Chair of the company and Chair of this meeting. Today's meeting is being held online via the Lumi platform. This allows shareholders, proxies, and guests to attend the meeting virtually. You are watching a live webcast of the meeting, and shareholders and proxies have the ability to ask questions in written form and submit votes on this platform. I have been advised that a quorum is present, and I now formally declare the meeting open. As the notice of meeting has been circulated to all shareholders, I propose that the notice convening the meeting be taken as read. Questions can be submitted today online at any time. To ask a question, press on the speech bubble icon. This will open a new screen. At the bottom of that screen, there is a section for you to type your question.
Once you have finished typing, please hit the arrow symbol to send. Please note that while you can submit the questions from now on, I will not address them until the relevant time in the meeting. I'll be checking with our company secretary, Nicole Birman, throughout the meeting for your questions or comments. Please also note that your questions may be moderated or if we receive multiple questions on one topic, amalgamated together. Finally, due to time constraints, we may run out of time to answer all your questions. If this happens, we will answer them in due course via email or posting responses on our website. Voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business. In order to provide you with enough time to vote, I will shortly open voting for all resolutions.
At that time, if you are eligible to vote at this meeting, a new polling icon will appear. Selecting this icon will bring up a list of resolutions and present you with voting options. To cast your vote, simply select one of the options. There is no need to hit a Submit or Enter button as the vote is automatically recorded. You do, however, have the ability to change your vote up until the time I declare that voting is closed. As always, the results of all resolutions will be announced to the ASX following the meeting and placed on the Carsales investor website. I now declare voting open on all items of business. The polling icon will soon appear. Please submit your votes at any time, and I will give you a warning before I move to close the voting.
Before I introduce my fellow directors, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our board, our Chief Executive, Cameron McIntyre, and everyone who works at Carsales around the world for their efforts over what has been, and continues to be, an incredibly challenging time in which the company has adapted to a new way of working and shown its dedication to supporting our industry and customers. Joining me today from our board are Cameron McIntyre, our Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, appointed to that position in March 2017. Cameron has been with the company for 13 years and will give a presentation on the business shortly. Wal Pisciotta has been a member of the board since Carsales' inception and led the company as Chair for 18 years. He is currently a member of the Remuneration and Nomination Committee.
Kim Anderson has been a member of the board since two thousand and ten, is the Chair of the Remuneration and Nomination Committee, and a member of the Audit Committee. Edwina Gilbert was appointed as a Director of the company in two thousand and sixteen. Edwina is the Chair of the company's Risk Management Committee and a member of the company's Remuneration and Nomination and Audit Committees. Kee Wong was appointed as a Director of the company in July two thousand and eighteen, and is a member of the company's Remuneration and Nomination and Risk Management Committees. David Wiadrowski was appointed as a Director of the company last year and is the Chair of the company's Audit Committee and also a member of the Risk Management Committee.
I would also like to introduce Steve Kloss, who is Wal Pisciotta's alternate Director, and Nicole Birman, who is our Company Secretary and General Counsel. Additionally, in virtual attendance today are Lisa Harker, representing our auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Jonathan Wenig, representing our lawyers, Arnold Bloch Leibler, and Scott Hudson, the Returning Officer, representing our share registry, Computershare. The formal business of today's meeting will be conducted in two parts. First, our Chief Executive Officer, Cameron McIntyre, will present to the meeting, and there will be an opportunity to ask Cameron questions about his presentation. We will then move to the formal business of the meeting, where we have a number of resolutions to put to shareholders. There will be further opportunities during this part of the meeting for shareholders to raise questions pertaining to each resolution.
I will shortly invite Cameron to deliver his presentation on the progress of the company over the last financial year. If you have any questions on the presentation or operational matters, please use the question facility to enter your questions, and these will be posed to Cameron at the conclusion of his presentation. Now, I'm delighted to share with you, as we do each year, a short video of the year in review, which will be immediately followed by Cameron's presentation.
Hi, everyone, and thanks for joining this morning. How you going? What a year it's been, eh?
The epic car sale at Carsales with 20,000 cars on sale. Have you found caravanning relaxes you, brings you closer together? Ah! Oh, Henry! Too close sometimes.
With over two hundred thousand cars for sale, if it's not on Carsales, is it even for sale?
Yes, he did.
We've achieved so much over the last twelve months, and I really can't wait to see what's in front of us in the year ahead. Hopefully, there's no surprises again like we've had this year. Thanks, everyone, for joining. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Carsales 2020 annual general meeting. In what's been an unusual six months or so, as you can tell from the footage that you've seen, it's been another very big year for the company, and it's my pleasure to be here today and presenting it to you, the year that we've had at Carsales. So just looking at shareholder returns, and this is always a nice chart to start with.
And first of all, it clearly illustrates the continued performance of the business and for shareholders over the past twelve months in terms of total shareholder returns. The gap between our performance as a business and the broader market has continued to widen, which is also pleasing. Just looking at the FY 2020 largely landed at the top end of the range provided to the market on the seventeenth of June, and it's once again demonstrated the strength of our market leading position, our resilience as a business through economic cycles, and the strategy that we've continued to execute on around building a diversified business model.
With adjusted revenue up 1% year-on-year to AUD 423 million, adjusted EBITDA up 6% to AUD 232 million, and adjusted NPAT up 6% to AUD 138 million, we're pleased with the overall outcome that we've seen this year. Just looking at some of our market-leading operational metrics, and these operational metrics really speak to the scale and the quality of the investments that we've been making over many years now, and the performance here reflects the capability that we've been building as an organization. Directionally, if you look at some of the metrics that we've been speaking about through our ASX announcements over the past several months, there's a couple that I'd like to highlight.
The first one is the top one on the left, which is inventory being lower at the moment, and that really is being driven by strong demand that we're seeing in the market for used cars. These demand conditions, as you can see, flow through to things like time to sell, which is the next metric on the right, and that's down 34% on year-on-year or PCP here in Australia, and it's at levels that I can't recall actually ever seeing before.
If you look at those two metrics, the two metrics next to them, next to time to sell, which are more probably at the top of the car buying funnel, you can get a better understanding of why time to sell is lower, with leads and traffic volume to the site up very, very well in terms of year-on-year performance. Just looking at our Australian market leadership position, and over the past 12 months, we've worked hard on building audience and engagement, which is reflected in the growth that we're seeing in our market leadership position here in Australia. Our unique audience is a reflection of the size of the audience coming to Carsales, while time on site reflects the quality and the engagement of the audience that we have on the Carsales site.
The result is a huge lead in sessions against our nearest competitors, and ultimately leads to inquiries, which help our customers buy and sell more in a shorter period of time than anyone else can. Just looking at the Carsales response to COVID-19, and look, it goes without saying that it's been a very challenging year so far for all of us as a community, particularly when it comes to the bushfires and the pandemics that we've endured. In March this year, we could see the challenges that were coming with the COVID-19 pandemic through monitoring our own data and talking to our international peers, and we felt that it was important as a business that we established some form of decision-making principles that we could communicate to our people and use to guide our decision-making going forward.
Those principles were, one, to protect our people, to support our customer and industry base, and three, to bolster our business itself. Just reflecting on each of those. When it comes to protecting our people, our primary focus has always been ensuring people's health and minimizing infection, but we've also put countless initiatives in place to keep our people highly informed, engaged, and productive. This has also helped ensure that we maintained good operating cadence since mid-March, and resulted in one of the highest staff survey engagement scores that we've ever seen as a business. In relation to our customers, the thinking's always been, as market leaders, that we have a real responsibility to support our customers, and therefore our industry, in a truly meaningful way, and do what we could do when it comes to financial, educational, and emotional support.
So what have we done? The financial support plans that we put in place on the 23rd of March included a 100% rebate for contracted services provided in April. In addition, we provided a further 50% rebate in May, and a 100% rebate on new car services in June, all of which translated to close to AUD 28 million in support through to 30 June 2020 . And that's made a meaningful contribution to protecting the jobs of our customers and our industry. On the thirtieth of June, we have, in addition to the AUD 28 million of support, provided a further AUD 11 million of support to Victorian metropolitan dealers through the lengthy lockdown period that we've been enduring here in Victoria.
At the same time, we've been focused on innovating in a contactless environment through the release of things like badges, video listings, and online exhibitions. We also provided educational support with regular webinars and written communication to our dealer customers, helping them navigate through the way... the ways to sell in a contactless environment. Finally, we extended our employee assistance program to our dealer customers and their employees to try and provide emotional support during a very difficult time that we've all endured. In terms of bolstering our business, the thinking's been to ensure that we made the right adjustments to protect the short-term profitability, while not losing sight of things that are really important to us as a business in terms of delivering long-term, I guess, our long-term business objectives.
We enacted immediate cost savings, including executives and board take- the board taking short-term remuneration cuts, and we reduced discretionary costs to support profitability. We also stood down around 250 staff, mostly partially, predominantly as a result of work, health, and safety concerns that were aligned with reduced levels of customer activity. JobKeeper was also helpful in keeping as many staff engaged in work as possible through the most challenging of times. We also felt that it was important to strengthen our balance sheet further, which we did by focusing on debt refinancing arrangements and reducing working capital. Just looking at some of the emerging trends that we've been seeing with COVID-19, and it's been interesting to observe through the pandemic some emerging trends.
And while no one has a crystal ball, our sense is that some things may continue for some time, and it's likely the acceleration to online, as we've all noticed, is probably more permanent, which is consistent with what our peers are also seeing around the world at the moment. The other clear trend is the consumer preference back to car ownership, as people avoid public transport in the short to medium term, and are forced to take local driving holidays as opposed to flying overseas or interstate.
Our research indicates that what we've been seeing a lot of is first time car buyers entering the market and people adding cars to their households, which makes intuitive sense given the inventory levels that we've just talked about, and we're seeing in the market, and people reducing trade-in volumes at the moment as well. We also believe the stimulus packages put in place by the government have been supportive in terms of driving these changes that we're observing, whether that be through programs like Instant Asset Write-Off or the early superannuation schemes.
Just looking at our financial overview and our strong track record of sustained growth, and looking at the group financial performance, it's clear the evolution of our business strategy is continuing to pay dividends as we continue to build shareholder value through sustained growth in adjusted revenue, EBITDA, and NPAT. Looking at our international contribution and how that's driving growth. And yeah, there's a lot more to come from our international investments, and we expect to see this important part of the business continue to grow over time. We are once again pleased to see the increasingly significant contribution these investments are making to the overall group, now contributing 24% to our look-through revenue and 19% to our look-through EBITDA.
Just looking at the summary of revenue and EBITDA, and as we usually do, we'll drill down on revenue a little bit later in the deck, so I'll talk to EBITDA here. And we're pleased to see the online advertising segment's solid growth, which was consistent with half one, and achieved predominantly through dealer revenue growth, as well as a rigorous focus on our core cost management in the second half. Our data and research and services EBITDA PCP growth or year-on-year growth was also consistent with half one, and that largely reflected the exit of less profitable product and services, along with good effort from the team in terms of cost management. We're pleased with the continued growth in our international earnings, particularly on a look-through basis, up 20%.
Korea continues to be the standout in half two earnings performance, accelerating the delivery of their, the full year EBITDA growth rate of 18% on PCP in Asia. And in Latin America, we've continued to invest in product and technology there and pull back on cost wherever possible. So just looking at our margin, domestic and international margins, and we saw in half one, we did continue to see good growth in overall EBITDA margin expansion. And in fact, all parts of the business showed growth in EBITDA margin for the first time in many years.
Just looking at the 2% growth in domestic margin, and that really demonstrates our ability to maintain a strong cost discipline while exercising the operating leverage that we have, and navigating the current market challenges in areas such as display and private seller, which are both high margin products. In domestic investments, our RedBook Inspect and Tyresales overall margin impacts were positive, up 0.1%, and that also reflected good cost management. In Asia, the Korean margins improved by 0.2%, with improved utilization of existing branches that we have in Korea. The impact of the price rise in the guaranteed product that we did in August last year, and growth in higher margin products such as display advertising, and despite the ongoing investment in new branch operations, was a good outcome.
As we mentioned earlier, the loss-making reductions in Latin America, particularly over the last 6 months, had a positive overall impact on margins as well. Just looking at adjusted net profit after tax, and, you know, the movements below EBITDA, and as you can see there, D&A, or depreciation and amortization, increased by 21% on PCP, and that was consistent with half one, and reflected the ongoing investment that we're making in globalizing the company, supporting growth generating initiatives, and ensuring that we're providing world-class facilities for staff that they can eventually use when they get back to the office. Net finance costs, again, were quite consistent with half one, down 8%, and that is really a reflection in the reduction in average interest rates and the de-leveraging of the business over the past 12 months.
Profit from associates was up 27%, and that was primarily reflecting the growth that we've been continuing to see from our Webmotors business in Brazil. Finally, the board declared and shareholders have been paid a final AUD 0.25 dividend. Just looking at operating cash flows and how our balance sheet's been performing, and Carsales is a highly cash generative business, and it's great to see our cash conversion improve as it has done over the past couple of years. Our leverage has improved as well from H1.
It was 1.7 times debt to EBITDA in half one, to now being at 1.6 times, and sitting prudently below the 2.2 times debt to EBITDA we had in 2018 when we acquired Encar in South Korea, or the remaining 50% of Encar. The 12% increase in CapEx, excluding office fit-out, reflects the continued investment in technology platforms, supporting our international market expansion and domestic product development. Just turning to our Australian business and just going through the segments there and talking about dealer.
So dealer revenue growth of 10%, that was a solid performance for the year and in what is currently a very strong used car market for our customers, and it's really helped drive the 14% half-year adjusted revenue growth that we saw this year. The difference between the adjusted and reported revenue reflects the rebates that we provided the dealers in April, May, and June in our customer support package that I mentioned earlier on. And the full year PCP growth of 10% came from good growth in unique audience, which flowed through to used car lead volumes and represented around 4% of the growth that we saw, so 4% of that 10% growth in May and June. May and June were particularly strong.
The price change that we did represented 4% as well, and that was largely from an AUD 3 lead fee increase that we did in January, and we saw our ad depth product, particularly around Main Event, and our automation product represent around 2% of the growth that we saw as well. And that reflects the strong ROI that our customers achieve from those products in terms of their ability to sell cars faster. Looking at our private seller, and our private revenue was challenging in half two, and that really reflected in the -5% PCP growth that we saw for the year.
What we observed with social distancing was a reluctance of private sellers to sell their cars during lockdown conditions, which makes sense, particularly in March and April, and possibly people also holding onto cars they may have ordinarily traded in, because they were trying to avoid public transport. The issue around restrictions also flowed to other parts of the business, including RedBook Inspect. Tyresales volumes were also down, as we reduced discounting in order to defend profitability, and we're very pleased to see Instant Offer continue to grow well throughout the year, particularly in half one, with excellent improvement in consumer net promoter scores and conversion rates, and this really reflects the desire of dealers to acquire additional inventory in what is a tight market for stock at the moment.
Just looking at media and the performance of our media business, and the market for display advertising overall continues to remain very challenging as a result of weaker new car sales conditions and reductions in OEM advertising spends. However, we did outperform the broader market for brand ad marketing, and well, the market was down 24% for the year. Our Carsales industry and leisure sites, so our Boatsales, Bikesales, Trucksales sites performed much better than automotive, which was pleasing. And we've had good native and video product adoption with strong audience metrics and are well positioned for when the market in new car actually turns around and begins to improve again.
Just looking at data research and services, and revenue here, and the difference between adjusted and reported revenue again, reflects the rebates provided to dealer customers through April, May, and June for contracted services such as LiveMarket. Revenue here on PCP was flat, which was a similar outcome to what we saw in half one, and that was largely reflected the roll-off of unprofitable products. So underlying revenue growth was probably closer to 5%. And we continue to see good demand for our proprietary data and research products, good growth in vehicle appraisals, as dealers look to grow their used car inventory, and RedBook continued to grow solidly on a consistent basis.
Just looking at Carsales International, and we'll start with Asia and our Encar business in South Korea. We're really pleased with the performance that we had with Encar over the past six months, with growth rates accelerating through half two and delivering 16% revenue growth and 18% EBITDA growth for the year. In what's been a challenging macroeconomic environment and a tougher new car market in South Korea, dealing with COVID-19, and we've rebranded the business as well in half two, it really does make the performance here all the more impressive. The used car market in Korea has been strong, particularly over the last several months, which is a reflection of the performance of key operating metrics all growing through half two, as you can see from this slide.
The growth in popularity in terms of premium products such as Guarantee Inspection, combined with the opening of nine new branches over the past twelve months, is really continuing to play an important role in the organic revenue growth at Encar. We also did a 10% price rise in Guarantee Inspection in August last year, as mentioned earlier, which was also a positive for the results this year. Our premium products, such as Dealer Direct, and to a lesser extent, our home delivery services, were also good performers, along with growth in standard listings, which rose by 8%.... Looking at Latin America, and we'll start with Brazil, and Webmotors.
And it's fair to say that the only thing that really stood in the way of delivering an even better performance than the 17% and 10% revenue and EBITDA growth was simply COVID-19 in Q4. The performance low point was probably as we saw here in Australia, which is around April, and the business has been recovering well since then, and is almost back to pre-COVID levels now. So just in terms of what we've seen, Santander, our finance integration work's been continuing to make a meaningful contribution to business performance, and this was one of the big growth drivers in half two.
As we've spoken about a couple of times, the business was pushing into regional markets in half two, and was looking to lift advertising spend to drive market penetration, but we halted that temporarily in those regional areas while the country sort of got on top of COVID-19. Also similar to Australia, we've seen strong growth in other key operating metrics, such as traffic and lead volumes there, which has been great. Onto Latin America, the other parts of Latin America, so Mexico, Argentina, and Chile. As you can see from our slide here, our business in Latin America in other parts of Latin America are small by comparison to Korea and Brazil, but there's great upside potential here for each of these companies in time.
But we'll continue to pace our investment carefully, in the short term, and they're not really burning a hole in our pocket at the moment, so given the good. They give us really good growth options for the future. In terms of the summary of performance across these businesses is that we made good progress in the deployment of product over the last 12 months, and in the short term, we've reduced cost, in order to remain, you know, put us in a good position so that when the business eventually, or the market in particular, eventually turns upwards, we're in a strong position to leverage from that. The other pleasing development in Latin America is the strategic partnership that we entered into with Santander in Argentina and Chile over the last few weeks.
So, these agreements will lead to the integration of Santander Consumer Finance into our Chileautos and Demotores businesses, similar to the arrangements that we have in Brazil, which is quite exciting for our Argentinian and Chilean businesses. So just talking a little bit about Carsales' strategy and looking at the broader strategy update and the areas of focus of the business moving forward into FY21. But our strategy as a business, and we've presented this a couple of times in the past, and our progress priorities continue to be around building out our digital marketplaces, our value-added services, and exploring new opportunities to position the company well into the future as market trends and consumer preferences continue to evolve.
One of the things I'd like to talk to you about today is, you know, just speaking about specifically about future horizons and that third pillar in our strategic roadmap, and I'm pleased to announce the beta launch of Placie. Placie is an app that's been three years in the making from concept to MVP, which is minimum viable product, through the development of product and partnerships. Placie's mission is to make it simple for everyone to get from place to place, faster, cheaper, and smarter. And what Placie does is it integrates eight different types of transport modes into a single mobility service, accessible on demand. So what does all that mean for consumers?
What it means is the ability to compare, to combine, and to book transport within a single app using real-time data. And Placie is a one-stop mobility shop for consumers to save time, money, and effort. And with native integrations that we have, there's no deep linking, so the product experience for consumers is via one account, which is terrific. So just looking at growth in the mobility marketplace, and some of the mega trends that are disrupting transport as we know it. And transport trends have continued to evolve over the last several years with new transport options emerging, and these changes have only increased during COVID-19, and some of those we've talked to, as habits have broken.
So new habits will eventually form, and we want Placie to be positioned in the market when those habits do change, and we want to help Australians reduce friction in getting from place to place. As an Australian innovator in digital marketplaces that bring consumers and businesses together, we are uniquely placed to bring consumers and multimodal transportation services together as well. While Carsales aggregates the choice for car ownership, Placie aggregates mobility choices. As transport solutions become connected and smart cities emerge, we see mobility as a service or MaaS, as it's often referred to, as being a considerable opportunity, and so do our extensive list of transportation service partners. MaaS can play a meaningful role in optimizing built infrastructure, boosting the livability of our cities and regions, and encouraging private sector innovation and participation.
Just looking at transport and demand partners, and Placie as an app will soon be available in the App Store or on Google Play in beta, and we're gonna progressively roll it out over the course of the next 12 months. Placie has signed up best-in-class partners across public transport networks and private transport providers, including taxi, rideshare, car rental, parking operators, as well as channel partners, and we're looking forward to the product's release and initial trials in the coming months. On to FY 2021 trading observations and the update there. The world's clearly an uncertain place at the moment, to say the least, but where our focus is going to be coming into FY 2021 will be around managing our costs and investing in product and our market positions.
We expect to continue to be benefiting from the resilience of our used car market, and the trends that we've been observing should support this. We're also well-funded, with low gearing, strong liquidity, and cash flows that will continue to fund growth in the business and dividends going forward. Just looking at some of the specific trading observations, and given the continuing uncertainty due to COVID-19, we aren't providing specific guidance on our financial expectations for FY 2021, but outlined below in the slide, you can see some specific trading observations, and just a couple of those I'll call out, so the overall...
Our overall lead volumes in Q1 FY 2020 have been impacted by the closure of dealerships in Metro Melbourne. However, excluding those Metro Melbourne dealerships, overall lead volumes grew strongly on the prior corresponding period in Q1, which has been good. Car sales overall has provided a 100% rebate to Metro Melbourne dealers, as I mentioned, since the sixth of August, and we'll keep that in place until retail offerings reopen. We estimate the quantum of that support is probably gonna be around AUD 12 million to date, which brings the total provided support since the start of the pandemic to approximately AUD 40 million.
And the only other point I'd like to make, and you can see all these trading observations, but the other one is in relation to Encar, and we are observing key operational metrics of inventory, lead listing volumes, and traffic are all continuing to grow well, reinforcing the good growth that we've seen there, and in EBITDA as well on PCP. So that's it. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you for attending today, and unusual circumstances this year, but look forward to catching up with as many shareholders as I can at next year's AGM. So thank you for attending. Thank you. Okay, so does anyone have any questions they'd like to ask?
There's none on that presentation. Thanks, Cameron.
Thanks, Nikki.
Thank you, Cameron, for that presentation and business update. Hopefully, you can see from the video and Cam's speech, the efforts of the team over the last twelve months around the world, and from a chairman's perspective and the board's perspective, the team have not missed a beat. Thank you very much, Cameron, and the team, for all of your efforts. There'll be no further questions at this time. I will now proceed to discussion and questions and answers around the formal business of the meeting, where we will have a number of resolutions to put to shareholders. As I mentioned earlier, voting for all resolutions is open, and you may submit your votes at any time. The proxy votes received for each resolution will be visible on screen. I will also give you a warning before I move to close the voting.
We will now move to the first item of business. Item one, the financial report. I now table the June 2020 annual report, containing the financial report, which includes the directors' declaration, the related directors' report, and auditors' report. Copies of the 2020 annual report were made available on the company's website, or if you elected to receive a hard copy, a hard copy has been sent to you. So I don't intend to read out the directors' report to the meeting. The Corporations Act requires the financial report to be laid before the meeting. There is no requirement in the Corporations Act or the company's constitution for shareholders to vote on, approve, or adopt these reports. To date, the company has not received any questions for our auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers, so the matter is now open for discussion by shareholders. Nicole, are there any questions or comments?
Thanks, Pat. We do have a question from Henry Stephen, a volunteer from the Australian Shareholders Association. He asks, "The federal government has recently announced it proposes to make permanent the ability of companies to hold online-only virtual AGM meetings. The ASA is firmly against such measures being made permanent, because they can easily minimize the role and presence of retail shareholders at AGMs. Shareholders are the owners of the company. Directors are the representatives of the shareholders. The AGM presents a once-a-year opportunity for shareholders to come face-to-face with the board of directors and ask the questions they want answered. A healthy AGM allows a balanced discussion and exchange of information from all views. A virtual meeting is a sterile format, where directors are able to ignore questions, gloss over details, and be selective in their choice of questions to answer.
What is the board's view of this proposal, and will the company resist the temptation to hold online-only virtual AGMs?
Thank you for that question, Henry. As you will see with today's meeting, we are trying to replicate the experience of our regular AGM as closely as possible, and we don't intend to ignore any questions. We haven't made any decisions about AGMs going forward, as we've been focused on the unique circumstances this year. We don't think this online meeting will minimize the role of retail shareholders. In fact, it becomes more accessible, as shareholders can attend from their homes in different locations around the country and around the world. We are interested to see how the meeting progresses online, and that will factor into our decision on the matter going forward. Have we any other questions, Nicole?
We do have one that's come through on Cameron's presentation. So a question from Majura Holdings, and it is: What does Placie add to Carsales?
Cameron, I'll turn to you to respond.
Thanks, Pat, and thanks for the, for the question. I guess, you know, Carsales is one of the original digital disruptors, and innovation is at our core. Part of our business strategy, there's three elements to it. One is our ongoing development of our digital marketplace business, which is, you know, car sales, boat sales, bike sales, et cetera. The second limb is around adjacent market opportunities, and the third is looking at future mobility, and you know, for many years, we've been talking about, you know, how transportation preferences of consumers will change and evolve over time, and you know, what you're seeing today with Placie is, you know, a lot of thinking and a lot of thought as we've watched trends evolve over the last several years.
This venture has been three years in the making. You know, we've obviously observed ride-sharing emergence and other technologies. We know changes are coming around autonomous vehicles, et cetera, et cetera, in the years to come, and for us, this is about making sure that Carsales is relevant right into the future.
Nikki, have we other questions?
Thanks, Cam. We just have another statement from a shareholder, Colfam Superannuation, that, "We at Teami nvest intends suggesting all our members vote against the re-election of directors and against the Remuneration Report of companies that have virtual meetings only.
Thanks, Nikki. And just in response to that, Colfam, whoever's representing a Teami nvest there, as I said earlier, we don't intend to make a decision around virtual AGMs going forward at this point. I think it's fair to say, as a culture, Carsales is all around its people. We, as a board, work far more effectively when we are together as people, and therefore, it would be our preference to be together where we can. But we'll take that comment on notice. Thank you. Any other questions, Nicole?
That's it for now. Thanks, Pat.
Thank you. I will now move to the resolutions to be put to shareholders. Item two is the Remuneration Report. I now table the Remuneration Report of the company as contained in the 2020 annual report. As I already noted, copies of the annual report were made available on the company's website or sent to you, if interested. So again, I do not intend to read out the Remuneration Report to the meeting. Section 250R(2) of the Corporations Act requires the Remuneration Report to be put to the vote. The Corporations Act also provides that no votes may be cast on this resolution by key management personnel, whose remuneration outcomes are included in the report, nor their closely related parties. I will only be voting proxies for unrelated parties.
Following the results of last year's AGM, the board has extensively engaged with shareholders and proxy advisors to address the issues raised last year. With the assistance of an external remuneration expert, and after extensive discussions with proxy advisors and shareholders, the board instituted new short-term and long-term incentive plans and made a number of other significant improvements to remuneration practices, disclosures, and the remuneration report. We are pleased with how these changes have been received and thank all those who engaged with us to provide the feedback. Nicole, are there any questions or comments on this item for discussion?
There are, thanks. We have two questions from the Australian Shareholders Association. The first is in relation to the CEO's remuneration, and the question is: Why has the board decided to increase the maximum short-term incentive opportunity to 110.4% from 87% in the previous year, while decreasing the long-term incentive to 94.7% from previously 100%?
Thanks, Nicole. As mentioned, over the last few months, the company has engaged an external remuneration expert to review Cameron's remuneration and benchmark it to CEO packages in comparable companies. The result of this review was a modest increase in the fixed salary of the CEO and an adjustment to the short-term incentive opportunity to bring Cameron closer in line with his peers. The quantum of the LTI component of his remuneration was not adjusted, so the result of the other elements having increased was the LTI as a proportion of the overall package appearing smaller. On the basis of the work undertaken, the board is confident that the remuneration is appropriate. Nicole?
Thanks. The next question from the Australian Shareholders Association is: Why did the board decide to reintroduce relative TSR when the company has been against it in the past?
Thanks, Nicole. Yes, it is fair to say that the company has had issues in relation to TSR measures in the past, including the fact that it is effectively an output rather than input, and its use is dependent on the comparator group used. However, following extensive consideration and reflection on past years, the board made a decision to adopt a relative TSR measure in the FY 2021 LTI as part of the financial incentive to more closely align shareholder and executive remuneration outcomes, which has been an issue in the past, where shareholders enjoyed excellent returns, while executives were not receiving commensurate LTI awards. This did point to an LTI plan that was not working to its fullest efficacy.
The board has selected what it considers to be an appropriate comparator group, which we have disclosed in the notice of meeting, and will continue to monitor LTI outcomes to determine that it has the appropriate measures. Thank you for that question. Nicole, any other questions?
That's all for now. Thanks, Pat.
Thanks, Nicole. I now put the motion that the remuneration report for the financial year ended 30 June 2020 , be adopted. If you haven't already done so, please vote on the resolution to adopt the remuneration report. I'll pause for a second and just give people a chance to vote and/or to ask any further questions on that resolution. Nicole, I think we have a question.
Sorry, Pat, just a comment from Madjuna Holdings, again, that remuneration should represent what you, as a company, believe in, not what remuneration experts who are paid by you say.
Yes, thank you for that comment. The reality is, as in lots of parts of our business, we do seek third-party advice. Ultimately, the board is the one that makes the decisions around the Chief Executive's remuneration, and we put our recommendations to this meeting. So we are comfortable that in using advisors in this case is the appropriate thing to do, and we're also very comfortable that the recommendation before the meeting today is appropriate, given the performance of the company. Are there any other questions, Nicole?
No, thanks.
Thanks, Nicole. Being that the next item of business includes my re-election as a director, I will hand the chair over to Kim Anderson, the Chair of our Remuneration and Nomination Committee.
Thanks, Pat. The next items of business, being items three A and three B, relate to the re-election of directors Pat O'Sullivan and Wal Pisciotta. As is our custom, each director up for election will make a very brief address. I invite Pat to say a few words regarding his re-election.
Thanks, Kim. I am privileged to have been the chair of Carsales since November 2018, and a member of the board since 2007. I'm a chartered accountant by profession and worked for 30 years as an executive across a range of industries and companies, including my last two executive roles as chief financial officer of Optus and then chief operating officer and finance director of Nine Entertainment Limited. My executive career included working in Australia and overseas in media, telecommunications, FMCG, and manufacturing industries, and a number of online businesses. I've been a professional non-executive director for the last 8 years, during which I've sat on the board of 7 ASX-listed companies that have covered industries including media, online, telecommunications, and financial services.
As well as being the chair of Carsales.com, I'm currently a non-executive director of Afterpay, for whom I chair the Audit and Risk Committee, and I'm deputy chair of Calvary Health. Today, I'm seeking your approval to continue as a director of Carsales, an amazing Australian success story that I've been delighted to be part of. I believe my diversity of commercial experience, both here and overseas, my corporate history with the company, and my financial background and attention to detail allows me to continue to make a strong contribution to the Carsales board. I'm very fortunate as chair of the board to have the great support of my fellow directors, who all make an excellent contribution to the Carsales business. Cameron McIntyre and his chief executive...
Sorry, Cameron McIntyre, our Chief Executive, and his executive team, are a top-class group of people and business operators who have a very positive long-term view and focus for this business. I continue to be extremely passionate about the future of this company, and as Chair of the Board, I will continue to devote my time and effort doing whatever I can to do to help it succeed. I would like to sincerely thank our shareholders' support for supporting the company on this journey. Thank you.
Thanks, Pat. Nicole, are there any questions on this item of business? I see we have-
None on this item. There is one about the remuneration, which I think we can come back to-
Thank you
... after the third item.
Thank you. We'll come back to it. I now put the motion to the meeting that Mr. Patrick O'Sullivan, being a director of the company, who retires by rotation in accordance with Rule seventeen point one of the company's constitution and being eligible, offers him, himself for re-election, be re-elected as a director of the company. If you haven't already done so, please vote on this resolution now. I'll give you a few minutes to vote. Moving to item three B, given today's format and the difficult geographical restrictions, Wal has provided me with a statement that I will read on his behalf. As the founder of the Carsales business, I am immeasurably proud of what we have built here. I was fortunate to chair the board of Carsales for its first eighteen years, from an idea to a multimillion - multibillion-dollar ASX 100 company.
I have enjoyed continuing to contribute as a non-executive director since that time. I have been involved in supplying technology services to the Australian automotive industry for more than thirty-five years, and I believe that I can provide valuable guidance and advice to the Carsales business from the experience I have gathered in that time. In addition, I have found that my knowledge of the obstacles we encountered in the early days of the Carsales business in Australia, has assisted us in our international expansion into less mature markets. I'm pleased that our board renewal process over the past four or five years, has brought such quality directors to our board, and I seek to impart my knowledge and experience to them for the future of the company.
I would like to thank my fellow directors and the executive team of Carsales, and of course, you, the shareholders, for your support of the company. Thank you. Nicole, are there any questions on this item of business?
No, thank you.
I now put the motion to the meeting that Mr. Wal Pisciotta OAM, being a director of the company, who retires by rotation in accordance with Rule seventeen point one of the company's constitution, and being eligible, offers himself for re-election, be re-elected as a director of the company. If you haven't already done so, please vote on this resolution now. I'll give you a few minutes to vote, and that will conclude this item of business, and I'll pass back to Pat to chair the remainder of this meeting. Thank you.
Pat, before we go into the next item of business, we have a question from shareholder, Dr. Linda Jean Newland. What are the ethics of a high remuneration vis-à-vis the use of JobKeeper?
Thank you for that question, Dr. Linda. So my response to that is, one of the key reasons for Carsales' success over the last number of years is its people. We're very fortunate to be able to attract and retain high caliber people who run and work within this company. So people are our number one asset. In relation to JobKeeper, specifically, we used JobKeeper for the purpose for which it was intended, which was to ensure there would be no redundancies within the Carsales family, which there haven't been across the pandemic to date. The amount of JobKeeper that we availed of was modest. At the same time, we provided to our dealers a significant rebate, which we thought was appropriate to support the dealer network, which is a key stakeholder for this company.
And the other point I would reference is that the board and the senior executive leadership team all took a 20% pay cut during the pandemic. So I think on balance, we provide our staff and our leadership team with appropriate remuneration, which we do look to benchmark regularly, and we think that we do the right thing, and we are very grateful for the people we have working for this company. Are there any other questions, Nicole?
No, that's it for now. Thanks, Pat.
We will now move to the next item of business, being items four A and four B, that deal with the issue of options and performance rights to the Managing Director, Cameron McIntyre. Listing Rule 10.14 requires shareholder approval for the grant of securities to Cameron McIntyre, the Managing Director and Chief Executive of the company. As a board, we continue to be very pleased with Cameron's performance as Chief Executive. He has navigated the company through unprecedented times in the past year, always acting in the long-term interest of the company and its shareholders. The company has performed very well despite the pandemic, and total shareholder returns for fiscal year 2020 was in excess of 32%, positioning Carsales in the top 10% of total shareholder returns of both the ASX 100 and ASX 200 for the year.
The Board believes the grant of these options and performance rights, as set out in the notice of meeting, is consistent with the company's remuneration policies and objectives, reflects good market practice in remuneration, and effectively aligns the interests of Cameron with those of the company. Per the notice of meeting, there are two items that will be put to shareholders separately. Item four A pertains to the grant of performance rights in the form of a long-term incentive for FY 2021 to FY 2023, and item four B pertains to the grant of performance rights and options in the form of a long-term incentive for FY 2020 to FY 2022. This item is being put to the meeting, as the grant of options and performance rights were not approved at last year's meeting.
Accordingly, the board made some changes to the plan on the basis of shareholder feedback, as mentioned at the beginning of this meeting, and therefore seeks approval at this meeting. The long-term incentive plan designs for both the FY 2020 and FY 2021 plans are as set out in the notice of meeting. The matter is now open for discussions by shareholders. Nicole, are there any questions or comments in relation to items 4A or 4B?
Nothing through at this point. Thanks, Pat.
We might just pause and just give people a second. There being no questions, I now put the motion for the issue of performance rights to Mr. Cameron McIntyre, as described in item four A of the notice of meeting, be approved. If you haven't already done so, please vote on this item now. I now put the motion for the issue of options and performance rights to Mr. Cameron McIntyre, as described in item four B of the notice of meeting, be approved. Again, if you haven't already done so, please vote on this item now. Resolution five was a conditional resolution and was only to be put to the meeting if at least 25% of the votes validly cast on the resolution proposed in item two were cast against that resolution. Thanks to your support, that was not the case.
Resolution five will not be considered at this meeting. Nicole, are there any last questions?
No. Thanks, Pat. All good.
Excellent. Thank you, everybody. That concludes our discussion on the items of business. In a couple of minutes, I will close the meeting. The voting system will remain open for five minutes after the close of the meeting. Please ensure that you have cast your vote on all resolutions. The results of all resolutions will be announced to the ASX, following the meeting, and placed on the Carsales investor website. I would like to thank all shareholders for your ongoing support, and thank you all again for your attendance and attention today. It is much appreciated. Thank you, and have a good afternoon.