The land on which we meet today, the Jagera and Turrbal peoples. I'd also like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land upon which Aurelia operates, and my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. We are pleased to once again hold a hybrid AGM, and I wish to sincerely thank everyone for attending today. I know some of you have made a special effort to come in for this meeting. Whether you've attended either in person or online, thank you very much. While every effort has been made to ensure today's meeting runs smoothly for those attending online, if technology issues do arise, a short recess or an adjournment may be required depending on the number of shareholders affected. If this occurs, I shall advise you accordingly.
At this point, I kindly ask everyone here in the room with us today to please ensure your mobile phone is switched off or placed in silent mode. In the event of an emergency, an alarm will sound, and please follow the directions from Allens staff, who will attend the meeting. All of our board members are present here today. On my immediate left-hand side is Bryan Quinn, our CEO and Managing Director. To his left-hand side is Susie Corlett. To her left-hand side is Bob Vassie, and to his left is Paul Harris. On my right-hand side is Lyn Brazil. Then Helen. Hello, Helen. Bruce Cox is on Helen's right-hand side. Welcome to all my fellow directors.
I'd also like to highlight Martin, who is our CFO, and to Rochelle, who's our company secretary, and at the back without a tie on is Andrew. So thank you for your attendance. Representing the company's auditor, Ernst & Young, is Miss Kelly McKenzie. Kelly, are you here? No, she's online. So, Kelly will be able to answer any questions that you have in relation to the audit of the company. Under our constitution, a quorum for a shareholder meeting is three members. We have a quorum present, so I now declare the meeting open. I propose that the notice of meeting, dated twelfth of October, two thousand and twenty-three, which was made available to shareholders, be taken as read. Moving to the agenda for today's meeting, I will first deliver a brief address.
Our Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Bryan Quinn, will then deliver a presentation about Aurelia and our operational performance in FY23, including an outlook for FY24 and beyond. This will be followed by the formal part of business of the meeting, which is to receive and consider Aurelia's FY23 financial statements and reports and put 5 resolutions to shareholders. These resolutions will cover, one, the adoption of the FY23 remuneration report, the election of Susie Corlett, and the election of Lyn Brazil as directors in accordance with the company's constitution. And thirdly, the approval to issue shares and performance rights to the Managing Director, Bryan Quinn. Participation in the business of the meeting, including the asking of any questions, is confined to shareholders and people entitled to vote on behalf of shareholders.
If you are in the room with us today and wish to ask a question, please stand and show your yellow or blue attendance card. Please state your name, then ask your question. If you are attending virtually, you will be able to ask questions either verbally or in writing. Please submit your question via the Q&A function on your Zoom screen. These questions will be read by our company secretary at the appropriate time. Please identify yourself as online for our moderator, one, by typing your name and shareholding, SRN or HIN at the start of your question, or two, confirming the name of the shareholder you are representing at the beginning of the question if you are a company representative, proxy, or hold a power of attorney.
If your question is about a specific resolution, please include the number of the resolution to help us address your question at the appropriate time. If you have a general question about the company or its operations, please write "General question." We will address any general questions after the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer’s presentation. Written questions may be amalgamated when we answer them. If you are a shareholder attending online and wish to ask a question verbally, please also write, "I'd like to speak," in the Q&A function. It will then invite the shareholder to ask their question verbally at the appropriate time during the AGM.... Please note, there may be a delay between the submission of your question and our receiving the question. I, therefore, encourage you to enter your questions early.
So that's the first part and of introduction about the mechanics of the meeting. I'd now like to go ahead and present my chair's address. In the last twelve months, the last twelve months have been challenging for all at Aurelia, for our board, our employees, and our shareholders. Following a year of unacceptable performance in 2022, the company embarked on a series of changes that I believe has provided a strong platform to deliver future enhanced value to our shareholders, while providing a safe, supportive, and rewarding environment for our employees and contractors. I stress there is still an enormous amount of work to do to restore our true value and deliver future growth, but I believe the ship has started to turn.
We now have a foundation to deliver on our commitments of improving operational performance, develop our premier Federation project, optimize the value of our infrastructure and mining assets in the Cobar Basin, and leverage our talented, dedicated people for years to come. At last year's annual general meeting, I announced three priorities to the company that would be our focus for the year ahead. One, recover strong and consistent operational performance to ensure high margin, low-cost production, and deliver predictable cash flows to fund future growth. Two, ensure highly experienced and skilled executives are in place to drive our performance and deliver superior value. Three, a competitive funding solution to underwrite the development of our quality Federation and Great Cobar projects. These priorities were translated into a comprehensive and far-reaching organizational review program, comprising five strategic themes.
I'm pleased to report that we've seen significant progress against each of these strategies through the year. I'll start, as always, with safety. Given the size and scope of the organizational review program, maintaining safety performance through a sustained period of change was front and center for Aurelia in FY23. We challenged our leaders to ensure the health, safety, and well-being of our people was not compromised during this dynamic period of change, and they certainly delivered. At the end of the financial year, we were pleased to report a total recordable incident frequency rate of 5.13 incidents per million work hours, a material improvement on the previous year's figure of 8.8. This included operating the entire second half of the year with no recordable incidents.
Given the distractions that were ongoing in our operations, that's a remarkable achievement by our people across our operations. Operations at Dargues has been particularly a particular standout, recording a 12-month injury-free record to the 3rd of June 2023. Underpinning the significant efforts to transform business performance was a comprehensive focus on looking after our workforce, some of whom are with us today. This included safeguarding the mental health of our people through a series of workshops and delivering targeted support programs. Our efforts to ensure the health and safety of our workforce were equally matched by trying to ensure the same outcome for various environments in which we operate. In recognition of this effort, we were very pleased to receive the Environmental Excellence Award at the New South Wales Minerals Council's Health, Safety and Environment and Community Awards in August 2023.
I may now move on to operational performance and cash management. Despite a difficult first half, site-by-site improvement initiatives drove achievement of full year 2023 guidance, including outperformance of gold production at 86,000 ounces at an all-in sustaining cost of AUD 2,315 per ounce. At Hera, a change in the mine plan in December returned the asset to positive cash generation, marked by a very strong finish to operations in late March 2023. The mine was closed, t he surface facilities were successfully transitioned to care and maintenance in April, with much of the asset's significant infrastructure earmarked for use at the Federation Mine as it comes online. At the Peak Mine, Aurelia's cornerstone asset, our focus was managing costs.
The transition to auto mining concluded at the end of April 2023, resulting in a sharp reduction in mining costs that improved cash flows. Workers also commenced to improve development and further drive down costs as we pursue better production outcomes. The Dargues Mine continued to be a reliable, stable operation throughout the year, with efforts targeted towards increasing cash flows. In December, the New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment approved our application to lift processing rates 15% from 355,000 tons per annum to 415,000 tons per annum. This allowed increased throughput rates and improved cash flows in the second half of the year. Perhaps the most inspiring effort to improve organizational efficiency came with the introduction of the Working Smarter program.
More than 220 ideas flowed across the organization, resulting in over AUD 25 million in cost savings, referrals, and efficiency equivalent value, almost AUD 16 million of which is ongoing savings due to sustainable changes in operating methods, processes, or equipment. This beat our target of AUD 24 million of savings, demonstrating our employees are some of the most passionate in the industry when it comes to building organizational success. If I move now to development of high-grade Federation project, a major focus for Aurelia is the optimized development of Federation. Through the year, we made important steps towards leveraging this project, one of the highest grade base metal developments in Australia, in Australia-wide production.
In October 2022, Federation Mine Feasibility Study was released, confirming a capital-efficient project that will benefit strongly from our established mine and milling infrastructure and generate impressive rates of return for our shareholders when on production. The project received development consent from the New South Wales government in March 2023, and is currently finalizing secondary approval to start mine development more in the first quarter of FY25. In April 2023, we released a project update that delivered improved and more capital-efficient path to production, partially offset industry-wide data to increase operational efficiency. Project activities recommenced June 2023, and the mining contractor safely mobilized to site and commenced development in August. In October, we were pleased to announce the mining lease of the operation had been granted.
With only six years from the first discovery hole to commencement of stoping, Federation will be one of the fastest development projects delivered in New South Wales in recent history. If I move now on to funding, the key activities through the year was delivery of a flexible and funding package to transform the company's balance sheet. The effort to secure the best solution for our business and to protect shareholder value was significant and far-reaching. A range of options were received for credit analysis. Despite the tough economic environment characterized by climbing interest rates, the Aurelia team was successful in delivering effective and comprehensive solution while managing the repayment of our existing debt facility.
On the 31st of May, we were pleased with the execution of a new AUD 100 million financing facility with Trafigura Pte. Ltd., comprising a $24 million U.S. dollar loan note and a AUD 65 million performance bond facility. To accompany the Trafigura facilities, Aurelia completed a AUD 40 million equity raising with receipt of proceeds from the institutional placement and entitlement offer received in June. Proceeds from the retail entitlement offer were received in July. The Trafigura facilities reached financial close in August, thereby providing the company with a sound balance sheet to enable us to complete this development, a major achievement and turnaround from the previous year. While not specifically part of the five key initiatives I've discussed today, our have continued to demonstrate the strong prospectivity of the Cobar Basin for further discoveries and future growth in our mineral resources and ore reserves.
In August, we announced an underlying increase of 8% in our group ore reserves to 5.5 million tons. This result is inclusive of all mining depletion, but does exclude the impact of removing Hera post-closure. Our exploration efforts have ramped up in FY 2024, or will ramp up in FY 2024, at an appropriate budget aimed at continuing to add to our significant resource base and growth pipeline has been endorsed. Bryan will describe this a bit further in his presentation. While initiatives to lead the business turnaround were designed and implemented, it was critical that the board's focus turn to securing highly capable executives to ensure the change could be sustained. These efforts began with the appointment of Martin Cummings as our new CFO, Chief Financial Officer.
Martin is a highly experienced mining executive with over 25 years financial, commercial, treasury, and investor relations experience. This experience served us well in the pursuit of the Trafigura financing facility, which Martin secured to fully fund the business and protect the outstanding rates of return on offer from the company's growth projects. Following the departure of our Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Dan Clifford, in November 2022, Andrew Graham was appointed Interim Chief Executive and effectively led the turnaround in the company performance in a highly skilled and totally committed way. Andrew did an outstanding job in this position, and the board extends its thanks to him for his dedication and professionalism during his time in the role. In June 2023, the board was pleased to announce the appointment of a new Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Bryan Quinn.
Bryan's extensive experience at BHP and OZ Minerals in business improvement, operational excellence, and project delivery, comprise the ideal background to help Aurelia deliver its exciting development projects, while optimizing value and performance of its existing assets. Bryan has already had a significant impact in defining our ongoing strategy and further addressing improvements in our operational performance. With Bryan's appointment, Andrew has taken up an expanded role in driving growth for the organization as our Chief Development and Technical Officer. In line with a laser focus on cost control and ensuring we have a board with the appropriate skill sets to continue to rebuild shareholder confidence and value, I'd also like to signal that over the coming months, the size of the board will reduce by at least two directors.
This in no way reflects the considerable contribution made by individual directors over the past few years, but embraces the reality that the board needs to shrink to a size appropriate to the complexity of the organization. These changes will be announced in the coming few months, as an orderly transition is made in responsibilities. As I close, I'd like to thank my fellow board members and key executives for leading the change that was required in FY23 and to set us up for future success. Great teams are made during tough times, and all that was achieved in the last 12 months could not have been done without the dedication of the entire Aurelia workforce. I'm very proud to say that, employee commitment was the hallmark of a significant business turnaround and a sign of really good things to come.
Thank you to each and every one of you. Finally, I'd like to convey my sincere appreciation to our shareholders for your support. I speak on behalf of the entire board when I say that we look forward to continuing to deliver what we say in rebuilding the value of Aurelia in 2024. Thank you very much. And with that in mind, I'll now pass over to our MD and CEO, Bryan, to now provide his update on performance and future of the business.
Thank you, Peter, and thank you all for joining us today. Thanks to the shareholders in attendance in the AGM in person, also to the attendees on the Zoom link, and a special welcome to Aurelia employees that have joined, and any other special stakeholders, including community members as well. FY23 results were released on August 3, 2023. It's been a very important year for Aurelia to rebuild credibility with stakeholders and shareholders by delivering reliable results quarter on quarter, while also setting up the organization ready for organic growth. But I'd like to start by talking about safety of our people, firstly, across our operations for FY23.
The performance of the sites in the last six months of FY23 was exceptional, with no recordable injuries, as Peter had mentioned, and over the twelve months, Dargues has achieved a recordable injury-free period as well. This is an exceptional effort, and I guess we're very proud of these results. Achieving such an outcome means we have a new benchmark. We need to ensure that reporting continues strongly and people don't let their guard down with these improved results. At the end of the day, it's our priority, my priority, to ensure our teams return home safely every day, every shift, the way they come to work. There's a lot to do to embed these, our safety systems and behaviors, ensure we can repeat these great results and improve again year on year.
Beyond physical safety and building on the themes of improving our overall safety, we are also commencing our efforts to recognize the vital importance of creating and maintaining a workplace which is psychologically safe as well. This is something very important to our organization as we have also focused on bringing more diversity into our organization in the short and medium term that will better represent the communities we operate within. It's my intention to drive a culture where our workforce's unique differences are recognized as positive, and we celebrate our people speak up and feel empowered and supported to speak up if they feel unsafe or harassed in any way. People are actually the foundation, and without the great people bringing their different skills and diversity, we will not achieve the great outcomes into the future.
I personally aspire to a workplace for our people to be their best every day, leave work with a sense of accomplishment and feeling safe at all times, both physically and mentally. With regards to our environmental reporting achievements, importantly, as the saying goes, "What you measure, you manage," and there should be no difference for environmental incident reporting compared to how we report safety reporting. It's imperative we measure our environmental instance the same level of granularity as our safe instance. It's also important we apply the same level of rigor in implementing actions for these incidents. And as you see, we have some improvements in our results, but still much to achieve. The level of reporting will assist our industry, provide transparency to stakeholders, provide a license to operate, but also allow us to measure and seek continual improvement year-on-year.
Federation approval process has been a success story that Aurelia is really proud of. As Peter mentioned, from exploration success to the approvals being received from the government for development of the box cut and portals, through to the mining lease being granted in October 2023. This has been an amazing result from the Aurelia team. Quality work being submitted in a timely manner with the right strong engagements with the government at the right level of work, with them on the information they need, has been a fantastic effort by the Aurelia team and a step ahead of many others.
The key dates which have taken just over 4 years, from Federation being discovered in April 2019, started with the development consent being submitted in July 2021, EIS submission in October 2022, development consent issued in March 2023, and mining lease received in October 2023. It's a magnificent effort by the team, working very closely with the stakeholders. And as Peter also mentioned, we are still on track to deliver our first stope wall planned for Q1 2025. The balance sheet support operations and future growth is key to the turnaround story of Aurelia. That will be the platform for our rebound. As some background, it's very important as management, we learn from the past to be stronger for the future.
In June 2022, at the start of the financial year, the business had a net cash of AUD 57 million, of which AUD 77 million was cash and 19 million of debt. In December, five months later, the net cash balance had fallen to AUD 11 million, with the inconsistent cash generation and a high burn rate of operations and projects. To recover from the situation, the focus for management therefore become maximize cash from Hera operation until closure, stabilize the operations to generate cash out of both Peak and out of Dargues. Accelerate the financing of Federation to strengthen the balance sheet, and keep the focus on Dargues, generating maximum cash and stop minimize the development activities beyond the economic life of Dargues.
So great teamwork by the board and management in December to restore order and bring cash management under control in the second half of FY23 to bring the balance sheet into a healthy position and set up futures for us to rebound. As stated earlier, it was an impressive safety performance. The pleasing trend on both safety and our environment reporting can be seen on the slides. With a special call-out that FY23 was a record performance for lowering the number of recordable injuries in the business. It's our focus to lock in the systems and leadership behaviors to ensure these results are sustainable.
Actions to ensure we maintain such a strong performance include quality time in the field from leadership, good reporting, proper use of the tools to assess hazards and risks on the job, encouraging everyone to have a chronic unease that something could go wrong, ensure the hazards are identified on the job, making sure you prevent injuries for yourself and for your colleagues. Also, a focus on change management, making sure if something changes, you identify and you action it. Monthly control verifications also being conducted by the executive leadership team on a monthly basis, focused on both the fatal risk controls, fatal risk, fatal risks, and also any high potential incidents which occur to make sure the actions are being closed out properly. Delivery of guidance, costs, and production in FY23 was a positive step in the right direction for the organization.
Importantly, the last half of FY 2023 was well executed and on guidance set, that was reset in December 2022. Now, this was an important milestone. There was a lot happening in the background, Peter mentioned, including the closure of Hera Mine in March 2023, funding process for Federation finishing in June 2023, focus on Peak and Dargues to deliver positive cash flow to allow the balance sheet to be rebuilt. There was a major transition of PYBAR contracting company moving out of Peak, and the owner operator crews moving into Peak. And many other actions were taken to slow down the cash burn to allow the business to deliver the change safely, including reducing some exploration and development capital.
Overall, this allowed the business to achieve the all-in sustaining costs of AUD 2,315 per ounce, in line with the guidance. This was a great achievement for the business during a tough period, accompanied with the various key management changes that Peter mentioned. Credit goes to Andrew Graham, and Martin coming to the leadership team, work they did to set the programs in place, supported by the board to bring this business back under control. That was referred to in Peter's conversation. Now that this recovery has been started, Aurelia needs to ensure implementing the basic controls to ensure we never have this level of risk to the business and the shareholders again. The recovery of the balance sheet was a key step in FY23, and finished strongly with AUD 39 million cash in bank after paying back AUD 90 million debt.
We fully cashed back our bond facility by AUD 26 million and announced the financing of Trafigura to set up the Federation Mine. We also had additional cash being available post the year-end, providing strong liquidity to the business. Cash from the business, plus the cash receipts received post the year-end and undrawn debt notes, have pushed us into a very healthy position of AUD 166 million dollar liquidity. It's notable that our cash on hand is currently AUD 180 million, which is actually 5 times our market cap, with a further AUD 36 million undrawn from our debt facility, all promoting a very healthy balance sheet to build our business. Now, cash discipline is essential going forward, and we've implemented some additional governance controls to manage capital and also costs.
It's imperative that our operations are generating positive cash flow every month, that our capital dollars are being well deployed into safety or risk reduction, in line with our risk management framework, or improving our production outcomes with a quick payback. With a stronger balance sheet, it's exciting the potential upside to the business. When we have our mills filled in the future with low cost ore in the Cobar region, this, considering we're currently only operating at 40%-45% of our available capacity, there's only upside to this business going forward. So setting up Aurelia for a fresh future with new vision and strategy has been a big priority for me since starting the organization. Looking forward, Aurelia Metals has defined a refreshed and deliberate new vision, value, and strategy to maximize shareholder value.
This vision sets out values and strategies, being worldwide through our organization to ensure we are setting ourselves up for success. The engagement of our people is absolutely vital to do this properly, and we are spending time engaging at all levels to ensure that this information is clear and well understood. The previous surveys of culture in 2022 have highlighted that we need to make some step change engagement to bring the very, very best from our people, so they feel empowered, they can contribute, and actually allow us to deliver our full capacity as an organization, to obviously allow us to fill our mills at the right cost.
Some of the additional actions that are underway over the next 12 months to enhance our people performance and attract good talent, includes creating opportunities in the Cobar Basin for more career options without relocating families, with obviously the Federation project coming online and hopefully also the Great Cobar project. We want to have our people inspired to bring innovation and accountability to work every day. We want everyone coming to work and being developed to be the best they can and want to be every day. We want to improve our work-balance lifestyle, so people appreciate the fact the company's looking after them, and they look after the company.
Having our teams on site supporting us with our ESG strategies and plan aspirational targets to deliver step change in the future around water usage, carbon emissions, community engagements, and what we can do to automate and become a smarter organization, is something we're very proud of. It's imperative we improve our diversity for improved performance also. It's. This is well underway. At the end of FY23, our female participation was 23% of the workforce at Aurelia, and we've set a target for going forward up to FY25, at 25%.
We know there's a lot more we can do with inclusion and diversity, and as actually, a matter of fact, one of the first things I did since I joined the company, is actually take on the inclusion and diversity committee chair to make sure we can actually deliver the various priorities and ambitions that the committee wants to deliver. As I mentioned earlier, our people are the cornerstone strength to building value for our business, so it's important for me to introduce our leaders that are fundamental to our success in making the wheels move. We have a strong leadership team in our business with diverse backgrounds and experiences. Peter mentioned Martin and, and Andrew in the room. Obviously, Martin, looking after finance, is always providing the insights on cash and working capital.
Andrew Graham, leading development and technical functions for Aurelia, to ensure we have we set and govern the right technical standards to build our business for the future. Purchasing, project base and also looking for synergies in the region is where he's focusing his time. Michelle Tracy is our Project Director for Aurelia, and has taken charge of Federation in July, and successfully kicked off development activities on first of August seamlessly, and currently keeping us ahead of schedule and on track for costs. Susan Scheepers is in charge of our people and culture strategies, and helping us make step change engagement for our people and culture, and ensuring we are using our people systems to the best possible.
We have Matt Noel, who is a very experienced general manager focused on making step changes at the Peak complex, and very interested in safely delivering more volume and lowering our costs and more profits. And Angus Wyllie, who is doing a fantastic job to drive the Dargues operation to completion over the next 12 months in a sustainable way, while actually maximizing our cash. This last 12 months is very challenging, and we're glad that Angus is actually there to lead that charge to complete the mine. Lastly, we have our COSEC and legal leader, Rochelle, who supports the board relentlessly, and a very large help to myself as managing director, with all the company COSEC activities and keeping us on track with actions and governance. Some of the members are here today, if you wish to meet them after the session.
But I'm very excited with this team, what we can achieve in the short, medium term to really deliver the vision, the strategies, and the values, and to bring the very best out of this organization. Delivering guidance in FY 2024 is imperative for this Aurelia leadership team. Looking ahead for the remainder of FY 2024, we're on track after quarter one results that we have actually reported. Some of the outcomes include development meters being 3 times what they were for the 3 quarters before. Mining costs have made a massive step change from AUD 180 per ton to AUD 127 per ton over the 12 months, and we continue to target to be below, below that number.
Federation's on track against budget on meters to build the mine, and have contracts in place to start the raise boring in the second quarter. Production on gold equivalent is on target with our plan and with our budget. The mining lease approvals received for Federation October 2023, and a lot of work went into jumpstarting the Federation project after a cold start in the first of August 2023. We have also continued to announce encouraging exploration results within close proximity to the infrastructure of both the Peak North Mine and South Mine. Dargues is working through plans to bring more ounces online in FY 2024 is also a key sort of guidance outcome we're working towards.
Actions underway to ensure we deliver our strong results in FY 2024 include the following: firstly, ensuring our safety and management systems are embedded to assist our people feel empowered to make the right decisions with autonomy and work safely. Alignment has been set across all of management and teams with our STI bonus to deliver at least 8% reduction in unit costs, so that our teams can be rewarded for delivering more than budget they submitted and are accountable for. We also focused on prioritizing development at Peak and Federation in Q 1 and Q 2 to provide production optionality. Up until July, Peak had less than 3 months certainty on the production schedule based on previous poor development rates.
But by pushing the development meters harder, Peak's now over 12 months production schedule to draw on, and now the critical path becomes production, drilling, and blasting, which is a great place to be in. We've now set up two separate mines, North Mine and South Mine, at the Peak complex, which has been absent for 2 years. All equipment and personnel have now been allocated at both those mines to drive independently. We're focused on sustainably maximizing cash and de-risking production out of Dargues. And by stopping development, actually focusing just on remnant mining and on the last remaining stopes, we believe we can do it for a very low cost and achieve maximum cash. We're also working on how to optimize our long processes to fill the mills sooner through assessing all sources, including remnant mining, tailings, if safe and economic.
The capital allocation framework has been implemented with a clear focus on reducing residual risk in risk, in our risk structure or providing a tight payback period for improved capital. And as it relates to Federation, we're focused on offsetting inflationary pressures on key activities with reducing scope of works to reduce costs and removing items that are on the critical path that don't need to be there. And lastly, we're also focused on how to unlock our resource and reserves through our exploration program and infill drilling program to further open up resource in this rich basin near the Peak complex, but also opening opportunities to known targets for the next project after Great Cobar.
As management, we're setting our focus on setting up the business with a strong focus on operational excellence, so we have a safe, low-cost operations that we can ride through the high volatility of uncertainty in markets and provide good cash performance to further grow. Obviously, we don't control the commodity prices, but we certainly can control our costs and do work safely using our operations excellence to get there. Our pathways to success are being mapped out, and we are taking a sequence of steps to unlock value in the Cobar Basin. Starting with engagement with our people, providing them accountability and ownership of the outcomes to bring out high-performance possibilities and innovation to fill our mills sooner at the right low cost.
By having this level of ownership and the right people in the right roles, we can drive operational excellence through being effective and efficient in all activities. This is about designing into the operations, strong planning, contingency, and operations excellence in that delivery every day. This will get us into the lower half of the cost curve, where we actually will belong and can deliver better returns for our investors. Delivering near-term projects is important for our credibility and our desire to fill our mills. Federation is the first of the projects that will fill our mills, and the Great Cobar project is hoped for the second. With Federation at full capacity, we'll be producing more copper equivalent tons than Aurelia was delivering when the market was a AUD 0.50 share 80 months ago, and we'll be operating a lower unit cost at that stage also.
So there's only upside to short term for us getting our near-term projects delivered and increasing our value to shareholders. The unlocking of our 27 million tons of resource into reserves is a great opportunity. We have significant resource in the region of base metals, and much of this is accessible with our infrastructure. It's not capital intensive and within very close proximity to our mills. We've committed AUD 11 million dollars of resource drilling to build our potential portfolio in FY 2024 and approximately AUD 4 million in infill drilling to convert resource to reserves. There is only upside to this portfolio with the efforts we're applying in exploration works, and to be honest, it's a major differentiator for our future. While all the other stepping stones are in play, optimizing the Cobar Basin is also imperative for Aurelia.
We are so fortunate to have two very well-maintained mills at our fingertips. Our optimization work is focused on how to better, how to better our business, our base case value of using Peak and Hera plants to their full capacity between 1.3-1.4 million tons. Our optimization looks at where we are best to where we are best to spend our money to extract more volume and maximize the flow of ore in the region. This includes how we use some of the Dargues plant equipment in the Cobar region also, once production is finished in FY 2025. I do want to highlight that we want to be a catalyst for integration opportunities in the region to see how we can use all mill capacity in the region to deliver the lowest unit cost possible and maximize our margin for the business.
And we're open to strategic partnerships if they make commercial sense. Some of these are already under discussion with neighbors in terms of synergy opportunities to lower costs for the sites in the region. It makes good sense for all of us to look at synergies if there are commercial benefits for, for us involved. As a result of the optimization works, we're setting up the Cobar Basin for long-term success around optimizing volumes and costs. Through looking at how we set up our mines and projects to feed the mills we have and provide great opportunities for our people to get exposure to multiple mines and projects in the region. This Cobar Basin model provides significant synergies internally from warehousing, functional resources, standardization of equipment, sharing critical skills on project activities, material and people, logistic improvements, and many, many other efficiencies.
To be clear, we're not setting up individual mines, but a network of operations maximizing feed through our mills. As we unpack the growth model, the business we are building for the future transitions from gold-dominant production, which we are enjoying the very nice high prices at the moment for. Our commodity mix and resource base naturally shifts from gold to base metals through the shutting of Hera and near-term closure of Dargues. Peak will be increasing, and Federation and Great Cobar coming into full swing, we move to an 80% base metals business. Therefore, base metals is our future and aligns very well with our vision to being a developer and operator of critical base metals, powering a low carbon future.
So as discussed, Federation is being set up to commence the filling of the mills with our amazing high-grade polymetallic deposit. As I highlighted earlier, the progress of this project from exploration discovery to development underground, and now with the ML being provided in October, is a fantastic achievement from the team working with the government. It's also an exciting position for Aurelia to be the first critical minerals project in New South Wales in seven years. The focus now moves into ensuring we can deliver the project's first stope ore in Q1 2025. There's no doubt going to be challenges along the way, but the team's definitely looking at the risks and putting various controls in place. Beyond Federation, we're working through a project under our technical team to unlock the value of Great Cobar Deposit.
It's our ambition to bring the Great Cobar project to the board later in the financial year. As can be seen from the graph, this is one of the best copper grade deposit projects not developed in Australia, which is located in a tier one jurisdiction, next to our Peak infrastructure and close to Cobar, where we can access quality people. Currently, we're reporting 8.4 million tonnes of resource at 2.1% copper and 0.6 grams per tonne gold. Further infill drilling and resource drilling would only commence once the project has been approved. I will also note that this resource is open at depth. There are a number of bubbles that look impressive on this graph, but not close to infrastructure, where Great Cobar and other Aurelia projects actually are located.
So in summary, of the FY 2024 plan, as, and as was highlighted in my CEO 100-day plan in July, our first is about safely working towards getting the Peak Mine cost at the right level to maximize cash and open up resources into reserves and strive to fill our mills as soon as possible. Two, is to sustainably maximize cash flow from Dargues for the remaining life, and set up for effective closure in FY 2025. At the same time, be ready for first overall production in Q1 2025 at Federation, which is currently on schedule and budget. While in the background, have the Great Cobar Project ready for board review so that we can have a continuity of project team and growth acceleration.
And five, have the Cobar optimization and synergies defined and ready to execute into the region to maximize our value to the company, including strategic partnerships, where it makes sense. So thanks very much for your attention. I'll now hand it back to Peter.
Thanks, Bryan. Thanks for your comprehensive review of the business, both for 2023 and looking forward into 2024 and beyond. I'll now open the floor for general questions. If you have any questions about the general business of the company, please indicate, and if you don't mind showing either a blue or a yellow attendance card and state your name or the shareholder you represent before you ask the question. So are there any questions on the floor of the meeting? Yes, sir.
My name is Malcolm Heather. I am a shareholder. I've been investing in the company for quite a few years. How long have we got to wait before this company starts to pay some dividends to shareholders? That's what we invest here for. At the moment, the company is starting to improve, but it's a long way to go. You've spent money on mines, especially that Dargues Reef. How much money have you made out of it, and how much money have you spent writing it off? I'd like to answer those questions first.
Perhaps I might get Martin to talk about the write-offs on Dargues, first off, and any of the financial issues. I'll come back to your question on dividends and delivery.
Well, the company's here to make profits, isn't it?
Absolutely, it is.
It did once, and then it fell off a cliff.
Yep.
I believe Mr. Brazil is a very large shareholder of the company. He must be worried about how much money he spent investing in the company to get zip return. That's not what we invest in as shareholders. We're here to share in the benefits of the company, and they're not producing any benefits.
I'll throw it to Martin first off, and then I'll come back to your comments and-
Yeah. So, in the financial year 2022, we did impair the asset, and that was around AUD 130 million.
Will you speak up a little bit?
Yeah. We did impair the asset in financial year 2022-
How much do you-
AUD 130 million.
AUD 100 million dollars wasted?
Yep. This year, the asset will generate around AUD 25-AUD 30 million of cash for us, and that is really what we see as the, as the opportunity remaining at the asset. It is an important funding source for us, so we are keen to maximize that cash. If you heard my comments in the quarterly, you know, we are looking at harvesting cash from that asset now. Beyond that, it will then go into a closure process after that.
What's going to be the total loss, approximately?
I haven't got that number on me.
No.
But we haven't recovered the investment.
You certainly haven't recovered, all right.
I'm just coming back. I mean, obviously, the future of the organization, I don't think there's any doubt that the Dargues acquisition is extremely disappointing, and it did not turn out the way Aurelia had hoped. What we have right now is a strong balance sheet and a world-class tier one asset in developing Federation. And that is the future for the business. And with Federation coming on production ostensibly in the first part of 2025, obviously, the value will progressively be realized in the share price and in cash flows that come from Federation.
Along with the programs that Bryan highlighted in terms of optimizing our facilities at Peak and driving down costs and profitability with the development of Federation, and those improvements will clearly give the opportunity to firstly realize a higher share price. And I think that's if we're able to deliver on Federation, you will see an appreciation of our value. As do I. On that basis, the further optimization and the future development of Great Cobar also represents upside in value, and revenue streams for Aurelia.
One thing I do know is that Mr. Brazil is not a silly person, and he's investing in Aurelia for the future. He's keeping us very much on our toes with respect to performance. Frankly, from this time last year to where we sit right now, is a fundamentally different organization, recognizing that we have to deliver on what we say. Several balls at my feet, I think. In reality, that's a challenge for all of us, but the platform that we have put in place is one that should allow us to deliver on value and restore confidence and future value in the share price and future opportunities to reward shareholders down the track.
Well, as a long-term investor, and I've been investing since I was about 19 years of age, and I'm 87 now. I look at all the companies, and if I see a company that's just not doing well, I either speak to the board or speak to someone about it, and I'll cut my losses. At the moment, my investments bring me quite a huge amount of money, and I make sure that the companies I invest in will be productive. This one is not at the moment. You've got the board at your foot, especially your CEO, and I believe he probably will pull the company around, but it's gonna be a very difficult one for him.
The problem is, with a lot of directors, they expect, they don't run the company for the shareholders, they run it for their directors. And all they're after is their rights and anything else, bonuses they can get out of the company. They deserve it if they produce the goods. But if they don't produce the goods, they don't deserve it.
Absolutely. I completely agree with you, and there's those-
I'm very blunt, I'll tell you that.
I think you're very straightforward, frankly, and thank you for your candor, and
Well, it's needed these days, and unfortunately most shareholders don't speak up. I run a portfolio of over 100 companies, and they produce me an income of over AUD 1.25 million a year, and I spend most of the money reinvesting it. And if a company doesn't deal well, I either sell it, I speak to the directors and try to get an answer from them. In most cases, it's difficult to even get through to the directors to speak to them. They don't want to talk to you.
Well, I think it's an obligation of directors to talk to the people that they own, that own the company.
It certainly is.
It's even more important when the poor performance of the company is not adequate. As I said last year, last year's performance was absolutely, absolutely unacceptable.
I'll grant you that.
I think the platform that we've presently put in place, with a revision to the balance sheet, a new leadership team, and a turnaround in performance, which is only partially delivered, is a platform to return us to superior performance. It's not gonna happen overnight, but I think the platform that all of us believe at board level at least, is one that will allow us to address your concerns and deliver on value.
The other one thing I'm interested in is: what is the percentage of capital you have borrowed in US dollars?
Borrowed in U.S. - percentage of capital borrowed in U.S.-
We have a U.S. dollar loan note advance. That's the debt facility that's undrawn at the moment.
hedged against fluctuations of currency?
We haven't at the moment, no.
You don't.
Be very careful on that one, because one who did get caught very badly on that was ALS, ALQ. They borrowed a huge amount of money, and they said they paid back AUD 200 million. But the currency fluctuation changed, and they owed an extra AUD 300 million on their original loan. Be very careful when you borrow from overseas.
We have a natural hedge, so our revenue being in U.S. dollars, when we borrow in U.S. dollars, there's a hedge there, so there's an-
You've got to have a hedge and be very careful.
So that's where we're protecting it.
Yeah. Bearing in mind, our revenue stream is in U.S. dollars. We're reasonably comfortable with the exposure to U.S. So we're not, we're not revenue in A dollars and paying back in U.S. dollars.
Thank you for your answer.
Thank you for your questions, too, and absolutely understand the sense.
I'm an old bugger, yes, but I'm a tough old bugger.
I appreciate tough old buggers. So, thank you for coming and giving us your views. And congratulations on the portfolio you run, and I think that's appropriate for all of us who invest and spend time in the stock exchange to understand the sensitivities and the real shareholders.
I was born that way.
I'm sure you were. There might be a few on this table that also have that view, too. So thank you for that. And I hope that next year when we come together, we will, you'll see a,
Well, I hope I'm here next year.
Well, actually, I'm betting you will be.
I don't give in easy.
No, I don't have to. Hopefully, we're very close in Federation production at this time next year, and we're delivering the project predictably. And hopefully, naturally enough, you'll see as we approach first revenues from Federation, you'll see a much better share price.
I'm willing to give advice.
I'm very happy to take a call or whatever during the year to receive advice and provide an update. So, that's the job of a board and director, I believe, to be available if possible. So thank you for that. And any more questions from the floor?
Yeah, I did have a yellow card, but I've already voted, so they took it back.
Well, I have the same problem. I had to give it back.
I'm Peter LaRue, and I am a shareholder. A question maybe for the CEO. Reputationally, I believe you have turned many businesses around geographically, but also across various commodities. So you can see that, you know, you've been in the seat for a short period of time, and there's definitely a turnaround notice. So why do you believe you can make this work at Aurelia again, to repeat what you've done elsewhere?
Good question. Thanks for that. So look, I think the volumes for Aurelia are actually pretty well placed. So if you look at the, the organization, we have a pretty good resource, both the Peak and future of Federation, and also for along the whole 100 strike zone of, of Hera line. Infrastructure actually at Peak and at Hera are sort of world-class. And so you've got the infrastructure, you've got the geology, and now it's really about getting the people, getting them motivated, getting focused, and basically turning the business into a very much a low-cost organization, safely. So I think if you think about a lot of turnarounds that I've been involved in the past, some of those ingredients actually aren't there.
So I think having the people engaged and focused on the right level and having the infrastructure we actually have and having the geology we have, it's now up to us as leadership to drive it forward. Once we have that platform in place, we can actually take on the next challenge beyond that. So really, as Peter answered the last question, we need to deliver this year, FY 2020, with good stability. We need to get the project of Federation up and running properly, and we need to make sure our cost structure is set up for the future. So there's nothing stopping us, really, if you look at the current configuration of the business to do that.
Thank you.
Thank you. Any more questions to the floor? Any questions?
Sorry, please. Colin Pate, shareholder. I'd first like to compliment my fellow shareholder for his comments, because a lot of those were going to be mine. I'd like to congratulate the company on the safety record and the environmental record, and I'd like to ask the question: The Dargues purchase was absolutely devastating for the share- for the stock price. Who is still on the board that was responsible voting for that purchase? Why should they still be there?
Well, I think the contribution made by individual directors is goes more than more than one dimension. I'll and I'll use one example. Susie Corlett, who's on the board, was absolutely pivotal in the discovery of Federation and now has tremendous input into the development of Federation. I agree that the Dargues was a poor acquisition, or it didn't turn out well. And progressively, I'm sure that the evolution of the board will take into account not just the record of the company, but also the skill sets that are necessary for the future of the organization. And that process is ongoing, as I signaled.
You see a very big table of people looking at you right now, and that table, in my view, is far too big for the size and shape and complexity of Aurelia as it stands right now. So I did signal that there will be some changes to the board over the coming few months, and that will see a changed set of skills on the board.
Thank you.
If I may, one more question?
Yes.
How many members of the board were members when you bought Dargues right?
I believe that right now there are two members.
Pardon?
There are two members.
Only two members on the board?
I believe so.
Now, look at the size of the board.
Oh, no, no. There, there were two existing members that were around-
Two existing members.
Yeah. The board is too big for the size and shape of the organization as it stands right now. It needs to slim down. That's what we're doing. We're doing it with proper transition and appropriate for the contributions that people have made and are making to the board as it stands right now.
Well, my experience in running a company and being in the army, I've learned a lot about people and a lot about boards. And boy, there's a lot of deadheads in a lot of the boards these days. Give me half a chance, and I, I'll tell you what, if I was younger, I'd really change things, but I'm getting too old now.
I understand your sensitivity, and I'm not arguing that I'm... I probably shouldn't say deadheads, but not every board is top performing, and we strive to improve.
I'd say a lot of the trouble with the boards, it works on the old boys' network. I'll get you on my board, and you can get on mine. It happens. Believe you me, it happens.
Can't argue with that. It might be the old boys and girls nowadays, but I agree with you that there is a relatively small pool, sometimes, for optimizing-
Sometimes the truth needs to come out, doesn't it?
It does, absolutely. Any other questions?
There are no questions online.
Okay. Well, thanks, thanks for that. That was a good discussion, and hopefully we can prove next year that we're on the right track.
Well, I wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Especially your CEO. He's got a big responsibility.
He has, indeed.
Thank you.
Okay. Well, now let's move to the notice of meeting and the formal business. We'll now move to the consideration of the formal items of business for today's meeting. The notice of meeting sets out the resolutions proposed today. No notice of other business has been received in accordance with the Corporations Act, and so only items of business to be presented today will be those specified in the notice of meeting. Apologies, I've got a page of administration to go through, so please bear with me. Firstly, I'd like to explain today's voting procedures. As stated in the notice of meeting, all resolutions will be put to a poll. I appoint Jonathan Kim of Automic Group, the company's share registry, who have examined and prepared summaries of the proxy forms received, to act as a returning officer and to conduct the poll.
If you are attending in person, please fill out your voting card, and our Automic representative will collect your completed voting card at the appropriate time. If you are voting online, you will see instructions on the Automic website once you have logged in on how to register and vote. Please do not click Next until you have selected your vote for all resolutions. Resolution one, relating to the remuneration report, is advisory only. All other resolutions are ordinary, which means that to be carried, they require 50% of the votes cast by members who are entitled to vote. Resolutions one, four, and five are subject to voting exclusions, and further details are set out in the notice of meeting.
As each resolution is discussed, the wording of each resolution and the results of the proxies received prior to the meeting will be shown on the slides behind me. The proxies received prior to the meeting represent, and I'm going to just quote the numbers here. 749,466,784 shares, or 45% of the issued capital of the company. To the extent permitted by the Corporations Act and ASX listing rules, and subject to the voting exclusions detailed in the notice of meeting, all valid, undirected proxies or open votes that have nominated the chair of the meeting as their proxy, will be cast in favor of each resolution outlined in the notice of meeting.
Directors and executives identified as key management personnel will not be voting on directed proxy votes given to them for resolutions 1, 4, and 5. The poll, and therefore the online voting portal, is now open and will remain open until I declare the poll closed. Your votes must be submitted prior to the poll being closed for them to count. I will now move to the first item of business. The first item of business is the financial statements and reports. That is to receive and consider Aurelia's FY23 financial statements, the directors' report, and the independent auditor's report. There's no resolution is required. There'll be no voting on this item. Kelly McKenzie from Ernst & Young is available online to answer any questions you may have regarding the audit of the company.
Are there any questions, comments, from shareholders in the room regarding the financial statements or the audit of the company, or any questions or comments on the management of the company that we have not already dealt with in the previous question and answer session? Are there any questions on the accounts, audit? No? Any questions online? There doesn't appear to be. Oops. Well, with that in mind, then, are there any written questions, Michelle? Nothing. Okay. There being no questions, we'll now move to resolution one. Resolution one is the adoption of the remuneration report. It relates to a non-binding resolution required by the Corporations Act in relation to FY23 remuneration report.
The wording of the resolution and the proxies received in relation to this resolution are presently shown on the screen and show an overwhelming positive vote for the remuneration report. The presentation of the remuneration report is a requirement for all ASX-listed companies. The company's remuneration report is included in the company's 2023 annual report. The remuneration report sets out the remuneration of Aurelia's directors and key management personnel and Aurelia's remuneration policies in respect of the key management personnel. In accordance with the Corporations Act, this vote is advisory only and does not bind the directors or the company. Are there any comments or questions from shareholders in the room regarding the remuneration report? No. Are there any questions online regarding the remuneration report? Well, thank you for that. I put therefore to the meeting resolution one.
Please record your vote in relation to resolution one by choosing for, against, or abstain on your screen or voting card. Shareholders voting online are reminded not to click next until you have selected your vote for all resolutions. Let me move then to resolution two, the re-election of Susie Corlett. Next item of business is the re-election of Susie as a non-executive director. The wording of the resolution and the proxies received in relation to this resolution are shown on the screen. Susie's credentials, which are substantial, are outlined in the notice of meeting. Susie is also Chair of the board's Sustainability and Risk Committee and a member of the Audit Committee. For politeness, I would ask Susie to address shareholders regarding her re-election. Susie, over to you.
Thank you, Peter. Good afternoon, everybody. I have had the honor of serving on your board for five years. This has been a challenging time for the company and for our shareholders. Along with my fellow directors, I accept accountability for where your board has not delivered on expectations and apologize to shareholders for where we may have done better. Aurelia's board and management have worked hard over the past 12 months to recapitalize the company, strengthen the balance sheet, improve operational performance, and deliver growth. Your board is determined to rebuild shareholder trust and, in doing so, unlock the enormous option value that sits before the business. Aurelia is at a pivotal stage of renewal. Strong leadership from our new Managing Director, Mr.
Bryan Quinn, together with the bench strength that he outlined earlier, and with a strengthened board, which benefits from the support of our new major shareholder, Lyn Brazil, places us extremely well to maximize value for shareholders. The Federation project is in the execution phase, and Great Cobar will follow. At the same time, we continue to improve stability and predictability in our operations, which are the backbone of our business. Getting the balance right between renewal and continuity is critically important. I am seeking your support for my re-election, as I believe I can play a vital role in the task ahead. With a background in deep gold and base metals operating experience, I'm sharply focused on maximizing margin generation through reducing costs and optimizing production settings.
My combination of technical and financial expertise and track record of company turnarounds through my career in mining, finance, and mining private equity, allows me to play a meaningful role in restructuring the business for growth. A geologist, my experience in unlocking the phenomenal prospectivity of Cobar goes well back over a decade. I'm proud of having advocated strongly in the boardroom of this company for brownfield and greenfield exploration, which was not a board priority nor allocated funding at the time I became involved in the business. This advocacy delivered material shareholder value through extending mine life at Hera and Peak. The discoveries of high-grade ore at the Kairos deposit and significant growth in the mineral inventory at Great Cobar being particular highlights. But what eclipsed this was the greenfield discovery of Federation, arguably the most significant base metal discovery in Australia in recent years.
Federation was discovered during a period I'd been asked by Aurelia's board to step into an executive role overseeing geology during a leadership transition in 2019. Resource and reserve delineation was highly targeted and efficient, and this has enabled us to fast-track Federation into production within a remarkable six years, as Peter outlined. My role in empowering and supporting Aurelia's very talented and capable people to deliver this, is an achievement I'm extremely proud of. There is far more value yet to unlock. I am equally proud as Chair of Sustainability and Risk Committee, of the work done by our people to materially reduce our total recordable injury frequency rate, which was a very unacceptable 11.5 when I started as committee chair, and has more than halved to 5.13 at the end of financial year this year.
Our committee remains ever vigilant in its oversight of continuous improvement in both physical and psychosocial safety. At the request of the board, after the untimely illness of our chairman, Cobb Johnstone , I served as interim chairman from February to November in 2021. Throughout this time, I championed a material uplift in Aurelia's corporate governance practices to align with the ASX corporate governance principles, including the introduction of board and subcommittee performance evaluations, which are critical to ensure the organization learns from its mistakes and continually improves board performance. In addition to serving on the board at Aurelia, I'm a non-executive director of two large mining companies, Mineral Resources Limited and Iluka Resources, an advisory director of the Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife, and a trustee of the AusIMM Education Endowment Fund .
I would like to finish by thanking our people, my fellow directors, for the trust they place in my abilities. Our employees, for the passion, drive, and energy they bring to Aurelia every day. And to you, our shareholders, for your patience and for your support. Thank you, Peter.
Thank you very much, Susie. Susie's re-election is unanimously supported by the rest of the board. Are there any questions or comments that anybody would like to raise in the room? No? Any comments, questions online? Well, thanks. I put to the meeting Resolution two. Please record your vote in relation to Resolution two by choosing for, against, or abstain on your screen or voting card. Thank you. Thank you, Susie. The next item of business is Resolution three, which is the election of Lyn Brazil as a non-executive director. The wording of the resolution and the proxies received in relation to this resolution are found on the screen. Lyn's credentials are also outlined in the notice of the meeting. And Lyn, perhaps you would like to say a few words to shareholders and give them your always important message.
Yeah. Thanks, Peter. Well, good afternoon, everybody. I don't bring a lot of engineering expertise or experience to this board. I have to rely on the executives and the other board members. I just rely on the figures, and for last year, they weren't very good. They were bloody terrible! And my fundamental belief is that the role of the company and the board is to protect the value of their invested shares and to earn a profit commensurate with that investment. Once again, that hasn't been too good the last year, and it's been a failure. And quite clearly, that's due to some misjudgments, missteps, and mismanagement. And like, as you can see, I've lost a lot of bloody money. And it's been quite an unsettling experience.
So I felt necessary that I step up to join the board to make sure or hope to make sure that those missteps don't happen again. I am an optimist, otherwise I wouldn't be here. I believe that this company has some good mineral resources, and got fully permitted. They've got an operation. People go to work every day. So with the forecasts and the figures we've had, I believe this company will be profitable in the future. And that with their two operating mines, Dargues and Peak, we should generate a significant profit for the year so that we're not in the black, in the red again. And with Federation, which is the white hope, very soon down the track, we'll be making good money.
We will achieve those two ends that I mentioned before, that the company should achieve. So, on that basis, I hope that when I meet with you next year, we'll be talking good news, and we're all smiling. Thank you.
Thanks very much, Lyn. That's, I share your hope. In fact, I probably, I'd move it away from a hope to an expectation, right? So,
Don't be carried away.
Got to deliver on commitments, Lyn. Lyn's election is unanimously supported by the rest of the board. Are there any comments or questions regarding Lyn's appointment? I've had none, no questions or comments from the floor and none from the... So I will put the resolution three, and please record your vote in relation to resolution three by choosing for, against, or abstain on your screen. Thank you. I'll now move to resolution four. The next item of business, resolution four, seeks shareholders' approval for the issue of shares to the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Bryan Quinn. The wording of the resolution and the proxies received in relation to this resolution are shown on screen. As part of Mr. Quinn's employment arrangements, subject to shareholder approval, the company agreed to issue Mr.
Quinn with a number of shares equivalent to AUD 500,000, divided by volume-weighted average price of the company's shares on the ASX during the 5 business days prior to 31 May 2023. This amounts to 4,524,197 ordinary shares being issued to Mr. Quinn. Because Mr. Quinn is a director of the company, and the issue of shares does not fall within any of the exceptions under the ASX Listing Rules 10.12, shareholder approval for the proposed issue of shares to Mr. Quinn must be obtained under ASX Listing 10.11.1 before the shares can be issued. Are there any comments, questions from shareholders in the room regarding Resolution 4? Are there any questions from the online? No. Well, I therefore put resolution 4 to the meeting.
Please record your vote in relation to resolution four by choosing for, against, or abstain on your screen or voting card. So we now move to Resolution 5, which is approval to issue rights to the managing director and CEO. The next item of business is Resolution 5, which seeks shareholder approval to issue performance rights to the MD and CEO, Bryan Quinn, under the company's long-term incentive plan. The wording of the resolution and the proxies received in relation to this resolution are shown on screen. As Mr. Quinn is a director of the company, shareholder approval of the proposed issue of performance rights to Mr. Quinn must be obtained under ASX listing 10.1... before the performance rights can be issued. The grant of performance rights will, in due course, involve the issue of ordinary shares in the company.
One ordinary share for one performance right, if the rights vest upon satisfaction of certain vesting conditions, which are measured over the three-year period from 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2026. Are there any questions, comments from shareholders in the room regarding Resolution Five? Are there any comments, queries from online? Well, therefore, I put to the meeting Resolution Five. Please record your vote in relation to Resolution Five by choosing for, against, or abstain on your screen or voting card. Now, we come to collection of voting cards and closing of poll. As that is the last item of business, the online voting platform will now be closed. Could all shareholders, proxies, and power of attorneys voting online, please ensure that you have submitted your votes.
All shareholders in the room, please complete your voting card, and a representative from Automic will collect them right now, and he is wandering through with anticipation on trying to get those voting cards off you. I'll allow another minute before I close the poll. Thank you. Hopefully, you've completed your online voting, and certainly voting cards have been collected from the room here. I now declare the poll closed. Well, that concludes the formal part of today's meeting. The results of the poll will be declared and released to the ASX after the conclusion of the meeting. I'd really like to thank everyone who's attended, either in person or online today, and participated in the 2023 Aurelia Metals Annual General Meeting.
I'd also like to personally thank all our shareholders for your continued support. I believe, like me, you recognize the significant value of our portfolio, and on the backs of our efforts in FY 23, I'm confident we have the right leaders, the capability and strategies in place to achieve shareholder prosperity, and deliver on our commitments to deliver value to you as shareholders. I now declare the 2023 AGM closed. Directors and management, welcome those who are attending in person to join us for a tea, coffee, and refreshment after the meeting, which I understand is at the back of the room. So please join us for a chat and a cup of tea, and please thank you for your attendance today.