Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Neil Chatfield. As Chairman, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the company's 2021 Annual General Meeting. As you are aware, in response to the government restrictions and the health risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, the board determined to hold this year's Annual General Meeting virtually. We very much appreciate your understanding at this challenging time and for joining our virtual meeting. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which I am presenting from today, the Wallumettagal Clan of the Eora people, and pay my respects to elders past and present. Turning to the agenda for today's meeting, I note that it is now past 11:00 A.M. and that this is a properly constituted meeting. As a quorum for the General Meeting is present, I formally declare the 2021 Annual General Meeting open.
I'd like to thank those shareholders who submitted questions ahead of today's meeting, and we will respond to those questions during my address, CEO's address, or over the course of the meeting. If you feel your question has not been adequately addressed, then please feel free to resubmit through the platform, and we will look to answer it over the course of the meeting. Let me now introduce you to the Board of Directors and the company s ecretary, some of whom are present with me today and others who, like you, are attending the meeting virtually. Those of us in the room are practicing appropriate social distancing measures in line with government health guidelines. Firstly, Trevor Croker, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. Kathleen Conlon. Kathleen is the Chair of our People and Culture Committee and a member of the Board Audit Committee. Arlene Tansey.
Arlene is the Chair of the Board Audit Committee and a member of the Regulatory and Compliance Committee. Philippe Etienne is a member of the Regulatory and Compliance Committee and People and Culture Committee. Richard Bell is the Corporate General Counsel and Company Secretary. Joining us from the U.S. by audio is Pat Ramsey, Lead U.S. Director, Chair of the Regulatory and Compliance Committee and a member of the Board Audit Committee. Sylvia Summers, a member of the Board Audit Committee and People and Culture Committee, is also joining. We also welcome Matt Graham and his colleagues from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the company's auditors, who join us by audio also. Matt is available to answer questions regarding the audit of the financial statements. Although we are holding this meeting virtually, there will be ample opportunity for you to ask questions.
For those of you attending the meeting via the online platform, you are free to send in your questions from now by clicking on the speech bubble icon on your screen. This will open a new screen. At the bottom of that screen, there is a section for you to type your question. Once you have finished typing, please hit the arrow symbol to send. You will receive confirmation that the question has been received. We will not be receiving questions via the teleconference line. Please note that regardless of when you submit your question, we will address those questions specific to each resolution during the formal business of the meeting and before voting on the resolution, as is customary practice. We will then have a general question and answer session at the end.
We will endeavour to answer as many questions from shareholders as we can during the meeting, and I would ask shareholders to restrict themselves to no more than two questions per resolution. Questions should be directed to me as Chair of the meeting. Before I move to the resolution to be considered today, together with Trevor Croker, I would like to provide some commentary on the strategy, operations, and financial results of the company. As shareholders will be well aware, the 2020 financial year was uniquely challenging for many businesses, including Aristocrat. I therefore wish to begin by thanking our people, more than 6,000 of them around the world, whose efforts across the year were nothing short of extraordinary. Our people responded to the challenges with resilience and goodwill.
They adapted to the profound impacts brought by the COVID-19 pandemic on their own lives, families, and communities, while never failing to look out for each other, our customers, our players, and our business. These efforts, together with effective leadership from our senior management and the support of an engaged board, steered Aristocrat through the peak of the crisis with no loss of competitiveness, underlying momentum, or engagement. In conjunction with our dedicated workforce, Aristocrat committed ourselves to being a central part of the recovery process for our customers, players, and partners around the world and the communities in which we operate. A Group and PAT result of AUD 476.6 million for the year 2020 was 47% lower in reported terms than the AUD 894.4 million delivered in the 12-month period to 30 September 2019.
While the Group was on track to deliver growth in line with our plans pre-pandemic, financial results for the full year were materially impacted by COVID-related customer venue closures and the implementation of social distancing measures that have been in place across the global gaming business. This impact was partly offset by excellent growth in our Aristocrat Digital business, which was another tangible demonstration of the benefits of our long-term strategy to diversify our revenue base. Despite the impacts of COVID across the year, Aristocrat enhanced our financial fundamentals and further accelerated our underlying operational momentum. We continue to invest strongly in our competitiveness through design and development and user acquisition, while also maintaining investment in strategic capabilities that will drive our future growth, which Trevor will say more about shortly.
Importantly, Aristocrat also strengthened our liquidity and balance sheet over the year, with approximately AUD 2 billion in available liquidity at 30 September 2020. This positions us well to not only weather economic and industry volatility, but also to take advantage of organic and inorganic opportunities to accelerate our progress in the period ahead, in line with our refreshed strategy. The board's program of regular face-to-face engagement with Aristocrat's global employee and customer base naturally pivoted online in 2020 as a result of the suspension of business travel. Through frequent virtual engagement opportunities, directors continue to receive direct feedback from employees and other stakeholders in order to effectively oversee and monitor the business, its culture, and employee safety and wellbeing. The board also revised its meeting cadence and structures and met virtually on a more frequent basis to support and supervise the Group's COVID-19 response.
I want to thank my colleagues for their extra effort, energy, and flexibility throughout the year. The board and management team voluntarily implemented a 20% reduction in their remuneration from 1 May through to 30 September 2020, with Trevor implementing a 30% reduction as CEO. A portion of the savings generated were applied to a hardship fund to assist employees struggling with the economic impacts of the pandemic. Throughout the year, the board maintained its strategic focus while ensuring Aristocrat continued to have robust corporate governance practices in place. Shareholders can be assured that our strong governance framework fosters a high compliance culture that flows throughout the company. Effective mechanisms are in place to ensure that the board and committees receive all relevant information and are able to uphold our responsibilities.
We also have a comprehensive Anti-Bribery and Corruption Program, including mandatory training, clear policies, and periodic board and executive engagement. Aristocrat undertakes extensive background checks on all material business partners and we periodically review our anti-bribery and corruption and broader governance standards against ASX and best practice benchmarks, making improvements where appropriate. The board will also be nominating a further highly credentialed and independent voting member of our Regulatory and Compliance Committee in the near future. Strong competition for top talent, particularly in the U.S. technology sector and across digital skill sets, only intensified as a result of the pandemic. Aristocrat was quick to respond, escalating our focus on strategic recruitment and retention and updating remuneration structures as detailed in the remuneration report.
This intensifying war for talent is a real risk that the business faces, and my colleague, Kathleen Conlon, will speak to this issue further in her address as Chair of the People and Culture Committee. I will say that the board is committed to taking proactive steps to ensure Aristocrat can continue to attract and retain the critical capabilities required to execute our strategy and advance shareholders' interests, recognizing that we are a globally operating technology business and increasingly a market leader. As shareholders will be aware, Aristocrat has over the last several years progressively expanded our public sustainability disclosures, consistent with our values, commitment to transparency, and shareholder feedback. Building on progress made over the last two years, further sustainability disclosures pertaining to the 2020 fiscal year were published on the Group's website last November.
In addition to updating and expanding existing content on a range of material topics, we have also shared more insights into our management of COVID-19 across the year. I would encourage shareholders to read our 2020 disclosures at www.aristocrat.com. I would also like to take a moment to reflect on the specific subjects which are currently being heavily focused on, namely our work to promote responsible gameplay, further strengthening our diversity and inclusiveness agenda, addressing climate change initiatives, and helping to combat modern slavery. Promoting responsible gameplay is one of Aristocrat's most fundamental obligations. It's a major way that we deliver on our company's mission to bring joy to life through the power of play. We believe it's also key to ensuring we can continue to grow our business, attract and retain great talent, and promote a sustainable games industry that's welcome in the community.
I'm pleased to say we're continuing to make great strides towards leadership in this important area. In the 2020 fiscal year, we completed the rollout of mandatory staff training and launched a range of new resources and events to educate our people and help them become ambassadors for responsible gameplay, both at work and at home. At the product level, we embedded refreshed marketing guidelines into our global gaming business, invested in a further trial of machine-based responsible gameplay features in Australia, and developed more myth-busting materials to educate players. In digital, we launched several important initiatives to inform and empower players, particularly with respect to social casino-themed mobile games. In-app responsible gameplay resources and harmonized customer service processes were also rolled out, while unified self-ban procedures were also put in place.
These initiatives build on progress made in recent years, and we will continue to add to these over time. In 2020, Aristocrat also appointed a specialist D&I enterprise leader and other dedicated staff as we increasingly take a strategic approach to these issues. We were delighted to be recognised during the year as a top performer in the Chief Executive Women ASX 200 Senior Executive Census, in recognition of both our Group Executive Team and Board being over 40% female. As foreshadowed at this meeting last year, in 2020, Aristocrat developed a response to the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures and a timetable to progressively expand disclosures over three years to 2022.
We began in 2020 with a range of disclosures spanning governance, strategy, and risk management, and also committed to determining and disclosing our mission's profile and actions across Scopes 1 and 2, and as appropriate, Scope 3. This work is well underway, and we will deliver on all of the commitments we have made for 2021. We're also investing more resources to accelerate the assessment of abatement options across our global organization and better understand our pathway to net-zero emissions. We look forward to sharing more details as we make progress in this area. In terms of modern slavery, we made further strides forward in terms of diversifying our supply chain, encouraging continuous improvement among suppliers, better assessing and addressing risks, and rolling out training across key functions. The business will also publish its first statement, as required by the Australian Modern Slavery Act, next month.
The statement identifies a range of metrics the business will use to monitor and assess the effectiveness of our compliance program going forward, with appropriate board oversight. We will keep expanding our disclosures over time in line with shareholders' interests and to ensure we can continue to effectively manage risks, capture opportunities, and execute our strategy. The board recognizes that many shareholders rely on dividends throughout the year. While it was appropriate to cancel the interim dividend and maximize the Group's capacity to manage through an uncertain and COVID-impacted period, we do want to express our thanks for shareholders' support.
As a board, we believe the final dividend we authorized of AUD 0.10 per share in respect of the period ended 30 September 2020 was prudent and in shareholders' interests, as well as a strong demonstration of our confidence in the future, notwithstanding the ongoing uncertainty and consequences of the pandemic. In summary, fiscal year 2020 was a year of unprecedented challenge for our business, from which the business is emerging strongly and with great belief and momentum. Your board is fully focused on ensuring Aristocrat delivers to its full potential over the long term, consistent with your interests, and makes the most of its extraordinary strengths and opportunities at this unique time. I wish to particularly acknowledge and thank my board colleagues and senior management for their commitment, focus, and leadership throughout what has been a challenging period.
I'd also reiterate gratitude of myself and the whole board to our employees and our thanks to you, our shareholders, for your support over the year and for your confidence in our future. It's now my pleasure to pass to Trevor Croker, CEO and Managing Director of Aristocrat, to provide further commentary on the 2020 financial year and the business strategy and priorities over the coming period. Trevor.
Thank you, Neil, and welcome, everybody. Thank you for joining us today. In the context of this uniquely challenging year, I'll begin by speaking to our COVID response and our refreshed growth strategy. I'll then step through a summary of our results for 2020 before addressing outlook for the balance of the 2021 fiscal year. Before I start, however, I would like to reiterate Neil's comments about our people.
As we stand here today, we're more than a year into the pandemic, and the large majority of our people around the world continue to work from home, often under arduous restrictions. They're homeschooling children and looking after family while working as hard as ever as our business continues to grow and transform at a pace. It's never been more clear to me that our people are the heart of our business, our most important responsibility, and our biggest asset. I would add my thanks and respect to our whole team. Thank you. I'm also particularly proud that Aristocrat achieved employee engagement scores above gaming and technology company benchmarks throughout 2020. This not only speaks to the calibre of our people, but also reflects the many steps Aristocrat took throughout the crisis to safeguard well-being, energise our culture, and express our people-first commitment.
The safety and well-being of our people, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders was and will continue to be our first priority. I'd also like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank the Chairman and all Board members for their steadfast encouragement and guidance across the year. While we always benefit from having an active and engaged board, it's been particularly critical over the last year or so, and we thank you for that and for your support. While our financial results for fiscal 2020 were clearly impacted by the pandemic, they also highlighted our strengths and the effectiveness of our business's response. As always, we focused on what we could control to extend our strategic advantages and position the business for future growth. As shareholders will know, Aristocrat has accelerated our diversification over the past several years by entering more adjacent markets, segments, and game genres.
We've also driven scale in digital, adding a material B2C operation engine to the Group and delivering further diversity to a revenue base that was almost 80% recurring rather than one-off in nature as at 30 September 2020. The benefits of this diversification are evident in our results for the period during which we maintained revenue in excess of AUD 4 billion at a Group level while protecting the business and maintaining investment behind our strategic differentiators for the future, as Neil referenced. In particular, we extended our commitment to industry-leading design and development while also maintaining strong investment in digital games and user acquisition and continuing to commit capital to further grow our gaming operations footprint. We also took a strategic decision to maintain industry-leading D&D investment through the period and positioned to support our Gaming customers to emerge strongly from the pandemic.
Operationally, we experienced no loss of momentum across our product organization, with high productivity and full focus on our recalibrated priorities. We also invested more in our product pipeline and strategic capabilities, including customer experience, cybersecurity, and data capability, among other priorities. At the same time, we took the opportunity presented by the crisis to improve culturally. Aristocrat pivoted to an explicitly people-first focus, energizing our teams and offering more support, flexibility, and recognition to our people. In addition, we made a number of difficult but important changes to further support our liquidity and reduce cost. We chose to reinvest a portion of the savings in operating expenses identified in the second half behind growth drivers such as customer service, product development, and user acquisition.
In addition, we sharpened our operating priorities in Gaming and focused on supporting customers with higher levels of service, flexibility, and tailored commercial options to help them recover as quickly as possible. Furloughed staff were brought back to work early to help customers prepare to reopen safely and underlined our commitment to being partners of choice to our customers. Aristocrat's long-term focus on lifting our competitiveness through outstanding people and product positioned us to benefit in Digital and in Gaming as demand began to return through the later half of 2020 fiscal year. This is evident in the share gains achieved by our Gaming business in the key markets over the year, along with outstanding customer feedback and industry data on portfolio performance, particularly in our largest markets in North America and in Australia.
Our Digital business also took share across core genres, reflecting our investments in improving the Product Madness portfolio and scaling the world-class title Raid: Shadow Legends, along with broader portfolio performance and COVID-related tailwinds. Finally, we took the opportunity to review our growth strategy during 2020 in the context of COVID. Aristocrat's strategy aims to deliver high-quality, sustainable profit growth by continuously improving the quality and breadth of our product portfolios. We achieved this by investing in great people, product, and capability, building on foundations of strong culture, governance, and financial rigor. The review confirmed the soundness of our strategy and its ongoing relevance in a COVID-impacted world. We have, however, expanded and reordered some priorities, and in some cases, we have been encouraged to move faster in executing our plans. For example, we're placing more emphasis on upskilling leaders and broadening new strategic capabilities.
We continue to attract world-class people right across our organization as we compete hard in the war for talent and significantly boost the capability in the critical teams and skill sets that will drive our growth. We're also bringing a deeper focus on people and embracing opportunities presented by the changing nature of work. We're also investing in Customer Experience leadership, or CX, as we describe it. CX is all about unlocking new value streams by delivering customers and gaming patrons connected products and services in line with their changing needs and underlying consumer trends. During the reporting period, our new CX team successfully launched our first mobile loyalty products for a major U.S. customer, while also developing and delivering cashless and cleanliness innovations in the North American market.
In the context of COVID and with the encouragement of our customers, we will continue to significantly escalate our focus on convergent products and services as part of our strategy. We remain ready to invest to accelerate our strategy. During fiscal 2020, we concluded two deals to acquire access to more world-class game development capability in Digital. Investments in the proven game studios Neskin and Proteus signal our intent. As Neil referenced, we have the balance sheet strength to support bold moves as well as incremental ones and to take advantage of opportunities and disruption. We also have a track record of leveraging M&A to accelerate our growth, first into attractive gaming product segments and more recently to scale in digital. These are changes in emphasis and, in some cases, priority, but the foundations of our strategy will not change.
Taken as a whole, COVID has helped to confirm our strategic direction as a business while sharpening our focus and highlighting our priorities. We are pleased to have entered the 2021 financial year fully aligned behind a refreshed growth vision with updated goals and the confidence to accelerate execution in the period ahead. I'll now turn to our results for the 2020 fiscal year in more detail, beginning with Group results. Normalised profit after tax and before amortisation of acquired intangibles, or NPATA, of AUD 476.6 million represents a decrease of 47% in reported terms and 49% in constant currency compared to the AUD 894.9 million delivered in the 12-month period to 30 September 2019. Revenue decreased 6% to approximately AUD 4.1 billion, with COVID impacts in the Gaming business partly offset by strong growth in Digital.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization, or EBITDA, fell around 32% compared to the prior corresponding period, or PCP, to almost AUD 1.1 billion. Fully diluted earnings per share before amortization of acquired intangibles of AUD 0.747 represented a 47% decrease compared to the PCP. Operating cash flow of over AUD 1 billion was achieved, reflecting a relatively modest decrease of 5.8% compared to the PCP. This demonstrates the business's strong underlying cash flow capability enhanced by targeted COVID responses. Net gearing at period end was 1.4 x, flat on the PCP. This was driven by positive cash flow generation throughout the period. Liquidity was further enhanced by proactive measures, including increasing the Group's revolving credit and term loan B facilities and cancelling the interim dividend.
The underlying operational strength of the business was evident during the period, with a further lift in share and market-leading fee per day in the North American gaming operations segment. Digital performance reflected our success in building the competitiveness of our social casino portfolio through investment in live ops, features, and new slot content, as well as the momentum of Raid: Shadow Legends and new game launches. Performance also benefited from the tailwind of COVID stay-at-home mandates. Over the 2020 full year, D&D investment fell fractionally in absolute terms by AUD 2.5 million to AUD 498 million. This is a strong result at the top end of the range of 11%-12% of the revenue that the business has allocated across recent years. At the same time, we invested aggressively in user acquisition, or UA, to support growth in Digital at a time of opportunity.
UA investment of just under $450 million represented 28% of the segment revenue, up 1.7 percentage points compared to the PCP. Turning now to more detail about our operational results, beginning with our gaming business. A relentless focus on people, portfolio competitiveness, and customer engagement was the hallmark of our operational response across key gaming markets and segments during fiscal 2020. In the Americas, in local currency, revenue decreased by around 31%, and segment profit fell over 52% to approximately $935 million and over $356 million, respectively, over the reporting period compared with the PCP. Our Class III Premium Gaming operations footprint expanded by 5.9% to over 24,300 units at period end, driving further share growth despite market conditions. On a combined and adjusted basis, Aristocrat's average gaming operations fee per day improved by 1.1% to over $51 , driven by portfolio strength and resilient demand.
In Class III outright sales, revenue decreased 46% and volumes reduced 44% compared to the PCP, reflecting COVID impacts. Aristocrat continued to receive outstanding customer feedback in North America, consistently rating as the leading gaming equipment supplier across a number of casino customer surveys. For the second year running, Aristocrat was named top land-based supplier at the Global Gaming Awards and was the most awarded supplier overall. The business also won Land-Based Product of the Year for our Mars X cabinet, along with Slot of the Year for Dollar Storm. Strong game performance enhanced by new hardware releases also saw Aristocrat claim 14 of the top 25 premium leased games in North America, according to a report released by Eilers in September 2020. In ANZ, in constant currency, revenue decreased by 38.5% to AUD 280.5 million, while segment profit decreased by 72.5% to AUD 58.8 million, respectively, compared to the PCP.
Again, this result reflected challenging market conditions, mainly COVID-related, as well as the impact of droughts and fires on customers and the broader economy earlier in the year. The ANZ business sustained its market-leading ship-share performance in financial year 2020 as it focused on providing flexible and responsive service and support to customers to position them for recovery. International Class III revenue and segment profits decreased around 38% and 66%, respectively, to AUD 126 million and AUD 32 million compared to the PCP, again reflecting the material impacts of COVID-related shutdowns, social distancing restrictions, and travel restrictions across Asia and EMEA. Turning now to Digital. Over the course of the 2020 fiscal year, we made further significant strides in our Aristocrat Digital operations.
Under the leadership of a dedicated Aristocrat Digital executive team, the business focused on pipeline and portfolio growth, maximizing bookings performance and continuing to invest in marketing and efficient UA to scale. Aristocrat Digital generated over $1.6 billion in bookings during the reporting period, a 31% increase on the PCP. While revenue increased 29%, the business delivered almost AUD 500 million in segment profit, up almost 34% compared to the 12 months to 30 September 2019. Segment margin increased by over one percentage point to 30.8% over the full year. Average bookings per daily active user, or ABDAU, increased almost 44% to AUD 0.59, with the portfolio benefiting from strong investment in game development, including live ops, features, and new slot content in social casino, and continued portfolio diversification. This momentum was supported by marketing investment and the tailwinds associated with COVID-related stay-at-home mandates.
Total DAUs at 30 September 2020 decreased to 6.7 million from 7.5 million in the PCP; however, ABDAU increased significantly from AUD 0.41 to AUD 0.59 over the same period, again underlining our progress in focusing on DAU quality and building long-term engagement. The performance of the Aristocrat Digital business over the financial year to 2020 underlines its gathering scale and momentum and sophistication, and the excellent progress being made in leveraging best practices across core functions such as insights, data, and marketing. It also reflected the building out of core digital capabilities and focused leadership. The value of this growing B2C engine to our Group was amply demonstrated during the year, and we remain bullish about its potential and broad strategic significance, particularly in a post-COVID world. Turning now to outlook.
Based on trading performance to date across our Gaming and Digital operations, Aristocrat reiterates the outlook guidance provided in November 2020. Specifically, we plan for continued growth over the 2021 fiscal full year, reflecting the factors set out on the slide and as articulated in November. In summary, fiscal 2020 was a unique and challenging year, but also a year that revealed Aristocrat's strengths and gave us the opportunity to improve and extend our strategic advantages. We've strived to seize that opportunity, and while we cannot be sure of how the pandemic will affect our operating environment in the future, we have entered the 2021 financial year with excellent operational momentum, a proven strategy, strong team engagement, and belief. Neil spoke about the steps we are taking in the terms of our ESG maturity and the investments we're making in a number of material areas to improve our business.
I want to say a few more words about the trial of machine-based responsible gameplay features in Australia that Neil mentioned, to highlight our approach to these issues. Aristocrat is proud of our track record in investing in the development and testing of machine-based responsible gaming features, beginning with our Blue Gum EGM product, which was first trialed in 2011. We continue to bring forward options that have the potential to help empower players and support our responsible gameplay commitments. A second generation of machine-based functionality that we call Flexi Play was trialed in 2019 and has now been approved by the regulators in Queensland and New South Wales. Flexi Play allows players to voluntarily set time limits and quarantine winnings from being played down by the timer and piggy bank functions.
Flexi Play-enabled games have been approved in New South Wales, ACT, and Queensland, and we are preparing to place the first of these games in the market in the first quarter of this year. Our customers have been very supportive of Flexi Play. We look forward to learning more from the release of Flexi Play and to applying the lessons to further product-based RG innovations in the future. This is just one example, but it speaks to Aristocrat's approach in this complex area. We seek to lead; we strive to work collaboratively with customers and other stakeholders, and we focus on bringing forward commercially viable options that enhance player empowerment and choice. We have plenty of work still to do, both in responsible gameplay and across our sustainability agenda, but we are absolutely committed to a path of continuous progress and expanding transparency.
In closing, I want to again highlight the outstandingly talented team we have across the business, which, together with our financial strength and broadening capabilities, really does give us enormous benefit in these challenging times. We are determined to meet all challenges head-on while cementing our trajectory of sustainable high performance and a people-first culture and putting more distance between us and our competitors. I will now close by thanking our people, customers, players, and of course, our shareholders. I want to assure you that everyone at Aristocrat is fully focused on delivering the high-quality growth and sustained performance you rightly expect from us. Thank you, and I'll now pass back to Neil.
Thank you, Trevor. I'll now turn to the formal business of today's meeting. Firstly, there is a number of procedural matters to which I'd like to draw your attention. This is a shareholders' meeting.
Only holders of the company's securities, their attorneys, proxies, and authorized company representatives are entitled to vote, ask questions, and provide comments at this meeting. We will be conducting a poll on each item of business, which requires a vote, and after any discussion on each resolution that requires a vote, we will display proxies received. I now declare a poll open on resolutions one to four. That shareholders who cannot stay for the full meeting can vote at any time. Voting will remain open until the end of the meeting when I declare it closed. If you are eligible to vote at this meeting, i.e., a shareholder or a proxy, a polling icon will appear on your screen. Selecting this icon will bring up a list of resolutions and present you with voting options. To cast your vote, simply select one of the options.
There is no need to hit a submit or enter button, as the vote is automatically recorded. You do, however, have the ability to change your vote up till the time I declare voting closed. To change your vote, simply select another option. To clear your vote and start again, select cancel. Any appointed proxy who has been given discretion on how to vote should vote in the same manner. Any appointed proxy that has been directed to vote in a certain manner and has no discretionary votes to cast does not need to vote, as these votes will have been automatically counted in accordance with those directions. You can submit your votes at any time before I close the poll, and I will give you adequate warning before I move to close voting.
Boardroom is appointed to act as scrutineers, and Lucas Jones is appointed as a returning officer for the purposes of the poll. I'm holding open proxies in my capacity as Chairman, and it is my intention to vote all available undirected proxies in favor of each resolution. I now move to the business of the meeting. The first item of business is to receive and consider the financial statements for the 12-month ended 30 September 2020 and the reports of the directors and auditor. Please note that no vote is required on this item of business. At this stage, I would be pleased to take any questions or comments that shareholders may have in relation to the audit, the Financial Report, or the Directors' Report.
Any questions in relation to director and executive remuneration policies will be considered when we come to that item of business and the covering of the adoption of the remuneration report. General questions, including those that relate to Trevor's or my addresses, will be covered during the general Q&A at the end of the meeting. I now open the floor for questions and discussion. Are there any questions?
Chairman, we have a comment here from shareholder KDP Group 2 Pty Ltd, and the comment is, "Chairman, please consider retaining all earnings and reinvesting in the company rather than issuing dividends. This will create long-term shareholder wealth in line with the high company ROE."
Yes, thank you very much for your question.
Of course, the company, I think, is adequately and intensely focused on investments over the last number of years, as you can witness by a series of M&A, particularly in the digital area, the increase in D&D and user acquisition over the time. There is no question that we're about investing for the future and investing for growth in shareholder value. On the other hand, of course, we understand that there is a balance, and shareholders do invest in Aristocrat for not only capital gain but for dividends. We are quite comfortable in the way that we will manage that balance. Certainly, take your point that we will continue to focus heavily on investing for the future.
There are no further questions or comments, Chairman.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, we shall move to the next items of business.
As you are aware from the notice of meeting, I will be retiring from the board in accordance with the requirements of the company's constitution and will be offering myself for re-election. While this process is underway, I will hand the chair of the meeting over to Kathleen Conlon. Before I do so, I'd like to say a few words. Fellow shareholders, I'm very pleased to offer myself for re-election as a director of your company today. By way of background, I'm an experienced non-executive director with involvement across a broad range of industries, including online employment, education, logistics and infrastructure, fresh produce, and resources. My executive experience includes over 40 years in finance and general management, with an emphasis on technology, high organic and M&A growth, as well as development of domestic and international operations.
In terms of qualifications and training, I have a long record in general and financial management, including debt and equity capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, business integration, and risk management. Having spent the past three years as a non-executive director of your company, two years as Chairman, I have worked hard to get to know your company and the industry that we operate in. I am very excited by the platform that has been established and the opportunities which lay ahead across our markets and technologies. I have also been very impressed with the culture within the company and the extremely capable leadership team. The past 12 months during COVID have been stressful for everyone, but it has also been rewarding witnessing the focus on the well-being of our people and the determination to support our customers, players, and communities as part of recovery efforts.
Your company goes to great lengths to satisfy its stringent compliance obligations in highly regulated environments, having witnessed firsthand the intensity and detailed nature of these compliance conditions in order to become a director of your company. I'm highly comforted by the systems and processes which the company has in place and by the diligence applied by regulators around the world. In summary, I believe my background sits well with the operations of the company, and if re-elected, I'm committed to devoting the time and effort required to make a meaningful contribution to your company. I look forward to working with my board colleagues to drive further long-term value for shareholders. Thank you for your support. I'd like to now hand the chair over of the meeting to Kathleen.
Thank you, Neil. Resolution one is the re-election of Neil Chatfield as a director.
Neil was nominated to the board of Aristocrat in December 2017 and became Chairman in February 2019. Biographical details for Neil, including relevant qualifications, skills, experience, and other directorships, are set out in the notice of meeting. Neil's re-election has unanimous support of directors. Are there any questions on this resolution?
Chair, there is a question from shareholder Mr. Alexander Walter Short. The question is, "Why does the board have so little gaming experience? And given that lack of experience in the relevant industry, how can the board provide proper oversight of the company?"
Thank you for your question. We take the skills on the board very seriously. Obviously, we have Pat, who brings significant gaming experience to the board, but also a significant portion of our success is dependent upon our technology experience. Sylvia brings significant systems and technology experience. Neil and I both have significant digital platform experience.
Steve Morro, who stepped down from the board, continues to be an advisor both to the company and to the board. We feel comfortable that we have the relevant experience required to properly oversight this company.
There are no further questions.
Thank you. Proxies received in relation to this resolution are shown on the screen. The next three resolutions relate to people and culture. Before we turn to these items in detail, I'd like to say a few words as Chair of the People and Culture Committee, including providing an overview of remuneration-related matters in 2020. First, I'd like to start off with the COVID response. As part of his address, Neil spoke on the impact of COVID on Aristocrat's business and how the company responded, with our priority being to ensure the health and well-being of our people and their families, our customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders.
I'd like to say that I'm very proud of our staff and their contribution and kindness during this very difficult time. On the topic of the remuneration outcomes, prior to the advent of COVID-19, the group was on track to achieve STI targets. Despite the impact of COVID, the free cash flow conversion target was met and, in fact, significantly exceeded, and management only narrowly missed the business score threshold that was required for STIP to start paying out, and only by 1%. During COVID, management worked tirelessly to ensure that no loss of business momentum and recovery over the year. Despite the fact that these targets were so close to being achieved, the board did not exercise any discretion to pay executive STIP during the year. LTI vested at a relatively modest level of 68.74% compared to historic vesting levels.
This vesting outcome reflects our strong, solid total shareholder returns over the three-year performance period, the LTI, where we ranked 73rd percentile of the peer group, and senior executives achieving and exceeding their individual performance-based vesting conditions. The EPS hurdle did not vest, notwithstanding being on track to do so prior to the impact of COVID. Again, no board discretion was exercised. No adjustments were made to the performance hurdles. I'd like to respond to the issue that Neil mentioned earlier about the fact that we've continued to see an intensifying war for talent over the past 12 to 18 months, both with competitors and, in fact, in the U.S. market in general, offering higher STI opportunities and LTI grants at quantums of 2x-3x fixed remuneration, and in many cases unhurdled and vesting monthly or quarterly rather than the Australian practice of three-year cliff vesting.
It is imperative for shareholders that Aristocrat secure and attract the critical leadership it requires to fully execute the growth strategy. We are particularly focused on maintaining a stable executive team to deliver this growth. In the context of a competitive talent environment where there is a live retention risk, your board has taken a number of proactive steps. We reworked our at-risk ratios, adjusted fixed remuneration where it was at a benchmark, and provided special equity grants to address the near-term substantial gaps in our offer. These special equity grants apply only to senior executives and not to the CEO. Further disclosure on these special equity grants can be found in my cover letter to the remuneration report, including the structure of awards and the nature of the strategic hurdles we've put against them.
As we've previously noted, the board will continue to migrate to a more globally competitive remuneration structure, including for the CEO, recognizing that our senior leadership is predominantly U.S.-based and, in fact, the company derives a majority of revenue from overseas markets. Only 6% of our revenue is derived out of the Australian land-based business. I will now hand back to the Chairman, who will outline the shareholder resolutions and recommend them to you for your approval. Thank you.
Thank you, Kathleen. Resolution two is the approval of the grant of performance share rights to Trevor Croker, the company's Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director under the company's Long-Term Incentive Program. The notice of meeting set out in detail the manner in which the Long-Term Incentive Program operates and the basis for participation by Trevor.
I stress that performance share rights will only vest if the vesting criteria are satisfied at the end of the performance period and assure you that the board sets rigorous targets to ensure shareholder value has been achieved. Please note that there is a voting exclusion applicable to this resolution, as set out in the notice of meeting. Are there any questions in relation to this resolution?
Chair, there's a question from the shareholder, Mr. Alexander Walter Short. The question is, "Why do the LTI targets not focus on shareholder returns such as ROE or ROIC, and why is 40% of the LTI reward contingent on subjective measures?"
Thanks very much for the question, Mr. Short. It's fundamental for us to have a remuneration structure that's totally aligned with strategy and shareholder interests. You're quite right. There are a number of measures that you could use in LTI.
We've chosen TSR, which obviously is a measure that's relative to other companies in the ASX in which we are listed. I think it's a reasonable approximation of value creation for shareholders. We also have 30% of LTI in relation to EPS. Of course, EPS is a function of investing. It's a function of getting high returns on that investment. We think that by using measures such as return on equity and return on invested capital, actually in the business and driving investment decisions, ultimately creates EPS growth. In terms of the 40%, I think it then goes to the heart of strategy. If we look at the measures that we include for the individuals who have LTI as part of their remuneration, it's very clear that we are driving for excellent execution and high-performance execution in relation to strategy.
I think there is some concern, I think generally around marketplaces, that these measures are not disclosed upfront when such grants have been requested. However, given the nature of the industry, the talent war that we're seeing, and the tremendous changes in the industry, it would be wrong for us to disclose these upfront from a commercial point of view. We have given a very clear undertaking that you will see how those outputs have occurred at the end of the vesting period. Thank you for your question.
There are no further questions, Chair.
Proxies received in relation to this resolution are shown on the screen. Resolution three is the adoption of the remuneration report.
The Annual Report for the 12-month financial year ended 30 September 2020 contains a remuneration r eport which forms part of the Directors' Report and sets out the remuneration policy for the company and its controlled entities for 2020 and reports the remuneration arrangements in place for non-executive directors and executive key management personnel during that period. The vote on this resolution is advisory only. However, the board will take the outcome of the vote into consideration when reviewing our ongoing remuneration practices and policies. Please note that there is a voting exclusion applicable to this resolution as set out in the notice of meeting. Are there any questions on this resolution?
There are no questions, Chair.
Thank you. Proxies received in relation to this resolution are shown on the screen. Resolution four relates to the approval of the Non-Executive Director Share Rights Plan.
The company is seeking shareholder approval for the plan for the purposes of the non-executive directors having the opportunity to salary sacrifice a portion of their fees into share rights under the plan until and including the financial year ending 30 September 2024. Further shareholder approval may be sought in respect of the continued operation of the plan at the 2024 AGM. The share rights are exercisable into shares once certain vesting criteria have been satisfied. Implementation of the plan will not take effect until the receipt of and subject to a class ruling from the Australian Taxation Office, as further discussed in the explanatory statement to the notice of meeting. Structuring non-executive director remuneration in this way will support non-executive directors in building their shareholdings in the company and continue to enhance the alignment of interest between non-executive directors and shareholders generally.
Please note that there is a voting exclusion applicable to this resolution, as it is set out in the notice of meeting. Are there any questions in relation to this resolution?
There are no questions, Chair, but we do have a message from Carol Limmer at the Australian Shareholders Association. It appears that some questions have been attempted to be submitted. They have not come through. We would just ask Ms. Limmer to resubmit those questions, please.
Fine. We will address those questions at the end. Proxies received in relation to this resolution are shown on the screen. We will now take the opportunity to address the general questions asked by shareholders over the course of the meeting. Are there any questions?
Chair, there is a question from the shareholder, Mr. John Henry Douglas Marsden. The question is, "What is the total cost since inception of Len Ainsworth's car?"
This certainly predates me, but I think my understanding is the current annual cost is about AUD 45,000. Trevor, do you have a—I am not sure how long this program's been going.
This program's been in place since the listing of the company, but the current cost is correct at about AUD 45,000 per annum for the current car. There have been a number of different cars over the period.
Okay. Thank you.
The question is from the Australian Shareholders Association, Carol Limmer. The question is, "Does Aristocrat have plans to have hybrid meetings in the future, e.g., both live and virtual?"
Yeah. Thanks. Thank you for the question. I guess we are in a, I have to say, a pretty uncertain world this year. It certainly would not have been my or the board's desire to go virtual necessarily.
However, it's actually the responsible thing to do. I think there's a general view in the marketplace that hybrid meetings will be a way of actually attracting more shareholder interest in the future. We will keep an eye on how this develops, but we're certainly open—we're absolutely open to anything that will engage us more with shareholders and enable shareholders to get better access to the company.
Chair, we have a question from shareholder, Mr. Alexander Michael Mulconray. The question is, "I would love to know if we're moving in the direction of online gambling and pokie since we have a large American presence. Also, aren't they allowing now in certain states pokies on the tables at the bar?"
Thank you for the question. You are correct. There are certain states in the U.S.A. beginning to open and allow online gambling and slots. We have previously, however, indicated that real money gaming would be a logical adjacency for us, particularly as the U.S. is our major market. We are continuing to monitor the developments. I might just get Trevor to elaborate.
Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the question. You are correct. The market is expanding in North America, and we are working with our customers and getting their perspectives on their requirements through this period of time. There has been an escalation in convergence between the retail world and the online world, and therefore it makes products like iGaming and RMG an attractive adjacency for Aristocrat.
If you think about our organization, content, technology, and distribution are keys to our growth, and we see an opportunity to continue to work with our customers, to continue to monitor that market and look for those trends, and also create the right opportunity for us at the right point in time. To the second part of your question about pokies on the tables, we did launch a bar top product, which is a common form factor in the North American market about 18 months ago. It saw good early traction due to the COVID period with a downturn in visitation. We have not seen as much acceptance, but the product is continuing to be rolled out across the North American market to meet another one of those adjacent segments for our company to enter.
Thank you. Thank you, Trevor.
Chair, we have no further questions. We still haven't received any additional questions from Ms. Limmer. In the absence of any further questions, yep, we have none.
Yeah. In the case of Ms. Limmer, I guess we are aware of good engagement with the Australian Shareholders Association prior to this meeting. Ms. Limmer, we're absolutely happy to meet with you at some future time after this meeting to go through any further queries you might have. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our discussion on the items of business. If you have not already done so, I now ask you to submit your vote before I close this voting system. If you are eligible to vote at this meeting, a polling icon will be visible. Selecting this icon will bring up a list of resolutions and present you with voting options. To cast your vote, simply select on one of the options.
There is no need to hit a submit or enter button as the vote is automatically recorded. Thank you. I declare the voting closed. The results of the poll will be announced via the ASX platform after the meeting. As this concludes the formal business of the meeting, I thank you for your attendance and your ongoing support of the company. I would like to thank you once again for joining our meeting virtually today and for your understanding in this challenging time. I declare the meeting closed and wish all shareholders well. Thank you.