Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm David Clarke, and I'm the Chair of the Board of AUB Group Limited, so welcome to our 2022 annual general meeting. Could I initially just request that you just check that your phones are on silent. Thank you for that. It's now 10:00 A.M. There's a quorum of shareholders present. I declare this annual general meeting of AUB Group Limited is properly constituted and open. As we begin the meeting, I'd like to acknowledge the First Nations and Torres Strait Islander people on whose land we conduct our business around Australia and convey my respect for their communities, culture, elders, past, present, and emerging.
Following the lifting of government mandated restrictions arising from COVID-19 and in response to investor feedback, we've returned to the practice of a physical meeting. Your directors are pleased to be able to meet you and meet our shareholders face to face. We're also broadcasting this meeting as well. This morning I'll provide a brief overview of our business and achievements during the financial year 2022. Our CEO and Managing Director, Mike Emmett, will then provide an update on our business and key results, as well as provide an outlook for the financial year 2023. We'll then move to the formal business of the meeting and the resolutions set out on the notice of meeting.
Before we do that, I'd like to introduce the directors of the company who are on my right, your left, starting with Paul Lahiff, who is the Chair of our People and Remuneration Committee. Paul.
Thanks, David.
Obviously, Mike Emmett, our Managing Director and CEO. We've got Richard Bell, our Company Secretary, there. Peter Harmer is there, and Cath Rogers. On the screen, we have Robin Low, who chairs our Board Audit and Risk Committee. Robin had an unavoidable timing conflict. So she's not able to be physically present with us today, but she is on the screen. Good morning, Robin.
Morning, David.
Robin, we'll turn your screen off now and you'll join us later for resolution two, which deals with your re-election. Thank you. Also with us today are our Company Secretaries. I've mentioned Richard Bell, who's our Corporate Counsel and Company Secretary. In addition, Elizabeth McGregor in the front here is Company Secretary as well. We've got representatives of our auditors, Ernst & Young, led by Mike Wright here in the front row. We've also got representatives of our share registry in Link Market Services. Seated in the audience, we have a number of senior executives of the company as well.
In addition to the financial statements and reports, there are a number of items of business and I'll just run through those quickly, and that it's all in the Notice of Meeting. There's the adoption of the remuneration report, and there's the re-election of Robin Low as director. There's re-election of myself, hopefully re-election of myself. I'll ask Paul Lahiff to chair this section of the meeting. It's not appropriate that I would chair that. We're seeking approval to increase the director fee cap. We've got a placement capacity to refresh the issue of shares to institutions that we had back in May as part of the Tysers acquisition. We've got a second placement capacity to refresh for the agreement to issue shares to the Tysers vendors.
Finally, we've got an approval for the financial assistance that was created by some of the subsidiaries, us purchasing some of the subsidiaries of Tysers in Australia. I'll explain a little bit more about that. It's explained as best we could. It's quite complex in the notes meeting, but I will also do my best to explain it when we get to the resolution. As we announced to the ASX on the October 19, resolution five for the issue of performance shares to Mike Emmett has been withdrawn. Following the earlier than expected completion of the acquisition of Tysers on the September 30, we were planning for that to be much closer to the end of the calendar year.
The recent external shareholder feedback board is reviewing the structure of our long-term incentive scheme with consideration of the capital we raised, the board, for our business profile that we have now, and of course, to ensure that it properly incentivizes executive performance. We look forward to coming back to shareholders with more specific details around that at a future date. We are anticipating an extraordinary general meeting early in the new year to seek approval for the CEO and Managing Director's long-term incentive scheme following that review by the board. If I can now just return to the resolutions. There'll be an opportunity for questions on each resolution. Also, during the general discussion, an opportunity for questions, and that will follow the formal business of the meeting.
At our meeting today, Mike and I will report on our group's performance and the outlook for the year ahead. This is my seventh year as chair of this company, and a year of continued success and change with an execution focused and aligned to our strategic agenda, and an excellent financial result for our group's shareholders. In financial year 2022, we saw further uncertainty and challenge, an external environment clouded by geopolitical tensions, obviously increasing inflationary expectations and pressures around the world, supply chain constraints and financial volatility. All of that combined with the catastrophic floods across large parts of Australia. This has resulted generally in a relatively uncertain outlook, specifically for insurance underwriters, with increased premiums to improve returns and profitability.
Against this backdrop, AUB Group brokers have understood the vital role that they play in supporting our clients in managing their risk. The role that insurance plays has been clearly demonstrated, particularly along the Australian eastern seaboard as the weather events create havoc and heartbreaking loss. Pleasingly, our execution of our strategic agenda has again allowed us to deliver very resilient financial result, and it's driven by strong organic growth fundamentals. In financial year 2022, AUB Group delivered above our original guidance, with another strong result of underlying net profit after tax, which increased by just over 13% to AUD 73 million. Throughout that period, importantly, we maintained a strong balance sheet and capital position.
Post the AUD 350 million capital raising, which we undertook in May of 2022, we used a portion of those proceeds to repay our debt obligations, and we canceled our existing debt facilities. A new debt facility was entered into, which assisted with working capital and to fund the Tysers acquisition. The group is cash generative. That means our profits were fully converted into cash as at the 2022 financial year-end. Additionally, at October 31, that is post the completion of the Tysers acquisition, we have access to AUD 100 million worth of cash and additional debt funding and what's called a leverage ratio of 2.67 times. We consider that to be absolutely acceptable.
It gives us confidence about the business. As a result of that financial position and our capital position, as at June 30, the directors declared a final fully franked dividend of AUD 0.38 per share. It was paid in October. This, together with the interim dividend, which was AUD 0.17 a share, results in a full year dividend of AUD 0.55, which was in line with the previous year, financial year 2021. That translates into a payout ratio. That's a ratio of dividends paid with relation to the underlying net profit of business of 64%, just over 64%. The board believes that that's appropriate given that later in the financial year there was a very large issue obviously of shares to fund the Tysers acquisition.
At those shares, those shares were eligible for the dividend. Strong business results, as well as disciplined M&A growth, that led to a stark underlying earnings per share increase of just over 12%, compared to the previous year. We continued to stay focused on our strategic agenda and annual priorities, which deliberately delivered successfully and resulted in the strong financial performance that I just talked about. The key highlights in the year include strategically important acquisitions. That is of iaAnyware, 360 Underwriting, acquired Anchorage Marine, and Futura acquired Laurens . There were many other acquisitions that we couldn't talk about, but those were the larger and more significant ones in the absence. We'll talk about Tysers in particular in a moment.
We also continued to focus on optimizing our network to create scale, efficiency, and market leadership via a number of consolidations of businesses, portfolio restructures, as well as equity step-ups, increasing our equity in existing businesses to capture further growth. Our focus on agencies delivered outperformance primarily as a result of our acquisition of 360 Underwriting and the restructure of our agency portfolio in financial year 2021, increasing the scale and the Austbrokers business with our agency division. I'll now turn to the Tysers acquisition briefly. In May 2022, we announced the acquisition of Tysers. It's the leading London and Lloyd's broker with access to specialist underwriting expertise and global distribution capabilities.
The acquisition is highly strategic for our existing business and will result in market-leading capacity, access and offerings for our brokers. The transaction completed earlier than anticipated, as I mentioned previously, on the September 30, this year. It's not only strategically aligned and financially compelling, but strengthens our operational platform and delivers material scale to the business. We look forward to optimizing Tysers' contribution as part of the AUB Group. Mike Emmett will obviously discuss Tysers further in his address. Looking ahead, the FY 2023 strategic focus will be primarily a continuation of what we've been doing in financial year 2022. A particular focus on the New Zealand business performance, technology delivery and of course, successful integration and delivery of the synergies associated with the Tysers acquisition.
I now wanna turn just to the board. As part of the board's succession planning, I'm pleased to announce the appointment of Richard Deutsch as a Non-Executive Director, effective from the conclusion of this meeting. Richard is with us in the audience today. He is the former CEO of Deloitte Australia and brings considerable experience in finance and domestic and international insurance origination to the board. He's a non-executive director of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, a chair of the Movember Foundation. You can find him because he's got funnily enough, a burgeoning mustache, and chair of the Stephenson Mansell Group .
You might say, "Why am I announcing him here and he's appointed after the meeting?" We were unable to finalize Richard's appointment prior to the publication of our annual general meeting notice. So therefore, in accordance with the company's constitution, Richard will stand for election by shareholders at our next AGM. At next year's AGM. We're also currently undertaking a search for the appointment of a new chair to the Tysers board. Ideally, this individual will have strong knowledge and experience, expertise, and relationships in the London wholesale insurance markets. It's our plan that the successful candidate for that role will also be appointed to the AUB Group board to add further depth and experience to our group.
If I can now just turn to environmental, social, and governance matters. Robust ESG practices remain an area of focus for us, for the board and the management, while our clients, colleagues, and shareholders are becoming increasingly interested in how we manage sustainability within our business. In the past year, we're pleased by the progress we've made towards establishing a much more integrated approach to ESG matters, which will increase with increased transparency, accountability, and reporting against the priorities. We're committed to ensuring the business acts responsibly in how we engage with our partners, clients, and suppliers, and how we support our colleagues, how we manage the impact on the environment, and how we contribute, in particular to the communities in which we operate.
As a result, we've implemented policies, training, recruitment, inclusion, and recognition policy practices that deliver an increasingly diverse and inclusive workplace. Being a service-based business, our starting point has been to focus on issues on which we have the most impact on, and namely, that's our people practices and our governance arrangements. The group has met the challenges of the pandemic in response to public health orders to redesign our approach to the workplace. We've undertaken a variety of market-leading initiatives designed to materially uplift employee welfare, including remote working, home office allowances, mandatory workplace ergonomic checks, access to health and well-being programs, as well as vaccine incentivization to support the push by the health authorities.
The initiatives have required financial and non-financial investments, which we deem essential for the long-term welfare of our employees and the business. Our recent focus on the group's ESG practices has resulted in a number of key initiatives, and I'll just run through a few of those now. The highlights have been, we were classified as a Great Place to Work, recognizing our ongoing focus to enhance the workplace experience. We launched a program called Do Good, Be Better, which allows employees to support their particular causes that they wish to support, and we make a financial donation. Our employees have a day of paid volunteer leave to participate in the community activities in which they feel passionate about.
We've increased by a third, 30-odd%, the training that goes into employees across the network. You might say we'll raise that. Makes people feel more confident. They get a greater ability to actually expand their knowledge and grow their career through that training. We continue the success of our four-to-one work from home flexible model. That means it's one day a week in the office for the various teams. People can be in the office all they like. However, it's only mandatory for them to attend one day. We're working very hard to improve our key gender diversity metrics. In conclusion, I'd like to thank all of our employees and partners for their contribution during the year.
Strong financial result in 2022 reflects their efforts, their discipline, their ongoing commitment to the group's success, and demonstrates a business that is built on strong foundations, by a focused and very committed team. We'd also like to acknowledge the ongoing support of our clients, and shareholders who continue to place their trust, in our business. I'd now like to hand over to Mike, to give you an update on our business and key results as well as the outlook, for the financial year 2023. Thank you very much.
Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone. This has been another eventful year and another good year of performance from businesses across our diverse group. It would be remiss of me not to recognize the continued challenges our clients and our teams face, having moved very rapidly from a period of COVID lockdown to a period of rising inflation, supply chain challenges, and clients faced with catastrophic climate-related events. Despite these challenges on the broader economic environment, our teams continue to deliver excellent results. Track record of growth. At the beginning of financial year 2020, we set out a plan to transform AUB Group to deliver sustained profit growth to shareholders. Fundamental to this plan was our ability to grow revenue and expand margins by focusing on our core insurance broking capabilities and directly related businesses such as the underwriting agencies.
Over the past three years, we've refocused the business and reignited AUB's growth. Since financial year 2019, the group has consistently translated premium and revenue growth into accelerated profit and earnings per share growth for shareholders. Our ability to grow broking organically and through strategic acquisitions, including broadening the spectrum of clients we serve by expanding in the mid-market and corporate, as well as micro SME segments, together with the deployment of technology to support brokers and service our clients, has provided the bedrock for profit growth. With a few exceptions, our broking businesses in Australia and New Zealand are performing outstandingly, consistently growing premium revenue and margin above market rates. While the expansion of our underwriting agencies to support our brokers and clients has delivered robust scale and profit improvement over the past 18 months, utilization of these agencies and products by AUB Group brokers continues to increase.
It is, however, a challenging environment for our clients. Significant insurance rate rises and other cost pressures faced by our clients mean that brokers are working harder than ever to assist clients to manage the cost of insurable risks in their businesses. This, combined with increased insurer risk aversion, means placing specific risk categories has become more complex. While we understand the challenge faced by insurers in the light of significant increases in the frequency and severity of climate-related losses, our priority remains to assist our clients. We are therefore seeing an unprecedented rise in the need to place risks on behalf of our clients in the international market.
Completion of the Tysers acquisition enhances our ability of our brokers and agencies across the AUB Group to access capabilities and facilities of Lloyd's in the international markets, which place these global risks for the benefit of our clients. Financial year 2022 financial highlights. For a number of years, we've delivered a strong track record of growth and performance, and this continued in financial year 2022. We grew underlying revenue by 12.2% on the prior year to AUD 689.5 million. Expanded the underlying margin by 240 basis points to 34%. The underlying net profit after tax of AUD 74 million grew by 22.2% on the prior year on a continuing operations basis and was at the very top of the outlook range we provided earlier in the year.
This represents an underlying earnings per share of AUD 0.967, an increase of 21.1% on financial year 2021 on a true adjusted and continuing operations basis. The board declared a final dividend of AUD 0.58 per share, giving a full year dividend of AUD 0.55 per share, flat on the prior year, representing a dividend payout ratio of 64.5% on underlying net profit after tax. Divisional performance in financial year 2022. The overall performance of AUB Group was underpinned by continued momentum in Australian broking and growth and profitability in BizCover. The AUB agencies enjoyed an exceptional year. We made good progress towards our goal to achieve significant scale in this area. New Zealand broking also performed well, enabling the considerable investment we continue to make for Project Lola, the implementation of a market-leading broking and insurance platform in New Zealand.
Good progress has been made with the transformation of BWRS, our largest brokerage in New Zealand, with a new team of branch managers and many new brokers and team members now on board, with a focus on business growth. Strategic priorities for FY 2023. Every year, we define and describe execution priorities for the year ahead. For FY 2023, we highlight the following to improve and enhance New Zealand performance, to leverage Tysers, to optimize our network, to execute on strategic aligned acquisitions, and to enhance our partner proposition. Whilst I won't go through each of these, I would like to highlight the key role that Project Lola in New Zealand will play in transforming our proposition to members of our broking network and our engagement with insurers. In addition, the acquisition of Tysers provides a number of significant transformational opportunities to the group.
Most notably, to enhance our offering to clients and our network of brokers and agencies to enable them to access the Lloyd's insurance market and to substantially increase our ability to leverage benefits of scale and to capture value. The AUB Group business model. Slide 10 in the pack reflects the AUB Group capabilities and offerings on a page, including our assessment of the level of maturity and scale in each major geography in which we operate. Excitingly, we envisage significant opportunities to leverage capabilities in one geography for growth and success in another. For example, our strength in platforms in Australia can be deployed to the U.K., while Tysers' strength in wholesale in the U.K. and internationally can be utilized to strengthen wholesale offerings in Australia and New Zealand. Tysers update. On slide 11, we describe Tysers' mix of revenue split between marine, non-marine, reinsurance, MGAs, and retail.
For wholesale, we provide a further split of income based on the underlying clients' geographies. Overall, Tysers revenue for the nine months ended September 2022 grew by 9% compared with the prior calendar period. We estimate that approximately 5% of this growth is attributable to advantageous movements in exchange rates. Most parts of Tysers have experienced strong revenue growth with weaker performance in some areas, including in specialty, particularly in management risk and livestock, and international P&C, mainly due to the withdrawal from jurisdictions like Colombia and Ecuador and the result of sanctions towards Russia. In summary, Tysers is performing well with stronger revenue growth than expected, partly offset by the inflationary impact on costs. Tysers synergies.
As highlighted in May, AUB Group has identified net annual synergy benefits of AUD 25 million and anticipates that these will be achieved on a run rate basis by the end of financial year 2024. These synergy benefits largely arise from the ability of AUB to place approximately AUD 200 million of risks on behalf of our clients with Tysers, including the placement of agency binders, whilst also being able to reduce costs in AUB and in Tysers as a result of increases in scale and operational efficiency. The outlook and progress in FY 2023. We've experienced an excellent first quarter, strongly ahead of our original expectations.
As a result, we are increasing the guidance range for FY 2023 underlying net profit after tax for the AUB Group, excluding Tysers, to AUD 90 million-AUD 92 million, an increase from the range provided in August of AUD 86.5 million-AUD 91 million. In addition, the completion of the Tysers acquisition on October 1, means that we are now able to include profit guidance for Tysers. Factoring in the increased guidance for AUB Group ex Tysers and incorporating a range of underlying net profit after tax from Tysers together with the increased corporate and interest, AUB Group anticipates an underlying net profit after tax for FY 2023 to be in the range of AUD 107.5 million-AUD 115 million, representing growth on FY 2022 of 45.2%-55.4%.
This implies growth in underlying earnings per share of 12.1%-19.9%. On slide 13, we have also included summary information about the group's debt. The new facility is a five-year, AUD 675 million facility with an additional accordion feature to fund the Tysers earn out. At 31 October, the leverage was 2.67 times, well under the leverage ratio covenant, 5.25 times. On the same date, available cash and debt totaled AUD 100 million. In closing, I'd like to acknowledge and thank our broking and agency partners and all other members of the AUB Group businesses in Australia and New Zealand. The pace and success with which we are progressing AUB Group's strategic priorities is a consequence of their professionalism, passion, capability, and a focus on putting the client first.
I'd also like to welcome our new teams in Tysers based in the U.K. and elsewhere in the world. We're delighted to have you as part of our family. Specifically, I'd like to acknowledge Tysers CEO, Clive Buesnel, who is in attendance at the AGM this morning. AUB Group is performing very pleasingly, and there are signs that Tysers is an excellent asset that will more than deliver the strategic and financial benefits anticipated at the time of acquisition. I look forward to updating you on our progress during the year. Thank you, and I'll now hand back to David.
Thank you. Thank you, Mike. We'll now turn to the formal business of the meeting. The notice of meeting was provided to shareholders on the September 30. There are copies of the notice of meeting on the table at the side of the room. I now will table the notice of meeting and propose that it be taken as read. Before moving to the various resolutions to be considered today, I'll now briefly outline procedures for today's meeting. You've been given an attendance card when you registered on arrival today. If you have a yellow card, then you are a voting shareholder, proxyholder or corporate representative and have chosen to vote using a paper voting card. You're also entitled to speak at this meeting. If you have a blue card, you're a non-voting shareholder.
While you are entitled to ask questions and make comments, you are not entitled to vote at this meeting. If you have a red card, you're a visitor, and you're not entitled to speak or vote at this meeting. If you've not received an attendance card, please see a representative, perhaps just outside the door here from Link Market Services at the registration desk. There'll be an opportunity to ask questions on each resolution, and questions not related to the resolutions should be held until the end of the formal business, when I'll open the floor for general questions and discussion. Before you ask a question, could I please ask that you raise your attendance card, and please state your name.
A poll will be conducted on all resolutions, so votes will be excluded in accordance with the Corporations Act and the ASX Listing Rules. Proxy votes received prior to the meeting will be shown on the screen after discussion of each individual resolution. As chair, I'll be voting all of the undirected proxies in favor of the resolution as indicated in the notice of meeting. Please complete your voting card by ticking the for, against, or abstain box in respect of each resolution. At the conclusion of the meeting, please hand your voting card to the Link Market Services staff. To ensure all shareholders and proxyholders have an opportunity to vote, I now open the poll. Link Market Services is the returning officer of the meeting. The results of the poll will be announced to the ASX as soon as they're available after the meeting.
That out of the way, I'll now turn to the formal business of the meeting. The first item of formal business is to receive the annual financial report and reports of the directors and auditor for the financial year to June 2022. There are copies of the annual report on the table at the side of the room here. No resolution on this item is required, but I now invite shareholders and their proxies to comment or ask questions on the reports. The questions may also be asked of the auditor in relation to the conduct of the audit, content of the audit report, accounting practices adopted by the company and of course, the independence of the auditor in carrying out the audit. Are there any questions or comments on this item? Any questions or comments on the annual report for financial matters?
Yes. Just here.
I'll try to speak loudly. Yes. My name is Fahima. I'm here as a proxy representing a shareholder. Before I get to my question, I also have another question from a proxy who can't be here because he can't attend the AGM online or via telephone.
Mm-hmm.
His name is Coedie McAvoy, and he's provided a voice recording, and I'll play it for you all now.
My name is Coedie McAvoy. I am Wangan and Jagalingou cultural custodian. I have been occupying a ceremonial site across the road from the Adani Carmichael mine now for 434 days today. Adani does not have our free, prior, and informed consent to continue on with this mine. I'm asking this question not only as a traditional owner, but as an assigned proxy for an AUB Group shareholder. My question is, knowing that Adani's destructive Carmichael project is happening without free, prior, and informed consent, will AUB do any further work helping the Carmichael mine, Carmichael Rail Network, Bowen Rail Company or NQXT or source insurance?
Should I repeat the question for the benefit of the room?
Did everyone hear the question?
Yes.
Okay. Thank you. It's not really a question to do with the financial matters. Are you okay if I leave that to the general discussion at the end?
I would still like you to comment, if that's possible.
I said I will comment on it, but comment it as a general item once we've gone through the resolutions, if you are okay with that.
I will stand up again and remind you of that.
You've no need to do that, but if I miss it, please do that.
All right.
You also had another question, I think as well.
Yes, I do. Given that 130 companies have ruled out working for Adani Carmichael, including 45 insurance companies, what is Austbrokers's position on providing support for the coal mining industry in general, and also for the Adani Carmichael project specifically?
Sure. Okay. Can I address that again at the same time as I address the formal question? Thank you for asking it and happy to answer the question. I'll do that at the once we've done the formal resolutions for the meeting in the general discussion. As again, if I for whatever reason don't address it, please advise me, and again, I'll answer the question. Okay.
Thank you.
All right. Thank you. I think there was another question as well.
Thank you. My name is Janet Cossey, and I'm also a proxy for Dr. Susan Innes. My question is about SRS Broking. According to our annual report, Austbrokers purchased SRS Broking effective first of July this year. Could you tell us about SRS's business and Austbrokers' rationale for spending tens of millions of AUD on this acquisition? And specifically, what proportion of SRS Broking's business is in coal?
Sure. Again, that is, I think it's more appropriate to deal with that question under the general heading of discussion. I'm not seeking to avoid the question.
Mm-hmm.
The period now is specifically about our financial accounts.
I'm sorry. I do see it as related because it's an acquisition.
It is an acquisition, but it's one of many acquisitions we make in the course of the year. As I say, I am not really looking to avoid the question, and I'm very happy to answer it. Again, it falls into broadly the same category as the previous two questions. I think it might be better if we just handle those together. Again, it's not looking to avoid the question, so thank you for asking it, and we'll go through. I will answer it in part, and then I'll seek to get also the chief executive to contribute to the answer as well.
Thank you.
No problem. Are there any further questions on financial results? Okay. If there are no further questions, we'll move on then to resolution one. Resolution one is the adoption of the remuneration report for the financial year ended June 30, 2022. Under the Corporations Act, the company is required to present to the shareholders the remuneration report, which forms part of the directors' report. The vote on this resolution is advisory only, as I'm sure you're all aware. Doesn't bind the directors of the company. However, the board will take the outcome of the vote into consideration in future reviews of remuneration policy for the key management personnel. Are there any questions in respect of this resolution? If there are no questions, I'll now put the resolution to the meeting.
The proxy votes are displayed on the screen. Okay, thank you. Just remind everyone that this has all been conducted by poll, so there's not the usual showing of hands and cards. We'll now move to resolution two and three, which concern the election of directors. I'll ask Robin Low to join us on the screen again. Hi, Robin. Welcome back. Can you hear us all right?
I can, David. Can you hear me?
Yes, I can. Thank you. Resolution two is the reelection of Robin Low as a director of the company. Robin is retiring by rotation and standing for reelection in accordance with the company's constitution. Robin's details are set out in the notice of meeting, and the board, with Robin abstaining of course, supports the reelection of Robin Low as a non-executive director. I'll now invite Robin to speak briefly in relation to her reelection.
Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. I am indeed delighted to be standing for reelection to the AUB Group board, and I am sorry that I can't be there in person, but with all the COVID-19 restrictions, I'm afraid there's just been enormous pent-up demand for travel, and I'm in Silicon Valley this week. I joined the AUB Group in 2014, and during the time, AUB has grown in Australia and established in New Zealand. Also, under Mike Emmett's leadership, we are now established globally through the U.K. Tysers acquisition and have excellent technology. As the chair of the Audit and Risk Committee, the risk landscape continues to require great scrutiny, whether cyber, market conduct, financial or people risks.
Risk has increased as well with the Tysers acquisition, and I want to let you know that we are very focused on how this new set of risks should be managed as we continue to challenge and lift our approach to risk management. Within this context, my experience includes 28 years with PwC, where I was an audit and risk partner specializing in financial services, particularly insurance. Earlier in my career, I spent four years in London auditing mainly insurance companies in the London market, including London market marine and reinsurance companies. Finally, I would like to thank shareholders for the support over my time on the board and to thank my fellow board members for what has been a wonderful experience. With a special mention to David as our chair.
I look forward to continuing to serve on the board, but acknowledge that this is probably my last time for re-election to the board of this wonderful company. Thank you.
Thank you, Robin. Are there any questions on this resolution? If there are no questions, I'll put the resolution to the meeting, and the proxy votes are displayed on the screen. Thank you, Robin. We'll now turn off your screen. As Resolution three concerns my re-election as a director, I'll now ask Paul Lahiff to chair this part of the meeting. Paul.
Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Resolution three is the re-election of David Clarke as a director of the company. David is retiring by rotation and standing for re-election in accordance with the company's constitution. David's details are set out in the notice of meeting. The board, with Dave abstaining, supports the re-election of David Clarke as a non-executive director of AUB. I would ask David now to speak briefly to his re-election.
Thanks, Paul. Good morning again, everyone. I'm pleased to put myself forward for re-election to this board. My time on the board has seen the company grow and develop. We most recently took a very bold step to raise capital and acquire a London wholesale broker. In addition to being a director, I also obviously chair the board and have been fortunate enough to have a supportive and well-qualified group of colleagues on the board during my time as chair. My executive career was spent in financial services where I was the CEO of several organizations. I've transitioned into board roles over the last eight years and believe I bring valuable experience to the AUB Group board.
The role of the chair is to work with the CEO and board members, to have a well-ordered, thoughtful, governance structure that matches the financial and human capital of a business with the risk appetite of that business. I believe, building on my career experience as both an executive and as a director, I've been able to successfully lead the board and hopefully have your support to be re-elected today. If re-elected to the board today, it's my intention, barring unforeseen circumstances, that this will be my last term as a director of this company. Thank you very much, and I look forward to hopefully having this approved.
Thanks, David. Other resolution that's up on the screen for you. Are there any questions on this resolution? If there are no questions, I now put the resolution to the meeting. Proxy votes are displayed on the screen. I'll now stand down and hand the chair of the meeting back to David.
Thank you, Paul. I'll now move to resolution four, which concerns an increase in the fee cap for non-executive directors. This is an increase of the maximum annual fee cap for non-executive directors from AUD 1.1 million to AUD 1.5 million. The board is seeking approval to increase the maximum fee cap for a number of reasons, including succession planning, workload, the expansion of responsibilities. As I mentioned earlier, we're seeking a new chair of Tysers who will also be appointed as a non-executive director to the AUB Group board. I wanna emphasize that the maximum limit of the fee cap does not necessarily indicate that that's the fees that will be increased to that limit. Are there any questions on this resolution? Okay. Thank you. I'll now put the resolution to the meeting.
Proxy votes are displayed on the screen. Thank you. As I mentioned earlier, resolution five has been withdrawn. I'll now move to resolution six and seven, which concern the refreshing of our share placement capacity. They're happy to answer any questions about this, obviously. When it comes to it, just let me go through the resolution. It's for approval of a prior issue of institutional placement shares. As part of the capital raise for the acquisition of Tysers, we issued outside the rights issue a placement of the 3,629,668 shares on eighteenth May 2022.
The shares were issued, as I said, to institutional shareholders, and the resolution seeks shareholder approval of that share issue in order to refresh the company's placement capacity under the ASX Listing Rules. Are there any questions in respect of this resolution? If there are no questions, I'll put the resolution to the meeting, and, as previously, the proxy votes are displayed on the screen. Resolution seven is for the approval of the agreement to issue shares to the vendors of Tysers. So these are the people we bought the business from. They, as a result of the transaction that we struck, they wanted to take part of the proceeds that they earned and invest them in shares in AUB Group.
On May 9, we agreed to a placement with them of 9,018,974 shares to the vendors of Tysers as part of the consideration of buying that business. The shares weren't issued until the completion of the deal, which occurred on September 30. The shares are subject to a 24-month escrow period from the date of issue, which means they've got to hold them for 24 months after we've issued them to them. The resolution seeks the shareholder approval of the agreement to issue shares to the Tysers vendors, in order to refresh the company's placement capacity under the ASX Listing Rules. Are there any questions in respect of this resolution? Thank you. If there are no questions, I'll put the resolution to the meeting.
The proxies are advised as shown on the screen. Now we move to resolution eight, which concerns the approval of financial assistance. This is a special resolution to approve financial assistance from the Australian subsidiaries of Tysers. There was an explanation in the notice of meeting. The resolution is quite complex, and as I said, it's set out in full in the notice of meeting, but I'll provide a summary. As part of the Tysers acquisition, the Australian subsidiaries of Tysers were expected to give financial assistance for a share acquisition. The share acquisition involved two wholly owned subsidiaries of AUB Group acquiring all the shares in the holding company of Tysers called Integro Insurance Brokers.
When the acquisition of Tysers completed on September 30, AUB Group became the ultimate owner and holding company of the Australian subsidiaries of Tysers. We bought the business, including their Australian subsidiaries. For this reason, that's the reason why we must obtain shareholder approval for the proposed financial assistance. Because the financial assistance is part and parcel of the debt facility that we raised. Financial assistance comes in the form of those Australian subsidiaries of Tysers agreed to the facility agreement as guarantors. Arguably, the company that we're acquiring helped us get the debt through guaranteeing part of the debt on behalf of our business. That's my best layman's explanation of the resolution. Are there any questions in respect to that?
Yes.
Perhaps you could put a quantum on the financial assistance.
The quantum is minimal. I know that. I think it's less than 1% of the security pool. The debt facility was AUD 575 million. Their contribution in terms of security value is less than 1% of that debt facility value. Looking at the executive amount.
What's that? It's AUD 5.75 billion.
I think when I said it's less than that.
Less than 5.7.
Are there any further questions in respect to this resolution? Proxy votes are displayed on the screen. So that's the formal business of the resolutions. We now get to the part of the meeting which deals with any general questions that shareholders may have. As we heard earlier, we've got three questions that were asked, and it's now, I think, an appropriate time to deal with answering those questions. Look, there is a specific question about a subsidiary board report, but if really the nub of the question I believe was around coal mining or mining in general.
Yes, that's right. Also specifically about SRS.
Yes.
Their business.
Their business. Okay.
Yeah.
What I might do is answer the first two questions first, and then I might seek to get Mike Emmett to specifically talk about the SRS business.
Thank you.
If that's okay. Thank you for asking the questions and for the background of other shareholders. There is a business, a broking business, SRS, which is referred to in the third question, which does have a number of clients who are in the mining industry. Specifically, I mean, it's not particularly appropriate to talk about one client. However, you have raised the issue of Adani, so let me address that in the best way I can. We have some business, some broking business, and we place some business on behalf of the client that you have mentioned. It's my understanding we're not their primary broker.
If I start at a high level and then drill down, revenue income from that is less than 1% of our overall revenue in the business. So much of the work we do, I think as in the question, I can't remember the gentleman's name, I'm sorry.
Quentin McAvoy.
McAvoy. Mr. McAvoy. I think he referred to rolling stock, coal miners, and.
The rail line.
The rail line. Yes. Which I would point out is actually leased by the company from, I think, specifically the coal loader is leased from the Queensland Government, and so they're the actual owners of it. Look, anything that is clearly as sensitive as that sort of activity is subject to a full review and debate by our board. I'd like you to understand that it's not something that is entered into lightly. It's debated and considered at length, recognizing that there are some groups, people, communities that don't agree with that particular project or mining, perhaps coal mining, perhaps in general. We looked at it, we think that we took a responsible approach to it.
I would accept that, clearly by the nature of the question, you're not going to agree with that. We look at how our economy, the world in general needs to enter into a transition phase. We cannot, in our view, flip a switch to get to where I think many people would like us to be, where we'd all like to get to. We see it as part of being responsible to ensure those risks and at the same time make sure that the people that we're dealing with are also, we believe, on an appropriate path to a renewable future. That I appreciate from your point of view, that's a general answer. That is the view that we came to as part of considering the issue.
We understand it's controversial, but at the same time, we believe that engaging is for us, in this instance, something that has gone through process, can be considered not inappropriate for our business.
If it's 1%, surely that seems like a tiny fraction of what you have in your books. Is it possible to sort of commit to sort of letting go of this particular business transaction given that it's such a small percentage?
No, I think our business is made up of a lot of one percents. We believe we can provide good value there. As I say, we've made a decision that we believe that we can conduct this business in a responsible way. We look at the fact that the assets that we are primarily arranging insurance for, we're not providing insurance, we're helping find insurance for it. That's an important point. We're an advisor in this sense rather than a product provider. We look at those assets and look at the ownership by a state government and feel as though it is part of the environment of Australia. Therefore, we see it as being something that is a legitimate piece of business for us.
In light of what you've just said, I'm wondering, has the board considered the impact on Austbrokers' business if our brand becomes associated with the coal industry? Now that everyone sees that floods, bushfires and heatwaves are continuing to get worse, and we know that these are fueled by coal above all else.
No, we don't know that.
Please. Thank you. Look, again, in that process, we do look at reputations. Absolutely, we look at reputations. Our partners, our brokers are absolutely at the forefront of flood risks, fire. So they are on the front line when businesses are impacted by exactly those things. There is no question in our mind that the climate is changing. We personally are committed to understand that carbon and carbon in the atmosphere is creating changes. So I'm not standing here and suggesting that I'm denying that. It's something that is reviewed. I think that. I would sort of share with you the thinking process. So we're not digging it out of the ground.
We're not providing a product, we're providing a service. The question becomes where do you draw the line? There's a lot of people employed in the transport, the rolling stock, coal loaders, those sorts of things. Does it translate into the ships that carry the coal? We have to make a judgment, balanced by our business. Because while your point of view is very legitimate and takes a certain amount of courage to hold those views and articulate those views, and I commend you on those. It's not a view held by everyone. We have a broad group of shareholders, institutional shareholders, who we primarily owe a responsibility to consider the business opportunities we have and navigate through them in what we think is a reasonable way.
That's the conclusion we've come to. But again, I appreciate it's not. It's contrary to your view. Part of the reason for having these meetings is to hear people's views, and not to dismiss them, but to understand how people feel strongly and passionately about various matters.
Just to sort of elaborate on that a bit more, how would you say then, in sort of making your assessments based on all the possible points of view that are available, and given that Mr. McAvoy has clearly stated that the mine and the services associated with it, you know, the port and the train line and so on, do not have their free, prior, and informed consent. How do you sort of navigate that very particular objection surrounding consent of traditional owners with how you manage your reputation and how you tell your shareholders?
How we navigate it. I think in making the first basis for making a decision is to be fully informed about all of the issues and facts. Again, we try to do that, and you balance up the matters. I think the fact that one group says it's not a legitimate development vis-à-vis another group, i.e. the state government saying it is a legitimate development and going ahead. We weigh all those things up. Just, I don't want to belittle Mr. McAvoy's point at all, but just because one group says it's not viable, I mean, or sorry, not legitimate, doesn't necessarily mean that that's like a veto on the whole thing. Again, as part of the board discussion that we weigh up about these matters.
I'm not sure I can actually say anything more. What I'd like to do is get Mike Emmett to perhaps talk about SRS specifically, which I suspect will cross over some of the issues that you've been questioning about.
Yeah. Because I think underlining this whole thing, there's two main issues in that we have a lot of coal projects that's already ongoing. The question is about providing services to a new coal mine, which SRS might be providing services for, and also the adjacent and very connected issue of the consent of Traditional Owners, not just.
Yeah.
On the Carmichael site, but also
Sure.
the current project.
Before I ask Mike, the one thing I would say is that, look, I think in the last 12 months, views globally have changed, I think, around how long it's gonna do and how we actually transition. And whether we like it or not, coal and gas are actually being used in that transition phase. If we look in the U.S. where they've actually started up fracking and giving approval at a federal level anyway for fracking in new fracking fields, which is an unusual one and something that's certainly not done once, certainly, in New South Wales and Victoria. I'm not sure about Queensland.
in the U.K., coal mines are being regenerated as well as an effort to transition to a renewable future. Mike, SRS.
Yeah. In context, SRS is a small bolt-on acquisition that we made into our corporate broking business. In total, firstly, it has a range of clients. You know, as you correctly point out, you know, a couple of those clients are related to the coal mining industry, but the majority of their clients are non-coal mining related across a broad spectrum of large corporate clients, you know, retail, et cetera. It has bolted into our corporate business. In terms of revenue, it represents, you know, 0.5% of our revenue. In terms of a bolt-on, it is a very, very small acquisition. That is the first point I will make. The second point I would make is that, in terms of the, we have just short of 1 million clients across the group.
To David's point about where do you draw the line. I guess the challenge is, you know, we do on the larger end, we have rolling stock clients. We have clients that, you know, are ports and harbors, and they include a range of exports, a range of products that they transport. We are risk advisors, right? Although we talk about insurance broking, we are risk advisors giving clients advice about the way in which they manage, mitigate, and transition their risks. That, in an energy context, includes the recommendations around how they transition to, you know, newer forms of energy, the timing of that, the pace, the way in which they should consider accelerating renewable versus traditional forms of, you know, buying energy, et cetera.
To David's point, firstly, you know, directly related to the coal mining industry, probably 0.2% or 0.3% of our revenue. Secondly, in terms of where do you draw the line? You know, we don't believe it's appropriate to challenge and say to our clients, "Well, we'll only cover the part of your port that doesn't do any export." You know, there's a level around which is advice to rolling stock. You know, do we get to the point where, you know, a lot of our SME clients are, you know, in various trades.
Do we get to where we say to a, you know, a particular set of trades operating in a particular area that, you know, if any of your part of your business has anything to do with one of these mining companies where, you know, we can't provide advice, et cetera. I think the question is really around, we believe that we can help assist our clients and match that against this transition to new forms of energy by giving them advice about the way in which they manage that transition, et cetera. You know, for us, it's very, very immaterial part of our business in terms of size. However, it's an important principle for us, which is that we deal with clients that are reputable organizations that meet, you know, strong health and safety levels, et cetera.
In some cases, they are cornerstones of the Australian economy, but our role is to help advise them about the way in which they can identify, manage, mitigate, and transition their risk profiles. That's the way in which we approach this. As David pointed out, every acquisition and every client that we have questions about gets debated. We have a screening and a review process, et cetera.
Thank you, Mike. I'm not sure there's much more we can add to the answer. Thank you for the question. I'd like to move off and on from that topic. Are there any other general questions that any shareholder has? Okay. Might I just say if there's any particular points that you feel you'd like to make to me personally, I'll be here after the meeting.
Yeah. I'd like to continue conversation around how you screen what the process is behind screening businesses that you deal with, if that's all right.
Sure.
Okay.
I sense there's no further questions. I'm about to close the meeting, but before I do so, I would remind shareholders and proxy holders to complete their voting cards now and to hand the cards to Link Market Services. We've just got a box here. I give you mine. The results will be announced to the ASX as soon as they're available. Is there anyone who's having some difficulty completing the cards? Okay. I think I'll just wait formally for everyone to finish voting. Thank you. I think we're all done. I will close the poll. Thank shareholders for their participation today and your ongoing support for the group. You're invited to stay and have coffee, which will be served outside the meeting room just adjacent to the exit there.
The directors and executive team look forward to catching up with you. Thank you all very much. Meeting now closed.