Good morning, everyone. My name is Adrian Fitzpatrick, and I have the privilege of being the chair of your company and will be your chair for today's meeting. It's my pleasure to welcome you to the 2023 Annual General Meeting of Aussie Broadband. It's now 9:00 A.M. here in Victoria, the time appointed for the meeting, and as we have a quorum, I declare the meeting open. Before proceedings begin, I would like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the country, of the many lands we are meeting on throughout Australia today, and recognize their continuing connection to lands, waters, and communities. We pay our respects to the traditional custodians and elders of this nation, both past and present, and the continuation of cultural, spiritual, and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
I'd like to recognize, in particular, the land that I am standing on today, the traditional land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. Today's AGM has been convened in accordance with the Corporations Act and the Company's Constitution. We're delighted to offer our shareholders the choice of participating in today's meeting in person or via our online webcast. If you are joining us online, you may cast your votes at any time during the meeting, and voting will remain open for five minutes after the close of today's meeting. Please ensure your vote is cast on time. The agenda today is on the screen, with addresses from myself and our Managing Director, followed by consideration of the financial statements and the six resolutions.
It's my duty as chair to ensure that the shareholders in attendance, as a group, have a reasonable opportunity to discuss the management of the company and the items of business before the meeting. There will be plenty of opportunity for questions during and toward the end of the meeting. Only shareholders, validly appointed proxies, and corporate representatives are entitled to vote at today's meeting. Holders attending in person today need to have obtained the yellow voting card when they registered. Please see the registration desk should you require a yellow card. Those holders voting online, please refer to the instructions contained in the virtual online meeting guide, available on the screen in front of you. Only shareholders, validly appointed proxies, and corporate representatives are entitled to ask questions at today's meeting.
Those shareholders in person need to have obtained a yellow voting card or blue non-voting card when they registered. If you are participating virtually and do not and did not submit a question before the AGM, you will be able to submit questions at any time during the meeting by registering as a shareholder or proxyholder and selecting the Ask a Question tab, or by asking your question over the phone by pressing star one on your keypad. I'll request questions from the phone attendees first, followed by online questions, and then invite questions from the floor. If you would like to ask a question in the room, please approach the microphone at the appropriate time and display your yellow or blue attendance card. When I call for questions, please state your name and organization you represent, and please keep questions courteous and concise.
Questions may be merged if we receive multiple questions on the same topic. Please note there will be time for shareholders to ask general questions after we've dealt with the formal business of today's meeting. I would now like to introduce my fellow directors, Richard Dammery, Vicky Papachristos, Patrick Greene, Phillip Britt, our Managing Director, and Michael Omeros, Executive Director. Our Company Secretary, Brian Maher, is also present, as well as the company's auditor, KPMG, represented by Susan Bell, who joins us online from Korea, and James Dent, who is in the room with us here today. The auditor will be available to answer questions on the conduct of the audit and the audit report for the year ended 30 June 2023.
I would also like to welcome Julie Stokes from our share registry, Link Market Services, who will be the Returning Officer for the poll to be taken on all resolutions at today's meeting. Before we start the formal part of this year's meeting, I would like to take a few minutes to reflect on the last 12 months for Aussie Broadband. FY 2023 saw another year of continued growth across all segments. The sales pipeline accelerated during the year as we invested in growing our business development teams with a focus on the enterprise and government segment, followed by the acquisition of Over the Wire in FY 2022. Aussie has come a long way from our early days as a residential internet service provider in regional Victoria. Today, we provide a complete communications and technology solution across multiple sectors all over Australia.
In FY 2023, revenue increased 23.1% to AUD 788 million, driven by a strong growth in residential and wholesale segments and accelerating momentum in the business and enterprise and government segments. EBITDA, before one-off items, grew 52.1% to AUD 89.6 million. During the year, we advanced the integration of the Over the Wire acquisition, positioning Aussie to reshape the telecommunications landscape. We have continued our long-term investment in building a strong and robust network, increasing our network's functionality, resilience, and redundancy. The Aussie Fibre Core network rollout was completed in FY 2023, bringing the majority of our backhaul requirements on net, resulting in improved margins. Aussie remains one of the most trusted brands in Australia and is Australia's most trusted telco.
The team is leveraging Aussie's strong reputation in the market and our award-winning customer experience to build relationships across all segments, including business and enterprise and government. During FY23, Aussie became a certified B Corp, the largest telco in Australia to achieve this accreditation. Being good to people is at the heart of what we do, and this milestone displays our commitment to being a force for good. We have also made strong progress across environmental, social, and governance metrics, improving our ESG framework, which will hold our actions to a higher standard of transparency and accountability. We know that gender diversity on the Aussie's board is of interest to our shareholders. The company had planned to announce the appointment of a new female director at the time of our end-of-year results announcement in August. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, this appointment could not proceed.
We are committed, however, to increasing the diversity of our board and immediately recommence the recruitment process. We are currently interviewing a shortlist. As Aussie Chair, I would like to emphasize that our commitment to improving gender diversity on the board is unquestionable. Aussie has also continued to implement an ambitious inclusion and diversity agenda over the past year, including appointing an inclusion and diversity manager, James Smith, who's in the room today, I think. Welcome, James. Establishing a gender equality working group, and delivering a range of programs and resources to promote awareness in areas including disability, neurodiversity, and LGBTIQ+ inclusive language. In FY24, Aussie Broadband introduced market-leading parental leave policy, which offers staff up to 26 weeks of parental leave at full pay for both primary and secondary carers.
This flagship parental leave policy was reviewed and endorsed by the People and Community Committee, which is chaired by Richard Dammery. If you would like further information about Aussie's inclusion, diversity programs, after the formal part of the meeting has concluded, our Chief People and Reputation Officer, Jane Betts, who's in the room, is in attendance and will be very happy to answer your questions. During the year, we welcomed new members to the executive leadership team, building overall capability by adding further technology and innovation depth together with systems and project management expertise. Expanding a business and doubling its size in a very short time would not have been possible without our incredible people at Aussie.
It's our strong belief that looking after our staff ensures they will go above and beyond and keep customers at the center of everything we do, delivering the market-leading Aussie customer experience. Now that we have transitioned into a diversified communications technology company, we are adopting a segment-specific go-to-market approach across sales, proposition, and customer service. In FY23, we developed core enabling research capabilities, segment-specific pricing, profiling, and product development frameworks, which help inform our approach to win market share and serve our customers in each segment. In FY24, we will continue to build on those pillars while maintaining Aussie's stated status as the most trusted telco in Australia, and strengthening our culture to continue to deliver amazing customer experience and strong growth across all segments.
I will now hand over to Phillip Britt, Aussie's Director and Co-founder, to provide an overview of our operational performance in FY23 and the outlook for Aussie going forward. Thank you.
Thanks, everyone, and good morning. My name is Phillip Britt, and I'm Aussie Broadband's Managing Director. Look forward to sharing with you the great progress we've made over the past year. In August, I returned from three months of long service leave, and I used this time off to travel and reflect on the past 20 years since we founded the companies that became Aussie Broadband. I came back from long service leave, re-engaged, and as committed to ever to seeing our company succeed, and I'm looking forward to leading us into FY24 and beyond. From the early beginnings as a small residential internet provider in regional Victoria, we've been focused on becoming a leading provider of communications and technology services. A game worth playing has been our internal model, internal motto, as we go after meaningful goals to support our strategic company direction.
For us, this is not about short-term objectives or copying what our competitors do. It's about building the base for our ambition, 2025 ambition to have over 1 million broadband services. To reach our aspiration, we continue to invest in our innovation, customer satisfaction, sustainable practices, and most importantly, our people. In FY23, we delivered on our strategic goals as we continued to build scale, strengthening our position as a provider of reliable and resilient network infrastructure. We did this by delivering on our commitment to provide quality communication services and exceptional customer experiences across all our segments. We've grown across all segments, and while I'm encouraged and I'm encouraged by our progress in business, enterprise, and government, and wholesale. We also leveraged our strategic investment in the fiber infrastructure and cutting-edge technology to deliver higher margins and significant cost savings.
A summary of our financial performance is on this slide, but our CFO, Brian Maher, will provide more flavor on this later in the meeting. As I outlined on our results day, I'm extremely happy with the results. Aussie Broadband has a strong track record of growth, with revenue growing at a CAGR of 60% since FY20. Importantly, we're delivering profitable growth, with EBITDA growing at a CAGR of 192% during the same period. The EBITDA margin before one-off items reached 11.4% in FY23. Aussie Broadband maintained its position as the Roy Morgan Most Trusted Telco in Australia. However, being with telco being the most distrusted industry in Australia, that doesn't represent a very high bar. What we're more proud of is that we're also named the 34th Most Trusted Brand in Australia across all segments.
In addition, we've secured 16 other awards this financial year, acknowledging the team's excellence in customer service, technology, and innovation. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the team for the work they do for our customers in this year. During the financial year, as Adrian mentioned, we continued to progress our ESG framework and achieve B Corp certification in August, following 18 months of hard work and data gathering. Being good to people and the community has always been in our DNA, and this achievement takes all that foundational work and helps us demonstrate that for-profit companies can also be good for the planet while delivering for shareholders. We're the largest telco in Australia to achieve be accredited as a B Corp and one of only 19 telcos in the world.
With an overall impact score of 96.3, we are one of the top performing B Corp businesses with more than 250 employees in Australia, putting us in the top six. Underpinning our B Corp certification are our community impact activities, which seek to build and foster strong, sustainable communities across Australia. Initiatives like our One Percent Pledge ensure that as Aussie grows, so does the reach and support that we provide. During FY 2023, we've directly and positively impacted 110,000 people through our Helping Communities Connect program, direct charity sponsorships, and the Small Change, Big Change program. At Aussie, we recognize the vital role businesses play in shaping the sustainable and equitable future. We've made strong progress towards reducing our carbon footprint during the year as well.
We remain carbon neutral for Scope 1 and 2 emissions, and decrease carbon emissions on a per full-time employee basis by 29% during the year. We've implemented initiatives to reduce our overall footprint, including purchasing carbon offset credits, transitioning to green power, and working with our supply chain to drive carbon reduction. We look forward to doing more in this space and into the future. Our work towards an equitable future has seen us focus on inclusion and diversity, fostering a workplace culture that champions equality and lives up to our values. Turning to more recent developments, in late September, Aussie confirmed that it submitted a conditional, non-binding, indicative proposal to acquire 100% of the shares in Symbio Holdings Limited, by way of a Scheme of Arrangement. We believe that Symbio's range of services and its platform would complement Aussie Broadband's NetSIP operations.
Symbio has three product sets: Communications Platform as a Service, Telecommunications as a Service, and Unified Communications as a Service. The business hosts 7.3 million phone numbers, carries over 9 billion voice minutes, and manages over 180,000 NBN voice and other services for MSP customers. In FY 2023, Symbio reported revenue of AUD 211 million, with an underlying EBITDA before one-off items of AUD 27.7 million. We're continuing our due diligence, and we'll provide an update to the market at an appropriate time. Aussie has started this financial year strong, with broadband connections increasing by 40,000 in the first quarter, including approximately 8,700 connections acquired from Uniti. This strong momentum has continued into October, with broadband connections now exceeding 740,000 as of yesterday.
Our NBN market share has now passed 8%, and our enterprise and government customer wins have continued in the first quarter as we continue to experience strong demand for our services. Year-to-date, revenue and EBITDA are in line with management's expectations. After a long few years, the NBN SAU has now been approved by the ACCC and will take effect from the first of December. The effect of the new SAU sees an increase in wholesale prices for 50 and below tiers, and a decrease in prices for speed tiers 100 and above at the wholesale level. Aussie has absorbed cost increases over the past three years and since our last price increase, but this wholesale construct requires refreshed pricing approach. Pleasingly, this has enabled us to reduce prices for all of our products at the 100 and above speeds.
We continue to strive to provide better value to our customers in order to sustain our industry-leading service levels in the long term, in the long term, but we've unfortunately had to increase some prices. I'd just like to point out an error on this slide. The 1000/50 plan should be AUD 129 under the new pricing, not AUD 119. Today, I'm pleased to reaffirm our FY 2024 guidance, and EBITDA range of AUD 100-110 million. This is an increase of 12%-23% compared to FY 2023, which includes the increased cost of acquisition, and increased investment in ESG marketing, as mentioned earlier in the presentation. CapEx is expected to be in the range of AUD 47-52 million, depending on customer demand for Aussie Fibre.
Our guidance excludes any costs and contributions from M&A activity. As we progress into FY 2024 and continue to build momentum to further drive our growth in the non-residential segments, we are committed to deepening our presence in the business and enterprise and government segments. This will be achieved through a focus on solution selling and providing tailored offerings that meet our unique needs for these segments, where we've also leveraged the trust that our customers have in Aussie Broadband brand to secure wins in the enterprise segment. The wholesale segment, and voice will continue to be a core pillar as we look to capture further market share. In line with our commitment to operational excellence, we'll continue to make targeted investments in fiber infrastructure and technology to deliver efficiencies and improve profitability.
While we continue to concentrate on expanding our presence in key segments, we're equally dedicated to supporting growth in the residential segment. We'll achieve this by investing in our network and our award-winning customer service, and continuing to support and grow our talented Australian team. Before I hand over to Adrian, I'd just like to mention that we had intended to host an Investor Day in November this year. We've now deferred this to the first half of calendar year 2024 due to our ongoing focus on M&A activity. With that, I'll hand over to Adrian to address the formal items for the meeting.
Thank you, Phil. Notice of this meeting and explanatory information was sent to all shareholders before this meeting, and I propose that the notice of the meeting be taken as read. I now turn to the business of today's meeting. There are six items that require a shareholder vote, and to ensure the views of shareholders are considered, I advise that I will be calling a poll on all resolutions. If you are present in person, you will have a yellow voting card, which you will be asked to complete and hand to the registry staff at the appropriate time. I will advise you when it's time to complete your voting card. If you need assistance, please ask one of the registry staff.
If you have a yellow voting card and need to leave early, you may, if you wish, hand your completed voting card to the staff at the registration desk as you leave. To cast your vote using the online platform, please click the Get A Voting Card button and follow the prompts. You may cast your live vote at any time during the meeting. I will give you a five-minute warning before we close the online voting platform. You will see a red bar appear along the top of the online platform with a countdown timer of how long you have remaining to cast your vote. I can confirm that I propose to vote those proxies left to my discretion as the Chair in favor of all resolutions.
Proxy votes received prior to the meeting will be shown on the screen for each item of business to be voted on today. Please note that Resolutions one, four, and five are subject to voting exclusions as outlined in the notice of meeting. The first item of ordinary business is the consideration of the financial report, directors' report, and auditors' report thereon for the year ended 30 June 2023. These reports were circulated as part of the annual report, which members received via printed hard copy, if they so elected, or are able to access on our website. I will now hand you over to our CFO, Brian Maher, who will give an overview of the financial performance for FY 23.
Thank you, Adrian. Good morning, all. My name is Brian Maher. I'm the Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary of Aussie Broadband, and I'm pleased to present the overview of the financial results for the year ended thirtieth of June 2023. In FY 2023, Aussie continued to deliver strong growth, with residential revenue increasing by 23%, while business and enterprise and government revenue grew 7% and 9% respectively. Wholesale revenue increased by almost AUD 38 million, with white label delivering connections and revenue growth, supplemented by growth in wholesale voice and data. Overall, gross margin improved 2.1 percentage points, up to 35.4%, which was driven by the reduced backhaul costs following the completion of our core fiber network build.
Employee expenses increased in line with revenue to AUD 123.7 million, while marketing expenses increased a modest 2.8% during the year. Further investment in marketing has been made as we enter FY 2024. Administration costs as a percentage of revenue was 4.1%, inclusive of increased investment in systems and software. The combination of these factors saw EBITDA before one-off items grow by 52.1% to AUD 89.6 million. Depreciation and amortization expenses increased 27% as the fiber assets were completed, and we continued to invest in our network infrastructure. NPAT before intangible amortization increased to AUD 37.4 million. Aussie's strong balance sheet supports our growth ambitions.
As at 30th June 2023, our cash balance was AUD 75 million, an increase of 57% when compared to the previous year, having also reduced our debt by AUD 25 million. The net leverage ratio at 30th June was marginally over 1x. Plant and equipment assets grew 43%, driven by fiber investments, and net assets increased by 8.6%. We had a strong year on the cash front, with operating cash flow of AUD 116.7 million, an increase of almost AUD 70 million. Our cash conversion ratio in FY 2023 was significantly improved, principally due to a once-off change in the NBN billing cycle at the end of FY 2023 and the resultant timing of our payments to NBN.
Net interest of AUD 7.1 million was up AUD 5.5 million, being the first full year of our new syndicated debt facility. There's plenty of headroom in our interest cover ratio, which is close to nine times. Deferred capital investments resulted in lower-than-expected investing cash flows. Financial year 2023 was another year of strong growth and solid financial performance for Aussie Broadband, and I'd like to thank all our shareholders for their continued support.
... Thank you, Brian. There is no requirement for shareholders to vote on these reports. However, you now have the opportunity to ask questions about the financial statements and reports for the year ended 30 June 2023. Please state your name or the organization you represent before doing so. As a reminder, I'll request questions from the phone attendees first, followed by online questions and then questions from the floor. Phone operator, are there any questions on the financial statements? There are no questions on the phone, Chair. Thank you. Are there any written questions on the financial statements, Ron?
Thank you, Chair. We have one question from John Whittington from the ASA, Australian Shareholders Association. He says, "One of the most common requests we get from retail shareholders is a five-year table of key operational and financial metrics. You have an abbreviated version of financial metrics in your remuneration report, but we would encourage you to have a more complete one somewhere in your main report. Aussie has a great story to tell, and such a table would both do this and be appreciated by retail shareholders.
Thank you. Richard and I did meet with John two or three weeks ago, and he raised the same point. We thanked him for raising that, which I think he raised in the previous year, and we'll undertake to do something along those lines in next year's annual report. Thank you, John.
There are no other questions in relation to the financial statements.
Thanks, Ron. Question from the floor? Thank you.
I'm a shareholder. Peter Colliero, I'm a shareholder. More a comment than a question. Well done on getting your debt down and increasing cash at the same time. You've had a really good year. Now, I realize that you're going through due diligence at the moment for the Symbio potential takeover, but if it does go ahead, are you intending to fund it by debt or how are you intending to fund it? I stress, if it does go ahead. That was it.
Thanks, John. Can we hold that question over? I'd just like to deal with the financial statements now, and we can deal with questions. I'm sure there'll be others around what's Phil announced in relation to Symbio. We're very limited to what we can say, but we'll say what we can perhaps at, in the general part of the, of the, the meeting. Any other questions in relation to the financial report directly? If there are no further questions or comments on the financial statements and reports, I will declare them as considered and received. We will now move to the resolutions on which shareholders, representatives and attorneys of shareholders and proxy holders are being asked to vote.
Resolution 1 is a non-binding ordinary resolution that relates to the adoption of the remuneration report for the year ended 30 June 2023, as set out in the notice of meeting and displayed on the screen, which is as follows: That for the purposes of Section 250R, subsection 2 of the Corporations Act, and for all other purposes, the Remuneration Report, as contained in the Directors' Report for the year ended 30 June 2023, 2023, be adopted. The results of the proxies received prior to the meeting are displayed on the screen. Phone operator, are there any questions in relation to this resolution? No questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Chair. We have one question again from John Whittington from the ASA, and he says: "I am a happy Aussie Broadband customer. I'd like to thank you, the board, and all Aussie Broadband employees on putting in the work to produce such a strong financial performance for shareholders during the year. Mr. Chairman, we expect companies to pay at least 50% of the short-term incentive in deferred equity. Can we expect this from Aussie in the near future?
Thank you. Thank you again, John. I'm gonna ask Richard Dammery, the chair of our Remuneration Committee, to actually make some comments in relation to John's request, in relation to deferment.
Thanks. Thanks, Adrian. We do actually have in place a deferred STI arrangement for the executive leadership group, and so John's question actually relates to deferral into scrip. One of the things we've sought to do from the time of the IPO with the Aussie remuneration principles has been to keep them as simple as possible. We've outlined in the remuneration report this year a number of things that we considered during the course of the year around appropriate rem structure. And while we're alive to the issue that John raises, I don't think it's our intention in the short term to adopt that, but we are going to continue to review the appropriate structure for both short-term incentive and long-term incentive as we go forward. So it's certainly on our radar.
I don't think we're in a position today to commit to make that change.
Thank you, Richie.
There are no other questions.
Thanks, Ron
... in relation to Resolution 1.
Questions from the floor in relation to Resolution 1? If not, I'll now formally put this resolution to the meeting. I will hand over to the chair of the People and Community Committee, Richard Dammery, to conduct Resolution 2 as it relates to my re-election.
I'll stay here, Adrian, perhaps rather than needing us-
Thank you
... to switch between the lectern. Thanks. So Resolution two relates to the re-election of Adrian Fitzpatrick as a director, as set out in the notice of meeting and displayed on the screen. Just to read you the resolution, that Adrian Fitzpatrick, who retires in accordance with Clause 14.3 of the Constitution, and being eligible, offers himself for re-election, be re-elected as a director of the company. The results of the proxies received prior to the meeting are displayed on the screen, and I'll now invite Adrian to say a few words in relation to his re-election.
Thanks very much, Richard. I'm very conscious that I'm here to serve shareholders and act in their best interests, and I thank shareholders for your support, for me and for the company to this point. I trust that my financial background and experience in working with entrepreneurial, growth-oriented companies during my business career of over 40 years, and the commercial acumen that you pick up along the way, will bring value to the board decision-making process at Aussie. I'm very much looking forward to the future as Aussie continues to develop and execute on its strategy in an industry which continues to undergo change at pace. I emphasize at pace, which will no doubt create opportunities for our company. Thank you all for your support.
Thanks, Adrian. Phone operator, are there any questions on Resolution Two?
There are no questions on the phone.
Okay, thank you. Are there any written questions on Resolution 2?
I have a statement and a question from John Whittington from the ASA. John says: "As the company is growing, we would encourage you to come more into line with normal practice for the larger ASX company you aspire to be, with greater independence and diversity of the board, as well as the publication of a genuine skills matrix, highlighting skills of each director individually in the annual report. Last year, the company asked for an increase in the director fee pool to accommodate a new director. However, we haven't seen any new director, and all directors are getting paid more. What's happening about the new director?
Thanks, John. I will speak to that in a moment, as part of my comments in relation to my own re-election. So if shareholders are happy, we'll just wait for a moment on that. In relation to the skills matrix and the other matters that John raised, as Adrian said earlier, we met with the ASA a few weeks ago. They flagged those issues to us. We've taken those comments on board and, we will, look to provide a bit more detail in our board skills matrix next year.
There are no further questions online.
Okay, great. Thank you. I'll now formally put this resolution to the meeting. The resolution, results are shown on the screen. I'll now hand it, back to the chair, to Adrian. Thanks, Adrian.
Thank you, Richard. Bouncing the ball around here. Resolution 3 relates to the re-election of Richard Dammery as director, as set out in Notice of the Meeting and displayed on the screen, and which is as follows: That Richard Dammery, who retires in accordance with Clause 14.3 of the company's constitution, and being eligible, offers himself for re-election, be re-elected as a director of the company. The results of the proxies received prior to the meeting are displayed on the screen. I'd like to take this opportunity to provide my unequivocal support for Richard's re-election. In addition to his role as Chair of the company's People and Community Committee, which has seen meaningful initiatives and progress made in the inclusion and diversity space, Richard's expertise in remuneration, governance, M&A, strategy, and the telco sector generally, is an enormous asset to Aussie's board.
I invite Richard to address the meeting in relation to his re-election.
Thanks, Adrian, and good morning, everybody. As you can see from the percentages on the screen, there has been a substantial vote against my re-election, and therefore, I'm going to make slightly more extensive comments now than perhaps might be usual. But firstly, can I begin by saying I've been delighted to serve on your board since before Aussie's listing in 2020. It's obviously been a busy period, as you've heard, with the company experiencing strong growth on all key measures, rolling out its fiber network, acquiring and integrating Over the Wire, and establishing a strong competitive presence in business, enterprise, and government markets.
Aussie's been on a journey as a relatively new listed company, and I've actively supported the maturing of our governance practices, particularly as they relate to people, culture, remuneration, and our community participation in my role as Chair of the People and Community Committee. Aussie doesn't have a separate nominations committee, but we do handle nominations within the scope of the People and Community Committee's work. Many important changes have taken place in Aussie in the past three years, and none more significant than Aussie's recognition this year as a B Corporation. Both, Adrian and Phil have talked about our B Corp certification, and we're obviously very proud of it. But I might just highlight a couple of things about B Corp certification for those who may not be aware of it.
It's a designation that a business is meeting high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on a range of factors. In order to achieve certification, you have to demonstrate a number of things. Firstly, a company has to demonstrate high social and environmental performance by achieving a B Impact Assessment Score of 80 or above, and you heard from Phil earlier that we achieved substantially higher than that. Secondly, you must make a legal commitment by changing your corporate governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders and not just to shareholders. And thirdly, which we did, by the way, when we amended our constitution last year. And thirdly, you must exhibit transparency by allowing information about your performance to be measured against B Lab standards and made publicly available on their website.
Aussie's always sought to do the right thing, and its B Corp certification, which was overseen by the board through the committee that I chair, is tangible evidence of this. Turning to my credentials as a non-executive director, I currently serve on a range of significant boards, including Australia Post, WiseTech Global, and Salta Properties. I'm a fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, a member of its Corporate Governance Committee, and an adjunct professor at Monash Business School, where I teach a course in corporate governance to the MBA programs. Until recently, I also chaired Creative Partnerships Australia, the Australian Government's primary body for developing philanthropic support for the creative industries in Australia. I started in telecommunications back in 1995, when I was recruited by Telstra to help it prepare for deregulation, which took place actually on 1 July 1997. Seems like a long time ago.
From there, I joined Telecom New Zealand, now Spark and Chorus, initially as general counsel, though I then spent many years as the executive responsible for wholesale and interconnect, and also network and capital planning for New Zealand's national telephone network. After Telecom acquired AAPT in Australia, I took the reins on the challenger side as the group director of infrastructure and head of AAPT's Fiber Direct business, known then as AAPT Direct and VicOne . Hopefully, you can see that all of this is fairly relevant to my role on the board here at Aussie.
I moved for a period from telecommunications into the retail sector, but returned to an advisory role, where my telecommunications clients included Singtel, Optus, NBN, Crown Fibre Holdings in New Zealand, M2 Group, Primus, the Australian Government's Department of Communications, which I advised in relation to the NBN project, the New Zealand Government's Department of Commerce, and a range of other industry participants. As an M&A practitioner, I've transacted over AUD 30 billion in buy and sell-side transactions over the course of my career. In other words, I have enjoyed broad experience over nearly 30 years, and I look to bring this into the boardroom to support, and from time to time, appropriately challenge Phil, the management team of Aussie, as we continue to grow your company. I now turn to the issues that have led to the vote against my re-election.
By way of context, in the lead up to this meeting, the Chair, Adrian Fitzpatrick, and I met with a number of shareholders, proxy advisors, and other important stakeholders, such as the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors. One proxy advisor, whom we had offered to meet but who declined engagement, wrote a report recommending against my re-election on the grounds that, firstly, the board lacks female representation versus the expected 30% target, and secondly, that the company lacks a formal diversity policy and has failed to establish measurable objectives for achieving gender diversity. At last year's AGM, the Aussie board committed to appoint another female director. We were quite clear about that, and Adrian spoken about that again this morning. We conducted a search. We found a highly suitable candidate, but at her request, we delayed announcing her appointment so she could rearrange her portfolio.
Regrettably, for all of us, before we could announce, the selected candidate became involved in certain governance issues in another listed company, and after careful consideration, the Aussie board formed the view that as the first non-executive appointment post our IPO, we should not, in the circumstances, proceed. We immediately commenced a further search, which is now well advanced, and we expect, as Adrian has outlined, to appoint another female director in the coming months. I should say that we only have one female non-executive at this point in Vicky, is not because we want it that way. It's because we exercise judgment on behalf of shareholders earlier in the year when we had a near-completed appointment process. In relation to inclusion and diversity, it's true that Aussie does not have a diversity policy for the reasons outlined in our corporate governance statement.
It's not true that we failed to take these matters seriously or that we do not measure performance. We're not hiding here. Since the IPO, Aussie has explained its deep-seated belief that inclusion should be driven by culture and not by policy. The company has a mature inclusion and diversity program that includes initiatives in relation to gender diversity, gender expression, neurodiversity, LGBTIQ+ networks, menopause, veterans issues, and Aussie's Reconciliation Action Plan, to call out a few of the many areas of focus. In particular, Aussie has formed a gender diversity working group with task forces for female representation and mentoring, parental leave engagement, and anti-discrimination culture.
You've already heard from my colleagues that this year we launched a market-leading parental leave policy with equal benefits for primary and secondary carers, including up to 26 weeks of paid parental leave at full pay, and enhanced provisions for other caregivers, such as foster parents and grandparents. The company's recently introduced a new staff engagement tool, which has produced strong initial indications that we rate within the top 10% of participating employers in relation to staff engagement generally and inclusion and diversity in particular. This context, both in relation to board gender diversity and broader diversity and inclusion considerations, was explained to the shareholders with whom the chair and I met prior to the AGM. The general consensus appeared to be that our decisions and practices were consistent with responsible governance, and people accepted our commitment to add at least one more female director to our board.
It's regrettable, therefore, that one leading proxy advisor issued a report recommending against my re-election as a protest vote and without the benefit of hearing Aussie's strong commitment. The chair and I again offered to meet with this proxy advisor, and I've also written to them personally. As of this morning, I haven't received a response. The company will consider the feedback in relation to publication of a diversity policy and targets for board gender diversity, but we offer this in the belief that we already have robust systems and programs in place, and we're doing the right thing. Finally, can I say that I'm very aware that I serve on the Aussie board at the shareholders' pleasure, and I don't take shareholder support for granted. When I have it, it's greatly appreciated, and if re-elected, I'll continue to work hard to represent your interests in the Aussie boardroom.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Richard, for those words. Phone operator, are there any questions on resolution three?
Chair, there are no questions on the phones.
Thank you. Any written questions, Ron?
Thank you, Chair. There are no questions online in relation to resolution three.
Are there any questions from the floor in relation to this resolution? If not, I now formally put this resolution to the meeting and move to resolution four.
Resolution 4 relates to the amendment to terms of certain options issued to current and former executive directors under the Long Term Incentive Plan, and ratification of the grant of those options are set out in the notice of meeting and displayed on the screen, and which is as follows: That for the purposes of Listing Rule Six. Two. Three. Four, Listing Rule Ten. One. Four, and for all other purposes, shareholders approve the amendment to the terms of 1.307130 options issued to current and former executive directors under the LTI plan, and ratify the grant of such options and the issue of shares following any exercise of the options, in each case on the terms and conditions set out in the explanatory memorandum to this notice.
The results of the proxies received prior to the meeting are displayed on the screen. Phone operator, are there any questions in relation to resolution four?
Chair, there are no questions on the phone.
Thank you. Any written questions, Ron?
Thank you, Chair. I have a statement from John Whittington from the ASA. He says, "We cannot support your long-term incentive scheme as it has no performance hurdles attached to it. It is only over three years, which isn't really that long term, and is based on options that are difficult to value properly. Now you're past your IPO, we'd like to suggest that now is the time to start planning for a four, five, or more year scheme with performance hurdles paid with rights that are more transparent to shareholders rather than options.
Thanks, Ron. Thank you, John. Again, this is something we did discuss with John a few weeks ago. This is something that is under continual review. Richard, would you like to add anything further than what we've already said in this regard?
I'll just make a couple of comments, Adrian. I think it's all very well to say that three years isn't a very long time, but look at what's happened in the history of this company in three years, right? A lot happens in Aussie in three years, and I think setting incentives that go beyond a three-year horizon while we're in such significant growth and change mode, it would require quite a lot of crystal ball gazing. We did do a, we did do a review of long-term incentive during the year. We said we were going to do that last year, and we specifically considered whether we should move from simply issuing options to issuing performance rights in addition to, or instead of options.
We decided in the end, based on the same principle I mentioned earlier about simplicity, that we'd stick with the option scheme. We believe it provides very strong alignment between management's incentives and shareholders. In some companies, you worry that perhaps an option scheme alone might drive a focus on shareholder value creation at the expense of doing other things that are important, non-financial things, doing the right thing, if you like. The board doesn't have that concern at Aussie, not least because of the strong commitment that we've shown through the B Corp certification process. So we actually think the settings are right as they stand today. We hear the feedback from the ASA. We understand why they say that. We'll continue to think about these issues carefully.
But at the moment and in relation to the point about there not being performance hurdles, well, of course, there are performance hurdles in options. It's called growth in the share price. So we think that's also appropriate. We take the point on uncertainty around the application of the Black-Scholes option valuation pricing model, which includes some level of probability assessment. But again, we approach that as a board with the benefit of external advice. We turn our mind to the calculations, and we reserve judgment in relation to that. So we think we've got a robust process here. We appreciate the opportunity to explain that to shareholders this morning, but I think, at least for the time being, we're not contemplating further change.
Thank you, Richard. I think it's clear from that, that this is an area that's under constant review, and will continue to be so going forward, and we'll continue to design things that we think are appropriate for the time. Thank you, Richard.
... in regards to Resolution 4.
Thank you, Ron. I now formally put this resolution—Oh, sorry, any questions from the floor in relation to this resolution? If not, I now formally put this resolution to the meeting and move to Resolution five.
Resolution 5 relates to the ratification of shares issued and options granted to employees other than executive directors under the Aussie Broadband Long Term Incentive Plan and Tax Exempt Employee Share Plan, respectively, as set out in the notice of the meeting and displayed on the screen, which is as follows: That for the purposes of Listing Rule 7.4, and for all other purposes, shareholders ratify the issue of 112,847 fully paid ordinary shares, and the grant of 1,714,383 options in the company to employees of the company, other than executive directors, under the rules of the company's Tax Exempt Employee Share Plan and Long Term Incentive Plan, respectively. Details of which are set out in the explanatory memorandum to this notice.
The results of the proxies received to the meeting are displayed on the screen. Phone operator, are there any questions in relation to Resolution 5?
Chair, there are no questions on the phone.
Thank you. John?
There are no questions online as well.
Thanks, Ron. Any questions from the floor in relation to this resolution? If not, I now formally, I now formally put this resolution to the meeting and move to Resolution six. Resolution six is a special resolution, which requires support by at least 75% of the shareholders present and entitled to vote on the resolution. It relates to renewal of the proportional takeover approval, approval provisions, as set out in the notice of the meeting and displayed on the screen, which is as follows: That the proportional takeover provisions contained in Clause 12 of the Constitution be renewed for a further period of three years, as detailed in the explanatory memorandum of this notice, and commencing on the date that this resolution is passed. The results of the proxies received prior to the meeting are displayed on the screen. Phone operator, do we have any questions?
Chair, there are no questions on the phone.
Thank you. Ron, any questions?
No questions online either.
Thank you. Are there any questions from the floor in relation to this resolution? If not, I now formally put this resolution to the meeting also. Before I open up the final questions, a reminder to shareholders and proxy holders in the room to complete the voting instructions on the yellow voting card. Yellow voting cards will be collected shortly by representatives of the share registry. Shareholders and proxy holders attending online will now have five minutes to submit their votes via the online platform. The polls will then close. A countdown timer will appear at the top of the screen in the online platform. Please complete your voting, and remember to press Submit before you disconnect from the meeting. Following general questions, I will declare the polls closed. I now open the floor for general questions, dealing with the order that we've been working through.
Phone operator, any general questions?
Chair, there are no general questions on the phone.
Thank you. Ron?
Thank you, Chair. There is one question from John Whittington from the ASA. As a technology company that allows customers to watch high-quality video at home, why not your AGM? Will you be loading a recording of this meeting onto your website?
Who's gonna take that one?
I believe the intent is to load a recording of the AGM onto online, just like our other investor calls and so on that we do. We do load up recordings of those calls as well.
There are no other questions online.
Thank you, Ron. Questions from the floor, keeping in mind, John, your question as well. John, I think your question was around if there was an acquisition of some sort, how might that be funded?
Debt. Debt is the people.
Yeah. I think I should ask the CFO to actually make a comment there. Brian?
Yeah, I think, at this stage, we're intending to fund the cash portion of the acquisition through new debts.
Thank you. Any other questions? If not, I will now formally declare the meeting closed, and the polls will remain open for five minutes after the meeting to complete your voting. The final results of the poll will be released to the market on the ASX announcements platform website as soon as they are available. That does conclude the formal part of business to be considered at the meeting. Thank you for your attendance, and please feel free to stay on and mingle and chat with the board and as members of management team here as well. Thank you all again.