section on our website. AAO is excited about our sustainable future and our potential to drive positive change for our business, industry and community to deliver a better world for future generations to come. In conclusion, AOCO will continue to face challenges in FY 2022, including the global pandemic, uncertainty and continued effects of recent floods and drought effects. In particular, the long run impacts of flood and drought and carbon and meat production will continue.
Importantly, our herd is in a rebuilding phase with strong carbon growth and like the rest of the national industry, we'll navigate the effects of this rebuild in FY 2022. AACo's performance in FY 2021 teaches us 2 things. The AACo team is capable of adaption to capture new opportunities that face the great challenges. And the pillars of our branded based strategy are vital to delivering Gully for you, our shareholders. FY 2021 forced us to adapt.
The challenges and opportunities we faced have made us a stronger company. We're supported by strong balance sheet and strong underlying assets. Global demand continues to grow for quality base backed by traceability and provenance. And we understand the value of great brands, supported by a great team and a simpler and more efficient business. In FY 2022, we are focused on driving our branded based strategy further.
This work will continue to position us well for good times and also for bad. And this strategy remains a stronger path to value for every AA Co investor in the future. Thank you all for your support in FY 2021. And also thank you for joining us today.
Thank you, Hugh. Before moving to the formal part of the meeting and questions, I will outline the procedural matters for this meeting. At the bottom of the web page under the webcast and presentation, there are 3 boxes, which allow you to 1, get a voting card 2, ask a question 3, download the AGM notice of meeting, the 2021 annual report and the virtual meeting online guide. The Ask a Question and Get a Voting Card buttons are replicated at the top of the web page in gold. If you did not submit your questions prior to the meeting, you can ask your questions during the meeting via the online platform by clicking the Ask a Question button.
The business that your question relates to, while your question and click submission, write your online platform now. You do not need to wait until we get to the end, the relevant item of the business, questions now. We ask you to please keep your questions or comments as concise as possible. We will address questions submitted by the online platform during the meeting. Bruce will read these verbatim, so we'll consolidate questions into one where we answer them during the items of business.
If you're submitting a question via the online platform, please refer the virtual meeting online guide. I'd now like to briefly summarize the voting procedures, which will apply to this meeting. Each resolution will be conducted by a poll. As shareholders are aware, no formal vote is required on Item 1 of the agenda. A poll will be conducted on the remaining items 2 to 5.
To lodge your votes, click on the get a voting card box at the top of the webpage or below the slide window. You may submit your votes via the online platform at any time during the meeting starting from now. Following discussion of all items, shareholders will be given until the time that is 5 minutes after this meeting is closed to submit their votes via the online portal. After this time, the polls for each relevant item of business will close. The number of proxy votes received on each resolution will be displayed in the slide window and the slide view section of your web page browser as we move through the resolutions.
If you experience any difficulties using the online platform, the help number helpline number is displayed at the top of the page. You can also refer to the virtual meeting online guide, which is accessible via the online platform. Your votes will be counted by personnel from our share register at Linked Market Services after the meeting closes. The results of each poll will be announced by the ASX as soon as possible after this meeting and will be also displayed on our web page. I will now outline the procedure for proxy votes.
Shareholders have the opportunity to appoint a proxy prior to the meeting. If you have already sent your proxy forms, you do not need to vote again. Proxy holders by law, if you exercise your right to vote as a proxy, you must vote in accordance with any instructions given to you by the relevant shareholder. Subject to the restrictions set out in the voting exclusion statements in the notice of meeting, any undirected proxies on a given item may be voted by the proxy holder as they choose, with some votes for the motion, some against and some abstain if desired. Any proxies that are not voted at the meeting will be automatically default to me as Chair of the meeting.
In respect of any directed proxies that default to me as Chairman, I'm required to vote those proxies as directed. Subject to any applicable voting instructions, any open proxies that have been received by the Chairman of the meeting and the directors will be voted in favor of each resolution.
I will now move to
the formal items of business for this meeting. The first item of business in the notice of meeting is to consider the financial statements and reports. I now table the Director's statutory report and one on your notice of meeting. These documents have been made available to shareholders in this item business. Please note that Scott Guice from KPMG who oversaw the independent audit report, the accounting policies adopted by AECO in relation to the preparation or external auditor, please submit them now if you haven't already done so.
We will now start by the interest of brevity, where we've received several questions from shareholders, which are similar, we will come and that question comes from Ryan Shirley Beal, who asked, the company has not paid a dividend, when is it going to pay a dividend? Thank you, Ryan Shirley for your question and to other shareholders who also sent in similar questions in relation to dividends. In answer to this question, I'll make the following points. As you're all aware and as evidenced by the fact we are holding this AGM virtually, the impacts of COVID are still very real and ongoing. AOCO did record an operating profit of $24,000,000 and a net profit after tax of 45,000,000 dollars However, with the uncertain impacts of COVID-nineteen, the Board has not declared a dividend for shareholders in 2021.
We feel it is prudent under the circumstances to preserve cash and use all available resources to invest in the company. As a fellow shareholder, I can emphasize. However, I can't predict when a dividend will be paid. That depends on the company's performance in the future. We will now address shareholder questions submitted during the meeting via the online portal.
Bruce, do we have some questions?
Chairman, I confirm that so far we have 3 questions submitted via the online portal. The first question is for AA Co's auditor, and it's from Robert Borland, who asked, can you please explain the procedures used to ensure an accurate count of stock on the various properties? Are physical counts of stock conducted? What procedures are in place to ensure that nothing is not being conducted on the company's properties?
Scott, I will ask I think that is an appropriate question for you in the conduct of the audit. So I'll pass over to you.
Thank you, Chet. And thanks, Robert, for that question. Robert, I'd refer you to Page 79 of the report, which is where our audit report is contained. And you'll see that in that area there, we do focus on the existence, accuracy and valuation of the herd. And part of our procedures are actually to attend the sites throughout the year.
And this year, we attended 5 sites. And when we're on those sites at the cattle stations, we actually do observe what controls, procedures and processes were in place around the annual muster. The annual muster takes place over a number of weeks. And I think it's fair to say that the actual processes the company has employed has significantly enhanced over time, as you would expect. Every Animal Lead Day is branded, has an ear tag and is actually computer chipped.
And the process that they go through for the Annual Master is to actually run every single animal through a scanning device. So it actually counts every single animal on the property at that period in time. We obviously look at the controls processes there. When those results come out of the IT system, which we actually do test as well to reverse to the closing cattle. So look, there is very good controls and processes that are on their properties, where they're located on those properties as well.
So I have a fairly good comfort that if there was any cattle nothing happening, it would be pretty much put to bed straight away. So from the procedures we've done, I'm not aware of any significant or material cattle that are occurring. Thanks, Chair.
Thank you, Scott. Bruce, there were a couple of other questions.
Yes, Chairman. The next question is from Robert Burrows who asked, what is the future of the Abattoir facilities outside of Katherine?
Thank you, Robert. I'll hand this one over to Hugh to answer.
Thank you, Todd. And thank you, Robert, for the question. I'd say from the outset, I think it's important to note that we believe that there is strategic value in our Livingston asset. We see it as a gateway asset. But I would say in the current environment where we see Florida levels to be at what will be 36 year lows and actually recent reported even as recent last couple of days that processes are losing between $300 to $400 a head per animal that it wouldn't be the right environment to be restarting the plant Livingston.
So that is one reason. We also have significant shipping stress going on globally at the moment in relation to COVID-nineteen would make a startup of the plant imprudent under the current period. So we continue to assess that, continue to assess market conditions. The plant is maintained in an environment that we wish to restart it when the conditions are right, we can do so. And we run the analysis on the conditions regularly.
Over to you, John.
Thanks Hugh.
Bruce, I
think there was one more so far.
Yes, Kevin. The next question is from Eric Lowe, who asked, could you please explain if there is any correlation between AECO's revenue and the East Coast Young Cattle's Index?
Again, I'll pass that one over to Hugh.
Thanks for the question, Eric. At a high level, there's actually little correlation between the eki and meat sales revenue for AOK. Obviously, meat sales revenue is the largest item we have. So in FY 2021, it was $200,000,000 The eggy does have some sort of proxy impact in terms of the price of cattle sales. Obviously, the cattle market is very buoyant, so it runs through on that side of the business.
Now, as we've talked about before, we do buy cattle periodically to supplement our own numbers and genetics. And the equity doesn't actually correlate towards the equity market, which is actually driven by different fundamentals. But again, obviously, the Eki is a proxy for the shortage in the Australian cattle herd overall. So whilst you are directly attributable, while we have a high Eki and a high cattle price, AECO will get the benefit and also the cost of that as it flows through apples.
I might add just to that here too as well. Obviously, the cattle that go live export through Darwin, there's little relationship between the equity and that market. Bruce, do we have any further questions?
Chairman, I can confirm there are no further questions on this item.
Thank you, Bruce. We'll now move to the reiteration report. The second item of business is a non binding resolution to adopt the remuneration report. Please note that the vote on this resolution is advisory only and does not bind the directors of the company. However, the Board and the company will take into account any feedback that we receive in developing our future remuneration framework.
Voting inclusions apply to the resolution as set out in the notice of meeting. I now invite shareholders and proxy holders to submit any questions regarding the REM report. Bruce, do we have any questions on the remuneration report?
Chairman, I confirm that we do not have any questions on this item.
Thank you. Given there are no questions on this item, we can see to voting.
Chairman, the proxy votes received in relation to this resolution are now shown on the presentation slides on your screen.
To the next item of business, the next item of business share for this item of business. Hugh?
Thank you, Donald. With the exception of Mr. Migeti, who is abstaining from this resolution, the election of Mr. Migeti Board and I commend this motion to you. I now invite shareholders and proxy holders to submit any questions regarding the reelection of Mr.
Mugeki. We will now address shareholder questions submitted during the meeting via the online portal.
Bruce? Hugh, I confirm that we did not get any questions on this item. The proxy votes received in relation to this resolution are now shown on the presentation slides on your screen at home.
I would like to remind shareholders who haven't yet cast their votes on this resolution to do so now. A poll on this resolution will be conducted at the end of the meeting. Voting on all items is open. We'll now move on to the next item of business and I'll pass the chair back to you, Donald.
Thank you, Hugh. The 4th item of business is the reelection of Mr. Neil Reisman as Director. The resolution to be considered under this item is an ordinary resolution. With the exception of Mr.
Reisman, who is abstaining from this resolution, the election of Mr. Reisman has the unanimous support of the AECO Board and I commend this motion to you. I now invite shareholders and proxy holders to submit any questions regarding the reelection of Mr. Reisman. We will now address shareholder questions submitted during the meeting via the online portal.
Bruce, are there any questions?
I confirm that we did not receive any questions via the online portal in respect of this item. So the proxy votes received in relation to this resolution are now shown on the presentation slides on your screen at home.
I'd like to remind shareholders who haven't yet cast their votes on this resolution to do so now. A poll on this resolution will be conducted at the end of the meeting. Voting on all items is open. We will now move to the final item of business. The 5th and final item of business is the reelection of Mr.
Stuart Black as Director. The resolution to be considered under this item is an ordinary resolution. With the exception of Mr. Black, who is abstaining from this resolution, the election that Mr. Black has the unanimous support of the AECO Board, and I commend this motion to you.
I now invite shareholders and proxy holders to submit any questions regarding the reelection of Mr. Black. We will now address shareholder questions submitted during the meeting via the online portal. Bruce, do we have any questions?
Chairman, I confirm that we did not receive any questions on this item. So the proxy votes received in relation to this resolution are now shown on the presentation slides on your screen at home.
I'd like to remind shareholders who haven't yet cast their votes on this and all other resolutions to do so now. A poll on this resolution will be conducted at the end of the meeting. We've now dealt with all of the items of business in the notice of meeting. I now ask you to ensure that your voting cards have been completed by the online portal for each resolution put to you today. Please remember to click on Submit Vote at the bottom of the resolutions to submit your vote.
If you require assistance to submit your vote, please call the help online number displayed at the top of the page. With each item of business as this meeting having been dealt with, I now declare that the polls in respect of each resolution will be closed at a time which is 5 minutes after this meeting is closed and formally ask Link Market Services Limited as returning officer to count the votes following the expiry of that period. I propose to now bring today's proceedings to an end. The results of this meeting will be released through the ASX as soon as possible and will be displayed on our website. If you believe your questions at this AGM have not been adequately answered by us today, please reach out to our Investor Relations team via e mail.
This team will respond to you and load the appropriate questions and answers on our website. On behalf of the Board and management, thank you to everyone who has attended this AGM and to all those who have engaged with us by submitting questions in advance and during the meeting. Thank you all for embracing the virtual format of this AGM for a 2nd year. I hope that we certainly hope we don't have to do this again next year. We hope