Okay, thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Tim Crommelin, and I chair the Eagers Automotive board. I'd like to welcome you to the company's 68th Annual General Meeting since Eagers listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1957. It is 10:00 A.M. here in Brisbane, and the Company Secretary, Denis Stark, has advised that a quorum is present, and therefore I declare this meeting open. This meeting is being held as a hybrid meeting with shareholders attending in person and online. My fellow directors here with me in Brisbane today are Nick Politis, Marcus Birrell, David Blackhall, Michelle Prater, Greg Duncan, Katie McNamara, and Sophie Moore, our Finance Director and Chief Financial Officer of Eagers Automotive. After 15 years on the board, Dan Ryan is an apology for this meeting as he's overseas.
I will thank Dan for his immensely valuable contributions to this company a little later in the meeting. Sitting next to me is Keith Thornton, who many of you would know as Chief Executive. He joins us, and it's also pleasing to see members of Keith's senior management team, executive team, well represented here. Denis Stark, that I've referred to, Edward Geschke, our Chief Operating Officer, Alison Reynolds, Chief Executive General Manager, People and Safety, Paul Warburton, Executive General Manager, Financial Services, Luc Derix , our Chief Information Officer, is somewhere. We'll find Luke at some stage. Amanda Ellison, our General Counsel, and James Couper, our Chief Commercial Officer. I'd also like to welcome a few special guests. Former director, Tony Love. Tony's been on the board for more than a decade, and welcome to you, Tony. I'd also like to welcome Robin Piper and Dr. Alan Porter.
They've been long-time supporters and both large shareholders in Eagers Automotive. So welcome to you, Alan and Robin. I'd like to introduce David Rogers and Marina Schumann, representing Auditor Deloitte. David is joining us online from Hong Kong while Marina is here in Brisbane. Marina, here we are. Hi, Marina. David and Marina will be available later in the meeting to answer any questions on all of the matters. Denis tells me that there aren't any other formal apologies, and with that, you'll just need to bear with me for a little, please, as this is a hybrid meeting. I do need to run through a few procedural matters. Only shareholders and their representatives and attorneys, if you are, you should be holding a blue card or a yellow card. You are entitled to ask questions and/or vote on the business of this meeting.
For other people not holding those cards that wish to ask questions or so, we can do so in general questions once the formal business of the meeting has been done. If you're a shareholder, you'd have a blue card, or you would have a yellow card. If you don't, you can at any point jump up and grab one from Computershare at the front. For attendees here in person, if you want to ask a question, can I just say, raise your hand. If you've invited questions, wait for the microphones and state your name before you give us the question. Online attendees can submit questions at any time by selecting the Q&A icon on your device. Select the relevant topic from the drop-down list, then type your question and press the send button.
Online attendees can also ask verbal questions by following the instructions below the broadcast window. Although online questions can be submitted at any time, I'll address them at the relevant time during the meeting. If similar questions are received, we will try to group them together, and I'll ask James Couper, our Chief Commercial Officer, to introduce the online questions at the appropriate time. Just on the voting process, it will be conducted by a poll today. For attendees present in the room, it's your blue admission card. You'll need to follow the instructions on the card, mark the appropriate boxes, and lodge the card in the ballot box before I formally close voting. Proxy holders who lodge voting cards will be deemed to have voted in accordance with the instructions attached to their card.
For attendees online, a voting icon will appear at the top of your screen when voting opens. Clicking on the icon will present your voting options for each motion. Simply select one of the options and follow the instructions to cast your vote. You may change your vote at any time until I declare voting as closed. All attendees, whether online or in person, may submit votes at any time from when voting opens, and that's until we declare voting has closed. Finally, I appoint Lewis Bramello from Computershare. Where's Lewis? Lewis, up the back there. Lewis will conduct the poll and be the returning officer. I now declare voting open on all items of business. Before we proceed with today's formal business, I'll give a report on our year to finishing at December 2024, and then Keith will provide his report, including comment on the current year.
I now move to my report. 2024, the year ending in December, demonstrated the resilient nature of Eagers Automotive core business, with the company outperforming relative to our peer group and industry benchmarks. The company delivered record full-year revenue of AUD 11.2 billion, representing a significant revenue growth of 13.6%. That is AUD 1.3 billion above a figure for 2023. This was achieved through a balanced contribution from organic growth and integrating scale acquisitions. The financial results included record profit contributions from our independent pre-owned business, Easy Auto 123, and our retail joint venture, BYD, supported by disciplined cost management, demonstrating the benefits of our unique competitive advantage and transformed business model. Eagers Automotive delivered an underlying operating profit before tax of AUD 371.2 million and a statutory profit before tax of AUD 335.6 million.
As a result of that strong performance, the board approved a full-year dividend of AUD 0.74 per share, matching the AUD 0.74 that we paid in 2023. In 2024, we continued to make progress on sustainability, or as known as environmental, social, and governance, ESG initiatives. Our sustainability strategy aims to deliver sustainable growth through the development of our people, optimization of our operations, and management of our environmental footprint. In 2024, we continued to focus on embedding sustainability into existing governance and risk management frameworks and developing specific plans and actions for safety, culture, and energy reduction activities. In addition, we continue to focus on ensuring we have appropriate and necessary foundations in place to support future reporting obligations and the broader community expectations.
Before our CEO Keith's comments on our start to 2025 and prospects for the year ahead, it is worth noting that we are a consumer-facing business and therefore not immune from the well-documented economic conditions, including inflation, interest rates, and cost of living pressures, all of which impact on consumer spending. Whilst the board and management remain conscious of this macroeconomic environment, we continue to focus on what is within our control so that we are able to deliver a sustainable business in the longer term. The strength of our balance sheet and our financial position, including our significant property holdings, form a strong platform for further disciplined investment in accordance with our next 100 strategy. With Eagers Automotive unrivaled scale, its geographic reach, and brand diversity, our company has built an enduring and growing competitive advantage and is well positioned to take advantage of industry opportunities as they present.
Eagers Automotive's track record of delivering consistently strong results does not happen by chance. The resilient financial performance achieved in 2024 is a testament to the people who make Eagers Automotive a unique industry-leading company. I take this opportunity to thank the entire Eagers Automotive team, Keith Thornton and his executive team, and all our people for their dedication and unwavering commitment to the ongoing prosperity of Eagers Automotive and all of its shareholders. Thank you to my fellow directors for your ongoing support and counsel. I'd like specifically to acknowledge the contribution of Mr. Dan Ryan, who is retiring as a director at the conclusion of this meeting. Dan's been a director of the company for over 15 years, and throughout that time has been an extremely hardworking, diligent, and professional and loyal servant of this company, providing outstanding service to the benefits of all shareholders.
When I joined the board some years back, Dan was already on the board of Eagers, and he was extraordinarily generous with his time that he gave me and being available and assisting in educating me where I was coming from a very low level in knowledge of the automotive industry. Dan was extraordinarily helpful in assisting me gain knowledge and try and move up the curve a little. He will be missed, and this board acknowledges and thanks Dan for his tireless efforts and immense contribution as a director of this company. Finally, to all shareholders, thank you for your continued support. We will focus, and we will continue to focus on delivering for shareholders. I now invite Keith Thornton, our Chief Executive Officer, to provide his report.
Thank you, Chairman, and good morning to all shareholders and guests, and thank you for your interest in today's Annual General Meeting for Eagers Automotive. It's always a pleasure and a privilege to speak on behalf of this company. Today, I'll provide you a review of 2024 performance, talk about our outlook for 2025, and provide an update on trading conditions through the first four months of this year. Now, we do appreciate investors and guests who've taken time out of your day to join us here in person and also online, so we don't want to just go through the motions. Today, I will take you through a brief presentation, but in doing so, I'll try and avoid just reading the numbers from the slides.
What we really want to show you is the type of company we are, who we are, how we go about business, what our plans are, and most importantly, demonstrate real evidence of execution. At our AGM last year, we took the opportunity to talk to shareholders about our vision and our values. Now, these are important to us at Eagers, and we believe they define who we are as an organization. In simple terms, Eagers Automotive has the ambition to be the most admired automotive partner through the delivery of great outcomes for all stakeholders consistently and sustainably. It is a core tenet of the company that our culture and our behavior will allow us to be a preferred business.
Now, what that means is that when there's a choice to be made by the customers, employees, business partners, the communities we operate in, or even shareholders, people choose Eagers because they prefer to. I want to assure all shareholders that Eagers Automotive takes this very seriously, and we believe this is a foundation that sets apart great companies from those that are merely good. I don't know if you can see it on this slide and not on that one. The headline on this slide is the most important thing to note. Eagers is a culture-driven business. We truly believe the foundation to all great companies is a great culture, but equally, we understand it's very hard for shareholders and investors to see, much less measure. This is partly the reason I feel so compelled to talk about this at today's AGM.
Inside Eagers Automotive, we regularly speak to wanting to be a company recognized as good people. Now, what this means is that the people of Eagers are people of integrity who do what they say they'll do, who are agile in their thinking and their action, who value the contributions of all individuals inside the company equally, and who act like owners. If we are a company of good people, we can set about doing good things. Now, what does that mean? That means delivering for our stakeholders, driving innovation and optimization of our business with the aim to become a preferred partner for everyone that we engage with. Now, that's the foundation for our business. Once we have that foundation, we focus on three other key areas. The first is disciplined capital management. We're a public company. We are using shareholders' funds. We take that seriously.
The second one is optimizing our existing business, making our business stronger for longer. The third is driving sustainable, long-term, valuable growth. In summary, we are absolutely focused on growing a bigger company, but we do not want to do it without becoming a better company. Bigger and better must operate in parallel. Our results in 2024, particularly relative to the industry and the way our peers and the results from our peers, sorry, provided evidence that the approach we are taking is being successfully executed. Looking at those 2024 results on the next slide. As promised, I am certainly not going to read those numbers on the screen. They have been published many times, and it is easy for shareholders to read those numbers. There are a couple of highlights on that slide.
In addition to what our Chairman called out, our EBITDAI, so that's EBITDA excluding impairment for 2024, was a record ever: AUD 550.4 million. This is an important number as it demonstrates the underlying health of the business and ignores the impact of cyclical interest rates. In 2024, we had a high interest rate environment. I think this is an important number to call out that the business is performing and producing a record EBITDAI. Another highlight that our Chairman has already called out is that we were pleased to be able to once again reward shareholders by matching our 2023 record dividend in 2024. The company has a history of disciplined execution against our strategic growth. However, as highlighted earlier, we do not target growth without working on the underlying business. Again, getting better—sorry, getting bigger without getting better is not our plan.
That's why at the start of 2024, we set two equally important goals. The first was to deliver more than AUD 1 billion in revenue growth over the course of the year, and the second was to drive industry outperformance via our strong net profit margin model through the optimization of our business. Now, if you think about that, what were those two goals? To grow the company and protect our margin. It's a pretty simple plan. If it's executed properly, it's also very effective. I'm pleased to report that the company delivered on both these goals in 2024. It was a record-ever revenue result in excess of our target, and our underlying net profit margin was materially higher than the industry. The results we've reported demonstrate a net margin outcome that significantly outperformed.
On the left-hand side of this slide, as you look at it, you'll see Eagers in the bold maroon line. The segments in terms of the time periods at the bottom are half years. In the second half of 2024, the industry had effectively delivered a very, very large record order bank with a lot of high gross profit margin. You'll see below that dark maroon line that the industry, as well as our listed peers, significantly declined and reverted back to what were quite challenging conditions in our industry. Most pleasingly, Eagers didn't. We are the maroon line at the top there, and you will see that our return on sales margin remained at 3.3%, and that compared to the industry at 1.2%, a significant delta. Our core business, representing almost 80% of our total operations, operated at 4.2%.
This is absolutely significant and a clear demonstration of our plans to protect our margin by utilizing our scale. It was not just scale. On the right-hand side of that slide, you'll see three key drivers to how Eagers has been able to build this enduring—and these words are important—enduring, which means it'll last. Growing means it will extend and get bigger. The three things that have driven this outperformance have been our unmatched scale, combined with the quality of our partner portfolio and the people we are in business with, the OEMs that we represent. Finally, it is the unique nature of our business: our size, our quality, and the fact we are unique. Those three things are driving this incredible competitive advantage that we are building inside our business.
What it is delivering for us is a combination of operating leverage, using our size to get better operating results out of our existing business, and it is also delivering strategic leverage. That is something I will talk to in a moment. Tim made the comment before that this advantage was not built overnight, and it did not happen by accident. This slide is a very important slide. I am going totally off script here to talk to this slide. This demonstrates, with hard facts and real evidence, the execution of our well-communicated Next 100 strategy. Now, what this slide shows is that this is a multi-year strategy that gets better every year, and it is far from over. If you look at this slide, and I understand it might be hard to read for a number of you, I am going to call out a couple of key numbers.
As you look from left to right in the table, it shows 2019 through to 2024. We've increased the number of brands we represent from 36 to 49. As we sit here at the moment, we've got, I think, 52 brands the company represents. Since 2019 to 2024, we've increased our property portfolio from AUD 267 million, which was a low point post the merger with AHG, to just under AUD 900 million worth of property owned by the company, a 231% improvement. The amount of property we owned versus leased has risen from 9.7 to 28.5. Now, these two stats, how much property we own and the owned versus leased ratio, are critical because a key part of our plans is to use property consolidation to redesign automotive retail for the benefit of all, make us stronger for longer, much more sustainable.
At the same time, over that period, on a like-for-like basis, we exited 98 leases. Just think about that. We're running the same size business because it's like-for-like, and we're doing it with 98 less leases. We reduced our headcount on a like-for-like basis by 20%. What probably sounds more impressive is that's more than 1,600 people running the same business with 1,600 less people. Our productivity per person went up by 49% over a five-year period. We established the valuable retail joint venture with BYD. We increased our EasyAuto independent used car business by 488%. It's running at record-ever levels. Our return on sales results flowed through in the bottom line. Now, the reason this is so critical, and I want to labor this a little with investors, is the period this represents has probably been the strongest five years in the automotive industry.
The work up on that slide was not easy. We were changing the business. We were transforming Eagers Automotive. We were obsessed with productivity and doing things differently at a time when the industry was largely passive and enjoying record demand relative to supply. This is something I'm incredibly proud to report to shareholders. This is a company that works hard through good times and bad. The final comment I wanted to say around this slide is I've heard others from outside the company describe this as a cost-out strategy. It is absolutely not a cost-out strategy. Our strategy is to be obsessed with productivity, using property in a more productive way, creating better productivity out of our staff by redesigning their roles and making their roles better through proprietary technology.
Doing this with a thought to make sure that no matter what we do in redesigning our business, the customer wins first. Because if the customer wins first, we as a business and shareholders will also reap rewards over the long term. Move to the next one now. I'm sorry, I've lost my script entirely. Moving on to this one. Sorry. Turning back to the reference I mentioned earlier, which was that our scale drives unique strategic leverage. Using scale to drive better operating leverage is a common advantage for market leaders in any industry. It is rare and very valuable when a company gets to a position where it has genuine and accretive strategic leverage. This is where we use our unique position to gain competitive advantage in a way that is very difficult to replicate.
Now, it's important to understand the context as to why this is so important. The automotive industry continues to evolve and consolidate at a rapid rate, actually at a rate that it has never seen before. The emergence of China and the transition from combustion engines to a more plugged-in electric future means that this industry is going through a once-in-a-hundred-year transformation. In many ways, Australia is ground zero for this change. Australia is ultra-competitive. There are more brands represented in the Australian market than in any other market we have studied. It makes it incredibly competitive, which means you need to be incredibly sharp to be able to perform. With the scale Eagers provides, there's no doubt that we are uniquely positioned to add value to our business partners.
Now, what this means is as the industry transforms, our dominant market position makes us valuable for people to approach us. At the moment, we are reviewing significant opportunities both on an inbound basis, and by that I mean large-scale automotive industry players who are approaching Eagers and saying, "Your scale and your unique position means we want and need to partner with you," as well as company-initiated outbound. What that means is opportunities we've identified and we're pursuing for the benefit of shareholders over the long term. Across all four areas, we are looking at accretive and material opportunities. I must stress that these dynamics are not things we have seen before. They're gaining momentum. We are uniquely placed, and they'll be a catalyst for further material growth in the years to come.
Turning now to our 2025 trading outlook, there is no slide on this one, and I do want to be explicit on this because there was a typo in the speech that went on the ASX this morning. In February this year, when we went out with our 2024 results, we communicated that our outlook for 2025 would be based on delivering another AUD 1 billion worth of revenue growth this year. We also communicated that the tough trading conditions in the industry that came through in the second half of 2024 would likely continue into the first part of 2025, troughing and then starting to improve in the second half of the year. In addition to this, we knew that in the first half of this year, we were cycling a very strong first half of 2024.
We had a federal election due, which always creates consumer uncertainty and a bit of a lull in activity. We knew there would be limited interest rate relief in the first half, but we expected it in the second half. We had a very unfavorable April public holiday schedule. That might sound like an odd thing to call out, but ask any automotive retailer, and the way the holidays fall in April can make or break that month, and losing one month and a half of a year is not something that is ideal. In a cyclone in Queensland all the way down to Brisbane for the first time in 50 or 100 years or whatever it was.
For these reasons, we have been explicitly communicating that we expected the year to be a year of two halves, where it would be challenging to match our first half of 2024, but we would outperform in the second half. We still believe the second half will benefit from the tailwinds of improving industry conditions, some interest rate relief, and without all those disruptions that I just mentioned. I am also very pleased to report that as of April, we are ahead of 2024, and based on May trading, we expect that to continue through to year-to-date May results. We are not being explicit on what the half-year result will be. It is going to be entirely dependent on how strong our June trading is. June in 2024 was very strong. Based on what we have got planned, we are hoping we will have a very, very strong June 2025.
In the wise words of our Chairman, we will be there or thereabouts for the half year. What that means is we might be slightly up, we might be in line, we might be a touch off. It is dependent on June trading. The real story is we are very pleased, given what we saw going into this first half, that we are up. Again, it demonstrates the scale of our business, the unique nature of our partnerships that we have, and diligent execution. It also makes us very confident about the full year 2025, which at Eagers, when you are a 112-year-old, 113-year-old company, we do not really care about month-to-month results. We are building our business for the next 100 years. The auto right remains solid. It is materially up on 2024 like-for-like, and it again represents a resilient consumer and the unique partners that we partnered with.
Our retail joint venture with BYD and Australia's largest pre-owned brand, Easy Auto 123, are trading at record levels, and we continue to execute on our structural productivity improvements. Our productivity obsession has a long way to go as we continue to roll out the Next 100 strategy. Finally, we remain on track to achieve our revenue growth target. Again, we called out AUD 1 billion worth of revenue growth. From where we sit at the moment, there is certainly some upside risk to that. Final comment is that we continue to review accretive growth opportunities, as I mentioned before. Just touching on our valuable retail joint venture with BYD and specifically calling out an announcement that we made earlier this week.
We're pleased to announce that the company has entered into a long-term agreement directly with BYD Australia, and that's to continue to provide retail representation for the BYD brand in Australia. The new agreement provides for a five-year term with another five-year option period, and it aligns with BYD taking over the role as importer and distributor from EV Direct in Australia. Australia is a region that BYD considers a key strategic market as they continue their global growth ambitions. At the moment, BYD, I think, delivered 4.3 million cars globally last year. Only 10% of those were outside of China. By 2030, they expect that 4.3 million will substantially grow, and 50% of the vehicles will be delivered outside of China. They're certainly ambitious and have got a track record of delivering against those ambitions.
Under the agreement, which is subject to formal documentation, Eagers will retain our existing extensive network across all metro and regional areas that we are currently operating in. We have been granted specific rights subject to BYD approvals to increase that network. We have the support from BYD to continue to evolve the unique retail partner model, which we rolled out this year, which is again another example of Eagers innovating. It is a first for the Australian automotive industry, this retail partner model that we have built, and it is working incredibly well. The new agreement is not exclusive. It will be limited in the number of dealer partners that will operate under BYD Australia. We are very excited to be able to communicate confirmation of our future partnership with BYD. It is extensive.
It's valuable, and it rewards the investment and the relationship that Eagers Automotive has built with BYD since they launched in Australia. We expect it to continue to grow and be a key part of our company over the next decade. In closing, and as always, I would like to acknowledge everyone that supports Eagers Automotive. To our stakeholders, customers, employees, business partners, and shareholders, please be confident that we will continue to strive to be your preferred partner. The opportunity to serve you, to partner with you, or to work alongside you is something we never take for granted, and we'll continue to work tirelessly to retain that opportunity. I would like to thank our directors and our chairmen for your ongoing support. The Eagers board is unique. It's a board that is deeply experienced in automotive.
It's deeply connected in our industry, and it's deeply invested in your company. Now, these attributes are more valuable in our industry than others, and something that is a defining part of our company's long-term track record of consistent performance. I'd like to echo the Chairman's comments in relation to Mr. Dan Ryan, a truly loyal servant to the company and the epitome of what it takes to be one of the most admired individuals within our company and also within the Australian automotive industry. I've personally worked alongside Dan since 2005 in his capacity as a director, and his support, his wisdom, his diligence, and his calm nature have been invaluable to the company and to me personally. Thank you, Dan. You've been exemplary in your role and remain a valued friend to our company.
All shareholders benefit from the expertise of our directors, and personally, I'm very fortunate as CEO to be able to leverage their support and wisdom. Finally, I'm excited to announce a small but very important initiative that we plan to launch in July this year. One of Eagers' key stakeholders that we talk about internally and externally is the communities in which we operate. The opportunity to be a positive, supportive part of all the communities we operate in is a privilege, and we will continue to support grassroots causes through both local dealership activities and by the Eagers Foundation. Today, I'm pleased to announce another initiative that has originated out of your company. Launching in July this year as part of our Easy Auto 123 brand is Cars for Good, which you can see up on your screen.
Now, this charitable initiative is something I'm immensely proud to communicate. Simply, every month on a rotating basis, an Easy Auto 123 store will donate a car, not loan, but donate a car to an individual or family in need or a grassroots cause in the communities in which they operate. Every month, we will donate a car to someone in need. Those people in need, those causes in need will be nominated by our employees and/or by our customers. This initiative is another example of good people doing good things, and it's consistent with our aim to support everyone in the communities in which we operate, remain mobile, especially those suffering hardships. In closing, and as always, we and I personally remain very positive about what the future holds for your company. Thank you again for your attention today.
Thank you, Keith. Shareholders, we now move to today's formal business. Details of all proxy and direct votes received prior to this meeting on each item of business should now be showing on the screen. You can see them there. Can you see them out the back there? Yep. Okay. Thanks. The 2024 annual report and notice of annual general meeting were made available to all shareholders on the 24th of April, and they will be taken as read. I remind shareholders that questions on agenda items will be addressed during the discussion on that relevant item and before voting closes. General questions will be addressed later in the meeting. The first item of business is to receive our financial reports for 2024, which were included in the annual report starting on page 69. The Corporations Act requires the financial reports to be put to the meeting each year.
If there are any questions on the financial reports, we will address them now. Now is also the time for our auditor to answer any questions on the audit, the auditor's report, our accounting policies, and auditor independence. Our shareholders present here in person, are there any questions, anything that any shareholder would like to raise? If so, please wait for a microphone to find its way to you and state your name and ask your question. Anything? No. James, online?
We have one online question from the chair. A slightly technical one from Keithr Callahero. It is two links to the question. The first one is, in the profit and loss statement, are holdbacks and other incentives for manufacturers included as ordinary revenue or as other gains? And approximately in which year or decade were holdback payments first received and included as revenue?
Way too technical for me, so I might just flick that one straight to Finance Director, Sophie Moore.
Thanks James. Yeah, incentives are included in the revenue line in the face of the P&L. In terms of holdbacks, they would be included in the cost of goods sold. I've been in the industry for 10 years, and the holdbacks have been there. Maybe Keith might add some more color to that part of it.
I think we could ask our major shareholder; he may well have been part of putting holdbacks in place with one of the OEMs originally. Nick, did you know when? Thirty years ago.
I probably do not even know what holdbacks are.
No. Holdbacks, for those that do not know what that question relates to, is that effectively we have a margin on the vehicles we sell. We also have what is called a holdback, which is a margin that's held back by the OEMs and paid at certain intervals. They are not paid on a monthly basis. They could be paid quarterly, half-yearly, or annually. It depends. Every OEM does it differently. Holdbacks, sometimes they have no hurdles attached to them. Sometimes they are attached to customer satisfaction, facility investment, or other hygiene-related things, possibly market share or target-driven as well. It is asically a margin that is held back from the dealer so that it is not used as daily trading margin.
Thank you. Oh, sorry. We do have a question, Keith.
It is a general question. I'm Marie McCarthy. I'm representing the Australian Shareholders Association. We just have a question about the level of debt to equity. We've noticed that there's been a substantial increase in the level of debt, and we're just asking what plans you have to ensure that that doesn't create any further issues for the company.
I might have gone past this, Sophie, but can I just make a general comment? Our level of debt is very low relative to our earnings and, for that matter, equity. We are very conscious of our debt levels, and that is a significant—what's the correct word?—in terms of any STIs.
Oh, yeah. Interest cover.
Interest cover is a key component in whether our executives can earn a bonus at the end. We are very conscious of debt like any company, and we're looking forward to hopefully slightly lower interest rates, which will make a difference. Sophie, do you want to make a comment?
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Certainly, we're very focused on the strength of our balance sheet. Obviously, we've got a very strong portfolio of property. It's worth about AUD 885 million, but about AUD 600 million of that debt is attached to that property, so there is significant equity in that property portfolio. In terms of the overall gearing of the company, it's still sub-1.5 times, which we're very comfortable with. We do have significant available liquidity in order to deploy capital to continue to grow and generate increased earnings per share. Certainly, the gearing has increased over the last couple of years, but we were very lowly geared as we came out of the AHG merger, and we do—we'll keep a very close eye on it. As I said, at the end of September, we had about AUD 780 million of available liquidity.
Just to add to that, as of April, our gearing was 1.15, which is still an extremely unstressed gearing position to be at. We had undrawn facilities of over AUD 900 million available to us. We are a long way from a stressed position, and in fact, we've probably had more commentary to the other over the last few years in terms of having a very strong balance sheet, limited debt, and how we use that debt to grow value for the company.
Okay. If there's no further questions, then we should move, please, to agenda item two, which is for the re-election of Greg Duncan as the director. Greg was last re-elected to the board at our AGM in 2023. As an independent, non-executive director, Greg chairs our remuneration and nominations committee and is a member of the audit and risk committee.
Greg is a former owner and executive chair of Trivett Automotive Group, Australia's largest prestige automotive business. He was the director of Automotive Holdings Group, which is now part of Eagers Automotive, and he was a director there from 2015 to 2019. He's also chair of Cox Automotive Australia Board of Management from 2016 to 2021. Greg is currently a director of the advisory and investment firm JWT Bespoke, having held that position since 2013. Further information on Greg can be found in the notice of meeting, and there's some commentary there up on your screen. The board and shareholders derive enormous benefit from Greg's experience and expertise. In accordance with our constitution, Greg retires at this meeting and offers himself for re-election. You can see there that there's something like 98.7% in favor of that re-election.
Can I just say the directors fully support and recommend Greg's re-election today. I invite any questions if there's any from shareholders in the room. If there's no questions from the room, I'll ask James Couper again. Are there any questions? There's none. If there's no further questions, we'll now move to the next agenda item, which is item three. Item three today seeks shareholder approval of our remuneration report as set out in our annual report starting on page 39. Although this vote is advisory only, this is an important agenda item, and the board is always keen for shareholder support in this area. Support has been very positive, as you can see from the votes lodged before the meeting, which should now—they are showing up there on your screens, and you'll pick them up online. I should point out, though, that it's virtually 90% in favor.
None of those votes, none of those votes, are from directors or key management personnel. Directors and key management personnel hold some 50% of the shares in this company. That is an overwhelming endorsement of this agenda item. I invite any questions from any shareholder in the room. Yes, sir. We'll get a microphone to you.
David Buttenshaw is my name. I'm a very happy shareholder. In my day job, I'm a stock broker. I think we've had the biggest buyer of shares over the last 12 months. I just have to say that the remuneration report is one of the main selling points and the level of shareholder ownership among the board and management to enable us to buy so many shares over the last 12 months. Keith, just to speak to the board, was touching on short-term monthly trading. It's become a cancer in the market, and I think that the level of shareholder ownership between the management and board prevents you from over-emphasizing those short-term arrangements or short-term issues. The only way that Keith and Ed and Sophie actually get paid is if there's long-term wealth creation for all shareholders. It's not really a question. In fact, it's not a question, but I think it should be applauded and congratulated for the simplicity and alignment as opposed to the short-term nature and copper-padded nature of all the best practice in inverted commas remuneration reports.
Thank you, David, and welcome to the meeting. Any other questions that anyone would like to raise?
Yes. Mine's just sort of a—
We'll get a microphone to you, sir.
Michael, that's my name. It's sort of a technical question regarding the BYD brand. How well has that improvement and what is sort of the life cycle of that particular vehicle? I can still see old Holdens as to the 1950s and 1960s on occasion still going. I'd just like to know the life cycle of the BYD and just a general question like that.
Thank you. It is a general question, probably unrelated to the particular agenda item, but maybe Keith can elaborate on that. We'll get that one done.
Certainly happy to. Again, I'm certainly going to have some other questions around BYD, particularly at the later. It's a longer answer than probably for this part. It's totally a fair question. The reality is, as of 2024, Chinese-made vehicles are now the third largest source of cars in Australia. 32% of all cars that come into Australia come from Japan, 20% come from Thailand, and 16% come from China.
They've overtaken both Korea and Germany as the source of country of origin. The other thing that's worth noting is that whether it's BYD or any Chinese brand, they are selling cars in China, which is a third of the world's market. One in three cars sold globally is sold in China. There is an awful lot of these cars that have been sold in China. That doesn't actually answer your question in terms of whether they're going to be serviceable and parts and we're going to be able to repair them in 30 or 40 years' time. I can't see with a hand on heart and say this is what will occur.
Having said that, as a large public company and a very large partner to, again, not just BYD but other Chinese brands, we have spent a lot of time in China over the last couple of years collectively amongst the management team. We've been through their manufacturing facilities. We've seen their R&D facilities. We've seen new products. We've seen the size and scale behind this. I would make the point that a lot of these Chinese brands are supported by the Chinese government, and the Chinese government would not want to see those brands fail over the long term.
Thank you for your question. Thank you, Keith. Maybe to catch up with Edward Geschke, COO, who's been a resident expert for China, but spent a lot of time there. Between he and Keith, certainly a lot of coverage. Thank you for the question. Any online questions?
Just to share, we have one online question from Mr. Stephen May. He said, "Thank you for disclosing the property position early to the ASX along with the formal addresses." There was 11%, I think it was 10.5% voting against the remuneration report and the CEO's incentive grant. Which of the proxy advisors recommended against, and what concerns did they raise?
Yes. There are four proxy houses that have clients. Their clients in the main are the large fund managers across Australia, ownership in Australian listed companies. Four proxy houses. Three of the proxy houses voted overwhelmingly in favor of all our resolutions. One proxy house, ISS, voted against our REM report and our incentive scheme for a long-term incentive scheme that was applicable to key.
All I can say is that they didn't understand the incentive plan, and regretfully, their report that they wrote for their clients was not only wrong, it was misleading. We did point out all the inaccuracies and misleading points that they'd made in their report and wrote to them and asked that they correct them. They suggested they didn't have sufficient time to correct them. They didn't acknowledge, though, any of the points that we had made and suggested that they just had to leave their advice that they'd sent to their clients, even though it was defective. Unfortunately, some of their clients voted against them. When you point out that, in the main, the majority of their clients voted in favor, they did not go with the ISS report.
When you consider 50% of our shareholders can't vote and we still got 89%, the only people left to vote were fund managers and, in essence, retail shareholders. That's less than 50%. We got 90% of those votes. To be blunt, a testament to the fact that the report was rubbish that they wrote. I think their clients acknowledged that in terms of voting. Any other questions? Thank you. If there's no other questions, we then move on to our next item, which is item four, non-executive directors' fee cap. The request is for an increase to the maximum aggregate amount that may be paid in fees to non-executive directors each year. That is from AUD 1 million to AUD 1.3 million. The current fee cap was approved by shareholders some five years ago, 2020.
The reasons for the proposed increase are set out in the notice of meeting, and votes lodged before the meeting are strongly in favor of the motion, 99.3% that you'll see up there. Happy to take questions. The fee cap's been the same. It has been raised by a number of shareholders, particularly the larger fund managers who are on the register, that we had no movement in terms of that fee cap. If and when, and it's an if, we wanted to add an additional director to the board, we had no capacity to pay the director. If that was to occur for any reason, we'd have to hold a general meeting or a meeting to get approval to do it. The simplest way was to increase the fee cap. No suggestion at this point.
I'm sure the chairman of the remuneration and nominations committee will support this, but there's no suggestion at this stage that directors are getting a pay rise. We're just increasing the fee cap. Are there any questions from any shareholder present? If not, we might go to you, James. No further questions. Thank you. We'll just move then to item five, seek shareholder approval of the CEO's acquisition of shares in relation to his five-year long-term incentive. You will have noted from the annual report that the five-year incentive plan becomes a significant part of his package. Can I just make a couple of comments? Keith Thornton purchased the shares at market value with a loan provided by the company, subject to meeting a five-year service condition and repayment of the loan on the terms set out in the notice of meeting.
The loan is repaid in full. Loan shares were considered an appropriate form of long-term incentive for various reasons. I note in particular that they're commonly used and may not be understood by shareholders, but they are commonly used in the automotive retail industry. A number of the big overseas equipment manufacturers, car manufacturers, mandate that as a means of providing equity interest to key executives. You have dealer principals. Toyota is a company, isn't it? That's a live example that you own a Toyota dealership. Toyota wants the dealer principal in that business to own equity. You may own 80%, and the dealer principal may own 10% or 15%. The board believed that awarding that share grant for which shares were purchased focuses the CEO both on the share price growth, dividends, profit, long-term growth of the company.
We believe it's critical in delivering a long-term return for shareholders, and it's skin in the game. We're all shareholders, and it makes the chief executive and our executives key shareholders in the company. It's total alignment from a point of view of how we view the LTI. I should also point out there is no requirement for this motion to be put to shareholders. There's no requirement. The board has chosen to do so in the interests of good corporate governance and transparency and for shareholders to comment if they wanted to. You'll see that there's very strong support again for that on votes lodged. If there are any questions, now's the time. Shareholder, anything here? That's consistent with your comments previously. Okay. I ask, are there any further? No questions here online. We've got something coming. Have we, James?
There is one online question with Mr. Keith Calliero. He'd like to understand why the five-year loan is interest-free.
This package is set out in detail in your annual report. It's an appropriate package for the job, the size of the job, the size of the executive role, and it's costed. The package that you'll see in the annual report that applies to Keith's employment, in effect, prices the cost of the loan. We could have paid him the package in cash, and he would have paid tax and got on. We wouldn't have paid him any less. The simple answer is it's costed into the package, and we believe it's a fair package and appropriate package for a job of the size, which I can assure you is a seven-day-a-week job he has. It's a big one.
The size of the company and certainly what's been achieved in Keith's time as Chief Executive. The interest-free is a component of it, but it's in his package. It's costed. If we charged him interest, he'd have got less money. It's all the same. Any other questions?
No more questions, Chair.
I also think Tim would have gone to Westpac and not been identified.
Ironshearden.
Sorry. Sorry.
Hello, Ironshearden. Any other questions in relation to agenda item five? Nothing? Okay. If there are no further questions, I'll now close voting on all items of business. Shortly. First, I will just briefly pause the meeting. Let's go for a minute. That will allow shareholders any final opportunity to submit votes if you haven't already done so. The meeting is now paused for one minute. One second. The mic just was taken away.
You wanted to leave? I no longer have a microphone, but the one minute's up. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. All voting is now closed. Votes will be tallied and released to the stock exchange as soon as possible after this meeting. There we go. Votes will be tallied and released to the stock exchange as soon as possible after this meeting. Something unusual. No longer have a microphone. Ladies and gentlemen, that's the conclusion of formal business. However, before we close the meeting, I will invite general questions from shareholders. In doing so, I am aware that a number of shareholders may have commitments or whatever because the meeting's gone on for a while or plans to catch or whatever. Please feel free to leave. Executives and directors are happy to hang around and answer any questions.
I'm happy to ask quickly, are there a couple of general questions? Yes, please. Sorry, George, we'll jump behind you first. No problem.
Mr. Chairman, my name is Elwyn Sherman. I'd just like to ask a question about Donald Trump's tariffs. Do they have any sort of adverse effect on their operations? Could there possibly be some small advantage?
Thank you. Keith's a tariffs man, so I'll give it to you.
Fantastic question, but a very, very difficult question to answer. The first thing is, we were, Sophie and I were presenting only a week or so ago at a Macquarie conference, and it was the key topic that was asked of every company. Basically, no company could give a definitive answer because Trump's tariffs seem to change by the day. To be giving you an answer, I'd have to cover all bases.
As they sit at the moment, if he was to continue with his first extreme version of tariffs, the simple answer would be that it would isolate the U.S. from a lot of overseas OEMs, and that would push product to other markets such as Australia. Now, whether that's good or bad depends by brand, depends by demand, depends by pricing. There are so many different variables. At the moment, we believe it's hard for us to give a definitive answer. We believe that our view, talking to the OEMs, is that even in the conversations they're having with Trump and his administration, it is much more a negotiation tactic. Even recently, the Prime Minister floated the idea of the luxury car tax being withdrawn, possibly as a ploy to offset some of Trump's tariffs.
That would be to open up tariff-free luxury cars coming out of Germany, particularly and out of the European Union. I have not given a very definitive answer because I do not think there is one, unfortunately. We are not overly concerned. Australia is a tariff-free market anyway. We are used to dealing with lots of competition and lots of supply. That is not going to change. There are pros and cons to that. The one thing is that Eagers, and I hope it came through in my speech, Eagers' position as 14% of all cars sold in Australia is globally unique. It means that key OEMs and key operators in our industry want to partner with us. Some of them need to partner with us. Ultimately, that gives us the choice to decide how best we manage the business. It is a watching brief. It's obviously very complex, but we think we're okay. Thank you.
George, do we have a microphone? Anyone?
No problem. George Mortimer, Director of Fair Acres. Just a couple of points. We have an increasing population, so obviously, hopefully, we would have an increasing number of people that want motorcars, which should be good for the business in the long term. I noticed that the—and you spoke about it before—the gearing has gone up 300% over what it was in 2021. That's good to a point, but it's not necessarily a good thing. Earnings per share have gone down 25% in the last 12 months. Those statistics aren't read all that well. I've got to say that this year, I didn't get an annual report sent to me, which I have in the past. I picked one up when I arrived here today.
I like to have a paper copy that I can sit down and read it, and I can mark things, and then I can go back to it, and I can look at it, and I can go back and look at one that was three years old and see what's there and it's still there. That didn't arrive this year. I don't know whether they weren't sent or what the problem was.
We'll look into the annual report, maybe the mail, the distribution changes of miles. Look, we can—we'll talk to you at the end of the meeting and make sure we've got correct details.
The meeting arrived.
The notice of meeting arrived, but no annual report.
We're not sure why that is, George. We will look into that. There has no decision been made to not send them. That's all we need to find out why.
First part of your question, increasing population and more cars. Keith, do you want to?
Oh, I think that's actually correct. George, you're absolutely right. Not only increasing population through birth rates, through net migration, we think the market for new cars in Australia, even as we sit here today, has got a gap, sorry, demographically. There is a gap in the new car market already because of the lower deliveries during the period 2020 to 2024. It is still running at about 150,000 units as a gap compared to the 10-year average prior. The one thing that we are not concerned about is selling cars. Even now, we are seeing auto rights being incredibly resilient. There has been no dip in the number of new cars being sold.
The thing that drives profit in our industry is the margin retained, which is much more of a function of supply and demand. There is always a cyclical element. That leads me to the second part of your question, George, which I think is a great question. I want you to be confident, and all shareholders to be confident that we're very, very conscious of this. EPS is obviously a function of the number of shares on issue. Since we combined AHG and Eagers in the merge, we have issued per annum 0.1% new equity in the company. That's important to note. We haven't used equity to grow. We haven't used equity to pay down debt, which means it's still in our kit bag. Most companies, being public by inference, use equity to raise capital. We haven't done that.
That's the first thing to note. In terms of earnings per share, on a reported basis and underlying basis, over the last 10 years, our earnings per share in 2014 was AUD 0.43. Last year, it was AUD 0.80. It topped out at AUD 1.10. Now, post AHG, it's been 8.6% growth per annum, our compound annual growth rate. The stat that you gave year on year is absolutely reflective of the cyclical nature that it's very hard to escape in the automotive industry. The graph I showed before in terms of what happened in 2024, in terms of the industry collapsing and Eagers not collapsing, is actually a more important number for us because it shows how resilient and defensive we are compared to the cyclical nature of our industry. The stats that you quoted are absolutely correct.
However, in the context of a long-term 113-year-old company and the way we've traded relative to the industry that we operate in, because I will make the comment, we are still a franchise business. When Toyota dealers fall down, we cannot continue to operate at a very high level relative to everyone else. We tend to go up and down like the tide. Where Eagers win is the size and scale and productivity, and they're the things that we focus on. Your comments are absolutely right, but we're very conscious, and our long-term track record is very positive.
One point, Keith, I think also, despite the different EPS in 2024, we've maintained a record dividend of AUD 0.74 per share.
Sorry, David.
Hi, David Coffey, Chair. Great presentation, as always. Just one question on private growth opportunities. You highlighted inbound and outbound opportunities. It's something that could be material and accretive. Just in terms of outbound material potential acquisitions, could that include going outside Eagers, going outside Australasia? And if so, can you just talk a bit quickly about that?
Yeah, thanks, David. Absolutely. I think we're at the stage now that the job is never done, but there is no doubt that we have built a business here in Australia, and we've built up a track record, and we've built up the tools and expertise and size and scale that we can credibly go outside of Australia and outside Australasia, so beyond New Zealand, in other words. One thing that we're always conscious of is that a lot of people are negative about Australian companies going offshore. I do, again, this is linked to the answer I just gave to George.
When we go offshore in the industry we're in, we're going offshore as a franchisee. We are operating inside the protections, the opportunity, and the limits of a franchise model, which means it's a much less risky expansion than, let's say, we produced our own product and we needed to go to another country, set up a factory, launch the brand into the marketplace, hire a lot of people from a greenfield, and start a brand. We've got a very different profile in the way we would expand overseas. David, we've spent probably 18 months to two years indicating to the market that we are exploring offshore now. We've done a lot of due diligence. I see Nick might have had to go and catch a plane as he's gone.
Nick's actually been involved in an awful lot of that as well, which is very valuable for all shareholders because Nick's got very deep experience in this. We certainly feel confident that when we do it, and I think it's more a case of when rather than if, everyone should feel confident that we've done a lot of study and where we're going is the right opportunity in the right market. Importantly, it will be with the right partners. One of the things we're also conscious of is if we make a material acquisition offshore, we don't expect that we would run it wholly and solely out of Brisbane with the executive sitting here in Brisbane. You need the right partners, and that's the other thing that we'll focus on.
Keith, following that, what do you see Eagers can bring to a market where you're starting de novo? Is it the people, the proprietary technology? What do you think you bring to that market?
I think there's a combination of two things. The first thing is what Eagers has done in Australia. I joined Eagers in 2002 when we had about one and a bit % market share of the Australian market. That was, and the company was already however many years old, however many decades old. We've done a fairly good job at rolling up here in Australia. The roll-up story to go from, say, one and a half % market share to, at the moment, we're 14%. That in itself is a valuable story and a valuable thing to execute for shareholders, and it's something that hasn't occurred in every market.
There is no one in a mature market that has rolled up to 14%. Absolutely no one's even close. That in itself, the roll-up strategy, the consolidation strategy. What we add to that is that the time and place is very different now. The context of what the industry is. There are new brands, and I'll touch on the BYD relationship. There are new models coming to market. For us to have the significant footprint we have with BYD, there is the opportunity to take things like Easy Auto into markets where there is no scale used car player. There is a lot of proprietary technology that we have developed because I made that comment. You do need to be good in Australia.
When you've got a market of 1.2 million new cars a year and 70-odd brands competing over 1.2 million sales, we talk to players overseas and they just shake their head. It is ultra-competitive, which just means you've got to be fit, and you've got to develop things, and you've got to bring things that can be accretive into maybe a market that's less competitive, and that can add additional value. Some of the conversations we've had with possible opportunities, there's no doubt they see value in what we've had to develop here to win and grow over a long period of time.
I'll ask you one last question on BYD, Keith. Last year at this meeting, you spoke about they were really mastering the service. They were sending you cars you did not want, far too many that you were having to quit them at cost, all those sorts of things, cost us a dollar or two on the share price, I recall that day. They were saying you had to open in other areas where you did not really want it. Does this new contract, are you back on even footing with them, or are they still calling all the shots?
Can the room hear that question?
Yes. Yeah. Thanks, Jeff. It is a very good question, and you are exactly right. We did talk last year about the challenges where the distributor, the importer, had bought in a lot of cars, and we were effectively—we could have said no to those cars, and that would have meant that we did not pay for the cars on our floor plan, which is the interest of holding the cars. Ultimately, at that stage and being their material retailer, we needed to sell the cars for them to manage the relationship. The irony is helping BYD out through that learning four months ago is one of the things that strengthened our relationship with them. They see that we deliver. When they brought those cars into Australia and they needed them sold, we helped support them. When they said to us, "We want to grow to here. We need to roll out more stores," we sold that into a new car partner.
We have built a very strong relationship with them. I will get to exactly your question in a moment. What we have actually been able to secure here is we have secured long-term tenure, a 5 plus 5. We have retained this extensive BYD network that we have set up. Between us and our retail partners, there are 90,000 service locations across Australia that we have set up. We have got preemptive rights to grow with them. They want us to grow with them, and they have predefined a number of areas where we can. As long as we meet their expectations and standards, we can grow further with them. They have supported this retail partner program where we appoint other dealers to be our partner, which is totally innovative and incredibly valuable, and they are supporting that. It is four big picks.
The other great thing is that BYD Australia have taken over importation and distribution in the same way that Toyota imports and distributes their cars into Australia. What that means is they bring global sophistication. It also means that they will hold the stock as a national sales company rather than an importer bringing it in who was also invested with us at our retail level and was trying to push these cars and solve a problem. Effectively, the best way to summarize it is we're maturing to a much more normal relationship that we have with our large-scale, well-established Japanese, European, Korean brands.
A follow-up on that. Is there anything that you would have wanted that you didn't get?
It's a good question as well. Someone said to us the other day, and there was a negative headline in one of the papers that said the headline was, "Eagers loses exclusivity." Now, the irony is we haven't, as a company, we were exclusive retailer, and today we are still exclusive. You won't have heard Sophie or myself banging on about exclusivity over the last few years. We've been around long enough in this industry to realize that we probably would have kept exclusivity if BYD had stayed small. Given BYD's enormous ambitions in not just Australia, but globally, we were always very, very conscious, and we've known for years that where we're heading now is where it was always going to go. What we had to do was position ourselves with BYD in the most favorable way.
We need to deliver on what they want us to do, but we had to position ourselves in the most favorable way for Eagers. The other way to look at it is we secured long-term tenure, we retained our existing network, we got opportunities for further growth, and we protected our model. The fifth thing we could have said is, "You're absolutely exclusive, Eagers, for the next 25 years," and it's only ever three years. It was never going to happen. The reality is one of the challenges with being exclusive is they do not have a comparator to say whether you're doing a good job or a bad job. Sometimes when you're being exclusive, and particularly when you're working with really capable, ambitious companies, they go, "Come on, faster, faster." It's good to sometimes have a comparator.
We're very, very comfortable with where we've landed in the relationship. I'm on the corner of the questions. They're done. Yeah. They're done.
We do have a question from Dr. Alan Porter, who has asked us to read out on his behalf. His question is, "We can expect a flood of Chinese-made cars, and at their selling price, it could be a big market given it is potentially one of the last tariff-free markets in the world. Some OEMs have tried to change the traditional way cars are marketed in Australia. However, APE are currently protected by a reasonable moat. What is the risk that Chinese OEMs may try to capture your retail margins by setting up standalone dealerships, undercutting your other manufacturers whose real estate you are currently significantly invested with?" And a further comment, "Your Indooroopilly Shopping Centre dealership appears to be very successful.
Is that so?" Mr. Porter has actually noticed that Tesla have now set up a store in Indooroopilly Shopping Centre, and he'd like to congratulate Eagers on getting the jump on Elon Musk, who is now following in our footsteps and retailing in his shopping centre.
The rest of the room get the thrust of that? Yep. Yep. Okay.
Thanks, James. Thank you, Dr. Porter. It is a really—it's a full-thumb, but a really good question. I made the comment before around the Chinese and the emergence of the Chinese-made brands. If you are going to be an automotive retailer of scale in Australia where it is tariff-free, it is not a choice of partnering with Chinese or not. You don't really have that choice if you want to grow over the long term.
As I said before, they have become the third largest source of products in terms of where they're manufactured in the last couple of years, and they're likely to be the second biggest. They'll probably overtake Thailand very shortly and will be only behind Japanese in terms of source of manufacturer. The other thing that I commented on before is the Chinese market is a third of the world. That gives them some incredible scale to leverage. It's probably very daunting for other manufacturers when they've got that scale behind them. The Chinese manufacturers, and not picking any brand in particular, are coming with product that has caught up rapidly over the last two years, and in many ways, it's every bit as good, in some cases better. The technology is leading edge, and they're certainly at the forefront of affordable plug-in vehicles.
The Chinese OEMs are here, and they're coming. I just want to tell—I just want to divert for a second because I think this is some stats here that if you're a shareholder in Eagers, you should feel very, very comfortable hearing. The industry in Australia—I'm just looking for my notes because I probably know off the top of my head—the industry in Australia since 2020, the number of ICE cars sold has gone from 93% of all cars sold down to 73%. You might know what ICE is. Oh, yeah. Sorry. ICE is combustion engine cars. So petrol or diesel cars, normal traditional cars, the Holden and Fords from 1950. 93% of all down to 73%. Hybrids, such as the Toyota traditional hybrid, non-plug-in hybrids, have gone over that same period from 5% to 16%. So there's no doubt hybrids are very appealing.
The other type of hybrids is a plug-in hybrid. So it's a hybrid, same; it's got a combustion engine and electric engine, but you plug these ones in. They've gone from 0% to 6%. Bear with me. The market now is combustion engine 73%, 21% of it is hybrid, and 6% of it is pure EV. The interesting thing is pure EV is flatlined. It's been 6% last year, the year before it was 7%, the year before it was 7%. Now, partly that's because Tesla has fallen off. Now, this is where it becomes really interesting for Eagers and how Eagers has positioned itself. Try and remember these numbers because I'm throwing a few around here, and I'm conscious of that. Eagers currently has 14% of all new cars sold in Australia, up from 10% in 2020. Doesn't sound like a lot, but 4% growth is bigger.
The growth alone, that 4%, is more than our second-to-second biggest dealer group in Australia. We do not think in size, in total size. We have grown by more than the second-largest group in Australia in the last five years, four years. Of plug-in vehicles, which is electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, EGAs this year, 2025, sells 31%. One in three of every plug-in car in Australia is effectively sold by EGAs. If you look at just plug-in hybrid, and the BYD relationship certainly has helped with this, we sell 53%. One in two is sold by EGAs. Now, the reason that is important, and I will come back to Dr. Porter's question in all this, is that we said in 2021, we dug out a quote that we said, and we said, "We are going to lead the transition to a low-emission future." Companies make statements like that all the time.
We knew there was a lot of substance behind that. We knew these partnerships were going to be incredibly valuable. We've been super active in talking to the OEMs that are going to be playing a meaningful role in this low-emission future, and we've positioned ourselves in a way that has been very, very valuable. This year, we will end up closer to 15% of the market. Staggering. It really is. This is giving us this scale. Now, coming back to Dr. Porter's question, because I think this is a really interesting question. The Chinese are coming, and a lot of them, particularly some of the smaller ones, value speed to market. They are going around and talking to anyone and everyone that they can get representation.
Some of them are popping up in shopping centers or in reformatted other retail stores, an old carpet store or whatever. The vast majority, not just the majority, the vast majority want our showrooms because our showrooms are on high streets. They're in established shopping precincts, and they bring immediate credibility to the brand in Australia. They also want to partner with us because we know the local customers. We've got experts working for us. We've got expertise. We've got service departments that have got DAs, and they're approved, which is very hard to get done if you just go and try and convert another retail store. What we actually have, this footprint that the automotive industry has, is incredibly valuable.
What it's actually driving is a bit of an unintended and an interesting dynamic in that our dealership footprints are becoming, and this is not just Eagers, the whole industry, are the scene of a turf war. By that, I mean you've got Chinese brands coming in with new product, low prices, and saying, "We want to partner with you and have that showroom." We've got the incumbents, well-established brands sitting here occupying those showrooms saying, "No, no, no. You've been our partner there." Now, we're very, very loyal. There is no doubt that what this is actually creating is pressure on all OEMs, whether it's the new Chinese brands coming or any new entrants and existing, to make their franchise profitable and sustainable for us because they won't secure or keep these very, very valuable facilities unless they create an economic franchise model that's sustainable.
Ironically, that's a huge positive to the industry. No brand. When it comes to the shopping centre, we are very, very proud of what we've done in Indooroopilly Shopping Centre. It's, again, globally unique. Until you see that with your own two eyes, most people just have a mind's-eye view of a car dealer putting a few cars in a shopping centre. That's been done a million times before. What we have created in Indooroopilly, and I'm hoping a lot of people in this room have seen it, is totally unique. In terms of OEMs that we partner with, they've been incredibly complimentary because they can't believe we've done it in such a professional way. We get 1,500 people walk into the auto mall in Indooroopilly every single day. We don't get 1,500 people walking into the dealerships down here at Newstead every single day.
They spend, on average, 15 minutes dwelling, which means 15 minutes wandering around the store looking at the products that we are selling and representing on behalf of our OEM partners. We're selling 263 cars in Indooroopilly a month now. The best thing is we are able to roll out our productivity story. What that means is we have 75 staff there running 10 brands, 263 cars. Our company ambition in productivity is to have AUD 1.5 million in sales per person per annum. At Indooroopilly, where we've been able to design something with a clean sheet of paper, the productivity is AUD 2 million sales per person. The final piece to it is customers love it because it's where they go to live their life. They drop their kids off to the movies. They go and buy their groceries. They go there once a month to buy a new T-shirt.
They live their life, and they go to the shopping centres already. Compare that to when we say to them, "You want to buy a car? You need to go to the corner of that street over there and the corner of that road where you never go unless you're buying a car." What we're most proud of is we build something that's consumer-focused and winning for the consumer. It drives higher productivity for us on a lower-cost base, and the OEMs are absolutely wrapped in the innovation that we've taken there. It is something that we're very, very proud of, Dr. Porter, but it's not an easy thing to roll out in other areas around Australia because all those brands are represented. Ideal as such as us in traditional format showrooms.
That it. We're done. Please hang around so that you can talk to any of the executives. Any other quick question? Nothing further from the room? Thank you very much. I thank all shareholders for their participation and support. Apologies for the technical. Four questions. Four. Okay. We'll make it. We can do it. That's okay.
The first question comes from Mr. Stephen May. His question is, "Now that the market cap has hit AUD 4.6 billion, does the CEO believe we're close to reaching a point where acquisitions of new dealerships in certain geographies could have ACCC issues? And in which two Australian cities do we have the highest market share, and where are we geographically weakest in Australia?"
Excellent question, Stephen. Thank you for it. We are strongest in Queensland and WA. That's where AP Eagers was originally founded and where AHG was originally founded. We're very strong in both those markets. Having said that, there is plenty of opportunity even in those markets. For instance, I know we were talking about one of our large shareholders, Dr. Porter. Dr. Porter quite often reminds me that we don't have anything on the Gold Coast, and the Gold Coast is one of the biggest cities in Australia. There is still opportunity in Queensland, for instance. We are underway, relatively speaking, in Sydney and in Melbourne, the two biggest cities in Australia. Firstly, we feel like there is quite a bit of runway. Two comments just to finish on that because they're both important.
We believe this 14% or 15%—so not so much market cap, but the market share is probably a better way to look at it—has the ability to continue to grow. It will not just be because of acquisitions. It will also be because some OEMs will rationalize their network. If you think about it, if you are an OEM coming to Australia today to compete against some of these market challenges around the Chinese, would you go to market in the way that you have today? Let's pick a brand. I will not say a name, but 150 dealerships owned by 120 different individuals. When we pose that question, and I do regularly, to the presidents of an OEM, and I say, "Would you come to the market in Australia like you are today if you had a clean sheet of paper?" No way in the world.
That in itself is evidence that there'll be evolution of the model, which will drive rationalization, which will mean those that remain—Eagers doesn't have an end date—it's a company that needs to grow forever will be net consolidators and winners of market share. That's the first point. The second point to that is, as we touched on with David's question before, there's plenty of opportunity offshore that we are only just starting to look at.
Next question also from Stephen May. Does Mr. Politis have a current timeframe in terms of retirement from the board? And does he have any family members who could get involved in the future when he retires?
We've got a proxy. We flicked that one to the Chairman of the Room and Nomination Committee.
Should we just point out to Stephen online that Mr. Politis has actually left to catch a plane only five minutes ago.
To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Politis—sorry, to the best of my knowledge, Mr. Politis has no plans to step down from the board, and I hope he continues to be head for a long time to come. The contribution he makes and the time and effort is extraordinary. No comment.
Maybe he may move back from working six days a week for back to five. He's not on the payroll. He does also have children in the business as well. Not in his business. Not in his own personal business. Particularly, both his son and daughter are involved in business in the business.
Some more questions. Next one is from Mr. Andrew Walton. Mr. Walton's got some questions around interesting business development opportunities. He'd like to know if we believe self-driving cars will be adopted in Australia and what competitive advantage does BYD offer Eagers. The second part to his question is, given our distribution network, would we consider entry to selling and servicing humanoid robots in the future?
First question is, I think levels of autonomy and self-driving vehicles will eventually come to Australia. They're in other parts of the world. Personally, I think there is an awful long runway before there's any meaningful self-driving vehicles in Australia. There's certainly going to be some levels of autonomy. Paul Walden heads up our truck business, and there will be greater levels of autonomy in the heavy truck space on mine sites in Australia. We might actually lead the world in a certain aspect, but they won't be on public roads.
I think they will come in the future in terms of autonomy and self-driving cars. When it comes to robots, who knows? If we can sell them, we can have a robot showroom. We're happy to do that. To be honest, these are the things that we'll probably sort of scoff at now, but in a short period of time, a version of what has been proposed then is something that we'll be looking at in a meaningful way. Who knows?
Final question from online today, Mr. Chair, is also from Mr. Stephen May. His question is, "How much has the enormous brand damage that Elon Musk has created for Tesla helped the company, particularly given the emerging BYD relationship? And could the CEO see the day when Tesla might become a partner of the company rather than selling direct?"
It's actually a very, very good question. It's impossible to measure the effects, positive or negative, that what Elon Musk has done to Tesla has done. I'm not really going to comment about him per se, but the positives for us is that Tesla sales are under pressure. That's obvious by the sales reports that we see. Tesla have certainly lost some share here in Australia. The positive for us means that the people that were buying those vehicles are probably buying upper-end vehicles.
Hello. Hi. How are you? Sorry. You're in? You there?
No. Sorry. We're in the middle of a meeting. Can you drop off the line, please?
Sorry. I'm just going to get out of the—
Get out. Yep. That's all right. That makes me very nervous when I'm in a meeting like that. With Tesla losing share, we are certainly picking up. I would not say that they are necessarily going from Tesla 100% to BYD. They could be buying any product. Ironically, a lot of people who bought Teslas in the early days were buying, in their mind, a prestige vehicle or a premium vehicle. A lot of those are now buying EV vehicles from the more established luxury brands and premium brands. The flip side to that positive market share benefit we have got by Tesla possibly going off is that the damage that has occurred to the brand apps by Elon Musk's political leanings. The bigger issue for us is the damage it has done to resale values by the approach that Tesla have taken in dropping prices aggressively to sell more cars. That creates issues on residual values and creates—and it is partly why EV sales in Australia have flatlined.
This issue around resale value and residual values on EVs is a bigger issue, and that's something the industry and all OEMs will need to navigate on this sort of long-term transition to plugged-in cars.
Okay. Thank you.
I'll run it again. Thank you to all shareholders for your participation and support today. Apologies for the technology glitch, and I now declare the meeting closed. Thank you.