Good morning, everybody. I'm getting the nod from the back of the room, so we're good to go with the live stream as well. I'm Ewen Crouch, and I have the great privilege of being chairman of Corporate Travel Management Limited, and I would particularly like to welcome you to the 2024 annual general meeting of this company. Let me begin today by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Turrbal and Jagera people, and pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging. We have reached the appointed time, and a quorum is present, and I'm pleased to declare this meeting to be open. All attendees should have registered their attendance at the registration desk, and please see the desk if you haven't already done so. Before we go further, could you silence or turn off your mobile phones?
I would remind you that the use of recording equipment is prohibited at this AGM. That said, we are recording the AGM because we are, for the first time, engaged in a part-hybrid meeting, which is to broadcast this online and to enable those who were unable to be present today to participate in the meeting by viewing what is going on and to have submitted questions in advance of this meeting. Those questions that were submitted are taken care of in my address and Jamie's presentation, which will occur later on in the meeting. Let me start by introducing you to my colleagues here at the front table. Immediately on my left is Shelley Sorrenson, our Chief Legal Officer and Company Secretary. Next to her is Jamie Pherous, our Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer.
Next to him is Jon Brett, our Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Board's Audit and Risk Committee. Next to Jon is Sophie Mitchell, Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Board's Remuneration and Sustainability Committee. And at the far end of the table is Marissa Peterson, who is our United States Resident Director and a member of all the board committees. Also present in the front row today is Kim Challenor, representing our external auditors, PwC. On my left here, on your right, are our senior executive team here today. Let me introduce James Spence, our Global Chief Financial Officer, Greg McCarthy, the Chief Executive of our Australia and New Zealand business, Eleanor Noonan, our Global Chief Operating Officer, and Ana Pedersen, who I will introduce later today, is our new Global Chief Commercial Officer.
The team will be available after the meeting to answer any questions that you might have about business and operations. This meeting has been called under the Notice of Meeting dated 27 September 2024, which was released to the Australian Securities Exchange by Computershare and placed on our website. It was also dispatched to those shareholders who elected to receive a hard copy of the Notice of Meeting. I now table the Notice of Meeting and will take it as read. Minutes of the previous annual general meeting of shareholders held on 25 October 2023, being in order, have been approved by the board and signed by me as chair of that meeting and are tabled for the information of shareholders. We will begin the formal business of today's meeting with a short address from me, followed by a presentation from Jamie.
After that, there will be an opportunity for questions from shareholders on my address and Jamie's presentation as we consider the resolutions for this annual general meeting. So let me start with the year in review. It is my privilege to provide you with an update on the progress of Corporate Travel Management as we reflect on the last year. 2024 marks CTM's 30th year in business travel. Founded here in Brisbane, we are proud to have grown into a respected global leader in travel management, operating across four continents and employing more than 3,200 people. CTM's performance over the past 12 months has been steady across our operating regions and gives us a solid platform to continue to grow. Our commitment to our underlying business and the investments we are making in technology, service, and productivity initiatives will, I am confident, underpin positive results in the period ahead.
In the last financial year, the group's revenue rose by 9%, which converted to a 21% growth in underlying EBITDA. This performance reflects the strategic benefits of our ongoing capital allocation to automation and productivity projects to drive stronger profit growth and expand our business. We successfully converted 61% of incremental revenue into EBITDA, a clear indicator that the strategy is working. Performance in our businesses in North America and Australia and New Zealand saw significant improvement as the year progressed, with second-half EBITDA for these regions up 39% on the prior corresponding period. Pleasingly, both regions have gathered further momentum in the Q4, which has continued into the start of this financial year. The past year, though, was not without its challenges, requiring us to revise our outlook for FY24 when releasing our first half results.
Changes in government policy affected the UK bridging accommodation contract scope, and revenues fell below what had been expected. Additionally, UK humanitarian support projects relating to the conflicts in Ukraine, Afghanistan, and the Middle East tapered off more quickly than expected in the final quarter of the financial year. For a number of years, CTM has been providing an important service in the UK, accommodating displaced persons fleeing conflict, particularly from Ukraine and Afghanistan. We are pleased that 90% of these families are now settled in long-term accommodation and no longer require interim accommodation. Over the past year, our sales teams in all regions were reorganized to drive our double-digit revenue growth targets. I'm proud to say that CTM achieved new client wins with an estimated total transaction value of AUD 970 million and also retained 97% of our clients.
CTM has set a goal of doubling FY24 earnings per share over the next five years. The board considers this to be the best measure to ensure alignment between our investment strategy, shareholder value expectations, and management incentive structures. I would like to mention three key projects to drive our aspirations in the mid- to longer-term. First is Sleep Space, CTM's proprietary hotel content engine. This will be fundamental to improved customer and supplier experience, leading to revenue yield improvement. Secondly, Project Atlas will streamline our back-end processes through standardization and automation and is expected to deliver cost savings of AUD 10 million in the current financial year, increasing to AUD 20 million per annum by FY29. Lastly, Project Scout is automating thousands of previously manual transactions every week, significantly reducing high-volume, low-value tasks for our travel consultants, enabling them to better support the more complex needs of our customers.
These projects are being delivered to plan. As they expand in their capabilities and geographical impact over time, we expect substantial contribution to improved customer experience and employee productivity. Our statutory net profit after tax in the last financial year attributable to owners was AUD 84.5 million, which compared to AUD 77.6 million for the previous year. Excluding one-off or non-recurring items, underlying net profit after tax was AUD 113.3 million, an increase of 22.5% compared to the AUD 92.5 million achieved in FY23. As I said, although the group reported increases in revenue and EBITDA across all operating regions for FY24, one-off projects in the European business underperformed against expectations. CTM maintained a strong capital position, finishing the year with AUD 134.8 million in cash, with no debt and access to AUD 100 million of committed debt facilities, which mature in July 2025.
The group returned $68.3 million to shareholders during the last financial year through dividends and the share buyback program. CTM recently paid a final dividend of $0.12 per share in relation to FY24, and combined with the interim dividend of $0.17 per share, this provided total dividends of $0.29 per share unfranked for the year to shareholders, equal to 50% of our net profit after tax. The board remains committed to providing shareholders with returns in the form of dividend payments equivalent to that 50% of group NPAT. At last year's AGM, we announced an on-market share buyback program to enhance shareholder returns and complement our dividend strategy. This allowed for the purchase of CTM shares up to a value of $100 million in the period to 13 November 2024.
During the last financial year, we spent AUD 26.1 million on share buybacks at an average price of AUD 15.55 per share. We have extended the program to 30 June 2025, reset the amount back to AUD 100 million, subject to the board's discretion and market conditions, and at the end of September 2024, we had spent a further AUD 23.9 million buying back 2 million shares at an average price of AUD 11.79 per share. If I turn now to sustainability, CTM's focus in FY24 covered product optimization, greenhouse gas reporting, decarbonization targets, and the mandatory climate reporting roadmap, which will be needed to support a sustainable business over the longer term. Our 2024 sustainability report, which we released in August, sets out our sustainability approach and progress.
Key achievements in this year include refining our materiality assessment to ensure our sustainability framework is best positioned to address risks and opportunities as they arise to meet the evolving needs of our stakeholders. We continue to improve our business travel products to help our customers meet their sustainability goals for their corporate travel programs. We also reviewed our operations and prepared a roadmap to mandatory climate-related reporting compliance, undertook third-party verification of our greenhouse gas inventory, and operationalized our decarbonization plan. One of our decarbonization plan targets is to increase renewable energy source and supply use, and I am pleased to say we were able to increase renewable energy use to 20% over the year. We are committed to making further progress in the year ahead.
On our organization structure changes, in March 2024, Laura Ruffles stepped down from the CTM board and executive team due to personal reasons, and her time with CTM came to an end at 30 September. Laura has been an enormous part of the success of CTM over 16 years. We want to acknowledge her substantial contribution and particularly thank Laura for all she achieved, and we wish her well for the future. Adapting our organizational structure to best support our long-term goals, we realigned the group executive team accountabilities to deliver the key drivers of CTM's future success: new client wins, enhancing revenue per transaction, lowering cost per transaction through automation, and a robust capital allocation and management program to maximize shareholder returns.
We are pleased to announce the appointment of Ana Pedersen, who I introduced earlier in the meeting, in a new role of Global Chief Commercial Officer, reporting directly to Jamie. Her primary responsibilities are front of house to grow revenues through new client wins, the Sleep Space hotel program and supplier deals, and to lead customer-facing technology development that supports this growth. Eleanor Noonan was appointed Global Chief Operating Officer to cover organizational structure, people performance, data and security, and the internal automation, AI, and machine learning processes that will drive a lower cost per transaction while enhancing client NPS scores. James Spence joined CTM as Global Chief Financial Officer in May, with a key focus on the five-year strategy and the optimal capital management program across capital expenditure, capital allocation, and shareholder returns to deliver the strategy.
In passing, I would like to thank James Patterson, who acted as Global CFO between July 2023 and May 2024 for his commitment and his efforts. There are also two changes in regional leadership to mention. In April this year, Kevin O'Malley announced his decision to step down as CEO of North America after completing his commitment to building and integrating the North American business over the last four years. And on 31 December, at the end of this year, Debbie Carling will retire as CEO of our European regional business, a position she has held since 2016. And I would like to take this moment on behalf of the board to thank Kevin and Debbie for their contributions to CTM. Jamie will talk more about the regional leadership in his presentation.
I would just like to acknowledge that we are really pleased that Anita Salvatore and Michael Healy are the successors for Kevin and Debbie because this shows the strength of our succession planning program to enable internal promotion and seamless transition planning. To align with our long-term goals, we made changes in our executive remuneration structure. We also enhanced our governance framework for remuneration. In the last year, we conducted a comprehensive review and benchmarking of our compensation structures across all roles to ensure alignment with our strategic objectives and shareholder interests. This was informed by data from comparable listed entities, industry peers, regional markets, and our commitment to fair and competitive compensation practices throughout the organization. As a result, we have reset the remuneration framework for our KMP to a reweighted pay mix of fixed remuneration, short and long-term variable rewards.
Our short-term incentive opportunity is set at 50% of the fixed amount of pay. It evaluates the KMP against specific key performance indicators based on financial profit attainment in terms of underlying EBITDA and non-financial targets. This year, we have introduced changes to our long-term incentive plan to strengthen alignment with shareholder interests by including a hurdle for earnings per share in lieu of underlying EBITDA. The LTI now has incremental vesting between 5% and 15% of three-year EPS compound annual growth. We believe these changes will align the key management personnel remuneration more closely with the long-term strategy and shareholder growth expectations. To conclude, our commitment and focus is to provide personalized service and proprietary technology solutions, which drives growth to deliver return on investment to our customers across the world, supported by our strong financial platform, which leads to returns to shareholders.
In the year ahead, we will continue to make purposeful investments in technology that support our organizational goals. Additionally, we will continue to invest in our employees and in the sustainability of the industry and communities we operate in because that is vital for us to maintain focus on operational excellence and achieving our goal of being the best travel management partner in every market in which we operate. On behalf of the directors, I would like to thank sincerely all CTM employees for their commitment to delivering exceptional outcomes for our customers and partners, and for their focus on delivering our five-year plan. I would also like to thank our customers, and I would particularly like to thank all our shareholders for their continued support. Let me now invite our Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Jamie Pherous, to deliver his presentation. Thank you.
Thank you, Ewen, and good morning, everyone. I just wanted to cover a quick recap of FY24 before giving a progress update on our metrics year to date and share the early signs on how our strategy is progressing. So firstly, a quick recap on Slide 11. As Ewen mentioned before, despite the challenges we faced, we grew revenue 9% and EBITDA 21% to AUD 201.7 million, a record result for CTM in FY24. To better convey to the market the underlying dynamics of the business, we deliberately separated out Europe from the rest of the world, and we'll do that on Slide 12. And this slide shows Europe's FY24 performance. So while FY24 revenue was up 18% and EBITDA up 16% to AUD 97.7 million, it's a significant decline in the one-off project work in the second half of 2024 that impacted the FY24 result.
But if you move to Slide 13, which is a very different story, that's the rest of the world business. And what you can see here is while full-year revenue grew 6% and EBITDA grew 21% to AUD 122.5 million, I do draw your attention to the second half of 2024, where EBITDA grew 29% and the EBITDA margin expanded from 20% to 23%. This was an early sign of strategy taking hold in our largest regions of North America and Australia and New Zealand. Pleasingly, this momentum has accelerated into FY25, which I will talk to in coming slides. Next, if we can move to Slide 15, our global executive team, as mentioned, Ewen mentioned this earlier. We want to lay out our team. As Ewen said before, they're all here today, which is great to have.
Look, I believe we have the right leaders in place that can best support our plan to double FY24 EPS in five years. And why? T here are three key objectives that underpin this strategy. So firstly, number one is growing revenue and clients. Number two is driving greater automation to better service customers. And thirdly, a strong focus on capital management strategy. And we believe each leader's expertise sitting at the front row here is well aligned to drive these three key objectives. And on Slide 16, we lay out our four regional CEOs. As you're aware, every region has its cultural and nuanced differences in the business, and our model supports and acknowledges this, allowing a nimble and entrepreneurial approach whilst working together as one team across the globe.
Each leader owns the customer experience and is responsible for winning, retaining, and growing customers, as well as staff engagement and development of our staff. And also, as Ewen mentioned, there have been a few changes to the team this year, which you're well aware of. Firstly, Anita Salvatore, CEO of North America. We are really pleased with the transition and early success she's bringing. Anita has brought an infectious energy to the team, and we will let our 1H results, when we announce them in February, speak for her performance. And similar to North America, Michael Healy, OBE, has been waiting in the wings for his opportunity. And with Debbie's retirement at the end of the year, we expect the same steady and smooth transition as we have experienced in North America.
What I am most proud of, though, is that both Michael and Anita, as Ewen said before, have come up through our high potential and succession programs, further reinforcing the career path opportunities to all other staff at CTM. Okay, if we can now move to Slide 17 and progress year to date, and I want to talk this slide for a little bit too. As we said in our first-year results, we wanted to display the way we think about the business and how it aligns to our long-term plan, and the most powerful drivers of long-term shareholder value are revenue growth and, secondly, how efficiently we convert that incremental revenue growth into sustainable profit margins, so let's look at our progress so far.
As you can see on the slide there, first, let's talk about the rest of the world, which is everything in our business excluding the UK. And I want to start with mentioning that the rest of the world combined delivers over 80% of group revenue. And this best depicts the progress of our strategy we put in place at the beginning of this calendar year. So for FY25, we targeted rest of world revenue to grow approximately 10% and EBITDA margins to expand from 23% to 27.5%. This implies significant profit growth versus the prior year. And I'm pleased to say we are on track with the rest of the world. This is really a testament to the strategy being delivered and, more pleasingly, is being led by our largest markets, North America and ANZ. And we'll see that in the first half results in February.
Secondly, there is a lot of noise from our peers in the travel industry at large around ticket price deflation adversely impacting revenue and profit. And I want to tackle this. Just to make it very clear, at CTM, our corporate model is more reliant upon transactions to derive revenue. Customers often set annual travel expenditure budgets, so cheaper tickets mean travel budgets can go further. As a result, ticket price deflation has not significantly impacted CTM. However, price deflation is having an impact on our Asian business, particularly the wholesale segment that relies on commissions and overrides. But this is a smaller part of our overall business and is being more than offset in rest of world by the North America and ANZ performance. Let's come on to Europe.
As we have said all along, this is a transition year for Europe as they cycle off the very strong non-recurring project work of FY24. As a result, we have always expected a large decline in revenue and profit in the first half of 2025, but once we cycled through the first half, we could look to return to the long-term growth metrics the region has previously delivered into CY 2025 or calendar year 2025. In this transition year, the long-term strategic direction is to better balance our client mix by leveraging our superior technology stack in the region and doubling down on corporate growth, and the good thing is this strategy is clearly working. We have won more business than we've ever won in any other year in the region, which we'll talk about shortly.
A consequence of these new client wins is that we have retained all the core staffing previously working on projects in lieu of clients starting in the coming months. Further, the U.K. government released its budget yesterday or last night our time. And as part of the budget, we have been informed of planned reductions in departmental operational expense budgets. And in ensuring there are no surprises, we wish to flag there is a risk in reduction in U.K. government spend that could adversely impact our region in the full-year result. As you can appreciate, whilst we cannot yet quantify the impact this may have on U.K. government travel spend, we can put this potential risk into context, which I'm happy to do.
Europe represents under 20% of our group revenues, and government work represents around half of the European region's revenues, with much of that government travel considered essential travel. I t's important to know. Additionally, we have been reappointed a three-year plus one-year extension in UK government work. So the service we perform at the government is long-term. It is recurring. And the travel management services lot that we service is now exclusive to CTM. So we anticipate incremental revenues into CY 2025 and particularly FY 2026. So let's talk about the other metrics that we talk to here. Firstly, the financial metrics. 1H profit, which is on track to deliver at the 35% SKU we indicated. And I'll let you do the math on what that looks like. That's on track.
I also want to remind the market that as part of this SKU, revenue growth and particularly profit margin has always historically skewed to the second half, and this year should be no different. Also, as part of our five-year strategy, a continued strong discipline in capital management is a key focus, and I'm pleased to say that all the metrics are on track. Firstly, capital expenditure is flat and may even decline as we work through a more disciplined ROI strategy on technology. Group costs are on track, and non-recurring costs for Atlas are largely complete. As a result, we expect minimal non-recurring adjustments on a go-forward basis in the business. Our other key growth metrics that are important of client wins and retention are also on track.
New client wins have surpassed AUD 0.4 billion, and pleasingly, Europe is leading the way, a further testament to the transition strategy working, albeit early in the financial year. Now, if we go to Slide 18 and we look at strategy, again, we want to take you back to strategy. What we want to reinforce to you is our strategy and the key focus areas that matter in this financial year. For the rest of world, it's about long-term sustainable profit growth through three key objectives, as we said before. Number one, we want to continue to grow market share. Secondly, we want to increase revenue per transaction with a focus on Sleep Space, our accommodation engine. Thirdly, we want to deliver productivity gains through automation to better service our customers.
This strategy supports the two metrics that drive shareholder value: revenue growth and, of course, incremental profit margin expansion. And as we said earlier, Europe is in a transition year. It has always been a highly successful and profitable region for CTM. Our key goal is to grow corporate market share by leveraging our superior technology stack in the region to obtain a better balance between corporate and government customers. So now, if I can take your eyeballs to the right-hand side of the slide where we talk to key year-to-date highlights that demonstrate long-term strategic execution. And firstly, let's talk to Europe. We are really proud to be servicing the UK government and can confirm our contract has been extended for an additional three years plus one-year option from January 2025. Previously, we were one of three providers, but we'll operate the travel management services lot exclusively moving forward.
Secondly, Europe customer wins have surpassed our best annual result. This supports the region's transition as we move into FY26. And of course, USA is a key plank to long-term growth, which you're all aware of. And we can confirm we have been selected on the U.S. federal government panel. Whilst this is not an FY25 story, and it will take hard work to win government departments one by one, we expect government to be an additional driver of growth into FY26 and FY27. And as part of servicing the U.S. government, we can confirm we have won our first crisis management work in the U.S. supporting families that have been displaced by the recent Florida hurricanes. And I must say our team is very proud to be able to support those Floridians in need. So we're taking that skill set across the Atlantic.
Again, while these events outlined above, which I want to reinforce, have little to no impact on FY25, it gives you an early insight into how we are focusing upon long-term strategy. When aligned with our capital management program and strong focus on extracting improved capital returns, we believe these attributes demonstrate the focus on the long term to double FY24 EPS in five years. Again, thank you for listening, and I'll hand back to our chairman, Ewen Crouch.
Thank you very much, Jamie. So we'll now move to the formal items of business. I've just got a few more preliminaries to get through. Only shareholders, proxies, or other authorized representatives are entitled to ask questions at today's meeting, and matters raised must be relevant to the business of the meeting. There are five resolutions to be put to shareholders today. All the resolutions are ordinary resolutions, meaning that to pass, they require at least 50% of the votes cast by shareholders entitled to vote on the resolution. Shareholders and proxy holders who have received a blue voting card are entitled to vote and speak. Those shareholders in possession of a yellow non-voting card are welcome to ask questions, while those attendees with a white card are not permitted to ask questions and are kindly requested to observe the next part of the meeting.
If you don't think you've received the correct card, please see the registration desk where a representative will assist you. Each agenda item will be discussed in turn, and we will address questions relevant to that item of business. Please wait for me to invite you to ask your question, hold up your voting card, and state your name before addressing the question. In the interest of all shareholders, could I ask people be as concise as possible in questions and speak once on a particular item? Please save your questions on individual items till we reach that specific item of business. Members of the board and management, as I mentioned before, will be available after the meeting to answer further questions that you might have. Voting today will be conducted by way of poll on all items of business.
Computershare will collect the voting cards at the end of the meeting. All members, appointed attorneys, corporate representatives, and proxies entitled to vote will be given a blue card on admission to the meeting. To cast your vote for, against, or abstain, please place a mark in the corresponding box on your voting card. If you place a mark in more than one box in relation to the resolution, your vote on that resolution will be invalid. If you are voting in more than one capacity, for example, as a shareholder and proxy holder, you will have received separate votes per capacity in which you are voting. I appoint Jesse Ymer of Computershare Investor Services as the returning officer for the purposes of the poll. Valid proxies received are held by Computershare, our share registry provider.
I will announce the valid proxies received for each resolution when the meeting is asked to vote on that particular resolution. Please note that all valid proxies that have been received within the prescribed time limits were admitted. Further, and as set out in the notice of meeting and proxy form, I confirm I intend to vote undirected proxies given to me as chairman of the meeting in favor of each item of business. The Corporations Act and the Listing Rules require that certain persons must not vote in particular ways, and the chairman must disregard particular votes cast by or on behalf of certain persons in relation to nearly all the resolutions at today's meeting, being resolutions one, three, four, and five. Full details of these voting restrictions are set out in the notice of meeting.
As required by Section 317 of the Corporations Act, I now table for discussion the annual report, including the financial report, director's report, and independent auditor's report for Corporate Travel Management Limited and its controlled entities for the year ended 30 June 2024. This report has been sent to all shareholders. There is no requirement for a shareholder resolution on this item. Before I invite questions on the financial statements and reports or on my address or Jamie's presentation, let me note that the company's auditor, Kim Challenor from PwC, is present and available to answer any questions in respect of the audit process or the independent auditor's report. So let me first pause. Are there any questions on the audit or the auditor's report? Thank you. Let me now say, are there any questions on the annual report, my address, or Jamie's presentation?
Right, there's a bit of competition down there, so let me start with the person with the microphone.
Mr. Chairman, my name's Quinn. I'm a shareholder. In regards to share buybacks, the objective is to double earnings over the next five years. Why aren't you backing up the truck considering how low the PE is and buying more shares back?
So the amount available for the share buyback is a combination of what we think is prudent to spend on buying back our shares in the current market and the other uses for which the cash that the company has available to it should be made in terms of investing in the future in the various programs that we have outlined. We balance that quite carefully, so we started slowly with the buyback in the first period. We accelerated the buyback when we returned to buying back our shares in September, and there is more available for the buyback in the year ahead.
I certainly note your comments in relation to the amount available, and as I said in my remarks, it is subject to board's discretion and market conditions, and we need to balance that against the competition for capital that management have in terms of the investments that we need to make in our automation, client-facing, and productivity programs. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, Peter Richardson, I have a question for the auditor, if I may.
All right.
I just wonder if she could, or the auditor could, give the owners or let the owners know about impairment testing of acquisitions. For example, there's a lot of headroom. Are we safe from having an impairment charge put against the company based on current performance, etc.?
There's a microphone.
This is live, yes. Thank you. Just, my name is Kim. Lovely to meet you all. I'm from PricewaterhouseCoopers, external auditor. 25 of the annual report probably indicates the best answers to your question with regards to the process in which impairment testing has been conducted by the company. It works through how the company assesses its cash-generating units and particularly how it allocates the goodwill across each of those cash-generating units. In that note, it also talks through the headroom and the key assumptions that are underpinning the impairment models that support each of the calculations.
Mr. Richardson, did you have a further question?
Mr. Chairman, I have a few. I can do them a couple at a time, and you can share them.
You can give them all to me now.
Okay. Some reflections as a shareholder. We get very encouraging reports from the chair and the MD on the performance of the company. In 2019, our impact as shareholders was AUD 90 million. In 2024, it's gone backwards to AUD 86 million. During this time, we've had constant messages about how well the business is doing, renewing contracts, growing. We know that contracts have CPI indexation in them. We know we've had a COVID event as well, so we're aware of that. But I just can't reconcile why the business has not gone forward by some degree over five years with the combination of all those things about how well we've been doing. Can you fill the gap for me, do you think?
In 2019, the Underlying EBITDA was AUD 150 million, and in 2024, the Underlying EBITDA was AUD 210 million. So there is significant growth in Underlying EBITDA. What falls to the bottom line in terms of impact is a different function of the amount in which the company has expended and what needs to be brought to account below the Underlying EBITDA number. So the business is much larger than it was in 2019, and as Jamie has taken you through, the business is positioned for further growth.
Certainly, you're right. The revenue in 2019 was AUD 440 million, and this year it's AUD 716 million. So we've had a lot of revenue growth, but we've had no profit growth. And the concern is that the business is focused on growing but not growing profitably. But I shall move on. During this time, you've invested AUD 275 million in Travel and Transport, AUD 175 million in Helloworld, and some other acquisitions as well. All of these acquisitions were said to be earnings per share accretive when you propose it to the shareholders. Travel and Transport was said to be 30% EPS accretive and Helloworld 7%. Obviously, we haven't achieved that, but has the board done a post-investment review of those investments to determine what the outcomes are, and is there any lessons that could be learned?
So we were very pleased with the support that shareholders provided to the company to support both acquisitions. The T&T acquisition was undertaken in the depths of COVID in October of 2020, and the Helloworld corporate acquisition, which was partly funded by shareholders and partly funded by an issue of shares to the vendor, was undertaken about 15 months later at the end of 2021, and that took 90 days from memory to procure all government approvals. As a board, we go through with management a strategy review in March of each year, and we go through quite carefully with management periodically through the year on how the objectives that were set at the time of acquisitions and how the underlying business integration plans that were put in place to combine the businesses together and deliver are progressing.
So I acknowledge your comments as to where one might like to be, and I acknowledge where we are today. There may be a difference between where we thought we might like to have been at the time we made them and where we are today, but they do reflect the trading conditions and the competition and the markets in which we operate.
Thank you. During this time, this last five years, the board's also overseen investment in technology of around AUD 130 million, including AUD 40 million in the last financial year. When the board allocates capital to this activity, software development, do you have a return on investment approach that you use, and is there a benchmark that you apply?
So we in fact had quite a long discussion about that in the committee meetings yesterday and the board meeting this morning, and one of the tasks that our new Global Chief Financial Officer has been set to do is to review the processes that the company has been using to calculate the return on investment. We want to have a closer look at how we do allocate capital and exactly how we are going to present that return on investment against the weighted average cost of capital that we have. So the short answer to your question is, yes, we do. Are we doing it the same way?
No, we don't expect that we'll be doing it the same way in the future because that is part of the fact that it's a vibrant organization, and one needs to learn, review things that have been done before, and see what the best method of doing them in the future will be.
Do you have some idea of the benchmark return that you'd be targeting?
We're not in a position to release that at the moment. I'm aware that some companies do put their ROI benchmarks out. That's not something that we've done. Given that it's currently a work in progress, I can't give you any commentary on what we will release and when, but let me just say that your comments, Peter, are noted.
To go on from there . Me, as a shareholder, we spent close to AUD 575 million across acquisitions and investments in software, and add on a few other bits. You can probably work out that a 15% return on capital on those investments should have given us a AUD 60 million impact on top of what the business was before. So kind of disappointing as a shareholder to see that we're not getting those returns.
To that, actually. T he one thing you're missing is that what none of us could foresee was the recovery from COVID. O bviously, to get those returns, you need everything to be back to 100%. I t was pretty well understood last year that the market generally was only back to 75%. So it's pretty hard to get the profit impact just back to 75%. I won't talk to peers. Every peer that's listed in corporate space is in a very different position than we were pre-COVID as well. But now that we think it's largely settled, we've made it very clear that from here on, we're trying to double impact the next five years.
I know we've got to obviously execute and build trust in executing, but hopefully, you can see from the early signs and how we've set things up, we're pretty dedicated to do that, and what's different now the last five years is that with the very small exception of Asia, the market is back to being settled. Long-term growth, steady, no shifting sands. We can run our business and run strategy. That's the difference that might be hard to understand in a financial report that was real.
Thanks, Jamie. Listen, Mr. Chairman, it's been a tough time for shareholders. T he board should probably stick to their knitting. You've got a good business. Hopefully, you can just grow it from where it's at. I know Jamie has mentioned on occasion that you're of a size now that 15% growth should be achievable organically without acquisitions. Acquisitions distract management. Perhaps we should just focus on hitting those 15% numbers for a couple of years to restore confidence of shareholders and investors. Please don't buy anything large. It hasn't seemed to work the last couple of times you've tried. And in fact, on that point, please keep buying back shares because I'd rather you did that than be tempted to spend it on something.
I'm pleased to hear you're going to have a serious look at your CapEx spend because that seemed to have got a little bit out of control. On a warmer note, I'd just like to say that in Team Invest, a lot of people thought highly of Laura. We respected her input to the company. We're sorry she's had to leave under the circumstances that she has. We wish her well. We hope she's doing okay. We haven't heard. But also a special call out to Jamie for the generous offer that he made during the year to Laura. T hat was an exceptional offer, and hats off to you there, Jamie.
So, Peter, let me wrap up. I'll deal with your last comment first. So thank you very much for acknowledging Laura. The circumstances in which Laura stepped down from the company are not really appropriate to discuss here. They were very personal. And as I said in my opening remarks, we really wanted to acknowledge the extraordinary contribution that she made to the organization over 16 years. Without engaging in further debate to you, I do want to say that the platform from the T&T acquisition and the platform from the Helloworld corporate acquisition are enormously important to the future success of the company. Both of those platforms are delivering for the company and for shareholders. I take your position on the fact that where we are today is not where we thought we might have been. There are various reasons for that, but I acknowledge all of that.
Let's just say where we are today is where we grow from here. The goal is to double our EPS growth, FY24 to FY29. That's what we're focused on. But thank you for all of those comments. Are there any other questions on the... Yes, Mr. Mabb.
Good morning, Stephen Mabb, representing the ASA today. I'm also a Team Invest member, but not here on Team Invest business today. So I want to start off by congratulating the company on a strong overall year last year, and also want to thank you for your engagement with us prior to the meeting. It was really constructive. So thank you for that. I've got a two-part question here for both yourself and Jamie, just around the culture of the business moving forward. We've seen some interesting blow-ups at other founder-led companies in the last few months. It's a knowable risk for the business. So first question for Jamie, what, if anything, are you doing to probe into the information and the messaging that you're getting from your team on a day-to-day basis?
How are you feeling comfortable that you're getting the right information and all of the true stories from the team? And secondly, for you, Ewen, how is the board making sure that what Jamie and James are sharing with you is the full story and that there's no bad news or uncomfortable stories being buried anywhere further down the line? I'm not insinuating there is. I'm asking, what are you doing to probe into that?
I'll start, and then I'll let Jamie reply. We undertake our analysis through a number of different lenses. Firstly, one of Eleanor Noonan's responsibilities as Chief Operating Officer is what we call our pulse survey. So we look very carefully through the questions in the pulse survey that go out to all our employees, and we look at the trends that come back, and they get presented quarterly to the Remuneration and Sustainability Committee meetings. And Sophie Mitchell is a very vigilant chair of that and maintains a close dialogue with Eleanor. Secondly, and this is something that we instituted since COVID, we meet as a board with the local management in each region at least once a year. So we have a board meeting in the U.S. We have a board meeting in the U.K.
That includes all the senior leadership of that region presenting to the board through the lenses that they have with the areas that they're responsible for. And it also includes, generally speaking, a team-building function of some description. So I'm very keen on the Denver Nuggets basketball team, I should say, after one of our American trips. But it's amazing what you pick up when you actually get the team into a more social setting and they talk to you. So you'll get a feel for all of that. And it's important that boards, in effect, walk the floors, so to speak, in that regard. And the third thing is that we have invested in the development of our leadership team. We work with an external organization.
We have a dedicated consultant who had her objective set by the board, reports back in through Sophie Mitchell to the Remuneration and Sustainability Committee, but she worked with Jamie and his direct team on leadership capabilities in a team that's now been dropped down to work with each regional leader and their teams. It's been incredibly well received. the last point to supplement that is the fact that as two of our regional leaders have retired, Kevin O'Malley and Debbie Carling, we have been able to promote internally, and we're very pleased. Jamie and I have a very frank and open dialogue on a number of matters. Let me pass to Jamie.
If anything I want to add to that is that all leadership in all regions is tied to people performance. So those surveys, that's part of STI bonuses. So we think we're well aligned. And I just want to stress that again. Obviously, coming back through COVID was really tricky, as you guys know. Travel was difficult, and our guys bore the brunt of that at the end of the phones. But it feels really steady, and that is a key focus of our strategy that we said before. And furthermore, we're spending so much energy on automating processes that don't add value to free up time to deliver the best service. And what I can say, all those surveys, those scores are going up around the world to compare to last year. So we feel good about it. We think it's on track.
Thank you.
Are there any other questions on the financial statements and report? Thank you very much, everybody. We can now move on to the formal business. I present the remuneration report. This is required to be considered by shareholders in accordance with Section 250(R) of the Corporations Act. Are there any questions on the remuneration report?
Thanks, Ewen. I'm a long-term shareholder and also a member of Team Invest, but I'm not speaking on behalf of Team Invest. Excuse me. Last year, I raised the issue of LTIs having a share price gateway. And notwithstanding the changes that have been made for FY25, it just seems completely unreasonable that share appreciation rights lapsed in FY24 just because Mr. Market was in a bit of a funk with CTM, even though the growth target was met. What more can employees do other than run the business and meet growth targets? And I'm sure they would have been very disheartened when they achieved what was expected of them but got no reward for it. So it's been raised before, but will the board give serious consideration to removing that price gateway that employees are unable to directly affect?
In other words, make the incentive something that they can affect and achieve an outcome rather than a share price, which really they have no control over whatsoever, but can in fact impact their pay or pay out or share appreciation rights. Thanks.
That's a slightly different question to the remuneration report, Ray, but I'll answer it now.
It's part of the remuneration report, the criteria.
We have a share price floor in our LTI scheme. Floor as in FLOOR as opposed to FLAW. And the reason we have the share price floor in the LTI scheme is to do with the accounting cost that the company bears in valuing the opportunity that is presented to senior executives. We have thought between, and when we look closely at market practices, there is certainly for the key management personnel, the market practice is to have a share price hurdle and to have another hurdle, which can be measured in terms of total shareholder return, earnings per share growth, underlying EBITDA growth, and the like. And we brought that back to a hurdle on the basis of EPS growth.
Without a share price floor, I am aware that for senior executives below the KMP, that there can be incentive schemes that are simply time-hurdled and that you can have a look at growth objectives. We are acutely conscious of rewarding our executives for their contribution and of meeting the market and of meeting shareholder expectations. So your comments are welcome. They are part of the ongoing dialogue in the design of the schemes that we have.
Okay. The only other downside to this is that hurdle could actually act as a disincentive if you're striving to meet whatever your other criteria are. But as you're approaching the 30th of June, the share price has been down below the hurdle for quite some time. It doesn't look like we're actually meeting it. Why bother? You're not going to get anything for striving anymore. So there can be a negative to having that.
Can I just say, look, your comments are noted, but we do need to align the LTI with shareholder interests. So shareholders like the share price to go up. We want the share price to go up, and that is the basis of the share price hurdle. But your comments are noted. Thank you. Any further questions on the remuneration report? In that case, let me show the proxies on the screen. And I now move that the remuneration report for the financial year ended 30 June 2024 be adopted. The next two resolutions relate to the re-election of Sophie Mitchell and myself. So I will now deal with Sophie's re-election and propose that Sophie be re-elected to the board, having been appointed in September of 2019. Sophie, would you like to make a few comments to the meeting?
Thank you, Ewen. Yes, I'm pleased to be standing for re-election to the CTM board, as with all shareholders in this room. Certainly disappointed with the share price reaction to our disappointing result last year, but what's probably not as well understood, but we've gone to some extent today to try and explain, is the achievements that were made behind the scenes during the year, and particularly what we've been talking about, investment and technology. There's been considerable investment in people and leadership, which hasn't been undertaken for a few years because of COVID, but also a lot of investment in business resilience, which all those things combined are going to benefit us all as shareholders moving forward. I'm very excited and pleased about the refreshing of the senior leadership team.
Certainly acknowledge Laura and Kevin's contribution, but we have a new set of skills to take us forward, and I certainly look forward to seeing the impact that the refreshed team has on CTM and its future. So I'm excited about what's ahead for the company, and with your support, look forward to playing my small part in delivering on CTM's growth aspirations. Thank you.
Thank you, Sophie. Are there any questions in relation to this resolution? Yes. Mr. Matthew.
Thanks for your engagement as well, Sophie, prior to the meeting. Just a quick question for you. What would you say you're most proud of or you think you've added the most value on during your last term on the board for shareholders or the team or maybe the customers?
I t's probably been my role as chairing the Remuneration and Sustainability Committee on both parts. W hat the work that's been undertaken, largely under the leadership recently of Eleanor, we're seeing the benefits of that and the employee engagement scores, and we all know that engaged staff will deliver the results that we want them to. As you can imagine, we came out of a pretty dark period during COVID. So that work that's been undertaken has been excellent, but also in particular, the investment we're now making in leadership. So we'll benefit from that. Sustainability is a journey that we're going on. I t's new to most companies in Australia. We've got a steam train coming towards us around reporting on that with mandatory climate reporting coming in.
The board sat through a session yesterday on it with the executive team. The warning was that carbon reporting will just be the start of increased reporting on sustainability. We certainly had, as many companies in Australia, big aspirations. What we've done in the last year is really challenge them and work out what we can deliver. Again, under the leadership we've got under Lauren Hawke, we're starting to get ourselves in a good position to meet the mandatory reporting, but also focus on sustainability and sustainability risks, which is what will keep us in business for the long term. Thank you.
Any other questions? All right. Let me now put the proxies up on the screen and formally move that Sophie be re-elected as a director. This is unanimously endorsed by the board with Sophie being absent for that. All right. Could you please vote? Now, the next person to be re-elected is me. So I'm going to ask Jon Brett, who's going to stay in his chair, to act as chair for this part of the meeting.
Thank you, Ewen. Resolution 2B should be on the screen. So I now take this resolution as read. Ewen Crouch was appointed by the board as director and chairman of the board on 25 March 2019 and being eligible presents himself for election. Before we put this resolution to a vote, I would like to ask Ewen to say a few words.
Thank you, Jon. Thank you, shareholders. I'm very pleased to offer myself for re-election to the board. I enjoy what I do, and I enjoy working with Jamie. This is a company that has some fantastic opportunities ahead of it. The service-based business, which I've spent my career in, is a combination of people and technology, and getting the right investments in both is what ultimately delivers the outcome for shareholders. Critical to that is having robust governance support systems that are behind the scenes. The better they are, the less everybody sees them. That's the way they should work, and that's what I enjoy very much doing, and that's how our board works. Thank you very much, as I'm able to seek your support to continue in my role. Are there any questions on this resolution?
T hanks, Ewen. You obviously have lots of experience and a great background and a few other positions at the moment as well. So maybe here, could you give shareholders a little bit of comfort, given your workload? What do you see the key aspects or what are the things that you do in the role previously here at Corporate Travel beyond the obvious attendance at board meetings and chatting with Jamie, etc.? What are some of the other things that you have the time to do and you're able to do in the role at the moment?
Being chairman of the company is a role that, generally speaking, requires a little bit of something on a fairly regular basis and requires a lot of something in concentrated periods of time. We start by putting together our agenda for the year ahead and for the period of time after that. Jamie and I have a very regular dialogue around the strategy and performance of the company. One of the key jobs as chairman is to listen and to listen as the chief executive, because there are not many people that the CEO speaks to in terms of being able to formulate propositions and things that are going on. That dialogue, I find, is an absolutely crucial part of it. Very little of that dialogue will ever find its way into the public domain because they're things in the early stage of formation.
During the course of this year, as has been indicated, with resetting the board and resetting the senior executive team has required a lot of thought. I enjoy my engagement with the regional leadership and the regional leadership teams as well, and yes, I do chair a small technology company, which is listed, and sit on the board of BlueScope Steel. T here are a lot of synergies. You might wonder what a large steelmaking company does with a corporate travel management company, and the short answer is they operate in very similar parts of the world, and they face very similar challenges because both organizations have the biggest part of their business in North America and see North America as fundamental to future success, so it's interesting what one can learn from different roles and how it can be applied.
Thank you. Are there any more questions? Yes.
Mr. Chairman, Quinn, that was going to be one of my questions in regards to 50% of our revenues now come from North America. Can you talk to your experience in regards to North America being a very different beast to Australia, very different culture, and the way they do business there is very different? And obviously, there's different challenges there. And just want to know, can you talk to some of your experiences there?
My experience, I could talk for hours. M y experiences with North America started when I was very young because my family business, which my grandfather started, was the importing of truck parts, assembling them, and selling them, so I saw all through my childhood and into my university careers. I would be one of the few chairmen that has ever done a truck sales course out of California at one stage before I decided being a lawyer would be a lot more fun than following my father's footsteps into the family business, but leaving that to one side, in my career as a lawyer, I represented many North American companies. I sat on the board of a listed mortgage insurance company for a period of time. I saw the financial services sector. I experienced Sarbanes-Oxley, which is a unique reporting system in everything that it does.
In my career as a director, the amount of business in North America has required spending a lot of time there. So that's just given me opportunities. As I said before in my comment about the Denver Nuggets, you do need to spend time with the people that you're working with. And so I'm very confident that I've got a good understanding of the issues. Thank you. Are there any more questions?
I just want to add that I've worked with a lot of chairmen in my time. I've worked with some very good chairmen and some very bad chairmen, and I will say that Ewen is up there with the best that I've worked with, and this company is in very good hands with Ewen being chairman. Before we vote on this resolution, I advise that the following proxies, as displayed on the screen, have been received. So for the 88.7 million and against the 541,000, I move that Ewen Crouch be elected as a director. The board, with Ewen Crouch abstaining, unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of Ewen Crouch's election. I'll now hand back to Ewen to resume his role as chairman of the meeting.
Thank you, Jon, and thank you, shareholders. Resolution three relates to an increase in the fee pool for non-executive directors. We last sought an increase to the fee pool in 2019. This is something that will happen periodically. The reasons behind seeking the increase in the fee pool are threefold. Firstly, we do a review against comparable ASX-listed companies to see where we're positioned, and we like to position ourselves in the middle of the pack. We don't want to be at the top, but equally, we don't think we should be at the bottom in terms of where we want to go. Secondly, we are a non-executive director group of four. We do believe that we need to start planning for the future, and that will involve increasing the size of the board, not tomorrow, but over a period of time.
We may make one or two extra appointments to bring someone onto the board, and we want to have room, and thirdly, as we are thinking about who we might recruit, we need to have a look at what the competition do and where an additional director might be located, so our fee pool is not sufficient at the moment to deal with any of that, and they're the reasons supporting that. So you're not going to see, we also, just to make it clear, we laid out in our remuneration report for this year what we intend to pay directors in FY25. So it's not a question of saying this amount is going to be allocated among existing directors. Quite the contrary. This amount is to enable the board to engage additional board directors as and when suitable candidates are found and to conduct our succession planning.
Are there any questions?
As we mentioned in our previous meeting, ASA did a little benchmarking as well, and we found that the current director fees were at the top end of the comparator group that we looked at. I take it that obviously you used a different comparator group and you feel like you're in the middle, so understand that. We also wanted a little more clarity on what the board seeing, sorry, the board asking for this increase to use as they see fit would mean, which is what's stated in the notice of meeting given the size of the increase. So we were just, before we cast our vote, we were looking for a bit of comfort that it was for potentially some additional directors rather than another increase or a significant increase for the existing directors. Thank you.
Are there any other questions on this resolution? All right. Let me now put the proxies on the screen so you can see what they are. All right. So I'll move on. So our next resolution is to change our auditor. We've only done this once as a listed company. So I did want to say a couple of things. First of all, the relationship that we have had with PricewaterhouseCoopers has been very important for the company, and PwC have been very important and helpful to the company since it became listed all the way up to the completion of the audit this year. And the fact that Kim's sitting here in the front row gives me an opportunity to say thank you very much to Kim and her colleagues for all their support.
All that said, it is appropriate that a company in a period of time review its audit arrangements against benchmarks of where audit practice is up to, where technology is, where support is best provided, and we conducted a competitive tender, and as a result of that competitive tender, Deloitte came out ahead, and so the board has resolved to appoint Deloitte subject to shareholder approval as the auditor of the company going forward. Are there any questions? So let me put the proxies on the screen, and you can see what they are. Thank you very much. Our final resolution today includes a grant of long-term incentive scheme rights to Jamie Pherous. Now, by way of introduction, this is a discussion we have been having with Jamie ever since I've been chairman as to why doesn't he participate in the LTI scheme.
He has said, "Because I'm a shareholder in the company, I don't need to." This is something that the board thought was appropriate, that the CEO model, the pay mix that the senior executive team have. And it's why we put it to Jamie, and he was somewhat reluctant in agreeing to accept this, but nonetheless, he has. And we think it's a very good thing. The number of rights that we seek approval to is the maximum number if everything possibly went right in the next three years, and we got 15% compound growth. It would give a number of rights , just a little bit less than the number of rights we're seeking approval for today with the initial allocation that has been made to Jamie.
And under the listing rules, the reason for seeking approval is because the company would be unable to issue shares to satisfy that award. That said, the company could buy the shares on market to satisfy the award without shareholder approval. But we want to have available both opportunities, either to issue the shares or to buy them on market, depending on what the most sensible outcome for the company and its shareholders is. So are there any questions on this resolution? All right. Let me put the proxies on the screen. And there are the proxies on the screen. So I move that this resolution be put to the meeting and ask all shareholders to vote. That brings us to the end of the formal resolutions. So if you haven't voted, can you now please do so?
Because Computershare will be sending the box around to collect everybody's voting papers in about a minute. Does anyone who has a blue voting card who wishes to vote not fill in their card and put it in the box? All right. Let me thank those who joined us online today and let me thank everybody who has turned up today. We really love having you in the room. Actually, the individual engagement with shareholders in the room is something that means a lot to CTM. I now declare the meeting closed and invite you to join us for some refreshments. Thank you.