Ladies and gentlemen, welcome and good morning. My name is Michael Kay. I'm the Chairman of City Chic Collective Limited, and on behalf of the Board, I welcome you to the 2024 Annual General Meeting. For those who have not been able to join us, the meeting is being recorded. The webcast is available to watch live, and it will be accessible after the meeting concludes following the link on our investor relations website. I note there's a quorum present, and I declare the meeting open. First of all, I'd like to introduce the directors and other officers of the company: Phil Ryan, the company's Managing Director and Chief Executive, independent non-executive directors Megan Quinn, Natalie McLean, and Neil Thompson, James Plummer, our Interim Chief Financial Officer, is also here, and Jacquie Shanahan, our Company Secretary.
We also have with us today Yvonne Barnicoat, representing the company's auditors, EY, who will be prepared to answer any questions about the conduct of the audit, and representatives of Link Market Services Limited, our share registrar, who are acting as returning officer for the purposes of the meeting. Before moving to the formal business of the meeting, I'll take the opportunity to give you a brief overview of 2024 financial year, and I'll then invite Phil Ryan to provide more detail on our operational performance, an update on trade for the year and the year to date, in other words, FY2025, and plans for the future of the company, and I'll now deliver my address. Pardon me. At last year's AGM, I began by acknowledging that the past 18 months had been a very challenging period for City Chic and its shareholders.
We acknowledged the performance of the business and the share price were unacceptable. We also set out a number of measures that had been taken to address the underperformance and to reshape the business to face a period of prolonged inflation, higher interest rates, and cost of living pressures, and the resulting impact on consumer confidence and demand. The 2024 financial year was another challenging period for City Chic, as shareholders know. Inflation and cost of living pressures on households in Australia and the U.S.A. persisted and significantly reduced consumer demand. These pressures were and continue to be felt through the economy, and particularly in the middle and lower socioeconomic demographics and in discretionary spending sectors such as apparel retailing. Shareholders may have seen an article in yesterday's Financial Review that reported Australians' purchasing power had declined to 2011 levels. City Chic was not immune to these economic forces.
In fact, the impact observed on demand was far more significant than in the global financial crisis, and notwithstanding the difficult economic environment, our market research continues to tell us that our customers still love this brand, and they love the product, but that interest rates and inflation have materially reduced their ability to spend on discretionary items. In this context, and following on from the previous financial year, we've continued to implement measures to ensure the company can trade through these inflationary times and return to profitability, so through FY2024, we've completed the business transformation, and this includes a City Chic brand and product refresh and a shift to focus on high-value customers that deliver stronger margins.
We've also reduced our inventory to normalized levels given current demand, evolved our product to more versatile lifestyles, divested the Avenue and Evans businesses, thus moving away from the low-value and more economically challenged customer. We've right-sized our cost base with AUD 20.3 million in cost outs, and we've materially reduced complexity and the cost of logistics. Phil will take you through this in more detail. Now, we believe these measures will restore the business to profitability in FY2025 and provide the platform for the business to stabilize and grow as and when inflation abates and the economy recovers. We've previously informed shareholders of the key pillars of success. First, amplifying our focus on the customer. Second, revitalization of product with an emphasis on the high value and, of course, most importantly, fit, and simplifying our business operations and driving down costs.
Again, Phil will take you through these in detail, but as I said earlier, our research tells us we've not lost our customers' love and respect for the brand, and she is now responding well to our new product. Importantly, while ever these difficult economic conditions prevail, we have to continue to focus on our cost base so that we can deliver the right product at a price point that makes sense to a customer juggling myriad cost of living pressures. This has seen our cost of doing business reduce from AUD 132 million in FY2023 to a projected annualized run rate during FY2025 of AUD 73 million. Very significant reduction. Now, these measures are now bearing fruit. As we reported at the full year results in August, the last quarter of FY2024 saw positive momentum in the business, and this has continued into the first months of FY2025.
Provided cost of living and other pressures do not deteriorate, we are on target to meet the guidance given in August. We're currently operating within but towards the lower end of our guidance, and of course, we have the key periods of Cyber Monday, Black Friday, and Christmas coming up. In view of the uncertainty, we will, of course, continue to keep the market informed. In terms of banking and liquidity, we've already completed both clean downs required for this financial year under our banking covenants, and we are currently holding cash of AUD 10 million, and the bank facility of AUD 10 million is undrawn.
The capital raise conducted at year-end and the sale of Avenue have provided further strength to the balance sheet in these uncertain times. Looking ahead, if the reset business can generate cash and profitability, we believe it's critically important to invest in our store footprint.
Post-COVID, it is clear that customers do want an omnichannel approach. Additionally, stores with good economics are likely to be more profitable than the online channel as advertising and logistics costs have risen markedly over the past few years, as has been well noted. We believe there is a potential pipeline of 120 stores in Australia. More importantly, we currently have no stores in the U.S.A., the largest plus-size market in the world and a market, I remind shareholders, we have been operating in for 14 years. We are planning a test and trial, i.e., low cost, low risk in the U.S.A. in calendar 2025. If the trial is successful, it opens the possibilities of many years of compounding growth in that market. Additionally, Amazon is increasingly becoming an important partner for us.
It's been reported that well in excess of 50% of all product searches in the U.S.A. begin at Amazon, and plus-size apparel is no exception. We've retained specialized skills to assist us maximize our effectiveness in partnering with Amazon, its algorithms, and retail teams. We believe this is a very sizable opportunity for us. In summary, these past two years have been undeniably difficult for your company, its customers, the team, and of course, shareholders. Customers have seen inflation eat away their real incomes, which in turn has seen City Chic impacted by reduced demand and basket sizes. As a consequence, the business has had to be right-sized, which has resulted in the loss of many hardworking and valued team members, and of course, shareholders have suffered a catastrophic reduction in the value of the company.
We believe we've now completed the necessary transformation of the size and scope of City Chic to enable it to reset, to weather the current economic headwinds, and to grow and prosper as inflation and cost of living pressures abate. We look forward to a more normal FY2025, a return to profitability, and a consequent revaluing of the company that better represents its future prospects. Now, that being said, and notwithstanding the recent improvement in performance, I want shareholders to know that the Board and management absolutely and viscerally understand and are on notice that in the absence of a return to profitability in FY2025, action needs to be taken in terms of some or all of us who have had leadership positions at City Chic. I'll now introduce our CEO, Phil Ryan, to present his review of 2024.
Thank you, Michael, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to add my welcome to the 2024 AGM. FY2024 was again a year of consolidation for City Chic, with the divestment of Avenue and Evans and further restructuring to accommodate the resizing of the business. With our FY2025 projected annualized operating costs almost 45% down on FY2023, as Michael outlined before. These actions have set a platform for future growth through our City Chic brand. We are now focused on recovering revenue at sustainable margins and driving the business forward through a laser-sharp focus on our customers and our products. We had a strong positive momentum through the second half of FY2024 and have taken the necessary steps to get the business back to profitability. In FY2024, revenue was AUD 131.6 million, and underlying EBITDA was AUD 8.4 million loss.
We've completed the business transformation, including a City Chic brand refresh, a shift to focus on our high-value customers that deliver strong margins. We've evolved our product to more versatile lifestyles. We've reduced our inventory to normalized levels. We've returned to an agile supply chain, and we've right-sized our cost base. And the strategy is working. The actions are paying off. In the first 20 weeks of FY2025, we've delivered 11% growth in gross margin dollars. And we've also evolved our product mix and reduced promotions that led to a 32% uplift in our average sale price. We've set targets of $142 million-$160 million revenue and $11 million-$18 million in EBITDA, with the critical sales period happening from now until post-Christmas in both hemispheres.
We are focusing on the second half, excuse me, we are forecasting the second half to be bigger than the first, as trading conditions are expected to improve through the second half, with the U.S.A. recovering faster than Australia. We implemented our focused growth strategy 18 months ago after the strategic review. Jacquie, back one slide. Sorry, Don. The three key focuses have remained consistent, being customer, product, and cost base, and this consistency has led to results. Each area has key metrics and targets that we are holding ourselves accountable to that will drive our return to profitability. In the customer strategy, we're focused on our high-value customers that can deliver the margin needs of the business. Those high-value customers were up 11% in FY2024, showing the success of our strategy and marketing.
As this continues, we will decrease the number of low-value customers that only bought into the promotion or discount. We've refreshed our brand and are talking in a more contemporary tone of voice. We've targeted digital marketing efforts to further engage this high-value customer. And most importantly, we've continued to delight and exceed our expectations with our NPS at a strong 72. In the product area, we've revitalized our product assortment to move with what our customer is demanding from us through making our ranges more versatile. We've listened to her as she told us she's looking for a more elevated essential range, and accordingly, we've made this a big part of our range to meet her needs. We're back to a culture of repeats and following the customer demand in season to maximize revenue and minimize promotion.
To facilitate this, we've shifted our supply chain back to our historical partners, allowing for not only more flexibility but reduced product costs. We've reduced the per-option volume. The less you buy, the more you minimize promotion. We've simplified our business and reshaped the entire cost structure to align with the current demand. These include, and the big ones only, changing our U.S. logistics partner to make fulfillment costs variable to sales and facilitate the return of under 12% of revenue, which I'm pleased to say we're at, a headcount reduction of almost 50% in our support office in Sydney. We've achieved our target to cut our cost of doing business by AUD 20.3 million. We've strengthened our balance sheet. We now have 481,000 customers, excluding our partner business, spending AUD 226 annually. That average annual spend is a key metric.
We have 25% more customer numbers now than we did in 2019. However, back then, she was spending AUD 340 a year, and I know we can get that back. And how we achieve this is predominantly through listening to her, through our many feedback points we have in our business. She's told us three key things. Firstly, she wants her local full-price store back that's closed. Secondly, she wants more versatile assortment from our product range, and that she's hurting a little bit from the cost of living pressures. From this feedback, we closed a number of the low turnover and loss-making clearance stores, and we now operate 72 standalone stores. However, as Michael mentioned, we already have a pipeline of the full-price stores in centers we historically traded very well in that we're planning to reopen.
As I said, and I've said it many times, the opportunity for us is 120 stores in Australia. We listened on the product as well, and we made the changes to deliver the versatility, so much so that a customer came in last week. She actually emailed this and said, "City Chic has suddenly turned around. This season collection is awesome. Whoever is designing now, keep them." The U.S. remains a significant part of our business, comprising 26% of revenue, and we continue to see this as a critical growth opportunity. I'll discuss the U.S. a little bit more detail later in the presentation. Moving to this slide, it shows the positive trends in average sale price and margin are not recent. From the fourth quarter in FY2023, we have gradually lifted our average selling price AUD 62 and gross margin from 43% to 58%.
We achieve this through improving our product and our branding. We still have a long way to go. However, we have made material progress on what I see will turn the business around. This slide, as always, shows a little bit of product, which is a lot of fun in an AGM, but it really shows a snapshot of the elevated essentials and some of the customer testimonials around them. In our research through the first half of FY2024, she told us that she wanted pieces she could wear, pieces that were more versatile, more elevated essential, and that this was really a lifestyle she wanted. And when we delivered it to her in April, demand was very strong. And I'm pleased to say that's continued into summer. We've now completed our cost-out program, resulting in AUD 20.3 million saving to our annualized cost base, which is a huge achievement.
I want to thank James and all of our team for their work on this. We have really created a culture of cost containment. And I want the shareholders to know I'm committed to ensuring that the cost base of the business remains in line with our revenue. Now that the cost base is final, the cost-out program is finalized, it's great to be able to focus on driving revenue. We haven't engaged an extensive customer base that wants us to be there for her, and it's time to look forward and make sure we delight her. The first and most important part is that we'll continue to listen to her and make the changes she demands from us in both markets. We've set the business up around this feedback to make sure we are always listening.
The Australian business is performing to expectations, and the key to driving revenue is increasing our customer's annual average spend. To achieve this in FY2025, we'll revitalize our loyalty program and make sure she feels part of our community. We'll continue to learn and react to her demand in our stores and revitalize our product mix in season. We are reintroducing lifestyles and category extensions that dropped off in the last few years, such as our footwear business and Luxe Dressing online. And there are other categories we can open up to her wallet. We'll open new stores in areas we know that we have historically had strong demand, and we will look to refresh our store environment. We've already implemented our omnichannel experience with Endless Aisle and direct-to-store available to our customers today. And the take-up has been very pleasing.
We also introduced express shipping, which is now a material part of our orders. The U.S. City Chic business is now ready to grow, with the logistics fit for purpose. The plus market in the U.S.A. has undergone even further consolidation in the last 12 months, and this presents City Chic with the opportunity to take meaningful market share. With the Australian business in a stable position and showing signs of returning to growth, I'm going to focus my time on the U.S.A. and driving the business to its full potential. To support me in driving revenue growth, we'll get a team on the ground whose focus will be our U.S.A. business. We've been trading in the U.S. since 2010, and we have a strong brand recognition and a unique range, especially in our dress business. I see focusing on this as our USP and then growing out other categories.
To take market share, we're implementing a multi-channel strategy so we can have product in all channels that she wants to shop. I see now you need to have that all-channel approach to really drive market penetration. In the U.S., this will include our website, some pop-up stores Michael talked about, and I'll talk about more in a second, and our partners. For our website, we'll focus on driving our high-value customers in line with our strategy while still returning to three ROAS. We're going to improve our customer journey, implement further personalization using AI, look at our loyalty and reward structures as we are in Australia, and improve the overall customer experience online with more shipping and payment options and easier navigation. We're planning our first low-risk and low-capital trial pop-up store in the U.S. in calendar 2025.
A store presence is essential to driving a meaningful customer relationship, and there are ways these days to trial stores without a large capital or time commitment. Our U.S.A. team will drive this with third-party pop-up store companies that can provide operational support, limiting our risk on both leases and employees. With over half the product searches in the U.S. originating on Amazon, this partnership needs to really anchor the U.S.A. strategy and drive further revenue and brand awareness. We've had a strong partnership with Amazon so far, and it grew quickly. We've recently found that the way we were navigating Amazon was not optimizing the listing on the site, and to improve the sell-through of our product, we've contracted an expert in Amazon that has intimate knowledge of how to make the sales grow on Amazon.
I see this as a big step forward and a large building block in our U.S. strategy. We will take these partnership learnings not only to our current partners, but we'll also try and drive new partners' relationships over the next financial year. From a ranging view, our U.S. merchant team are living and breathing what will take to drive greater sales. From the learnings we've had, we are looking to implement more U.S.A.-specific ranges to drive that customer demand. Moving to the trading update and outlook. In the first 20 weeks of FY2025, the positive momentum we saw in the second half of 2024 has continued as the strategy delivers a further uplift in gross margin dollars and a material uplift in our average sale price of 32%.
Our focus on new product that the customer is demanding and strong marketing campaigns with a refreshed total voice are really working. Total gross margin dollars are up 11%, with trading margin at 62%, or almost nine basis points up on last year. Our revenue is down 4.8% across all markets and channels, which is an improvement on the 9.9% we previously advised we were down in the first eight weeks. Our Australian revenue is up on the prior corresponding period and aligned with expectation. Comp stores are really the highlight, up 7.5%, and I'm really very happy with how our stores are performing. We have focused on our store recovery and have seen material improvements in per-store revenue. However, they still have a way to go, and I know that they can keep driving that growth.
Our Australian online business has recovered in the first 20 weeks, with sales 3.4% above last year at materially high gross margins, up 13.1 basis points. The recovery of this customer in this channel is very pleasing because the volume of discounting over the last 18 months was very heavy. But what this shows us is what Michael talked about earlier, the strength of our brand and the fact when we're talking to her right, we have the product right, she comes to us. Further explaining that, our traffic in the first 20 weeks was up 20% in our Australian website due to the brand refresh, tone of voice, and all the focusing marketing efforts we talked about earlier. Conversion has been a little more challenging due to cost of living pressures. However, I'm sure we can get this back.
There is an opportunity in the Australian business for the second half as we start to cycle much easier comps in both channels. In the U.S., margin dollars are flat for the 20 weeks, with September, October below expectations. However, we have seen a rebound in November post the election. Demand in the immediate lead-up to the critical holiday period has shown momentum, positive momentum, I should say, in both Australia and the U.S. The global margin recovery was driven by average sale price increase of 32% as the promotional pricing abated and our range improved. And we now have a sale price back above our FY2022 levels. This shows the customer sees the value in the improvements we've made, the assortment, and the tone of voice.
We've resized the business for the current demand, and our focus now is on driving demand through reacting to customer-led learnings around product in season that our more reactive supply chain facilitates and really focusing back in on that high-value customer. We can make money at the current sales levels. Then, as we recover revenue in FY2024 and beyond, there is significant upside. I'm pleased to announce, as Michael said, that the cash position of the business is strong, with over AUD 10 million in net cash as of today and a AUD 10 million facility. We're focused on delivering profitable growth that is sustainable in the long term. We expect to continue the very, very pleasing and positive trends in both average sale price and gross margin.
As we've transformed the supply chain, cost reduction was a key focus, and we are seeing the results, with a reduction of around 5% in our forward-order product costs through FY2025, and this will underpin the margin increases we need into H2 and beyond. I think it's key that in FY2025, we'll buy product to replace sales. We are not reducing our inventory. Excuse me. This alone will make a material difference to our unit volumes at a higher ASP. We're already in that regular delivery cycle, and we're seeing the results. She loves the newness, and we're responding to what she's telling us. With the continued successful implementation of our strategy, we've set financial targets of AUD 142 million-AUD 160 million revenue and AUD 11 million-AUD 18 million EBITDA. Given the U.S.A. results, we're currently operating within but towards the lower end of our targets.
The next five weeks are the biggest trading period of the year, with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, including the Boxing Day sales. And this all has a material impact on the annual performance. With the recovery into the second half, especially in the U.S., the revenue is expected to be greater than the first. This will be driven by continued momentum in our Australian business and a seasonal uplift, with an assumed improvement in the environment in the U.S.A. Our revitalized management focus and attention on that to the U.S.A. business will help us drive that as well. And I've consistently said that I see a 120-store portfolio in Australia in the next three to five years. In the mid to long term, we see the plus market as a huge opportunity to drive revenue in a market that is expected to grow.
I'm very optimistic about the future for City Chic, and I have the right team around me to make sure we execute on the strategy I've outlined today. I want to thank all of our team for your hard work this year. We are a resilient group of people that, most importantly, cares deeply about our customer and has served her for a long time. To the Board, I'd like to say thank you for your ongoing support for the team and for going above and beyond us to help us get through the challenges we face together at FY2024. To our customers globally, I know that times are challenging for you right now, and we do everything we can to make you feel your best both in store and online with our great product.
To our shareholders, as Michael said, it's been a challenging year, and I want to thank you for your support over what was that volatile year. I'll now hand back to you, Michael. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Phil. Right. We'll now move to the matters formally before the meeting. As the notice has been circulated to shareholders, I propose to take the notice convening the meeting and the items of business as read. Shareholders will be given the opportunity to ask questions in relation to the business of the meeting, including the resolutions that are being put to the meeting during the course of the meeting and before any vote is concluded. Shareholders will also be given the opportunity to ask general questions about the business and the operations of City Chic, not specifically related to the items of business.
Those general questions will be at the end of the meeting. If you have questions that don't relate to an item of business, please save those questions for the end of the meeting. You've all been issued with attendance or voting cards. When I call for questions, those with yellow or blue cards are able to ask questions. If you'd like to ask a question, please raise your yellow or blue card. Wait for an attendant to bring a microphone, then please stand and state your name, and then proceed to ask your question. If you happen to be holding a red attendance card, that means you're a visitor and not a shareholder, and as a result, you do not have a right to ask questions or make comments.
For shareholders and proxies, I'll ask you to confine your questions to the matters relevant to the particular resolution, and I'll do my best to answer them or direct them to the auditor or a member of the Board or executive team as appropriate. After questions, whether there is a resolution to be put to the meeting for a vote, I direct that a poll will be held and now open the poll on each of the resolutions one through three. A representative from Link Market Services will act as returning officer and scrutineer for the poll. If you are here today, both as a shareholder and a proxy, you'll need to use separate voting cards in relation to your own shares and shares you are voting as a proxy.
The blue cards are non-voting cards, which will be issued to shareholders who've already voted by proxy and to joint holders who can speak, ask questions, or ask questions at the meeting. If you hold a yellow card, this is for voting as a shareholder and/or as a proxy holder, including as represented by a corporate representative, attorney, or proxy where the vote is at the proxy's discretion. You'll be asked to vote at the appropriate time on the resolutions to consider the adoption of the remuneration report for the 2024 financial year, the re-election of Ms. Natalie McLean as a director, and a conditional spill resolution. All the resolutions are ordinary resolutions. These resolutions will be passed by a simple majority of the members present and voting in person or by proxy.
For those of you holding yellow cards, to fill these out, you will find instructions, and all resolutions are printed on the front of the voting cards. To vote, simply place a mark in one of the four against or abstain boxes for each resolution. If you mark the abstain box, your votes will not be counted. If you need to leave for whatever reason before the end of the meeting, please make sure you put the completed voting form in the poll box at the registration desk by the door, and I encourage shareholders and their representatives to complete the yellow voting cards after each resolution has been discussed. At the conclusion of the meeting, please ensure you've marked your votes for the respective resolutions, and a representative of Link Market Services will collect the voting cards after all resolutions have been voted upon.
If you need assistance at any time, please signal to one of the Link representatives. So now moving to the ordinary business of the meeting. The first item of business is the 2024 annual report for City Chic and its controlled entities, including the financial statements and the reports of directors and the auditor. These documents have been made available to shareholders and also available via the ASX and the company's investor website. There's no vote required on this item of business. And I now invite questions on those reports, including any question of the company's auditor relevant to the conduct of the audit, the preparation and content of the auditor's report, the accounting policies adopted by the company in relation to the preparation of the financial statements, and the independence of the auditor in relation to the conduct of the audit. Are there any questions?
As there are no questions, we will move on to the second item of business. The next item on the agenda is the consideration of resolution one, which is to adopt the remuneration report included in the director's report in the annual report. In accordance with the Corporations Act, the vote on this resolution is advisory only, and the outcome is not binding on the Board. That is not, of course, to say the board doesn't take these resolutions very seriously, and the Board will, of course, consider the outcome of the vote and feedback from shareholders at this meeting when considering the company's remuneration policies. In the remuneration report, we've endeavoured to provide shareholders with detailed disclosure regarding the terms of and rationale behind the company's remuneration framework for FY2024. And we have received two questions from shareholders on the remuneration report.
I'll read the questions out in full before answering, and I'll do those one at a time. The particular shareholder has asked that I read out these questions in full, not summarise them, and I will indeed do that. So bear with me because the questions are reasonably long. While I commend the Board for having reduced their director's fees by 20% last year to acknowledge the disastrous shareholder outcomes they have presided over these past two years. However, I cannot convey enough my frustration and dismay at the lofty level of remuneration our CEO, Phil Ryan, continues to enjoy. While I acknowledge Mr. Ryan's fixed remuneration base was reduced by 16% this past year, I would point out that this modest reduction was off a very generous remuneration level set when the company was larger, more complex, thriving, and part of the ASX 200.
Our company now has a paltry market cap of just AUD 43 million, isn't even in the All Ordinaries Index, and has shrunk dramatically in its complexity of operations. How can the Board members on the remuneration committee possibly justify Mr. Ryan's total remuneration package in financial year 2024 still being over AUD 1.2 million? So that's the question. And my response to that is, thank you for your question, which, given the performance of the company, is more than fair and reasonable. And just for the sake of clarity, the Board actually reduced its fees by 40% in two tranches, one in February 2023 and then again at last year's AGM. Of Mr. Ryan's FY2024 total remuneration, 29% was LTIP based on achieving an FY2026 EBITDA percentage of revenue of between 10%-15% on a sliding scale.
Given the performance of the company for FY2025, Mr. Ryan has agreed to forgo his entire variable remuneration, thus reducing his total remuneration just to his fixed remuneration. From a legal perspective, a reduction in fixed salary cannot be made without the agreement of both parties. I refer to my comments in my address about the Board and management being on notice that in the absence of material improvement in performance, changes do need to be made. However, at this stage, we do believe Mr. Ryan is the best person to lead City Chic. He is the founder of the business, an acknowledged expert in plus-size retailing, and has run City Chic for 17 years, 15 of which were very successful. As has been acknowledged, mistakes have been made to the cost of staff, customers, and shareholders.
Management has taken action to redress the mistakes, and we do believe the foundations are now in place to see a recovery of the business and the share price. The second question received is as follows. And again, I've been asked to read it out in its entirety. And it's a question to Phil. "Phil, in the recent annual report, you rightly pointed out that," and I quote, "shareholders have suffered a catastrophic reduction in the value of the company." I would put it to you that it was even worse than this, and we only narrowly avoided our company being put into administration but for the heavily discounted emergency capital raising earlier this year.
While I note our former CFO, Peter McClelland, did the honorable thing of diving on his sword, it seems we've not seen even the slightest degree of contrition from you or acknowledgment of your key role in the string of expansionist errors and strategic missteps that were made and which very nearly cost shareholders their company. Assuming the same executive accountability that applied to Peter, can you please explain to shareholders why you deserve our ongoing support as the best candidate to lead our company? I will provide a short response to this question before handing over to Phil. In answer to the previous question, I did set out the reasons why the Board believes Mr. Ryan is still the best person to run City Chic.
And again, I refer to my comments in my address and my answer to the previous question about the Board and management being on notice and viscerally understanding that in the absence of material improvement in performance, changes need to be made. Phil? Yeah, we won't be able to hear it online. I'm sorry. So Phil, I think you probably, for people online, you need to start again.
Yep, we got that. That's better. I assure shareholders that I absolutely understand the position of the company, and I take full responsibility for the way it's performing. This company is my life. I founded it, I grew it, and I have a strong emotional connection to both the company, but I think more importantly, the customer. I know I've let the shareholders, the team, and most importantly, the customer down, but I'm determined to make this right.
I know the plus customer and the market exceptionally well, and I know what it takes to deliver her product she loves and drive a successful business. She needs City Chic to be strong, and I know how to deliver this for her. Together with the team, I've reset the business with a leaner and focused group of people, and we are ready to drive profitable growth.
Thank you, Phil. Are there any further questions or comments on the remuneration report? Okay, so noting that each director has a personal interest in their own remuneration from the company as set out in the remuneration report, shareholders are asked to adopt the remuneration report and vote in favor of resolution one. The proxies are shown on the screen, and for proxies open at the chairman's discretion, I intend to vote in favor of the resolution.
So we will now pause for a moment to give you the opportunity to complete your yellow voting card for resolution one. Please retain those cards, and they'll be collected after we've voted on all the resolutions. We now move to item number two, the re-election of Natalie McLean. As an independent non-executive director of the company, biographical information about Natalie is available in the notice of meeting. Natalie was appointed as an independent non-executive director to the Board on 5 August 2021, and her appointment was approved by shareholders on the 17th of November 2021. Natalie is a member of the Audit and Risk Committee and the People, Culture, and Remuneration Committee. Natalie has over 25 years of retail experience, having worked in senior positions domestically in Australia and internationally with companies including Giordano, Rip Curl, and the Cotton On Group.
She also has extensive experience across operations, product, marketing, and commercial areas of the retail sector, including partnership strategies and geographic growth. Natalie is currently the CEO of the emerging brands of Cotton On Group and a member of the Cotton On Foundation. The re-election of Natalie McLean is unanimously recommended by the Board, with, of course, Natalie abstaining. Are there any questions on this resolution? There are no questions. I put this resolution and the proxies received in relation to it should be on the screen. For the proxies open at my discretion, I intend to vote in favor of the resolution. We'll now pause for a moment to give you an opportunity to complete your yellow voting card. Okay. We now move to the last item on the agenda, which is resolution three, which deals with the holding of a spill meeting.
I'm advised by Link Market Services that the results of resolution one will not be finalised until after the poll closes, and even though it's currently, I think, below the 25% strike number, it does remain unclear how that resolution one is going to go, so in those circumstances, we are required to put resolution three to the meeting and vote it on in accordance with section 250(v) of the Corporations Act. In the event this item is passed, it will only be effective if, once the formal results of the poll conducted on resolution one are settled, at least 25% of the votes cast on that resolution are against the adoption of the remuneration report. The details of this resolution are set out on page eight of the notice of meeting, and the directors unanimously recommend that shareholders vote against this resolution.
You'll note there are some voting exclusions applicable to the resolution as set out in the notice of meeting. Are there any questions on this resolution? Okay. If there are no questions, I put the resolution, and the proxies received are shown on the screen behind me, and we'll now pause for a moment to give you an opportunity to vote, and all proxies open at my discretion will be voted against the resolution. Okay. As this is the last of the resolutions to be considered at this meeting, once you've completed your voting card, please provide it to the representative Link. We will collect the cards now, please. I now declare the poll closed, and as the counting of the votes on the poll may take a little time, we'll publish the results via the ASX as soon as possible after the meeting. All done? Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the formal business of the meeting. On behalf of the Board, I'd like to thank you for your attendance, and I now declare the meeting closed. If there are any general questions from those on the floor, this is an opportunity to ask. If there are no questions, let me thank you all for your attendance and participation in the meeting. For those joining on the webinar, this concludes the broadcast. For those attending in person, I invite you to join us, the Board, and members of the management team for morning tea. Thank you.