Good morning, everybody, and Welcome to CSL's 2026 Annual General Meeting. Before we commence the formal proceedings of the meeting, we would like to play a short video showcasing CSL's impact on patients and its commitment to scientific innovation.
[Presentation]
My name is Fiona Mead. I am the Company Secretary here at CSL Limited. It is a pleasure to welcome you to our 2026 Annual General Meeting. I am going to run through the procedural aspects of the meeting shortly. I confirm that this meeting is being held in a hybrid format. Thank you to all of you that are here in person, and I welcome everybody who is joining us online. For those here in the room, if there is an emergency, please follow the instructions from the Sofitel staff and listen to the announcements over the PA system. If first aid is required, please immediately see a Sofitel staff member for assistance. Today, we will run through each item of business stated in the notice of meeting, after which we will invite questions in the room and online.
Shareholders and proxy holders present in the room can ask questions during the meeting by lining up at one of the microphones located in the aisles when the Chair invites questions. Please advise the Computershare representative of your name and show them your red or green voting card to indicate you are a shareholder or proxy holder. If you are a shareholder or a proxy holder participating online, you can submit a written question by clicking on the messaging tab on the Lumi platform. Type your question in the box towards the top of the page and press the send button. A copy of your submitted questions, along with any written responses from our meeting team, can be viewed by selecting My Messages. Written questions can be submitted online at any time during the meeting.
If you are online and wish to ask a question verbally, click on the Request to Speak button in the broadcast window. You will be prompted to confirm your name and enter the topic of your question. Submit your request and follow the instructions to allow access to your microphone and join the queue. Please note while you can submit questions from now on, we will not be addressing them until the relevant time in the meeting. If you have any problems at all, please call the AGM hotline number, which is up on your screen now. I do note that online questions may be moderated for inappropriate language. If we receive a few questions that are similar, we may combine those questions and answer them together. If the questions are too lengthy, we may need to summarize them in the interests of time.
To allow as many shareholders as possible to participate, we kindly ask that each shareholder limit themselves to no more than two questions or comments. If we have time at the end, we will ask shareholders with more questions to come forward. The Chair will address some of the questions we received online prior to the AGM, then take questions in the room, followed by written questions from the online platform, and then verbal questions from the online platform. If you are entitled to vote today, you will have a red admission card with your voting paper on the reverse. Please mark the appropriate box beside each resolution to indicate how you wish to vote. Proxy holders will also have a summary of proxy votes attached to their admission card, setting out any voting instructions which must be followed.
For any open votes, please mark the appropriate box beside the relevant resolution. Please print your name and sign your voting paper, then lodge it in a ballot box before leaving the meeting. Computershare staff will also collect voting papers at the exits. Voting will close 10 minutes after the meeting ends, allowing time to finalize and lodge your voting paper. If you need a hand, please let a Computershare staff member know, and they can assist you. For shareholders joining us online, once voting is declared open, eligible shareholders will see a Voting tab appear. Select the tab to view the resolutions and cast your vote by choosing the relevant voting option. Your vote will be recorded automatically, so there is no need to submit or confirm it. You may change your vote at any time before voting closes by selecting a different option for the relevant resolution.
Before we hear from the Chair, I draw your attention to the legal notice displayed on the screen behind me. I would also like to highlight the Go for Gold Lifeblood campaign, featuring Australian Olympians, and currently running across the country. Plasma supplies are at a record low at the moment, and the campaign is aiming to encourage more donations. Plasma really is the liquid gold in our blood. A new donation is needed every 33 seconds and can be used in 18 different life-saving ways. So if you can find time to donate, please do so at your Red Cross Lifeblood donor center. Okay, that covers the logistics of our meeting, and I will now hand over to our Chair, Dr. Brian McNamee.
Thanks, Fiona, and welcome to you all here today. There is a quorum present, and it is my pleasure to open the meeting. I would now like to introduce your Board of Directors and our Company Secretary. To our right, Fiona Mead, which you have already heard from. Mr. Costa Saroukos, who is standing for election at this meeting. You will have an opportunity to hear from him later this morning. Ms. Elaine Sorg is next, Professor Andrew Cuthbertson, and Alison Watkins at the end. Very good position, Alison. To my left, Mr. Gordon Naylor, who is our Interim Chief Executive and Managing Director, who is also standing at this meeting, and as some of you would have read yesterday, he is also our Chair-elect. Ms. Carolyn Hewson, who is standing for re-election at this meeting. You will also have a chance to hear from Carolyn later in the meeting.
She will also take on the role as Senior Independent Director from the 31st of March. Dr. Brian Daniels, Ms. Samantha Lewis, and Mr. Cameron Price. We are fortunate to have such a strong group of Directors and our Board. Today, I will share the Board's perspective on the past year, the actions taken to strengthen CSL, and our priorities for the future. I will then hand over to Gordon, who will provide a detailed review of CSL's performance in FY 2026, the progress on our transformation, and the outlook for the year ahead. Following Gordon's presentation, we will move to the formal business of the meeting. Finally, as Fiona mentioned, we will take questions from shareholders in the room and online. Voting on all items of the business will be conducted by poll, and I am now declaring the poll open.
The poll will close 10 minutes after I declare the business of the meeting closed. Before we move to the formal business of the meeting, I would like to update you on the two previously announced leadership changes for our company. Firstly, we announced the appointment of Deborah Waterhouse as CSL's new CEO and Managing Director last week. Deborah will take on the role on the 1st of February and joins CSL from global HIV specialist ViiV Healthcare, where she has been CEO for the past decade.
ViiV is a joint venture majority-owned by GSK, with Shionogi as a shareholder, which had sales of GBP 7.7 billion during GSK's 2025 financial year. The Board was clear that the new CEO must continue the momentum of our commercial performance, renew our pipeline, simplify our operations, and Deborah ticks all those boxes. She is an outstanding leader with a proven ability to grow complex biopharmaceutical businesses.
She has renewed the franchise at ViiV and has dedicated her career to improving outcomes for patients and public health. She knows the United States well, having previously led GSK's vaccine and primary care U.S. business. Deborah is also very familiar with Australia, having lived and worked here in Melbourne when she was GSK's General Manager for Australia and New Zealand between 2008 and 2012. In summary, Deborah is a world-class executive who leads with purpose and passion. She combines a strong focus on business performance with a deep understanding of patients, healthcare systems, and access to medicines. The board was unanimous in its view that she was the right person to lead CSL in this next chapter of growth, and I look forward to welcoming her to this role next year.
Secondly, yesterday, we announced my intention to retire from the board and as Chair of CSL on the 31st of March next year. I will say a brief few words about my time at this great company later, but it has been my honor to be part of building something so special. As I mentioned earlier, the board of directors undertook a thorough process and have unanimously decided that the best and most qualified person to succeed me as Chair is Gordon Naylor.
T here are few people who understand this company as well as Gordon, and we are fortunate that he will stay on our board and keep sharing that knowledge and experience. I want to personally thank Gordon for the passion and drive he has shown since he took over as Interim CEO in February. He steadied the ship, built on the strong foundations, and positioned the company for further growth.
Gordon took on this role during FY 2026, which was one of the most challenging periods in CSL's recent history. The board recognizes the effects that the past 12 months have had on shareholders. We know that your confidence has been tested, and we understand it must be earned back through consistent performance and delivery. FY 2026 was a reset for CSL. The company reassessed previous investments and made clear decisions to establish stronger foundations for the future. The board supported decisive action by the management team, including Gordon's 90-day review. Gordon and the management team have acted with urgency to simplify the organization, sharpen its priorities, and enhance accountability. The board is encouraged by the outcomes of those actions, and Gordon will elaborate on them shortly.
From the board's perspective, CSL is already a more focused and productive company, capable of converting its scientific, commercial, and operational strengths into sustainable growth and stronger returns for shareholders. CSL has operated for more than a century by applying science and expertise to some of the most serious and complex challenges in rare disease and public health. The company retains important strengths. It operates in areas of significant unmet medical need, has leading positions in its core markets, and possesses scientific and operational capabilities built over many years. These strengths provide a solid foundation, but they cannot be taken for granted. Markets evolve. Competition increases. Scientific opportunities change. As a result, CSL is responding and executing more consistently, and the board has four areas of focus. First, CSL must deliver stronger commercial and operational performance. Second, CSL must improve productivity and returns generated from research and development.
Innovation remains central to our future, but CSL's investments must be focused on opportunities supported by strong science, strategic relevance to CSL's therapeutic areas, and incredible impact for patients. CSL must assess the best science, whether it be developed internally or through carefully selected external partnerships. Gordon will give more detail on this shortly. Thirdly, the company must maintain thoughtful discipline in the allocation of capital. Every significant investment is supported by strong foundations and assessed against our capacity to generate appropriate long-term returns. This applies across research and development, manufacturing, business development, and the wider operations of the company. Finally, CSL must translate its strategy into consistent results. The board has maintained close oversight of the reset and transformation underway across the company. Our role is to ensure that CSL has the right strategy, leadership, governance, and risk management in place.
The board is closely monitoring progress, and transformation is producing a simpler, more productive company. Just as CSL must continue to evolve as a company, its board must also evolve. It is essential that the board maintains the right mix of skills, experience, diversity of thought, to guide CSL in an increasingly complex global environment. This includes expertise in science, medicine, commercial execution, financial management, risk, governance, global markets, and the operations of a very large and complex organization.
Several directors are standing for re-election today. Carolyn Hewson is standing for re-election as a director. Carolyn has served on the CSL board since December 2019 and brings significant experience across financial services, investment markets, and governance. Gordon Naylor is standing for election as a director. Before returning to the board in December 2025, Gordon had a 33-year executive career at CSL across a range of senior roles, including Chief Financial Officer.
His knowledge of CSL and the global biotech sector is a valuable addition to the board. Costa Saroukos is also standing for election as a director. Costa joined the board in December 2025 following a 25-year career in the pharmaceutical sector, most recently as Chief Financial Officer of Takeda Pharmaceuticals. She brings extensive international experience across finance, transformation, and the global biopharmaceutical industry. You will have an opportunity to hear from each of the directors standing for election or re-election later in the meeting.
The board believes their collective experience strengthens our ability to oversee CSL's strategy, transformation, and long-term development. We remain committed to engaging constructively with shareholders, listening carefully to their views, and ensuring that CSL's remuneration framework supports the long-term interest of the company and its owners. CSL has confronted issues that needed to be addressed. Its strategic priorities are clearer. The organization already is simpler and more focused.
Expectations on execution, investment, and productivity have been strengthened. At the heart of the company are 29,000 people who bring CSL's purpose to life every day. On behalf of the board, I want to thank them for their professionalism, resilience, and commitment through this period. We believe the actions taken over the past year have established stronger foundations for CSL's future. On a personal note, again, I would like to reiterate how proud I am to have served this organization as both CEO and Chair. It will be with mixed emotions next March when the time comes to sign off, but I know I leave CSL in the safe hands of Gordon and Deborah and under the steady guidance of the board. The board is confident in CSL's underlying strengths and opportunities.
We remain committed to overseeing the changes required to realize those opportunities and create sustainable value for shareholders. Thank you for your support over all these years. Many shareholders have been with the company for the whole journey, and I thank you for that. Gordon will take you through CSL's performance in the 2026 financial year, the actions management have taken, and the company's priorities and outlook for the year ahead. Gordon, over to you.
Thank you, Brian. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. It is certainly a privilege to address you as Interim Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of CSL. As Brian mentioned, I returned to CSL in February of this year after a gap of several years, following more than three decades with the company in a variety of leadership roles. Upon my return to the business, I spent considerable time visiting our sites, meeting with employees, speaking with customers and healthcare professionals, and engaging with investors and other stakeholders. That review reinforced for me that the special culture and extraordinary people we have at CSL was unchanged. CSL possesses exceptional strengths. We operate in leading positions across plasma therapies, influenza vaccines, and nephrology. We serve patients with serious and often life-threatening conditions.
We have deep scientific expertise, significant manufacturing capabilities, and talented people who are deeply committed to our patients, donors, and public health. It was also clear from my engagement that the robust and stable industry structure and economics underpinning the plasma business was fundamentally unchanged, and that the demand for our plasma products continued to be strong and growing. However, it was also clear to me that we needed to improve execution and focus. The business had become too complex, decision-making had slowed, and investment was spread across too many priorities. We needed greater focus, clearer accountability, and stronger capital discipline. The management team's work to address these issues was already underway when I took on the role, and I'm pleased to say that over the last nine months, we've seen very tangible results.
Today, I'll discuss our FY 2026 performance, the progress we've made through the transformation, and our priorities for the year ahead. As Brian noted, FY 2026 was a successful reset year for CSL. It was a year in which we took decisive action to reposition the company and establish stronger foundations for sustainable growth. Although we completed a number of restructuring initiatives that were already underway, the purpose of the reset was not simply to reduce costs, but to return CSL to sustainable growth that would deliver returns over the long run.
My 90-day review of the business provided a valuable framework. In addition to the restructuring initiatives that were already in flight, we did the following: Brought the leadership team together to collectively drive the business and the necessary changes. We transparently communicated the challenges and the shareholder perspective to the global organization. We stopped a number of non-core initiatives.
We enhanced the organization's financial discipline and understanding of industry economics. We reevaluated many assets on the balance sheet in light of current commercial realities. We critically evaluated our Behring commercial capability and invested to strengthen our competitiveness. The green shoots that we saw back in May are now translating into market share benefits. We enhanced the focus on operational excellence in plasma collection and accelerated the operational separation of Seqirus to allow that business to compete more effectively with its innovative influenza vaccine portfolio. We are now seeing that play out in the current Northern Hemisphere season. Against that backdrop, our underlying business remained resilient. Group revenue was $ 15.8 billion, a decrease of 1%. Underlying net profit after tax, or NPAT, decreased 3% to $ 2.8 billion. These measures exclude the restructuring costs and impairment-related charges associated with the actions we announced earlier in the year.
As a result, on a reported basis, CSL recorded a statutory net loss of $ 2.6 billion. While this result reflects significant one-off charges taken during the year, it does not change the underlying earnings capacity of the business. Most importantly, CSL continued to generate strong operating cash flow of some $ 3.5 billion and as a result, we were able to maintain the dividend and completed another major buyback. Cash generation remains one of the company's greatest strengths and provides flexibility to invest in future growth while maintaining a strong balance sheet and returning capital to shareholders. Across our portfolio, market demand for immunoglobulin therapies remained robust, and we also saw strong uptake of ANDEMBRY and HEMGENIX, demonstrating the value that differentiated innovation can bring to patients and shareholders alike. While it was clear that more work remained, FY 2026 confirmed that the core foundations of the business were strong.
We have already made meaningful progress. During FY 2026, our transformation program generated $ 176 million of pre-tax savings, exceeding our target for the year. Those savings were achieved across research and development, commercial and medical affairs, and broader operational activities. Importantly, this is not a conventional cost reduction program. Where we identify opportunities capable of generating attractive returns, we are reinvesting. That includes strengthening our commercial and medical capabilities and investing in priority development programs. We are becoming more selective with a clear understanding of where CSL has the greatest opportunity to create value. Looking forward, we expect pre-tax savings from transformation initiatives to increase to approximately $ 400 million in FY 2027 and up to approximately $ 550 million in FY 2028. Alongside the transformation, we have continued strengthening the operational foundations of the business.
In plasma collection, CSL is the industry leader in operational efficiency and productivity, but we continue to seek opportunities for improvement across our collection and manufacturing network. Reliable plasma supply remains critical to supporting long-term growth in our immunoglobulin franchise and meeting increased patient demand. To underline the importance of our plasma network, one of my first actions as Interim CEO was to elevate Steve Marlow as Executive Vice President and General Manager for CSL Plasma to the global leadership team. Steve is driving innovation in that space. This is critical for efficiency, our competitiveness, and for us to respond quickly to patient needs. We have also strengthened commercial and medical capabilities throughout the organization. In July of this year, Diego Sacristan was appointed Chief Commercial Officer, with responsibility for leading the Behring and Vifor businesses across commercial and medical.
Diego previously ran CSL's U.S. business and helped transform the commercial and medical operating model and led the expansion of our U.S. sales force. In April, Amy Van Buren was promoted to the role of Chief People Officer. Amy joined CSL late last year and brings a wealth of experience with more than 25 years of human resources leadership experience in diverse industries, including biotech, retail, and consulting. These moves demonstrate the depth of talent we have in the company. Among the important outcomes of FY 2026 were our strong cash flows, our disciplined capital allocation, and positioning the business for profitable growth. Net debt to EBITDA was 1.8 times in FY 2026, comfortably within our target range for leverage. A strong balance sheet gives us choices. It allows us to invest in growth opportunities while also continuing to return capital to shareholders via buybacks and dividends.
In FY 2027, we commenced a further Australian 1.1 billion buyback program. Research and development remains essential to CSL's future. Our approach is now more focused and productive. The reduction in our fixed costs and overheads enables us to focus on key programs. Our model is evolving to combine deep scientific and clinical capability with targeted external partnerships that can accelerate innovation and expand access to promising science. A good example of this is the partnership we announced in late 2025 with Dutch biotech company, VarmX.
The partnership is to develop a novel treatment to help restore blood coagulation in patients on factor Xa anticoagulants who require urgent surgery or are experiencing severe bleeding. Another recent example is our partnership with Alentis Therapeutics. This partnership provides access to potential first-in-class treatment for patients with rare kidney and liver diseases, as well as supporting our ambition to build a leading nephrology franchise.
We will pursue external partnerships within our core therapeutic areas that can complement our internal capabilities and accelerate patient impact. I am looking forward to working with Deborah Waterhouse, who brings special portfolio development capability to the company. We are also continuing to improve productivity in our manufacturing operations and across our plasma collection network. During the year, we announced the $ 1.5 billion expansion of our manufacturing facility in Kankakee, Illinois. We are currently working through the clinical and regulatory pathways to introduce a higher-yielding process that will allow increased plasma therapeutic supply to patients.
We also returned the Lengnau facility in Switzerland to our global manufacturing network. Our expanded collaboration with Haemonetics and the rollout of its next-generation plasmapheresis platform in our U.S. centers is expected to improve operational efficiency and help support future growth in our plasma business. I would also like to briefly touch on our inaugural sustainability report.
This important milestone for CSL provides, for the first time, a comprehensive set of climate-related disclosures in line with Australia's new reporting requirements. It provides our shareholders and stakeholders with greater transparency about how we identify, assess, and manage climate-related risks and opportunities. As a global company with global operations and supply chains, climate change is a business issue that we must take seriously. FY 2027 is a year of focused execution and delivery. I am pleased to reaffirm guidance based on our progress to date. For the Group, we expect revenue to be broadly in line with FY 2026 and underlying NPAT to increase by approximately 5% on a constant currency basis. Behring and Seqirus are performing well, as expected. We also recognize that FY 2027 is a year where Vifor will continue to face challenges from generic competition in the iron portfolio.
We expect additional benefits from the transformation program during FY 2027 and will continue balancing reinvestment in growth opportunities with disciplined financial management. We also expect to maintain strong operating cash flow as we execute the next phase of our capital management program. Our priorities for the year ahead are clear. We will continue to improve our commercial performance, deliver the next phase of transformation benefits, increase our operational productivity, and continue to improve return from R&D and business development. We will maintain disciplined capital allocation, generating strong and reliable returns for our shareholders. An important outcome of the execution of these priorities is the enabling and elevation of our people, and the continued growth of talent in the company. Our global workforce has proved resilient during this period of significant change. Harnessing their talent and energy has been a big part of the turnaround.
I am grateful for their commitment, their passion, and their professionalism. I would also add that it is very high on my personal priorities for this financial year to effect a smooth CEO handover to Deborah, followed by my own transition into the Chair role. It is critical that we maintain our momentum. I also want to acknowledge the Australian patients affected by the historical contamination of donated blood. A Senate inquiry is now underway, and CSL will make a submission. I also want to thank our shareholders for their ongoing support while we establish these stronger foundations for the future. I join Brian in welcoming Deborah Waterhouse to CSL within the timing that we anticipated. Following a thoughtful transition, I am looking forward to commencing my new role as Chair of the Board and working closely with Deborah.
I am very confident that Deborah will be an outstanding global leader who will build upon these foundations to realize the potential of this great company. Finally, can I just add a personal note on Brian, who, as you know, is retiring as chair. I actually started at CSL a few years before Brian, so I have worked very closely with him over many years. I think that Brian's background as a medical doctor has driven him to care very deeply about patients and public health. He is also at heart an entrepreneur, always thinking about opportunities. He saw potential in CSL and its people, and was the architect of CSL gaining its independence from government, and then growing to global leadership in plasma therapeutics.
The float, followed by a string of major acquisitions, including JRH, ZLB, Nabi, and Behring, established the foundations of CSL today and generated enormous value for shareholders and our medical stakeholders. The Novartis influenza vaccines acquisition was in the same mold, and was the foundation of Seqirus and its rapid ascent to global leadership in that space. As I became more closely involved in the company again in recent months, it was clear that Brian's passion and accountability for the company remained undimmed. Brian and the board took steps before my return that made my job easier, recognizing that improvements were needed and initiating a number of changes that I continued. The last few months have needed strong measures, and having the support of Brian and the board has been absolutely critical, and I am very grateful for that. Thank you.
Thank you, Gordon. We now move on to the formal part of the meeting. The items of business for consideration today are described in the notice of meeting, which I will take as read. in terms of running the AGM efficiently, we will read through all the items of business set out in the notice of meeting, following which we will address all shareholder questions at one time. I confirm that I am holding available undirect proxies in my capacity as Chair of the meeting and will vote all available proxies in favor of the resolutions in items two and three. The board recommends that shareholders vote in favor of the resolutions in items two and three, with directors abstaining from making a recommendation in respect of any resolution they have an interest in.
To conduct the poll, I appoint Ms. Christina Piccolo of Computershare Investor Services to act as returning officer, and Ms. Jen Cavallo and Ms. Katrina Mariani of Deloitte to act as scrutineers. Voting is now open on all resolutions. We now come to item 1 in the notice of meeting, which is to receive and consider the financial statements and the report of the directors and the auditor for the year ended June 30, 2026. The item of business does not require shareholder approval.
However, shareholders will be given an opportunity to ask questions and make comments on the reports and about the management of the company. Ms. Jen Cavallo and Mr. Andrew Griffiths of the company's auditor, Deloitte Touche, are present today and available to answer questions in relation 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 auditor's independence in relation to the conduct of the audit. The second item of business is the re-election and election of directors. As I mentioned earlier, we have one director, Ms. Carolyn Hewson, seeking re-election. Ms. Hewson joined our board in December 2019. In accordance with our constitution, she is now seeking shareholder re-election. Ms. Hewson's qualifications and expertise are outlined in the notice of meeting.
Having reviewed her performance, the board considers Ms. Hewson to be an independent director and supports her re-election. We also have two directors seeking election today. Mr. Gordon Naylor and Mr. Costa Saroukos both joined the board in December 2025. In accordance with our constitution, they are now seeking shareholder election. The qualifications and expertise of Gordon and Costa are outlined in the notice of meeting. Having reviewed their performance, the board considers Mr. Naylor is a Non-Independent Executive Director, and Mr. Saroukos to be an Independent Director, and in both cases, support their election to the board. Item 2A relates to the re-election of Ms. Carolyn Hewson. I will now ask Ms. Hewson to address the meeting.
Thanks very much, Brian. Good morning, all shareholders. Today, I stand for re-election as a Non-Executive Director of CSL. As has been said, I have been a director since December 2019, which is nearly seven years, and it has been a real privilege to be part of a company that I followed so closely and admired for well over 30 years. I acknowledge that in the past several years, the company has not met the standards we aspire to, and I restate my focus and commitment to the reset we have made and the firm base it now gives us to carefully allocate capital to grow actively and sustainably. During my seven years, I have been a member of the Audit and Risk Committee, the Human Resources and Remuneration Committee, and have chaired the Corporate Governance and Nomination Committee.
I am always very mindful of the responsibility I have to help guide one of Australia's largest company and global biopharma leader, especially in what is and has been a dynamic and highly competitive industry. My background is as an economist and investment banker. More recently, I have spent more than 30 years as a Non-Executive Director across a number of sectors, including energy, resources, property, finance, and industrial companies. This has given me insight into strategy, capital management, financial and non-financial risks, social value, and organizational culture in a constantly changing external environment. In my role as Chair of our Corporate Governance and Nominations Committee, I have worked closely with my fellow board members on our CEO and chair succession processes.
The transition of our new CEO and Chair will be a priority for CSL over the next 12- 18 months, and if re-elected, I will continue to support these transitions and board renewal as the Senior Independent Director. Then once that is complete, it will be my intention to retire from the board. I look forward to continuing to support the work that CSL does for its patients, for its donors, for public health, and I consider it a huge honor and responsibility to be a Director of CSL. It is a role I take very seriously, and if re-elected, I will continue to work diligently with my fellow board members to advance CSL's outstanding contribution to our patients, our people, and our shareholders. Thank you.
Well done. Thank you, Carolyn. The board, with Ms. Hewson abstaining, recommends that shareholders vote in favor of the re-election of Ms. Hewson. I refer to the slide behind me that shows the details of the proxy position for this resolution. Well done. I will now move to item two and ask Mr. Naylor to address the meeting, and look forward to hearing more from Gordon. Thank you.
Thanks, Brian, and good morning again. As you know, I stand now for election as a Non-Executive Director of CSL. Most of my working life was with CSL over a 33-year period, starting in Australia and then working in numerous international assignments as CSL grew rapidly to become a global leader in biological pharmaceuticals. I have had numerous functional responsibilities in the company, ranging from engineering, supply chain, IT, M&A, and finance, as through to business leadership. I was Chief Financial Officer for five years before founding Seqirus and positioning that business for global leadership. After my retirement from CSL, I took on the role of Chair of Medical Developments International, which is a small Australian devices/pharma company based in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne for several years, and I helped to modernize its governance systems and to steer the international expansion of that company.
I am a Non-Executive Director of Orica, and I was the Chair of the Audit Committee of that company through a period of change. Orica is also a very global company with an innovation-driven growth strategy. I help run my family's philanthropic trust, and I am an active angel investor. In the latter capacity, I served as Non-Executive Director for Celleo, a Melbourne engineering startup in the cell and gene therapy space. As a result of these experiences, I am very familiar with the challenges of running an innovative global company which is listed and based in Australia, ensuring it produces profitable growth whilst managing the risks appropriately. As I mentioned in my earlier remarks, I have been Interim CEO and Managing Director of CSL since February.
CSL, I believe, is now stable and has returned to strong competitive growth, but much work does remain, and the potential of the company is far from realized. I couldn't be more confident in Deborah Waterhouse to realize that potential as CEO. I plan to return to the board as a non-executive director on the 1st of February 2027. I do look forward to using my experience to support Deborah and her management team as they deliver CSL's next phase of growth. I believe I can make a difference and offer myself for election. Thank you.
Well done.
Thank you, Gordon. The board, with Mr. Naylor abstaining, recommends that shareholders vote in favor of the election of Mr. Naylor. I refer to the slide behind me, which shows the details of the proxy position for this resolution. Congratulations, Gordon. Thank you. Well done. Item 2C relates to the election of Mr. Costa Saroukos. I will now ask Mr. Saroukos to address the meeting. Costa.
Thank you, Brian, and good morning. It's an honor to be addressing you all today. I joined the board in December 2025 after many years observing CSL with great interest from the outside. Since joining, I've gained an even greater appreciation of CSL's capabilities, the dedication of its people, and the opportunities ahead. I've also recognized the challenges we must address to ensure that CSL fulfills its potential for patients and shareholders. My experience, developed over more than 25 years in the global pharmaceutical industry, enables me to make a meaningful contribution at this important time. I held a variety of senior roles at companies including Merck & Co and Allergan, where I worked across different geographies, including Switzerland, South Korea, Singapore, and Australia. Those experiences gave me a deep understanding of international pharmaceutical markets, operating complexity, and the importance of disciplined financial management.
Most recently, I served as global Chief Financial Officer and a member of the board of Takeda Pharmaceuticals in Tokyo, a company that also produces plasma-derived therapies like CSL. I've been immersed in the economics of global plasma supply for many years, and this gives me a unique insight into the critical supply chain that brings these life-saving therapies to patients. My previous experience spans audit, business development, financial planning, and tax, and at CSL, I'm a member of the Human Resources and Remuneration Committee, as well as the Innovation and Development Committee.
Alongside my role at CSL, I serve as Chairman of Tanabe Pharma Corporation and as a Director of Olympus Corporation. My time working as an executive in global healthcare makes me acutely aware of the critical roles these companies play in the lives of our patients. I'm completely invested in CSL's work to deliver enduring impact to the patients and to the public health, especially in areas of unmet needs across rare diseases and vaccines. This work is so important, and I thank you for your consideration in my election to the CSL board. Thank you.
Well done.
Thank you, Costa. The Board, with Mr. Saroukos abstaining, recommends that shareholders vote in favor of the election of Mr. Saroukos. I refer to the slide behind me, which shows the details of the proxy position for this resolution. Congratulations, Costa. As we are holding questions until the end of the meeting, I will now move to item three. Item three of the notice of meeting is an advisory vote to adopt CSL's remuneration report for the financial year 30th of June 2026. To deliver on our patient's promise and to protect public health, we rely on our people and need to ensure a strong global talent supply. To this end, our executive remuneration framework enables us to attract, engage, and retain suitably talented employees in the various markets in which we operate. This includes competing for talent with larger global companies.
The Board is committed to an executive remuneration framework that links pay to the achievement of CSL's long-term strategy and business objectives. This creates a performance culture that, in turn, drives long-term shareholder value. Under the Corporations Act, the company is required to include in the directors' report a detailed remuneration report, setting out certain prescribed information relating to the directors' and executive remuneration. The company is also required to submit this for adoption by resolution of shareholders at the annual general meeting. The vote on this resolution in this item is advisory and does not bind the directors. However, the Board takes the outcome of the vote into consideration when reviewing remuneration practices and policies of the company. The screen behind me displays details of the proxy position for this resolution.
Based on what you can see in the proxy slide before you, the remuneration report has very good support from you, our shareholders, this year. As I have mentioned, talent is a critical factor in driving company performance, and remuneration is a key component of this. So thank you. That completes all the items of business for today, and we will now move to shareholder questions. Please remember to cast your votes on each resolution. We now invite shareholder questions.
As Fiona noted earlier, in terms of order, we will firstly address some of the questions we received prior to the meeting, followed by questions from the floor. Next, we will address written questions submitted online, noting that written questions may be moderated for appropriate language. Following this, we will hear from shareholders with audio questions from our online platform. Fiona. Thank you very much to those shareholders who took the time to send in questions ahead of the meeting.
Thank you. So the first question we received was from Mr. James Gore, who wanted to know what changes CSL has made to ensure that the company has vision and direction to return to profitable and sustainable growth.
Look, thank you. Thank you for your question. Gordon has already addressed most of the issues embedded with this question in his address. I would have to say all businesses operate in competitive markets and operate with risk, and particularly R&D can be and is a risky proposition. We are prioritizing our assets to bring our pipeline where we feel we have real strengths in making sure we have multiple options for success. We are also constantly improving our governance for external innovation so that we find and assess the scientific merit, market opportunity, and the most appropriate partnership structures. Thank you.
We also had a question from two shareholders on what progress is being made on reducing our carbon footprint and that of our suppliers. Also about balancing executive reward with sustainability targets.
Thank you again. Gordon has already addressed this in his speech, but I will note that we continue to reduce our footprint, and this year we saw an 8% reduction in Scope one and two greenhouse gas emissions from a year 2020-2021 base year, and 17% reduction year-on-year compared to last year. Our remuneration structure is designed to align accountability for sustainability topics to those that are most able to control the outcomes, which is improving the focus on sustainability and carbon footprint. Thank you.
Our last pre-submitted question came from Ms. Zoey Johnson, who wanted to know about franking credits on our dividends.
Thank you for the question. CSL is a global organization operating in over 40 countries. As more than 93% of our revenues are derived outside Australia, we do not accumulate enough franking credits to allow us to frank dividends for our Australian-based investors. I assure you that if CSL did end up with material credits, we would distribute them to shareholders.
Okay. Thank you, Brian. We are now going to turn to questions from the room. I ask that shareholders come to one of the two microphones here, show their red voting card, and clearly tell the Computershare representative their name. Introducing Paul O'Connell.
Morning, Chairman. My question ties to Gordon's excellent address to us, in that you outlined the FY 2027 guidance, in which revenue is historically flat. I was wondering whether you could comment a little bit more about that. I mean, it's less than atypical. Is it partly competitive pricing? Is it positional thing? What was the thinking?
Yeah, look, thanks for the question. It's a good one because at an aggregate level, you're right, it isn't our long-term plan to run with flat revenue, or modest profit growth. It's really just because we have a mix effect between the different business units. The substantive part of the company, the core of the company, Behring, is really doing quite well and has returned to quite strong growth, driven by the underlying demand for the products and then all of the measures we've taken operationally and in commercial. In the case of Seqirus, it's also doing well. You'll all be aware of the slightly controversial policy framework in the U.S. around vaccines at the moment, which is creating a headwind for us. Against that headwind, Seqirus, driven by the quality of the vaccine portfolio, is actually gaining market share and so doing quite well.
Our challenging space is Vifor, where at least part of that franchise is the iron replacement therapies, where we're seeing generic competition come in. We've had that a bit in Europe for a while, and it's now becoming more aggressive in the U.S. So that's actually a headwind. We've guided, I think, to a 25% reduction in the revenue for Vifor, so that's quite a headwind. So you're seeing that mix effect all play out, which comes up to those aggregate numbers that you mentioned. Thank you for the question.
Excuse me. ASA.
Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My name, as stated, is Mike Robey, and I am a volunteer monitor for the Australian Shareholders' Association, which represents all retail shareholders in this country. Today, I hold proxies for about 1 million shares, which is about AUD 200 million cash. First of all, may I thank your colleagues, Mr. Cameron Price and Fiona, for taking the time in advance of this meeting to discuss some matters about our differences in guidelines. So I have two questions, if that is all right. Shareholders in Australia have become used to paying for some of their overseas misadventures of the companies that they support, where a combination of hubris, overly optimistic business cases, and poor due diligence have led to significant write-downs in later years, often very many years later.
Rarely have the write-downs been so large or the timeframe so brief as in the Vifor and related products case with CSL. For a business purchased in December 2021 for $11.7 billion, the write-down we saw last year in the books was $4.9 billion, plus a few others associated with that, and was an astoundingly large back-off from that company. Now, apparently, the regulatory pressures and generic entrance to their flagship products, Ferinject, were already strong drumbeats in the jungle of the financials in the U.S. and in Europe.
Right about the time of the deal, Vifor, who was the seller, had settled major generic patent litigation in the U.S., so generic entry was judged by some commentators to be imminent. My question is, what went wrong with the due diligence and the business case development for this business? And you did mention resets and so on, so what are you actually doing about changing that? The second question is to the auditor. If you like, I can hold that off or
No, you are on a roll. Go for it.
So the much simpler question. The accounts recognize a deferred tax asset, and we are all familiar with Swiss tax law, I presume. Have you
No. No, we are not?
Of $853 million for Swiss tax losses. So this is an offset you can move forward, and I understand that is now changed from 7- 10 years forward, so recent changes. So arising from the reduction of the Swiss tax carrying value of the investment in CSL Vifor.
Yeah.
The question really is, how did the audit test for the forecast taxable profits, given what I just mentioned about pretty poor judgment of what Vifor's revenues were going to be in the future, not that long before? So how did they come to that test in their audit? They also made the decision to leave around 300 million unrecognized. So I would be interested to know how that is done. Thank you.
Do you want to take it?
Yeah.
Look, let me deal with Vifor because in some ways it is one of the issues we have had to face up to. There were a basket of activities that were included in the non-cash write-downs and partly r ecognition of some of the cash items as well as we restructured. So we had the Marburg R&D facility we had essentially overbuilt. These are decisions made a long time ago. We had overbuilt R&D infrastructure. We did not now allow ourselves enough flexibility to be able to spend on programs without building too large an infrastructure. So we took the decision essentially to shut down our R&D facility in Marburg. That was an expensive decision, but a correct one. We had built a biotech facility in Switzerland that we have now brought back onto the balance sheet.
That has also meant we have recognized some implications of the carrying value, because historically the view was it would be necessary for some R&D pipeline programs that did not essentially progress sufficiently well. That also the activity with Thermo Fisher on contract manufacturing, the cost structure in Switzerland did not allow that to be as competitive as we had hoped it to be with them. There were some non-Vifor matters also dealt with, in that 90-day review, which were all new pieces of information that we had had very recently. Then we come to both the competitive nature of the market in which Vifor operates. We have three factors that are affecting the revenues this year, and this is why the revenue, as Gordon mentioned, is a significant drop this year. It is not just generic competition for the iron franchise.
It is actually the way in which products are sold in the U.S., in the dialysis market. It is called TDAPA. We had very good prices for two years. Prices dropped dramatically in that market, so we lost probably $100 million of revenue with that product. We also had a regulatory change in Europe with TAVNEOS, where the regulator, nothing to do with us, decided that product should no longer be in the marketplace. That was a product over $100 million for us, potentially this year, we thought would grow substantially further. Beyond the generic competition, we had significant factors that came upon us very recently that we just had to recognize. You then come to the underlying essence of the question. What is new?
I do not think the generic competition was a new fact, but arguably there is more generic competition than, yes, we had included in the model. That is true. We still like the nephrology space of Vifor. We do think that is an opportunity for us to grow. Was it our finest hour making that transaction? No. Have we done other excellent transactions in our history? Yes. What do we do? We cannot just pack our bag back and go home. We are a global company. We have to operate globally. We have to learn from those lessons. We have to understand what we got wrong on that analysis, how we can do it better, what mistakes were made. Everyone who was involved in the project did their best work. Competition has evolved faster than we anticipated.
We have addressed these matters and, I think we have refreshed the board, we have refreshed management. I think we have done what a company would do when it accepts that Vifor as a business is actually a business we still like. We even still like the iron franchise because it is very cash generative. But we recognize the 6% dilution, which is the dilution we did when we raised the capital, essentially has not created value for our shareholders, for which we are desperately unhappy. But there is no point crying over that. We have dealt with it. We are moving on. We are strengthening the business and we are learning from it. That is what we are doing. Next question.
Chairman, introduce.
Oh, sorry. The tax question. I forgot about the tax. They are all important tax questions. The good news is I will give it to Gordon, who was Chairman. He wears multiple hats, Gordon. I have got to tell a story about Gordon, by the way.
Anything you like.
When I first joined CSL, goodness me, it is so long ago. I got offered the job at the end of 1989, joined in 1990. A remarkable place, Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, at the time. But one of the key things is we had some great people there. I remember when I first joined, I had this grumpy Head of Operations called Charles Guthrie.
Yeah.
He was quite a prickly character, but very knowledgeable in his expertise. He said to me, "Look, we're building a new plant in Broadmeadows." He said, "There are two people you should watch." He said, "The person who's managing the project is Peter Turner." He said, "I have this young engineer I just got from Ford Motor Company. He is brilliant. His name is Gordon Naylor. You really should keep him in mind for the future." Gordon, Charles Guthrie, and Peter Turner, by the way, did an incredible job for us. Ultimately COO and did many things for us for a long time. That's my comment before I now turn to my engineering Gordon, before he became my financial Gordon. Thank you.
Thank you, Brian, for the surprise anecdote. Obviously well qualified to answer a question about Swiss tax. I'm fairly sure the answer to your question is that that tax loss was associated with a partial impairment of the Lengnau facility. You're right with your understanding of the treatment of it. We continue to operate the facility, which is why there's only a partial impairment to the asset.
Thank you. Next question.
Chairman, introducing Dr. John Cook.
Thank you, Chair. I note that the new CEO will be based in the U.K. My question is, why is that? How will that work? Do you see the headquarters of this great Australian company remaining in Australia, in Elizabeth Street in Melbourne?
Yes. There's really two embedded questions there. One is, will head office always remain Australian? Yes, it will. Elizabeth Street will be our corporate headquarters, and it will be where we do significant research for the company and of course, we have substantial manufacturing plants here in Australia, in both Tullamarine and Broadmeadows. So we're still a very Australian company. Having said that, we operate globally. Therefore, when I ran the company, yes, I ran it from Australia, although I did move to the U.S. for a time. We then moved to a model where operationally, the company was essentially run from the U.S. from a day-to-day operation perspective. Then we appointed Gordon, and we've found the Gordon experience a very good one, which you might describe, which we're now mirroring with Deborah Waterhouse.
Yeah. Just to reiterate Brian McNamee's point, I guess the heart and the corporate headquarters continues to be in Australia. This is incredibly important, country first, because of the operating asset, but also because of the relationship with shareholders, and with I guess the broader sort of Australian ecosystem. It's quite an important place for us, for example, for sourcing research activity. For instance, a lot of intellectual property comes out of Australia. But operationally, the vast majority of the workforce and our operations are in the Northern Hemisphere.
So for quite some time, in fact, the operational headquarters of the company have been in the Northern Hemisphere. What I have found is that, as I've run the business, because I'm from here as well, my family's here, but I've actually spent most of my time running the company in the Northern Hemisphere, split between Europe and the U.S. I've actually based myself to a large degree in the U.K. Coincidentally, it happens to be also where Deborah is from. So we know the model will work just fine. The reality is that all of the CSL people spend a lot of time on the road, spend a lot of time on conference calls, and it's often at strange times of night and day.
It's just a result of running a truly global organization. I think it would be tough to do it from down here. When I'm down here, like I've been down here for the last two or three weeks, you spend an awful lot of time on calls starting at 6:00 A.M. and finishing very late in the evening just because of the reality of where the bulk of the economic activity occurs. But that doesn't say anything, as Brian said, about the corporate headquarters. That doesn't change.
I do think we see Heathrow, and we have a very important commercial office in Maidenhead, which is actually relatively near Heathrow. It works very well from a logistics perspective. We have a large office and a team there in Maidenhead as well. The reality is these are very busy jobs, very busy, a lot of travel. Look, we think Deborah can base herself there, but she's committed to spending substantial time in Australia and also in the U.S. That's part of the job brief.
Chairman, introducing Don Hyatt.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Chairman, I am a long-term shareholder of CSL. I was the company monitor for ASA for eight years, between 2011 and 2018. I no longer speak for the ASA. I speak for myself and maybe the wider shareholder community. Lovely to see my old sparring partner, Gordon Naylor there. Welcome back, Gordon. We knew you would come back in some capacity or other. Still not giving us our franking credits that we deserve. Still organizing share buybacks. I was listening to some music coming in today and thinking, "The song remains the same," if you're a Led Zeppelin fan.
Anyway, today, Chairman, I have two questions. I did warn Fiona Mead that I am going to sound a little bit grumpy today because when I read your FY 2025 performance, I saw revenue down 1%, underlying NPAT down 3%, reported NPAT a loss of $2.6 billion, and cash flow down 1%. All sounded to be going in the wrong direction. Most of us here, as investors, are looking at share growth. This is the problem. We do hear about dividends fairly regularly. They are about 2.1%, and if you gross that up for franking credits, it stays at 2.1%. So we need share growth. We have just not seen that for a number of years. In fact, they topped out a couple of years ago. I am going to crave your indulgence a little bit here, Chairman. I have got a couple of minutes and two questions.
Firstly, I guess it is true to say there is a sense of deja vu here. This is the second time I have farewelled you. The first time was in 2013, and you were deemed a good leaver at the time. In fact, you were such a good leaver, you came back again. So congratulations. I looked back at my notes at the time, and at the time you had been with CSL, or since it went public, around about 20 years. You had accumulated long-term incentives and short-term incentives, and because you are a good leaver, we considered that for a while at the ASA and thought, "Yes, let us give this man all of those incentives." Those incentives added up after 20 years of work to about $10 million, which is interesting to reflect because Gordon is getting that for one year's work this year.
I am not suggesting you are not worth it, Gordon, but I am just saying maybe you were worth a little bit more. It is pretty much an indication of how things have changed over the year. How costs, or I suppose what we call the cost of attracting the best talent in the world, has just gone through the roof, and I wonder about that a little bit from time to time. Secondly, well, finally, having dealt with CSL for over eight years, I think it is important for me to say that I have the highest regard for the people I have dealt with, okay? In terms of their professionalism, the way they behave, the way they have treated me as a person, as an ASA member, and so forth and so on. The intellect invariably is right in the top level.
That is why I am a bit confused as to those results that I spoke to you a short while ago. I am just going to go through a few things. You have heard them all before, Chairman. I am sorry to do this to you. I do apologize. It even pains me to go through these things, but it does not pain me as much as the share price hitting $90 in June of this year. That pained me even more, and I am sure it pained a number of people.
However, it has doubled since that time. It was $195 yesterday, and hopefully going up. Okay. A great deal of work goes into the REM report, and I am just wondering about the amount of work that goes into the REM report, whether it achieves what we want it to achieve, I do not know. We had a, what is euphemistically called a retirement recently. Three people retired, in fact, and they lost bonuses. Whether that achieved what we wanted it to achieve.
We have heard about Ms. Waterhouse. Hopefully, she matches the expectation. We will not know for a couple of years. CSL really is like that ocean liner. It is a massive organization, it is incredibly complex, and it is very slow. The pipeline of products and things like that, five, 10 years, things like that, they take a long time to get back on track. So good luck, Gordon Naylor. You have got a little bit of work ahead of you. It is not done yet. Just going through a couple of things over the last couple of years. The very expensive ones, Vifor and CSL112. I know these are in the past, but CSL112, we blew up around about $1 billion there.
We did not know what was going to happen till the final bit of phase III, and it mostly fell over. It fell over to the extent where it never got commercialized. I really think that that was a problem because I had spoken to previous CEO, Paul Perreault, a number of years before. CSL had always had a really high strike rate. Once we got things through to phase III, we had a very, very high level of belief that that would get through much higher than most other pharmaceutical companies, and yet this one fell over. I just wonder how much time, effort, it is not just the money, but it is the research capacity that was going into CSL112 that did not go elsewhere. I do not know where else it would go. We have got Andrew Cuthbertson over here, he would know.
Maybe it might have gone into developing mRNA vaccines or something like that. I do not really know. The second one, of course, we have heard about Vifor. Vifor was bought in 2022 for $11.2 billion, and this year it was written down by an absolute eye-watering $6.6 billion, or 56%. So it was written down by nearly AUD 10 billion . That is a huge amount of money, and you have addressed that to a certain extent, Chairman. I sort of really wondered, what I wrote down, I am a bit of a reader of bits and pieces. Howard Marks, for example, talks about second level thinking. Daniel Kahneman talks about system two thinking. On the surface of it, when I read about it sounded absolutely perfect for CSL. A high-end product, it does not cure anything.
I hate to say it, but it does not cure anything, and it is something that we keep having to provide for the patients to improve their quality of life. It fitted the CSL model, but questions like, why was it on sale? What did the vendor know about this that we did not know? There had to be a bit more intellect put into that about generics and what was coming down the track.
I do not know that we actually did what we should have done. You have also mentioned, Gordon, I will call it what it is, the anti-vax lunacy that is going on in the U.S. at the moment. You are a nice guy, you would not call it that, but that is what it is. Hopefully, that gets sorted out in the fullness of time. When enough kids die of pertussis, when the smallpox epidemic takes place, maybe they will change their mind.
We have no control over it. Sorry? Yeah. Okay. We haven't mentioned too much about our little excursion into China via Ruide. Okay? I knew at the time I'd spoken to some people who had dealt with China, and they said, "Be very careful about China. You can invest money there, but getting the money back out is almost impossible." That was always going to be a bit fraught. Turned out to be such. CSL bought into Ruide for $352 million in 2017. They sold out in 2024 for 185 billion, and that was a significant loss. So, another little mistake. I notice that, as I said, three staff have departed, and bonuses have been forfeited. But I really wonder whether only three people were responsible for that. I really suspect it was broader. My first question, sorry, is Yes, I have.
The second one's really short. The first question is, how is it we've got a board that's incredibly talented, huge expertise in whole range of areas, in pharmaceutical area, in governance, in finance, in law, and so on. How is it that these sorts of things? I just simply expect better of CSL. That's my simple bottom line. I expect better of CSL. How could these things, it's not just one thing, it's a whole series of things taking place over a period of time.
Thank you. Look, in many ways Is that it?
Question one.
Oh, no. It's torture. What's the second question, so I can deal with them both?
The second one, I had to ask Gordon Naylor. February 2020, share price $330. July 2024, it's still $310. June this year, $90, Gordon. And yesterday, $194. Can you assure me, not guarantee, but assure me that I should continue holding my CSL shares into the future, and I will be able to buy the car that I deserve or whatever it happens to be?
Thank you, Don. Thank you very much. Certainly, a rich set of matters you've raised there. The remuneration report is staggeringly demanding for the board to put together, so I share your sentiment. I do wonder about the value of the amount of effort we have to go into. It's the law. That's where we are on that. I think you've well listed mistakes. You don't well list things we've done well. The challenge for shareholders is the timeframe is what you're aware of, but the reality is this is a very long-term industry. If you look at the CSL112 decision, the decision to start the phase III clinical trial, I think was 2014. It took 10 years, partly because of COVID.
Although, yes, a nasty result, and once you start these phase III clinical trials, they're very hard to stop because you're accumulating patients, et cetera. At the time the decision was made, I don't think hardly anyone here was too involved on the board. In essence, it was a reasonable thing to do. Now, what was wrong with 112, I guess you could say it probably was too demanding on the R&D budget, and I think I would share your view, as would Gordon, that it lessened our focus on some of the easier, better short-term opportunities in the portfolio. That's true. But once you start this machine, it keeps going. Lengnau. You added Lengnau to the Vifor write-down. Essentially, the Vifor write-down is about four It's still a huge number.
But the Lengnau, we built a manufacturing facility for drugs that essentially, as I said before, didn't get through the pipeline, and the contract manufacturing strategy didn't work. That's our reality with Lengnau. I think we can operate it successfully, and that's why we've brought it back and now recognized some of those costs. These are the downsides. Now remember, I started in 1989, 1990 when the company made $4 million U.S. That was our profit and negative cash flow. Yeah, I accept we've had volatility. I was there, as was Gordon, when the share price went from 52 to 11 pre-split. You probably were there as well.
Yes.
It's not like this is the first time that we've had challenges, but it's not every decision was bad. There's been many fine decisions made in the company. Our cash flow this year, even in a really nasty year, was $3.5 billion U.S. We have a strength that Gordon had talked about that is real. But we had to do the reset, and you could say, well, why did we build up too much infrastructure? The reality is the corporate plan at the time, and these are long-term decisions. To build a new R&D facility, it takes eight years. These are long-term decisions. No one, I don't care how smart you are, you're going to get every decision right. We just have to collectively get more right decisions. And you might, I think, the key lesson for me on Vifor, yes, of course we overpaid them. Yeah.
Bloody awful. Do you think we're happy? So what is it about that transaction? I think it was too big. Looking back, I just don't think we should've done a transaction that large because the risk profile is high. Even though it was only 6% dilution to capital, you're risking way more than that 6%. And we're going to buy those shares back, I think, in the last year, this year and next year, so in that sense. But the reality is, it's too tough. It's too important on your reputation. And so I think large transactions are probably too complicated to do. And I'm leaving. That would be my key lesson. Do the small tuck-ons, tuck-ins more frequently, where you're taking less risk, and you can do more of a portfolio approach. So sure, we've learnt that lesson. But we've done pretty well.
We did well on JRH, we did well on Animal Health, we did well on Diagnostics, we did well in Plasma Therapeutics, we did well on Flu. Yes, we got one wrong. It's still a good business. So let's not throw the baby with the bath water. We just accept we got the timing wrong. We paid too much. We've accepted that. We're fixing the business, but we like the nephrology space in particular. So sure, I accept, yeah, we didn't do the one recently well. I cannot explain share price volatility today. It's not just CSL, it's everywhere. So I hear you. Volatility is a new part of our life, I think, for any company that's publicly listed. It's a combination of the weight of money swinging and depending on macro factors, and then you've got the cost of capital. Interest rates are affecting it.
Then you have a lot of machine trading. At the end of the day, it's quite difficult for a retail investor, as well as a board, to watch these gyrations and know what on earth is going on. I can assure you, the board and the senior management have taken it to heart the things we didn't do right, and have a very clear determination to actually fix what we've done and continue to grow the company. Do it in an intelligent, planned way, which includes Gordon. Gordon, take over from me, Deborah coming on board, refreshing the senior management, and refreshing the board. It's been very thoughtful. I think you'll see the benefits of that over a number of years. I think that it's a company we're still all emotionally invested in being successful. Nothing's changed there.
People think it was hubris that drove us to some of these things. I don't believe, it was just judgment. We just over-invested in 112. The Lengnau facility was probably built too early. In Vifor, we clearly got the timing wrong on the transaction and got some due diligence wrong. That is correct. Competition has changed. Regulatory environment's changed. Nothing is constant, but I can assure you, this remains a great company, and we're looking to the future with optimism. Thank you.
Thank you.
Chairman, introducing Rex McKenzie.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I remember, in 2002, you were very sick. In fact, you were dying. The chairman of the board was at your bedside, and you were planning to take over Behring, I think it was, the American-
It was ZLB. It was the Swiss Red Cross, the ZLB.
Yeah. Okay. My memory's not all it was. I think imagination still has a place even in a very large company, and I'm pleased to see that Gordon is a person who has some imagination. I hope that the new company head will also have an imagination. That's not enough, and you have to have patience as well, so do shareholders. The stock market, you know the ditty about it's a funny place. I won't bother you with that. It is a funny place, and it isn't necessarily sensible. Our yearly results are not everything, and I have been very impressed with the way you, as a leader of a great company, which you helped establish, and it was on your imagination and your endeavor and your ability that it was built, and thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Do we have any more questions?
Chairman introducing Steve Mab.
Just want to say congratulations as well, Brian, on a wonderful career. It's sad to see you going, but thank you for all of your service over many years. I'm a Teaminvest member. We're large shareholders in the business. Also just want to say thank you to both you and Gordon today for the transparency and accountability that you've talked about in the presentations, the way you've answered the questions. Very helpful for shareholders to get that context from you. So thank you for that. I do want to just quickly ask a couple of questions about remuneration. Possibly best for Cameron as our REM Chair, but whoever you feel fit to answer the question. I know we're under a lot of pressure with two strikes, and you're probably getting pressure from proxy advisors and others to redesign the plan.
The two things that I noticed that have changed, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that we're firstly proposing to take the AUD 7 million of impairments last year out of the metrics going forward, in a fairly quiet way. Perhaps that's because we've got new management coming in and we don't want to hold them accountable for those past issues. But was that really the best way to do it, to remove the AUD 7 billion of impairments from the plan metrics going forward?
Is that your only question?
The second question is around the changes to the LTI metrics. Our metrics used to be earnings per share growth and return on invested capital. Two excellent metrics.
Yeah
Management are largely in control of. We have replaced it with TSR, and there has been lots of discussion today about the share price. Unfortunately, management does not get to do much at all about short-term share price movements, and we measure these things on a 12-month basis. We have seen in the last 12 months our share price is between $90 and $200. The value of the company has not changed that much in the last year. Going forward, that is how we are going to assess LTI for management. It is not something they can get up out of bed every day and control what happens with the short-term share price. That is my real concern with getting rid of those two metrics and just having it all based around share price going forward.
Look, I think there is no doubt a lot of work has gone into the whole revised remuneration framework. I think it is fair to say that there is no perfect system, by the way.
Sure.
No matter what system you come up with, some critical find. Yeah, but there's always the but.
Yeah.
The view was TSR certainly well represents the shareholder experience. It's imperfect, but it's the best proxy for the shareholder experience if that's what you want your long-term incentive to do. Because every other incentive you have the but. Give an example. Return on invested capital. My but would be there. Well, does that stop management investing in high returning opportunities down the road? So it's a troubling metric because it partially could reward under-investment, and that's sometimes seen in other companies. So ROIC is a complex one. Then your earnings per share. I actually quite like earning per share. I've always been a bit of a growth in earnings per share fan. But again, what about share buybacks? What about other things that affects earnings per share? So, at the end of the day, a lot of work went into it.
There's no perfect answer to it, but I think we came to on balance, given that the TSR and the way we're measuring our relevant comparators is fair. But we've got to keep revisiting it. No final decision has been made as to what on the look forward basis, with regard to in-flight stock at the moment for executives. But we do note that many of those executives were nothing to do with the Vifor transaction, all have come on recently, and we've got to be careful. We are in the business of retaining and rewarding executives, and it has an ability to essentially make all these things of no value moving forward as well. So no final decision's been made on that, but we're very mindful that we have to show fairness to the executives and try and get the balance right. That's all. We've publicly apologized.
We've gone and bent lowly to all shareholders around Australia, apologizing for the write downs, which are horrible. I get it. It was awful. But we've done. We've got to be determination, moving on. We're growing the business, dealing with issues. We can't keep using the rear vision mirror. So that's the concept here. Let's not continue to punish what we've recognized, particularly for all those people who had nothing to do with it.
Sure. Yeah, understood that. Maybe the compromise then going forward is to consider the earnings per share metric as part of the-
I always love earnings per share.
Because ultimately long term, that tends to drive share price.
Yeah. I will throw that to Cameron.
Thanks very much.
That is another help. Thank you.
Chairman introducing Suzy Brew.
Thank you, Board and Dr. McNamee. First of all, I would like to thank you for your stewardship of CSL and to wish you the very best in your retirement. Thank you. To Mr. Naylor, thank you very much for coming back, for your stewardship of CSL in a very difficult interregnum, and I wish you the very best going forward. I am going to ask you a question that mixes business and politics, perhaps not a good idea. I am interested in your vaccine business, and I want to understand better what have been the headwinds for your vaccine business under the Trump administration. Is CSL well-positioned to go forward should the pundits be right and the midterms flip the Congress to the Democrats and perhaps the Senate? Does that give you some upside possibilities with your vaccine business?
Look, thank you for the question, and thank you for the praise to Gordon and me. I think this year the die is cast for the vaccine market and vaccination rates. We have certainly seen an uptick in disease, whether it even be in Australia and certainly in the U.S. hospitalization, influenza hospitalization has accelerated. So when will we see the market in volume flat out start growing again? I do not know.
We are doing very well, as Gordon said, because we have a very good product portfolio, and our team have done a great job. It is not all the administration, to be honest. There is no doubt the whole COVID vaccination policy has had an overhang on vaccination in general and public figures recommending vaccination rates. I think it will take a number of years before we get back to normalizing the public accepting experts' advice and dealing with those recommendations.
Look, I do not see the midterm elections changing much, actually. I think we have our reality for the next couple of years. I do think we are doing well in that environment. And I do think the public will eventually become more aware of the benefits of vaccination in flu and other vaccines as well, whether it be children's vaccines, et cetera. So, we are in an interesting time, but we are doing well considering. Thank you.
Thank you. Very politically delicate answer. Thank you.
People accuse me not being politically sensitive. I would say, "That is not what I am known for today.
Chairman introducing Peter Calogero.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and the rest of the board, and the executives. I wasn't going to ask a question this year, but I changed my mind during the discussion. I've decided to ask a question going forward. Sorry about that. We've had our fingers burnt a little bit with CSL112 and the recent Vifor acquisition. What concerns me is I don't want to see the result of those two make us gun-shy in the future. I've noticed that we've started to slowly reduce our spend on research and development. The thing about research and development, as you know, it's the decisions you make today which will affect your business in a decade and beyond. How do we not become gun-shy that we still have enough money in the research and development bucket so our business can continue to grow in the future?
Look, thank you. You're absolutely right. The last thing we want to do is to reduce our R&D spend and our ability to develop the portfolio. Having said that, what we've done is we've reduced where we spend in fixed costs in R&D, and we're spending more in partnering. Gordon talked about two of our partnering arrangements with VarmX and Alentis recently, where we bring in phase II, phase III-ready assets. So I think what you'll see is a greater blend of externally sourced programs and internally generated programs. Clearly, you've seen ANDEMBRY has done very well for us and growing well. So we are completely committed to continuing to support and grow R&D spend. We need to strengthen the portfolio. Part of the reset was rebalancing internal and external research assets.
Okay, my second question specifically for you, Mr. Chairman. Reflecting on your long career at CSL, what do you think has been the best decision you've made in your long time here? Personally, I think it was the ZLB acquisition. But I'll give you the opportunity to reflect on your long career here.
Apart from great people, we've had great people, because we've had a very great sense of purpose. I'd say first and foremost, our collective sense of purpose as a group of management was really strong at the company, and that really held us in good stead. I'd say the second thing the company really had, when I joined Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, it was a sort of a sad place because it rightly celebrated its history, but struggled to understand what its future looked like. Yet when we looked inside the place, we found, as I said, great people and some capability, whether it be in cell culture, the JRH transaction was transformative. We did brilliantly in animal health with selling the asset to Pfizer. Both transactions were remarkable for shareholders.
It gave us the confidence as we built our deeper understanding of plasma fractionation, and the underlying economics of it, which we also did on the influenza market as well. We then looked at ways we could do it. You're right, ZLB was a transformative moment. We certainly had challenges as you know, as you heard, you understood. We then bought Nabi, share price was great. Oversupply the market, share price plummets. But we had a deep understanding of the economics of the business and, combining ZLB and Aventis Behring was transformative to the company. Then our deep understanding of the economics of the flu market also enabled us to contemplate the Novartis vaccine business. I think we've made a lot of really good decisions as a company.
But it's because we saw opportunities in assets that were unloved and that we spent more time trying to deeply understand the markets in which they operate and how we could add value. I think if we look back on Vifor, we didn't do enough of that, quite clearly. Our management team, followed by the board, we didn't do enough of that. That is what we've got to learn. But we haven't lost, I think, our sense of decency, values, optimism, and our desire to create great people. Look, we were very impressed with Deborah Waterhouse through all the interviews. Really good person. I'm sure you look forward to meeting her next year. She's got the same sense of purpose, and I think she'll bring continuing drive to the business, and that's what we all feel. Thanks for your questions.
Yeah, well, I've been doing my research on Deborah the past few days. As one of the original float shareholders, I just wanted to thank you, at your last AGM for the work you've done for our company.
Thank you very much.
Chairman introducing Sam Hum.
Yeah. I am a small shareholder, just wanted to ask a question. I got a scare in May when it was $90, and I come here today, I hope to hear some sweet news. I hear nothing but flat revenue, and it was said lightly. My question is, does the management have the conviction and a strategy and a plan credible enough to restore the sustainable growth CSL used to have? You are saying all the great people here, is there such conviction, credible one? Or shareholder like me, how can I look forward for such evidence in the coming months, if not today?
Thank you. Well, thank you for the question. We have our guidance. We have confirmed our guidance. We will update the market more than likely in February with our half-year results. There is no lack of conviction in the company. As Gordon previously described, this year is a year in which the economics of Vifor are such in revenue that the growth we are seeing in Behring and the performance of Seqirus is essentially diluted by the Vifor, and this year stepped out. We are committed to building our portfolio of products, growing the company. This is not a five-minute exercise. We are not a consumer products company. We do not do some marketing campaign and can sell more products. This takes years to do.
But we are confident of the underlying business, and I think, I have faith, and I would suggest you would be well-served having faith in our ability to sustainably grow the business over the longer term. That is what we are going to do.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you, shareholders, for those questions. That concludes our questions from the floor. I will now check with our company secretary whether we have received any questions online.
Oh, we have many.
Oh, no.
Our first question comes from Mr. Steven Butler. Given CSL's FY 2026 performance and the shortcomings acknowledged in its annual report, how will the board ensure executive remuneration is directly linked to measurable improvements in business performance and shareholder returns, rather than rewarding management for a recovery from its own past decisions?
Look, thank you for the question. I have dealt with that a little bit before in the question on TSR. We think TSR is a very good metric for long-term incentives, well aligns management with shareholders. I think that we are trying to get our remuneration framework that works well for shareholders and works, of course, for the company, and that is the balancing act that we have. We will continue to listen to shareholders on this, but there is no perfect system. Thank you.
Okay. Our next question comes from Antelope Holdings. Dr. McNamee, can you please explain, one, what is the board's strategy for maximum director tenure and director refresh criteria selection? Two, how has the board considered and revised the key skill metrics for directors required in light of the recent significant financial setbacks and the "considerable work ahead" stated by Mr. Naylor in his CEO message?
Well, there is no doubt, we have had a significant director refresh over the last two years. I think more than half the board are new, and within the next six to presumably 18 months, 24 months, there will be three new directors. Andrew Cuthbertson, he will have to make a decision whether he stands again or not. Ms. Hewson also will make a decision what her tenure will be. So it is quite clear we have significantly refreshed the board with very, very capable people. I think our policy with regard to tenure, generally speaking, is when you join the board, there is an expectation that you will have two or three terms at the company, often three, rarely more, rarely substantially less than two. That would be my parameters. I would not call it a policy, but that would be the parameters. Thank you.
Okay. Our next question comes from Mr. Chris Maxworthy. He is normally in the room with us, but he is online today. He says, "Fiona, please read this question completely." At last year's AGM, I asked the Chair if knowing what you know now, would the Vifor acquisition have proceeded? Clearly, hindsight is a wonderful thing. To paraphrase Dr. McNamee, he admitted that CSL's due diligence was not as good as it could have been.
Similarly, Brian pointed out that the generic version of Vifor's key product were faster to market than CSL had anticipated. I calculate that had CSL chosen to return capital to shareholders in place of purchasing Vifor, that would equate to $35 per share records FY 2023, 2024 was almost $500 million shares on issue. How do we ensure that future follies such as this don't arise, particularly as Vifor appeared as a new initiative as a result of a new board member appointment at that time? Finally, I wish you well in the future, and that as a retired chair, you perhaps take time to reflect and enjoy this latter phase in your life.
Well, thank you for the kind words at the end.
No.
There's only so many moments we can bow and apologize for Vifor because as I said before, it wasn't our finest acquisition, but it has taken us into areas in which we think we can prosper, particularly rare nephrology. And we see the iron franchise. It's a very good cash generative business. It's a high quality business, and it has durability. We're not going to throw out the baby with the bath water, and we're not going to give up trying to have aspirations for complementary growth. We've done important business development activities in the last 12 months. We'll be doing more of those. Look, I think as I mentioned before, particularly the scale of the transaction, I think was probably the most significant thing you'd need to look at very carefully. I'm sure Gordon would, moving forward.
If I look back on my time with the company, the only time where I've really done significant transactions that could put the company at risk was, to be frank, at the IPO when we issued $210 million to the Commonwealth to buy the unfinished Broadmeadows fractionation plant that was using a novel technology called chromatography. That was brave. We also issued 23% of our stock to buy ZLB. No, sorry, Aventis Behring. It was about 10% for ZLB. As I said, Vifor was 6% of our stock. I just think the transaction was too large with hindsight, and difficult in such a large transaction to have the full gamut of knowledge that we would have preferred to have. So in essence, we've learned from it. I disagree with the term folly, but I do agree with the term it wasn't our finest hour. Thank you.
Okay. Our next question comes from Mr. Stephen Mayne. Were we under any pressure from institutional shareholders or proxy advisors to announce the Chair succession before today's AGM? What drove the timing to announce it yesterday after proxy voting had closed rather than today? Did we use any external party to assist with handling the Chair successions, such as a recruitment firm, to consider any potential external candidates to become Chair?
Look, thanks, Steve, for the question. Fiona's excellent on these governance things, and it was clear to us that under the ASX guidelines, was it ASX guidelines, if a decision is made for a Chair to retire and a new Chair elect is made, that's an announceable event, and that's what we did. Is that correct?
It's price sensitive.
It's price sensitive.
The board met yesterday morning, made the decision, and we announced it.
That is right. That was a decision that we felt we should make. Really, that was the point of it. I think with regard to my successor, it is something that has been on my mind for a long time. Carolyn Hewson is Chair of our Corporate Governance and Nomination Committee. She managed the process extremely well, both for the CEO search and for the Chair elect position. We looked internationally.
I know, particularly bringing in a new CEO like Deborah, who I think is a great CEO and is going to do really well, our ability to have Gordon, who is extremely knowledgeable of the business, and we have a very strong management team, Ken Lim in finance, other people. Our knowledge of the business today is great. That is a great mix of the old and the new. Once we debated that and Gordon was willing to take on this task, because it is not always enjoyable, he accepted the mantle. We decided to make the decision and move on, and I think it has been well-received by certainly all shareholders I have mixed with.
And-
Well done, Gordon. Yeah.
Okay. We are standing between us and lunch now.
Good.
My question is for Brian McNamee. Congratulations on making CSL a worldwide success story and one that I am proud to be part of. It is fair to say that the last five years have been a turbulent time for CSL. Looking back, and with the benefit of hindsight, is there anything differently you and CSL would have done over the last five years if you had your time again?
Thank you again. As I said, some of the decisions were made more than five years ago. We are a very long-term industry. Whether it be our infrastructure, whether it be R&D pipeline decisions, they were made a long time ago. The last five years, of course, Vifor is the matter that comes up that you would review the timing of that transaction. But otherwise, I think the way we have gone about refreshing our management team and the board has gone extremely well.
I think we have had ability to think about how to best complement external new people with excellent executives have been and people like Gordon as well, and we have been so lucky to get Costa, who is very knowledgeable from the competitive Takeda perspective. We have got brilliant people from the U.S. who have joined the board. I think we have done a lot to strengthen the business.
That is why we are confident of the future. To some degree, you learn most when you make mistakes. It is ugly. It is ugly, it is uncomfortable. It is not nice, but it is the truth, because you really then have to think long and hard. What the heck? What did we do? Why did we do it? How did we go about it? What could we do better? To some degree, yeah, we had a fantastic ride.
Shareholders loved us, clapping and cheering. Aren't we clever? The reality is, yeah, but we have had a belt. We have had a whack. We get it. We noticed. We noticed ourselves. What have we learned from it? How do we do things better? I think many of these initiatives have been in train now for a year, one to two years, some of the initiatives that you all now we are talking about.
We've understood we needed to change. Things were not great the way they were going, and I think that's the strength of the company, that we are willing to acknowledge when things haven't been done well or we've made mistakes, and that we can learn from them. That, to be frank, is what life is about. I don't care whether it's personal life or corporate life. I think that's what we try to do at CSL.
Okay. The next question is from Mr. Jun Tian Wong. He would like to know about AI impact.
Well, that's a short topic. Look, for fun, I'm going to turn to Gordon, who's much better at this AI stuff than me. Gordon.
Thanks, Brian. Thanks for the question. This space is evolving incredibly rapidly and we, like I'm sure all of you, are trying to keep up with what's happening. The answer to the question next year will be different from this year probably. I think there's two angles on this. The first is the broader societal issues, which translate into, if you like, a level of threat to the corporation, particularly on cybersecurity. I think it's fair to say that from the company's perspective, we're taking that very seriously. As recently as the last few days, we've seen an emergent threat, for example, which internally saw the company scramble to address that within a matter of hours. It's really fast-moving stuff.
Then the other side of it is the more strategic question of the adoption of the technology for the company. Again, rapidly moving, where we expect that ultimately, the technology itself will probably become commoditized, so there's a question there about the ultimate value to the creators of the technology, given it's a highly competitive space and rapidly evolving. The other issue is that it's likely that even the adoption of it will become fairly widespread. So we're looking to try and most thoughtfully adopt the technology to suit CSL's needs. So we're running a program where we're thinking about those questions at the leadership level of the company. We've spent quite a bit of time on it, understanding the technology, then thinking about how it might be applied to the corporation.
We do expect it's probably going to be one of the biggest exogenous technology shifts over the next decade. We've got lots of other stuff we're doing, obviously, but this one's coming from outside, which we're very actively thinking about how we apply it to the company. CSL is quite knowledge intensive. We do a lot of analytics. We think about stuff. We've got, as we've said a few times, a very deep technical capability in multiple spaces. So broadly speaking, AI is probably fairly suitable. But we just need to apply it thoughtfully over the strategic horizon.
Thank you.
Okay. We have one more question.
Oh, beautiful.
From Stephen Mayne.
Oh.
I can assist you with this one if you need me to. Second and final question from me on AGM process. Why do we use the Lumi system for online questions when our share registry provider, Computershare, offers a perfectly good online meeting platform, complete with online voting, which we haven't offered today? Why the change of venue this year, and will you disclose the headcount data in the poll results so we can see how many of our shareholders voted for and against the various resolutions today? Did even 2% of shareholders lodge proxy votes, and what campaign did you run to get out the vote?
Oh. Fiona, you definitely have to answer most of that.
Okay. Question one, the Lumi system. We are very risk averse. We have a very good provider that we have used for a few years, and I kind of think if it ain't broke, don't fix it. That is not to say Computershare do not offer a wonderful service to CSL. They are very good providers to us. There is online voting, so Mr. Mayne, you might just need to talk to someone from Lumi about that. We changed the venue this year because the last venue was booked for our date, so we needed to find a new venue. I think everyone in the room likes this venue.
Yeah.
There we go. In terms of how we run our proxy campaign, Cameron and our head of exec comp and I meet with our top 20- 25 institutional shareholders and engage very thoroughly with them on governance and REM questions. We also have a Computershare provider, Georgeson, who help us monitor the voting and see what our shareholders are feeling. So that answers that question. Mr. Mayne, we will need to take the question on 2% of shareholders on notice, and we will get back to you separately on that.
Well done, Fiona. Am I closing the meeting?
There are no more questions online.
Oh, thank you.
There are no audio questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our discussion on all items of today's business. The poll will formally be closed within 10 minutes from when I declare the meeting closed. The votes will then be counted, and the results of the poll will be reported back to me. It will also be announced on the ASX as soon as practicable following the meeting. For those in the room, I now ask that the Computershare representatives collect the red voting cards, or you may place them in the ballot box near exit if you need more time. I now declare the meeting closed, except for the conduct of any poll. We have a video.
Well done.
Thanks.