This is Australian Clinical Labs Fourth AGM, and it gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to the meeting today. My name is Michael Alscher, and I have the privilege of being the Chair of your Board. I would like to start by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today, which for me, in the city of Sydney, is the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I also acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and the places from which our participants join us for this virtual AGM, and their connections to land, sea, and community. I pay my respects to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples here today. I've been informed by our company secretary that we have a quorum present, and I now declare the meeting open.
Before we begin with today's agenda, I would like to introduce my fellow board members who are present at the AGM today. Here in Sydney, I'm joined by the Chair of our Remuneration and Nominations Committee, Mr. Andrew Dutton, the Chair of our Audit and Risk Committee, Mr. Mark Haberlin, and also Ms. Christine Bartlett and Mr. Nathanial Thomson. Our Company Secretary, Mrs. Eleanor Padman, is also joining us virtually from Sydney. Joining us virtually from Melbourne is our Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director, Melinda McGrath, and fellow director, Leanne Rowe. They're joined by Lana Hudson, our Deputy CFO, and in Melbourne is ACL's auditor, Stephen Whitchurch, from Pitcher Partners. Stephen will be available to answer questions that shareholders may have in relation to the 2024 financial statements and the conduct of the 2024 audit.
I will now take a moment to explain the interactive features of the webcast platform that we're using today. A virtual meeting online guide was sent to shareholders with a notice of meeting, and I'll now run through the key features. To vote, you'll need to register by clicking on the Get a Voting Card button and providing your security holder number and post code. If you're an appointed proxy, please enter the proxy number issued by Link in the proxy details section. Once you have registered, your voting card will appear with the resolutions to be voted on by shareholders during today's meeting. You may need to use the scroll bar to view all resolutions. On your voting card, you will see an option to enter a full vote or partial vote. To vote, you can click For, Against, or Abstain.
If you wish to submit a partial vote, please enter the number of votes you wish to lodge from the total you see displayed for each resolution. Once you've finished voting on all resolutions, please click Submit Vote. At the end of the meeting, a countdown timer will appear, and voting will end five minutes after the close of the meeting. Please ensure you get your votes in on time. To ask questions, shareholders can simply click Ask a Question. Depending on the volume of questions, we'll focus on answering the most frequently asked questions. I would also ask that you confine your questions and comments to the business of the AGM. If there is a technical issue that impacts the webcast, we ask for your patience while we work to address it as quickly as we can.
If a technical issue results in me being unable to continue to chair today's meeting for a period of time, Mark Haberlin is appointed chair in my place and will continue with the meeting until the technical issues are resolved. The notice of meeting for the AGM was made available to all shareholders, and I propose that it be taken as read. The notice of meeting can be found on our website under the Investor Centre tab, and there is also a link on the AGM platform if we wish to download it from there. Today, I'll begin with my chair's address. Then I'll invite our CEO and Executive Director, Melinda McGrath, to provide an overview of the FY 2024 financial and operational achievements and FY 2025 trading to date. We will then move to the formal part of the meeting.
The notice of the meeting that was sent to shareholders contained four resolutions, as well as the formal tabling of ACL's 2024 financial statements and auditor's report. We will now only be putting three resolutions to the meeting for shareholders to consider. Resolution 3, which concerned the granting of rights to our CEO, Melinda McGrath, has been withdrawn. This is because ACL has recently entered into a new contractual arrangement with Melinda, which included a new remuneration package, which we announced to the ASX on 14 October. As such, this resolution is no longer required and is redundant. We will take questions as we address each item of business, and we will try to move at pace to ensure that we complete the agenda in our allocated time.
In financial year 2024, ACL once again demonstrated the resilience, medical excellence, and commitment required to meet the challenges of a financial year full of complex environmental demands, and produced some fantastic results for our shareholders. On behalf of the board, I would like to extend my gratitude to ACL's dedicated staff, whose expertise and commitment continue to positively impact our doctor and patient communities around Australia. I would also like to thank Melinda and the senior executive team for their experience, leadership, and dedication to the continual improvement that is at the heart of ACL's success. I would like to take this opportunity to also thank our retiring board members, Mr. Andrew Dutton and Nathanial Thomson. Both have added their significant expertise to the ACL board and will be missed.
A recruitment process is in place to commence recruitment of new board members, and we hope to make some announcements before Christmas. By FY 2024, FY 2024 was a year in which the dust from the pandemic finally began to settle, and we began to see clear signs of recovery in the pathology sector. There were still many external challenges, largely stemming from the pandemic, including ongoing inflation, a sluggish return to pre-pandemic routine pathology testing, and lingering healthcare availability issues. Despite this, the ACL team delivered some outstanding results, as summarized below. In FY 2024, ACL generated revenue of just shy of AUD 700 million, which was in line with FY 2023, despite a near 60% decline in COVID revenue.
ACL achieved an underlying EBIT of AUD 62.6 million, which was realized via a strong second half performance of AUD 39.1 million and 11% margin, and an underlying net profit after tax for the full year of AUD 31.6 million. The company announced a final fully franked dividend of AUD 0.09 per share, which, when combined with the interim dividend, has delivered total fully franked dividends for the last financial year of AUD 0.12 per share. This represents a 4.6% fully franked dividend yield based on the share price on the twenty-seventh of August, when our results were announced. ACL has continued to focus on operational improvement, allowing profit margins to stay constant despite the external pressures mentioned above. We continue to evaluate potential acquisitions, but we will only progress with appropriately priced and accretive acquisitions.
Key targets include domestic pathology, strategically aligned domestic adjacencies, as well as international pathology. We expect to advance some doctors' acquisitions as well during the course of the next financial year. ACL is in its fourth year of the execution of our ESG strategy, and it continues to deliver strong performance, positive change over time. ACL acknowledges the significance of environmental, social, and governance priorities as a strategic enabler, enhancing our long-term resilience and sustainability, but also actively contributing to the well-being of our society. Key ESG highlights for FY 2024 include the implementation of cold chain logistics, removing approximately 26 tonnes of packaging, increasing the number of hybrid cars across the group, and further optimization of route planning for courier pickups, resulting in a 9% reduction in kilometers per episode.
ACL rolled out our Respect at Clinical Labs campaign to all staff with the aim of increasing awareness of respectful behavior and prevention of sexual harassment while improving personal safety and psychosocial health and well-being. We have further improved gender diversity at both the board and executive level, with female board representation at 43% and female executive representation at 33%. ACL has continued its cyber security program and has continued to improve its NIST score. Our Chief Information Security Officer was appointed governing our cyber risk management processes. The board also endorsed ACL preparing a Reconciliation Action Plan, so for submission to Reconciliation Australia. A working group was established and a draft Reconciliation Action Plan was prepared and submitted to Reconciliation Australia during FY 2024. ACL intends to launch its Reconciliation Action Plan in FY 2025.
In FY 2024, the federal government announced indexation to approximately one-third of the total pathology items. While the industry appreciates the indexation, unfortunately, this change has been largely offset by fee cuts on certain tests. Meanwhile, the remaining two-thirds of items remain unindexed. Suffice to say, this was not the outcome we were expecting. ACL, along with other providers, will continue to build awareness through our strong patient community networks of more than 1.2 million people per week to engage, educate, and ultimately create a more sustainable pathology sector. The board announced a 12-month on-market share buyback program of up to 20 million ACL shares, which equates to approximately 10% of the company's outstanding share capital.
This decision was made possible due to the strong balance sheet position ACL has built in recent years, with net debt of only AUD 28.9 million as at the end of FY 2024, when you exclude lease liabilities. We believe, based on this strong balance sheet and cash conversion, that a share buyback program may provide an opportunity to enhance value for shareholders without compromising the company's strong capital position and ability to execute on its growth strategy. The buyback is expected to reduce the shares on issue with a resulting improvement in earnings per share, dividends per share, and return on equity. The board and I strongly believe, given ACL's outlook, this is a sensible use of our balance sheet capacity at this time.
With the fallout and disruption of twenty years of pathology growth due to the global pandemic starting to ease, ACL has successfully weathered the storm and emerges in a position of resilience and strength. We have a strong balance sheet, a diverse customer base, and are poised to capitalize on a return to stronger growth levels. ACL is an essential service at the forefront of an array of new technological advancements that enhance the health of our patients. I see ACL benefiting from these technological developments, population demographic changes, and the aging population. Once again, I'd like to thank my fellow directors and the entire ACL group for their truly commendable efforts and their steadfast commitment to our mission, and to you, our shareholders, for being an integral part of our journey. Thank you. I'd like to now hand you over to Melinda McGrath for the Group CEO presentation.
Thanks, Michael. Financial year twenty-four has been a year of transition for the healthcare and subsequently the pathology sector as we move out of a COVID environment. The ongoing lag in healthcare recruitment due to a lack of immigration when borders were closed, workforce retirement through the pandemic, and billing practice changes leading to reduced GP hours nationally, continued to affect the entire industry throughout the first half of financial year twenty-four. I'm pleased that this did improve in the second half. Returning medical and nursing practitioners helped remove hospital bottlenecks, GP availability improved greatly, and we're starting to see a return to more normal ordering patterns, which is terrific news for the future health of Australians. Consequently, our twenty twenty-four results are a tale of two halves, underpinned by the resilience and diversification of our business.
ACL teams have yet again successfully steered the company through an unpredictable and changing external environment and produced a great set of results. Our key financial metrics include: in the twelve months to the thirtieth of June, 2024, revenue of AUD 696 million, in line with financial year 2024 guidance and financial year 2023 revenue, despite a 59% decline in COVID-19 revenue. Non-COVID revenue of AUD 646.7 million, up 5.4% on financial year 2023, with half two up 6.9% on the prior corresponding period. Underlying EBITDA of AUD 191 million, up 1.3% on financial year 2023, again, noting the decreased COVID revenue.
Underlying EBIT of AUD 62.6 million, in line with financial year 2024 guidance, with half two at an 11% margin and half one at a 7% margin. Adjusting for the decline in COVID revenue, financial year 2024 underlying EBIT grew by 24%. Underlying NPAT was AUD 31.6 million. Free cash flow before interest, tax, and financing was AUD 54.4 million, up 4% on financial year 2023. And we declared a final fully franked dividend of AUD 0.12 per share, a dividend yield of 4.6%. ACL's ability to drive continuous operational improvement through focused KPI improvement programs has helped us to hold margins constant, despite subdued volumes and industry cost pressures. Culturally, we have a laser focus on performance, and this cascades throughout the organization and is aligned with the requirements of our patients, referrers, and shareholders.
Our project management office has a range of operational improvement projects underway, which are rolled out nationally onto our unified laboratory information system. ACL is the only national laboratory in Australia with a single instance of its LIS interconnected across the country, allowing pathologists and scientists to work in a borderless manner. It enhances our agility, it negates size differential, and enhances our operational leverage. In financial year 2024, we have completed several projects which have been rolled out nationally. They include upgrades to blood banking and life-saving emergency medicine, machine learning and automation of our blood film production, which improves hematologist productivity, cybersecurity upgrades and additional specialized cyber staff, upgrades to our electronic results platform, major networking upgrades for the Clayton Laboratory, deployment of a cloud-based dictation system for pathologists, and improvements to our telehealth platform for patient electronic requesting.
Our growth strategy is centered around six pillars: a disciplined network expansion, indexation campaign, growth of strategic new business, accretive acquisitions, billing enhancements, and operational improvements. Financial year 2024 illustrated our strategic focus on disciplined network expansion and profitable revenue to preserve margins. We chose not to drastically reduce our footprint, as we are consistent in our review of margin-producing revenue. We continued to replace lower-performing collection centers with better-performing sites, which resulted in an improvement in the mix. Our Medlab investment has continued to grow revenue, which, at the time of acquisition, offered a low routine pathology volumes due to it being situated in a COVID outbreak area. In financial year 2024, we continued our focus on advanced genetic testing, with ACL capturing a disproportionate share of the genetic carrier screening market, and we made further headway into the non-invasive prenatal testing market.
ACL and Geneseq are due to launch Melaseq, our melanoma tissue and blood test, with commercialization to commence imminently. This test features world-first cutting-edge science and is aimed at patients who are considered high risk for melanoma, of which there are approximately 2 million in Australia alone. The launch of these tests fits strategically with our SunDoctors business, as well as our surgical referral processes. We reaffirm our guidance of an underlying EBIT of $65 million-$73 million. This financial year to the 23rd of October has seen daily volume growth of 6%. Please note that while good growth, a trend has not been established as market volumes dropped off in the second quarter of financial year 2024. Like financial year 2024, we expect absolute volumes of the second half, financial year 2025, to be stronger than the first half.
I would like to finish by thanking our pathologists and scientists for their leadership, and clinical labs teams across the country for their unwavering focus on our vision, our values, and their customer centricity. I would like to call out our executive and management teams and highlight again their continued focus on performance of all types.
I also thank our shareholders for their continued support. And finally, I'd like to warmly thank our retiring board members for their teamwork, service, and expertise. It has been valued highly. Thank you, Michael.
Thank you, Melinda. I would now like to proceed with the formal business of the meeting. The first item of business is to table and consider the financial statements for the year ended thirty June twenty twenty-four, together with the director's report and the auditor's report, which are included in our twenty twenty-four annual report, and which have been published on our website. I formally table the twenty twenty-four financial statements of ACL for the financial year ended thirty June twenty twenty-four, the director's report, and the auditor's report. I will take all these reports as read. We will now take any questions submitted via the virtual meeting platform. Are there any questions for Melinda or for me in relation to the company's performance or any of the matters raised by Melinda in her address?
Michael, we've had three questions from a shareholder, Mr. Arthur. They're on the same topic, namely the Healius merger, so I'm going to paraphrase them. Essentially, the question is: Why did we think Healius was an appropriate takeover target? And what discussions did we have with the ACCC about the structure of the pathology industry?
Thanks, Ellie. Look, I'm not sure there is any value in prosecuting this at this stage, given the merger is no longer moving forward, and we just say we have a very different view in regards to the success of the merger, and the value for both groups of shareholders in a merger is considerable. I'd also like to state that the ACCC's response was not unexpected. Any other questions, Ellie?
We have no other questions on this item of business.
Great, thank you. The next item of business is the non-binding shareholder resolution to consider the adoption of ACL's 2024 remuneration report. The remuneration report is contained within the 2024 directors' report and forms part of the 2024 financial statements and reports. Ellie, are there any questions in relation to this resolution?
Michael, there are no questions in relation to this resolution.
Thank you. Displayed now on the screen are the proxies that have been received to date. Any votes from directors, key management personnel, and their associates have been excluded from this resolution. As Chair, I intend to vote all undirected proxies in favor of the resolution. I now move for the members to consider, and if in favor, to pass the following resolution: That for the purposes of Section 250R(2) of the Corporations Act, and for all other purposes, the remuneration report of the company for the financial year ended 30 June 2024, as disclosed in the directors' report, be adopted. Please, can you all take a moment to cast your vote? Thank you. As the next resolution concerns my re-election as a director, I will now invite Mr. Mark Haberlin to act as Chair for this section of the meeting.
Thank you, Mark.
Thank you, Michael, and good morning. This resolution is to consider the re-election of Mr. Michael Alscher in accordance with the Corporations Act and ACL's constitution. Michael is the Chair of our board and has been a Non-Executive Director of ACL since December 2020, prior to ACL's IPO. Michael was previously a Non-Executive Director of Clinical Labs Proprietary Limited, ACL's principal operating subsidiary, as part of its acquisition by Crescent Capital Partners in 2015. In accordance with ACL's constitution, Michael now stands for formal re-election by shareholders following the conclusion of his first three-year term, following the IPO. As shareholders will be aware, Crescent Capital recently divested its shareholding following a nine-year commitment to the business, which saw its transformation from a small business to its current status as a listed company in the ASX 300.
Michael remains a shareholder of ACL in his personal capacity, and the board is extremely grateful for his willingness to continue as a non-executive director and in the role of Chair, given his significant expertise in the healthcare sector and his deep knowledge of ACL's operations. The board believes that Michael's re-election will bring continuity and stability for the board as ACL continues to mature as a listed business. The board, with Michael abstaining, unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of his re-election. Ellie, are there any questions in relation to this resolution?
Mark, there are no questions in relation to this resolution.
Thank you. Displayed now on the screen are the proxies that have been received to date. As Chair of the meeting for this resolution, I intend to vote all undirected proxies in favor of the resolution. I now put the resolution as follows: That Mr. Michael Alscher, retiring as a director of the company in accordance with Rules 6.1(f)(1)(a) and 6.1 (g) of the company's constitution, and who has consented to stand for re-election and being eligible, be re-elected as a director of the company in accordance with Rule 6.1 (i) of the company's constitution. Please, can you all take a moment to cast your votes? Thank you. I will now hand the chair back to Michael.
Thank you, Mark. And now to the final resolution for today's meeting, being Resolution Four in the notice of meeting. This resolution relates to the renewal of shareholder approval to maintain the company's LTVR plan, so that ACL can issue securities from time to time to eligible employees as part of performance-based remuneration, as an exception to ACL's placement capacity under ASX Listing Rule 7.1. The LTVR plan was last approved at ACL's first AGM in 2021. Under the ASX Listing Rules, shareholder approval must be renewed every three years. The board has the discretion to determine which employees are eligible to participate in the LTVR plan and the number of securities they will be offered.
The purpose of the LTVR plan is to align the interests of employees with the interests of shareholders by providing an opportunity for employees to receive an equity interest in the company. Resolution Four seeks shareholders' approval for the adoption of the LTVR plan for the purposes of ASX Listing Rule 7.2 , Exception 13(b) , as an exception to ASX Listing Rule 7.1 , whereby shareholders may approve in advance the issue of securities made under the LTVR plan as an exception to the limit under Listing Rule 7.1 . Further details concerning the LTVR plan and the number of rights issued since the LTVR plan was last approved by shareholders at the twenty twenty-one AGM, set out in the notice of meeting.
As of the date of this meeting, the company proposes that the maximum number of securities to be granted under the LTVR plan within the three-year period following approval of this resolution, will not exceed 10,091,701 rights, being 5% of the shares on issue as at thirteenth September 2024, when the notice for today's meeting was finalized. The board unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of this resolution. Ellie, are there any questions in relation to this resolution?
Michael, there are no questions in relation to this resolution.
Thanks, Ellie. Displayed now on the screen are the proxies that have been received to date. As chair of the meeting, I intend to vote all undirected proxies in favor of the resolution. I will now put the resolution as follows: That for the purpose of ASX Listing Rule 7.2 , Exception 13, and for all other purposes, approval is given to maintain the company's LTVR plan on the terms and conditions described in the explanatory memorandum accompanying this notice of meeting, and for the issue of securities pursuant to the LTVR plan, as an exception to ASX Listing Rule 7.1 . Please, can you all take a moment to cast your vote? Thank you. Fellow shareholders, that now concludes the formal part of the meeting. Voting is about to end, so please take a moment to ensure that your votes have been submitted.
Once all the votes have been reconciled by our share registry, Link Market Services, the results will be published on the ASX later today. Thank you all for attending our fourth AGM and for your continued support of our company. Thank you again, and goodbye.