Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Rupert Harrington, and I'm the Chairman of Clover Corporation Limited. I welcome shareholders and visitors to the 2022 hybrid annual general meeting of the company. The meeting is being webcast. At the same time, we are holding a physical meeting from the offices of our auditors, PKF in Melbourne, as advised in the notice of meeting. We're not recording using a visual medium at the AGM today. The company secretary has informed me that a quorum is present, and therefore I formally declare the meeting open. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we are meeting. I pay my respects to the elders past and present, and the original elders of other communities who may be here today. Thank you for attending in person and online.
We're again using the Computershare platform to host the meeting. This platform allows shareholders, proxies, and guests to attend the meeting virtually. At all meetings, all attendees can watch a live webcast of the meeting. Only shareholders and proxies have the ability to ask questions and submit votes. Before we proceed, I'd like to introduce you to the other members of your board. With me today are Mr. Peter Davey, MD and CEO.
Good.
Dr. Simon Green. Mr. Graeme Billings.
Good afternoon.
Ms. Toni Brendish.
Hello.
Mr. Ian Glasson.
Good afternoon.
Also present is Mr. Andrew Allibon, the Company Secretary and CFO. Mr. Ken Welding, representing our auditors, PKF. Ken will be available to answer questions on the accounts at the appropriate time. To attend this meeting, you will have downloaded the links as supplied from the notice of meeting and entered the credentials provided to you that recognize you as a shareholder or proxy. Alternatively, you may have entered as a visitor or as a guest. I propose that the final notice of meeting dated the 19th of October 2022, which was mailed to shareholders, be taken as read. I would like to address general housekeeping around questions and voting before we proceed further. Questions can be submitted at any time. To ask a question on the app, press on the Q&A bubble icon.
On the screen, there is a section for you to type your question. Select a topic from the top drop-down list. Once you're finished typing, please tap Send. Please note that while you can submit questions from now on, I will not address them until the relevant time in the meeting, either when the particular item of business is open for discussion or after the close of business before the close of the voting polls. I ask that in the interest of time and to allow as many questions as possible to be addressed, please try to keep your questions to a moderate length.
Please note that your questions may be moderated or if we receive multiple questions on one topic, amalgamated together. If you wish to ask a question by phone, please note the number and follow the directions of asterisk one to join the verbal question queue.
Please mute your webcast if you choose to use this method to avoid any audio feedback. Finally, due to time constraints, we may run out of time to answer all questions. If this happens, we will answer them in due course via email or by posting responses on our website. In accordance with the current practice, voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business. I will shortly open voting for all resolutions, and if you are eligible to vote at this meeting, a vote 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. You have the ability to change your vote up until the time I declare the voting closed.
This is shown at the bottom of the vote page as noted on the slide. In the unlikely event that we experience a loss of signal with the webcast, please do not log out of the application. We have a backup webcast stream running, which will automatically appear in the Computershare application within about 30 seconds after the initial loss of signal. Voting on every resolution is held today until the end of the meeting. That concludes the housekeeping on questions and voting. Before we move to the formal business of the meeting, I would like to present my chairman's address. Following my address, Peter Davey will give a presentation on the business. The past financial year has been a challenging but positive one for Clover. As COVID-19 restrictions eased, it became possible to better engage with customers and rebuild our sales pipeline.
This resulted in good sales growth in the second half of the financial year as we trend back towards pre-COVID-19 levels. As a result, we reported improved year-on-year revenue and net profit after tax, and this result was consistent with the top end of the guidance that we provided at our half-year announcement in March of this year. The board and management continue to have a strong focus on driving growth by accelerating the commercialization of R&D, expanding international business development and sales support, identifying adjacent market opportunities, including licensing and possible strategic acquisitions.
Some key milestones achieved in the past year include: The New England Journal of Medicine recently reported on the positive outcome of the five year clinical trials with preterm infants being fed with Clover's unique omega three emulsion. The result of the clinical trial shows an improved IQ amongst babies fed with this emulsion.
Clover has branded the product Premneo and is now evaluating opportunities to commercialize it through a new specialized operating division. As previously reported, the Chinese government has legislated that infant formula sold in China from February 2023 must contain certain defined minimum levels of omega three and omega six. Approved parties are provided with a CMR license. Clover has been working with European and Chinese companies to have its encapsulated products included in their CMR license applications.
We are pleased to report that we recently received initial orders from some of these Chinese infant formula manufacturers. The company has continued to develop unique products targeting the medical foods and nutraceutical markets, including Gelphorm, a product that allows customers to fortify UHT milk drinks with omega three, high concentration omega three for gummies, tablets, and vegan powder products.
The commercialization lead time for products developed by Clover remains lengthy due to the accreditation process and shelf life testing. Our experience is that these products generally have a strong, sustainable competitive position once in use. I'm also pleased that we have successfully concluded our legal defense of IP infringement against Pharmamark. The three year action resulted with the court awarding compensation and party party costs, as well as orders to ensure that the company's IP remains protected. On behalf of the board of directors, I would like to thank you, our shareholders, for your continued support. I would also like to acknowledge the extraordinary effort of our employees and management team on another busy and challenging year. I would now like to hand to Peter to give us an update on the business.
Thanks very much, Rupert. The Managing Director's pre-report for the 12 months end of year, I always start with the vision, values, and purpose of the business, which I think is really extremely important because it puts a peg in the ground where we begin. Our vision is to optimize the health and development of adults, infants, and children. We do nothing but good, which is a wonderful thing that we do in this business. It's great. We live by three key values we call the three Rs: respect, response, and responsibility. They're key to the culture of our business, I'm very proud of the way our entire business adopts and lives by them. The purpose of our business is in collaboration with key market participants, our customers.
Clover develops customized high-value nutritional ingredients that enhance the wellbeing and dietary needs of their customers. We support our customers in growing their own companies and solving problems for them. The full year performance highlights. Our total year revenue was AUD 70.7 million. That's up 16.9% on the prior year of AUD 60.5 million. We saw an increase in our demand profile coming through the business. Net profit after tax was AUD 7.1 million. That was up 18.8% on the prior year of AUD 6 million. Our operating expenses were at AUD 10.4 million, up 11.8% on the prior year of AUD 9.3 million. We had inflationary costs, legal costs. We started to travel again coming out of COVID, and our marketing costs improved relative to that.
We added new customers to the business, we launched new products, which I'll go into some detail of. Our inventory position is quite high at AUD 36 million, an increase of AUD 5.2 million. It's really a reflection of constraints within the marketplace. Our balance sheet is strong. We finished the year at AUD 10.1 million worth of cash. Puts us in a good position to continue to operate and pay down debtors. We pleasingly declared a final dividend of AUD 0.01 per share, bringing the full year to AUD 0.015 per share. Update on the FY2022 year for you. Clover's employees have continued to work through COVID. I'm really proud of the way the business has operated. We haven't had to close our business.
We operate in the food market, the infant formula market, so an incident would have been detrimental to the running of the company. Our employees have been wonderful the way they've continued to live by the rules, and they've self-isolated whenever they've had COVID. Our revenue in the first half was quite stable for the year at AUD 29.7 million, we really saw an improvement in orders in the second half of the year, where we were seeing a return to pre-COVID numbers of AUD 40.9 million. A very good second half for the company. As I said, we remain very high in our inventory position.
With the supply chain issues of getting inventory, some of that stock now goes from a two-month supply chain out to a a nine-month supply chain, and hence we've had to hold more inventory to ensure that we have the product to turn into a finished product for customer orders. Pleasingly, we've met more customer orders where a lot of people haven't been able to achieve that. Inflationary pressures are across the business. Raw material, energy, freight, people have all impacted our gross margin in the business. And getting improvements in pricing where we have long-term contracts with customers is very difficult to recover those prices. We have been able to do it to some extent. We've got a new...
lot of new projects that have come back into our stable that started pre-COVID. Customers are coming back to work, so we're seeing them come back into the business. Really in the second half we were able to start doing international travel again, so we've been re-engaging with the customers and actually a lot of new people into the marketplace, which is really pleasing to show that we've got people interested in our products and our solutions. Sales by geography. Overall the year was very good because we saw an improvement in all marketplaces. EU, slight improvement year-on-year as the market in Europe started to recover coming out of COVID.
Australia and New Zealand, while the graph may look less, it's actually quite significant when you look at the scale, it was over a AUD 10 million improvement in that marketplace where we'd lost significantly going into COVID. We got some really good recovery across those markets. In the U.S., only a slight improvement. It's probably the slowest market to come out of COVID. I've just come back from there last week, it's still quite dormant. A lot of people aren't working from home and a lot of businesses are still quiet. Just turning to the P&L, the FY2022 results. Revenue improved, as I said, 16.8% year on year all regions showing some good growth. We really recovered from a lot of the pantry stacking that occurred going into COVID-19.
People bought up a lot of, especially baby infant formula, put it on the shelf. Obviously, it's got a long shelf life, so they used that during the last year. They didn't have to buy more, so we saw a decrease in overall volumes. That started to improve. We had price increases and cost reductions that we're applying across our whole customer base and that mix has partially offset the inflationary pressures that we've had. Our GM was down 0.5% on the year, which is pretty good effort considering some of the increases that we've seen. The recovery from Pharmamark was quite offset by other legal costs and losses through Melody Dairies, which I'll talk to. NPAT, the result was AUD 7.2 million, a good improvement on the prior year at AUD 6 million. The balance sheet continues to be strong.
AUD 10.1 million in cash puts us in a very stable, strong position and AUD 1 million up on the prior year. Our trade receivables finished up, especially with the strong finish that we had. Our inventory levels are maintaining that buffer against supply strain constraints. Our payables increased with the strong second half that we had as well. We've had to buy in more stock and to meet the customer orders that we've had. A bit about Melody Dairies. You understand that we are a 42% shareholder in a spray dryer, which is in Hamilton, New Zealand. It's part of our vertical integration strategy. It allows us to have some control over our finished product and supply and quality. There was long delays.
This was a greenfield site that we started manufacturing and as soon as we started breaking ground, COVID hit. There were significant delays in terms of the build and getting it up and running. It's now completely operational. New Zealand remained locked down during last year, we weren't allowed into the country to actually operate the facility. It basically sat dormant for the manufacture of our products for quite some time. It slowed. As a result of that, there was underutilization of the plant. We shared in the loss that it made, it was AUD 700,000 that hit us in the P&L.
Pleasingly, all of our customers have now gone through audits of the factory and all of our products can be made on the factory, which is quite a lengthy process for us to be able to qualify our products on any business. With the improvement in customer now demand, we're now seeing full utilization of that facility. In fact, it's now getting hard to actually get manufacturing on the facility at the moment in New Zealand. In overall, we talk about the growth platforms that we run through the business. One of them is about new product development, the other is our focus on infant formula, new market development as well. I'll just update you on those three key platforms that we have for growth. Market development is really about, for us, is diversification.
You know that we're extremely strong in infant formula market and what we've turned our attention to is broadening our base and diversifying the base of the business. We're doing quite well in general foods. We've introduced products that go into sports nutrition, so we're in powders. We recently launched a new EPA powder. EPA is an element of omega three that helps reduce inflammation in people, so we've produced that. We now have it in a fish-based form and a vegan form, which is the only one available in the marketplace, just recently introduced. Pharmaceutical, we've talked now to the marketplace about Premneo. It's an exciting opportunity for us that we look forward to capitalizing on. We're really getting strong in supplements, especially across the U.S. market.
We have tablets, we have powders and the gummy market. We're selling gummies into both the U.S. and into the European market. Then plant-based drinks. We'll talk a little bit about Gelphorm, but that product's going into some plant-based drinks as we speak. Some of the new products was Premneo. Rupert talked about it. It's a unique product where we've announced the successful clinical trial results, where we've been able to show that we can improve the IQ of preterm infants. There is no other product in the world that's capable of doing this. It's for very premature babies that are born at less than 32 weeks. They're very tiny babies that don't get the brain development they would normally get being in the mother's womb through the placenta.
We're feeding them a unique product, an emulsion product that goes through a nasal gastric feeding tube that goes directly into their stomach and allows that brain development to occur, and now we've proven that. It's a wonderful result, and we've got a lot of work to do to now understand the commercialization path of it. We've only known about it for three weeks like you have, so it's got a path to go. Gelphorm, again, another unique product we launched in America two weeks ago. We've been doing some trials of this product. It is a liquid emulsion product that allows omega-3 to be put into UHT products. If a customer wants to have, like, a milk product, generally they'll target sort of an intelligence market, children, maybe adults, seniors.
It allows them to put Omega-3 through a UHT product, which is effectively the process would normally destroy any sort of product at all. That's what it's set up to do. We've been able to protect it. We've gone through trials. We've got trials going across multiple markets and we're starting to achieve some orders of it, which is wonderful. We've invested heavily into our R&D business. We're effectively a, quite much a, an R&D company. We've gone into new facilities in Brisbane, which are double the size of the previous facility. We've added people into that business, and we've now added new equipment that allows us to fast-track our R&D projects. We've internalized a lot of the equipment you do to do with commercialization of our products, where we would've outsourced it in the past.
Turning to the other growth platform of infant formula, look, it's a key plank in our business and it always will be. We've worked really closely with Chinese and Western customers to get our products incorporated into their SAMR applications. A SAMR license will be required from February next year to be able to sell an infant formula product through the retail channel in China. They will still be able to sell a product through the gray market, being cross-border, people sending product through mails or coming out of bonded warehouses. If you want to sell through the retail market, mother and baby stores, pharmacies, supermarkets, you have to have one of these SAMR licenses.
We've been successful in getting our product incorporated into the license applications of different people, and it means a significant increase in the demand for our style of products. We are one of multiple suppliers of this product into the marketplace. A Chinese product after February will have to have 15 milligrams per 100 kcals of DHA, which is an omega-3, and ARA, which is an omega-6, and you have to go through a licensing process to do it, which includes audits as well. That has been severely hampered. You're probably aware that China's got difficulty in terms of COVID, and they've had significant lockdowns, and to get auditors out to other countries has been almost impossible. It is delayed. February looks like a very challenging deadline, especially for Western infant formula manufacturers.
We've added new infant formula businesses in both China and Europe, as Rupert said, we've actually achieved orders out of China, which is wonderful to see the rubber hit the road in terms of revenue. That's very pleasing. In our second half, you saw our results rebound, and that was really a reflection of an improvement or a recovery in the infant formula marketplace, and that was globally. We saw that growth in every single marketplace in the second half. The third growth platform is about new market development. We're always after trying to expand the marketplaces where we service and so grow our opportunities there. We've been able to achieve a gummy of 125 milligrams of DHA into a small 3-gram gummy. So it's a tiny gummy.
The daily recommended intake of DHA for a human generally across most markets is 250 milligrams of DHA per day. Now, we can produce a gummy for a child or an adult that with two gummies you can achieve your daily recommended intake. It's only unheard of. We're up against competition that might get to 20 or 30 mg. It's a wonderful outcome that we're starting to get some traction with in Europe and in the USA. But it means a parent can now feed a child two gummies instead of giving them a handful, which is a much more saleable product to a parent, 'cause most of these products do contain some sort of sugar content. We've added new employees and warehousing in Europe.
We've moved our warehousing in Europe, and we've added additional people. Certainly, COVID highlighted to us the importance of having people on the ground to be in contact with customers. Trying to service customers from Australia is quite difficult, we've added more resources and that's continued on into this year as well. We'll make announcements about additions as we move on. We've grown our customer base across food and nutraceutical, and that's really where we see those growth platforms. Infant formula, we're very strong, and we see the nutraceuticals marketplace opening up for us. People are looking for more concentrated, high quality products.
In the food market we're seeing people, rather than taking a tablet, they're trying to get food that has fortification, so they get their DHA within that rather than having to take a tablet additional to it, which is a great opportunity for our technology. We've recently launched this vegan EPA powder, targeting medical and nutraceuticals market. It's unique. There is no other product in the world that can achieve it. It's very recent, so we've only got it on trials at this stage. Again, it's another platform for us to grow a market segment that effectively doesn't exist today. I turn to the first half outlook and priorities. We wrote this a while ago, now we've moved on significantly, we've made some updates to this page.
We've still got to manage the risk to our employees, to our customers, and to our suppliers. COVID is still with us, and I'm reminded of it every single day. We meet on it every single morning to remind our business that COVID, we need to protect ourselves and each other of it. Our supply chain challenges continue. Accessing raw materials that come from overseas, the extension of those timelines has been significant, and getting our product to customers has also been significant. The addition of something like a warehouse in Europe has allowed us to stage our products closer to a customer and therefore remove risk for them, which helps us get sales and retain our business. We've re-engaged with customers and new opportunities. We've done in-market visits and trade shows.
In the last few months, we've attended a trade show in Europe in North America, which was massive and wonderful to see people back out there looking for new opportunities. We also did a trade show which is in Bangkok, which is a massive trade show for the Asian market. Re-engaging with the marketplace is where we've always won our business, and we expect that we'll see some good growth with those sort of visits as again. Commercializing Premneo and Gelphorm are two wonderful opportunities for the business. I've often looked at this business and said, "We're really good at this, but where are the next stages of growth?" Now they're sitting in front of us.
Now we've got to really work out how we commercialize those two opportunities and get traction and generate revenue for the company going forward. We will continue to increase our vertical integration into the business. Like Melody Dairies, it's given us more control over our supply chain and more understanding of it. We will continue to look at those opportunities in logistics partners, in warehousing, how we get our product to marketplace, and where we buy our raw materials. We will, as Rupert pointed to, we will look at strategic acquisitions and partnerships. That's been fairly challenging during a COVID period, certainly something that we are keen on getting step change in the business to be able to grow the company.
Pleasingly, we can report that the first quarter of FY2023 has continued revenue momentum that we achieved in the second half of FY2022, which is a great outcome for the business going forward. There are ongoing uncertainties, including geopolitical pressures and requirements to meet these Chinese licenses, which may impact the second half of FY2023. That's our report on the marketplace for last year. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Peter.
Thanks, Rupert.
We now move to the formal business as set out in the notice of meeting. Each of the resolutions will be taken in turn. I will introduce each item and resolution. Shareholders will have a chance to ask questions on the resolution, and I will display the proxy results received for the resolution on the screen before we move to the next resolution.
Voting is now open. I will now go to the first item of formal business. As required by the Corporations Act, the financial reports for the company for the year ending the 31st of July 2022, comprising the company's financial statements, the director's declaration, together with the director's report and the auditor's report, will be considered, and I present a copy of them to the meeting, which is signed by me for the purpose of identification.
I invite you to ask any questions about these reports. I remind you that there is no resolution required for this item. Please limit your questions at this time to matters related to the financial statements and other reports. There will also be time for general questions at the conclusion of the meeting. Questions may be addressed to me or to Mr. Ken Weldon of PKF, the company's auditor, through me. Are there any questions regarding the reports?
Mr. Chairman, we have five questions online regarding the annual accounts. If I start with the first question, Mr. and Mrs. Sablik would like to know, are you able to comment on the current utilization of the Melody Dairies spray dryer, whether it is now profitable?
Peter, would you like to take that question?
I can inform the shareholders that the Melody Dairies is currently being fully utilized. New Zealand is actually going through what's called the spring flush. It's when the cows, goats, and sheep give significantly higher milk, and therefore there's excess milk, which is then sent to the spray dryer. It's being utilized about 80% of every single month at the moment, so it is running profitably currently.
The next question comes from Mr. and Mrs. Sablik. Jack, again. Apologies. With new contracts, are you incorporating an ability to recover any material cost increases with recovery in price charged to customers?
Well, management of gross margins is an ongoing challenge for any business, and particularly where we've come through significant inflationary pressures and supply chain. This is a constant focus, and we seek to recover our margins to traditional levels progressively as we can through cost reductions, efficiencies and so forth. The answer is yes, it's a focus, and it's an ongoing focus of the business.
The next 3 questions come from Mr. Gary Ellis. The first question, I think, is in relation to the Farmer-FarmerMac case. Have all funds now been settled in relation to the recent legal action?
Yes.
Next question from Gary again. Given recent announcements by Bubs and A2 Milk regarding their entry into the U.S. infant formula market, is there a significant flow on benefit to Clover?
Peter, would you like to take that question?
Yes. Look, I First of all, I put it that I can't comment on individual customers, and I never would. Any entrant, new entrant into the U.S. market, it's going to take some time to get traction. Look, I wish those companies all the best, and it would be pleasing for us to get some potential increases in business from it.
The next question again comes from Gary in relation to Premneo. Gary's asking: What is the estimated market potential per annum?
Well, as Peter referred to, it's only relatively recently that we got confirmation of where the veracity of that product is. Until we had those results, we haven't been able to speak freely to the medical practitioners and so forth who will decide whether to use this product in practice, and therefore to do our works in relation to scoping the size of the market opportunity, and therefore the economics. There are about globally, I think, and I'm gonna repeat it, you correct me if I'm wrong, about 15,000 babies born in less than 29 weeks gestation that are sort of potential recipients of this product.
The researchers are very keen for us to progress this, and we're very keen to understand the opportunity, but I'm afraid at this stage, we can't qualify the market in that respect.
That ends the questions, online in respect of, online questions.
Are there any questions from the floor? Can you please state your name...
Thank you. Neil Stojanovski, shareholder for about 14 years. I've known Peter since from the day he commenced with Clover, and he's been fairly responsive to some of our questions and so forth. The question I have today is that pre-2020, the return on equity for Clover had been running around about 23%. In the last two years, it's running at 11%. Obviously, the same has been reflected in the share price of the company and also the dividend returns to shareholders.
Excuse me. This sounds like a general question rather than a question on the.
Yeah.
on the financial statements.
I would like the board and management. Obviously, there's been a management refresh and the board refresh as well and strategic move in order to replenish Clover with new ideas and new initiatives. What I'd like to ask is what is the board management doing to return Clover to at least back to a 22%-23% return on equity?
I don't think that is a question on the financial statements. I'm happy to take that question in general business at the end of the meeting.
Okay.
Can we reserve that question for general business, please?
I expect the financial statement talks about return.
With respect.
Okay. My second question is in relation to the remuneration report. As I understand shareholders' returns are quite obvious. How is directors, other management and the directors of the company ensuring that the remuneration report at least somehow recognizes the fact that shareholders are also diminished at this point in time?
Again, the next resolution is in relation to remuneration, and I'm happy to take that question at the end of that and answer it at that time. Are there any other questions in relation to the financial report? Thank you. I might now move to item two, which is resolution one. Set out in the notice of the meeting, which relates to the adoption of the remuneration report for the year ending the 31st of July 2022. The remuneration report is in the Directors' Report section of the published company's Annual Report, pages 12- 17.
By way of summary, the remuneration report explains the company's remuneration policy and the process of determining the remuneration of directors and executive officers and sets out the remuneration details of each director and each of the company executives named in the remuneration report for the financial year ending the 31st of July 2022. Section 250R(2) of the Corporations Act requires companies to put a resolution to their members that the remuneration report be adopted. Please note that the resolution is advisory only and does not bind the board of directors. I move that the resolution for adoption of the remuneration report for the year ending 31st of July 2022 be put to the meeting in the form of Resolution one, as set out in the notice of meeting.
Details of the proxy votes in respect of this proposed resolution are shown on the screen. Are there any questions regarding the remuneration report?
I have two questions, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome back to you, sir.
The first question is in relation to the STI remuneration. This is probably in part a little bit of a statement, but a question. To ensure alignment with shareholders, will the board consider the installation of a financial gateway that needs to be met before any STI payments are triggered? I would suggest that for FY23, that should be 7% earnings per share growth, with inflation tracking at over 7%.
I thank you for your suggestion, whoever that person was. Yes, there is a financial gateway for the payment of STIs. Unless we get through that gateway, which is a profit gateway, then the other STI opportunities are not paid. Typically that gateway allocates about 50% of the applicable STI earning capacity of the individual.
The next question comes from the same gentleman, Mr. Chris Lloyd, in regards to LTI remuneration. A little bit longer, but let me start by saying I support the use of earnings per share. The REM report lists the target LTI hurdle as a 5% earnings per share growth, with the maximum LTI payment being achieved with 15%. With inflation tracking at 7%, again, 5% earning per share represents a 2% fall in real terms. In FY2023, will the board consider making these hurdles real or inflation adjusted?
Well, we When it comes to allocating and dealing with STIs in relation to future years, we will deal with that appropriately. I think we're always trying to align the outcome for management in relation to an outcome for shareholders. We're cognizant of the balance between all of it. I think the issues of inflation and other things will be part of how we consider that. I'm not going to commit to any particular numbers at this stage. The purpose of an LTI is to ensure alignment between an outcome and an improved outcome from shareholders in relation to payment of LTIs to management.
There are no further questions on resolution one, Mr. Chairman.
Back to you, sir.
Thank you.
Would you like to ask your question on remuneration again, please?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said earlier, the remuneration report, it's... I don't have any issue with it except for the fact that there is a lack of alignment with return on equity, return of shareholders and the share price of the company, which are all interlinked. I wouldn't like to say that we should blame external factors totally for our current position. What is the board and management doing to make sure there is alignment?
Well, the drive on the board is to continue to improve the performance of the business in relation to key metrics of ultimately earnings per share. Obviously, if as we put investment in, return on investment performance is an important criteria also. Growth is an important driver to all of that. The outcome of what the stock market does to share price is something that the board has, if it does those things, it is an outcome rather than we can influence it. I suspect somewhere in all of that, the route of free float in relation to of the shares has an impact on it.
I think the drivers for growth and earnings per share growth consistently is where the focus of the board and management is in the endeavor to get ultimately an outcome that is share price driven. Are there any more questions on remuneration report? If not, I now move to the next item. The third item being the second resolution relates to the election of Dr. Simon Green. Simon has elected to retire by rotation one year ahead of his threeyear term. This is due to address future rotations where we will have had three of the six directors seeking re-election at the next AGM of 2023. Pursuant to the Constitution and being eligible, Simon offers himself for re-election. Simon has been an executive director of the company since the 20th of October 2020.
I would like Simon to say a few words to the meeting to discuss his background and credentials that he brings as a director to the board.
Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm Simon Green. I have a background in science, research and development.
A PhD from University of Melbourne, a honors degree and science degree from Monash University here in Melbourne. I worked in the United States at Genentech and also Novartis before being recruited to CSL, which you all know. I worked at CSL for 17 years, where I was involved in the global expansion of our Australian-based business out to where it is today. I led the research and development group there in our plasma research and development.
I was also the general manager of our European operations and general manager of our facilities and operations here in Broadmeadows, in Melbourne. I left CSL about 6 years ago to found my own biotech startup company. I'm an entrepreneur and founder as well as a manager in science and that's a genetic-based diagnostics company.
I'm also a venture partner at Bioscience Managers, which is a healthcare investment firm. Through that portfolio of activities keeps me fairly busy. I confirm that I have the available time to be able to contribute to my director activities at Clover Corporation, and I bring the knowledge and spirit of research and development of commercializing innovative products and bringing them to markets globally.
Thank you, Simon. The board, with Simon abstaining, unanimously supports the reelection of Dr. Green as a director of the company and recommends that you vote in favor of the resolution. Details of the proxy votes in respect of this proposed resolution are shown on the screen. Are there any questions regarding this resolution?
No questions online, Mr. Chairman.
Any questions from the floor? If there are no questions, I now put the motion that Resolution two be adopted. That concludes Item three and Resolution two. The fourth item being Resolution three, set out in the notice of meeting, relates to the reelection of Mr. Graeme Billings. Graeme is required to retire by rotation pursuant to the Constitution and being eligible, offers himself for reelection. Graeme has been a non-executive director of the company since the 14th of May, 2013. He was appointed to the chair of the Audit & Risk Committee of the company in the same year. Graeme, would you like to say a few words to the meeting?
Thanks, Rupert. Good afternoon, everyone. Details of my executive experience and current directorships, I think are listed both in the notice of meeting and the annual report. I wanna talk about today is what I bring to the board and some insights into how the board operates and how we've been on a growth path, the company, as well as the board over the last nine years that I've been on the board. During that time, I've also been chair of the Audit and Risk Committee for that entire time. I bring to the board deep financial assurance, accounting, corporate governance, strategy, and M&A skills as part of my role as Audit Committee chair. I also demonstrate a high degree of commercial and business acumen, as well as good old-fashioned common sense.
I do confirm that I continue to have the capacity, time-wise, to perform my role with Clover, with diligence and certainly motivation. The board continues to operate effectively in guiding senior management in a strategic and challenging way. The company has gone through major change and growth over the last nine years and is now a very different company now to what it was when I first joined the board.
The board has a strong understanding of the markets the company plays in based on the relevant skills and experience which each director has. This enables the board to challenge management on various issues, always with the objective of achieving the best possible outcomes. The relationship between the board and senior management, particularly the MD, is strong. I continue to enjoy serving on the Clover board as a non-executive director.
I believe the company is at a point where opportunities are many and key decisions will need to be made. The board will make these decisions in the best interests of all stakeholders, including you, our shareholders. I present myself before you for reelection to the board of Clover. I thank you for your support. Back to you, Rupert.
Thank you, Graeme. The board, with Graeme abstaining, unanimously recommends the reelection of Mr. Billings as a director of the company and recommend that you vote in favor of the resolution. Details of the proxy votes in respect of this proposed resolution are shown on the screen. Are there any questions regarding resolution three?
There are no questions online, Mr. Chairman.
Any questions from the floor? If there are no questions, I now put the motion that resolution three be adopted. Item five, being resolution four, is set out in the notice of meeting, relates to the approval of the issue of FY2023 performance rights granted to the Managing Director under the company's long-term incentive plan. Approval of this resolution will permit the company to issue the performance rights to Mr. Davey with a vesting date subject to the performance of the 31st July 2025 accounts. The Managing Director has 249,637 outstanding performance rights yet to vest. Inclusive of the 57,199 performance rights, the subject of the resolution for Mr.
Davey will hold 504,836 performance rights vesting over the next three years. The terms of these performance rights are summarized in the notice of meeting. I move that the resolution for the approval of the acquisition of the Managing Director's performance rights and the issue or other provisions of shares and satisfaction of the performance rights be put to the meeting in the form of Resolution 4 set out in the notice of meeting. Details of the proxy votes in respect of this proposed resolution are shown on the screen. Are there any questions regarding Resolution four?
There are no questions online, Mr. Chairman.
Any questions from the floor? If there are no questions, I move that approval be given for the granting of the performance rights to Mr. Peter Davey on the terms described in the explanatory memorandum accompanying this notice of meeting. I now turn to item six being Resolution five set out in the notice of meeting, relates to a special resolution on seeking shareholder approval to hold virtual meetings. Section 136(2) of the Corporations Act provides that a company may modify or repeal its constitution or a provision of its constitution by special resolution of shareholders. Resolution five being a special re-resolution, requires approval of 75% of the votes cast by shareholders present and eligible to vote in person by proxy, by attorney, or in the case of a corporate shareholder, by a corporate representative.
Shareholder approval is being sought under Section 249R of the Corporations Act, allowing the company the potential to hold virtual meetings for any future AGMs if circumstances make it impossible to hold a physical meeting.
This may be due to ongoing risk with COVID-19 pandemic infections, for example. I move that the resolution for approval for the amendment to the company's constitution to permit virtual meetings to be put to the meeting in the form of resolution five, as set out in the notice of meeting. Details of the proxy votes in respect to this proposed resolution are shown on the screen. Are there any questions regarding this resolution?
There are no questions online, Mr. Chairman.
Any questions from the floor? If there are no questions, I now put the motion that resolution three be adopted. This concludes the formal part of the 2022 AGM. With the formal business of the meeting having been completed, I now open the floor for questions from shareholders to the board. Are there any questions online?
There is a question online, a fairly lengthy one. It's in relation to Pharmamark. I might just try and paraphrase the question, that's been put forward, Mr. Chairman. The question comes from Chris Lloyd. Can you please comment on the fact that the court case appears to have had no impact on Pharmamark? That's in relation to information that he has included in his question relating to what they are publishing on their website.
Well, the resolution and the commitments given by Pharmamark is not to use our intellectual property. Our intellectual property includes knowledge and processes which are proprietary to us. That undertaking has been given, and consistent with that, and all things have been paid. Consistent with that, we have the right to inspect, and their operations, which includes their processes, and we intend to utilize that as a matter of course. We've got the right to do that over the next three years on an annual basis.
There are no other questions online at this time, Mr. Chairman.
Would you like to reiterate your question, please?
I've got a real question. I was hoping that somebody else might have a second one just to break it up a little bit. Can you hear me fine right now?
Yep.
As I said earlier, I've been a shareholder for a long time, and I thoroughly enjoyed the progression of the company throughout that time until sometime just prior to COVID-19. Prior to that, the company embarked on a number of other things like producing, developing new products, doing R&D, and also getting involved in Melody Dairies and so forth. These are investment decisions, risk decisions, which the board always said they were going to do, and always said they were gonna look at M&A activities and corporate activities as well. None of those have eventuated, which would in a positive sense, would allow the company to grow.
With Salt have been there behind it, I thought the board should be fully invigorated in getting out there and doing things and giving it a go. It seems like it hasn't occurred, and I wanted to know why that is so, and what's holding the board and management back, in giving Clover the true potential that I've always believed it had.
There's no doubt that Clover was heavily restricted in many of its potential endeavors through COVID because inability to travel and inability to do things, dealing with internal issues by supply chain, customer disruption. You would have seen we had a shrinking of our revenues over that period of time for a variety of reasons. I think we have maintained focus on a variety of those things, but we need to physically engage. I don't think there are. You look at the size of Clover, the things that we will do by way of M&A would be very strategic and very targeted. We're not interested in just doing an acquisition for acquisition's sake. It's got to be something that allows us to leverage the smarts that we have, and does add value over time.
We would love to have opportunities to do that. At this stage, we haven't found something that makes sense. I think in relation to commercialization of product and working with customers, we found that many of our clients became inward-focused in relation to dealing with COVID in their own environments rather than progressing with new developments through COVID. Our inability to physically interact with them didn't help that process. They had challenges in relation to their own revenue base. What we're seeing is that, as the company and its executives begin to travel, that, and the reinvigoration of those activities is underway.
I'm happy for Peter to comment, on how you're seeing the changes in just high level in relation to engagement at customer level for projects, new developments, and engagement on new activities, as you travel and see customers.
We've started that process again. I think what I said during the presentation was that we had a significant pipeline of new opportunities that we were pursuing pre-COVID. Most of those opportunities went fairly dormant. I've just come off five weeks of travel, so two in, two in Asia and three in America, and I leave tomorrow for Europe. I'm losing track of where I am at the moment. Really the doors have just opened up again. By being able to reengage with customers, those opportunities start again. We've certainly looked at opportunities for mergers and acquisitions. Many of them just don't stack up at the moment, so there's no use adding something that's gonna be detrimental to our business.
We'd certainly love to grow the business by acquisition. We haven't found that opportunity yet. We've got an active search program. We'll always be looking.
Thank you. Any other questions? If there are no further questions, I would like to thank you for your attendance today. Please ensure that you cast your vote on all resolutions. I will now pause to allow you time to finalize those votes and for those present to put your votes into the ballot box. Voting is now closed. The results of the poll will be announced via the ASX later today. As the business of the meeting has been concluded, I declare the meeting closed. I would like to thank you all for your attendance today and for your continued support of Clover Corporation Limited. I look forward to updating you on our half year results in the new year. Thank you all.