Gentlemen, the company is conducting this AGM physically and via live webcast, by video or audio dialing. Thank you for your participation at this AGM. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to welcome you to Civmec's annual general meeting. Let me introduce you to directors and the management of the company. Seated here with me on my right, I've got Kevin Deery, Doug Chester.
my left here I got Pat Tallon, Stephen Chong and Sunny Wong. I would like to also take the opportunity to introduce you to our new incoming directors here. Got Gary Gray, to my left here. Ong Beng Hong and Ambrose Law. Welcome you to Civmec. Thank you. I would like to also take this opportunity to start the meeting and thank our independent directors, Mr. Stephen Chong, Mr. Sunny Wong and Mr. Doug Chester, who will be retiring from the Board at the conclusion of this AGM. All three directors have made tremendous contribution in making the company what it is today. And I would like to extend on behalf of all shareholders and management, our sincere thanks for their efforts and their support since 2012. Before we proceed with business of this AGM, our CEO Pat Tallon will present to you our business update.
Good morning everybody. Thank you, Jim. Look, we'll quickly go through some historical stuff. I'm sure you're quite familiar with the business overall, but just to remind you that we operate across Resources, Energy, Infrastructure, Marine and Defence. And the capability is around manufacturing, where we have extensive manufacturing capability, large construction capability and maintenance and capital works. So I'm sure you're all familiar with the business overall, but just probably no time to go through the important milestone, if you like, in the business. We're 15 years since inception. A lot has happened in that 15 years. Been a very active 15 years and very proud of what we've achieved over those 15 years, from taking over a blank piece of ground at Henderson in 2009 to what you see in facilities and development of our construction, manufacturing and maintenance capability over the last couple of years.
We really feel we've set a strong platform for the business going forward with manufacturing at both Henderson and Newcastle and now maintenance capability at Port Hedland and in Gladstone in Queensland. So we really feel that we've done a lot of right things and learned a lot along the way and really are now considered a really top tier one contractor in Australia in the areas that we operate on. So I know Jim has already mentioned, but just thought good time to introduce our new board members. And very welcome to Ambrose Law, Gary Gray and Ong Beng Hong to the Board. And then also an opportune time to introduce Bojan Ceka, who is our new CFO, who took over after Kevin Ho handed over the acting CFO duties and now returns to full CCO duties for the business. So also take the opportunity.
We have to say a sad farewell to Stephen Chong, Sunny Wong and Doug Chester, who have been absolutely marvelous to us over the last couple of years and we will truly miss their inputs, but we know the new incoming independents have a lot to offer and we'll continue to do that. We'll continue to have a good strong Board going forward, so quick one on. I'm sure you've seen these a few times already, but 2024 was a very good year for the business. We sort of burst through that AUD 1 billion revenue, but we did it with having a strong EBITDA and a strong net profit margin as well, with AUD 120.8 million of EBITDA, AUD 64.4 million in profits, and the compound annual growth rate across all the metrics has been very, very strong.
We're very proud of that and we want to continue to see that growing as we go forward into the next exciting decade. As we go forward, we're also very pleased to be able to return a strong dividend to our shareholders with a 6 cent between interim and final dividend. And again, that was an increase of 20% on the previous year. Yesterday we put out our Q1 FY25 financial highlights. We had a strong quarter again. A revenue of AUD 262.7 million, EBITDA 29.2, net profit of 15.2, giving us a net asset value per share of AUD 0.958, earnings per share of AUD 0.0299. And we've managed to keep that order book above the AUD 800 million as we look forward into looking to increase that as we go forward later in this year. So quick snapshot on our locations.
As said already, Henderson and Newcastle are our prime manufacturing hubs and our prime maintenance hubs now with the development of our Port Hedland facility. So phase one of the development is up there. The workshop is complete and we are working hard now with clients and getting more work into that facility. It takes some time. It's not going to be an instant thing, but the clients are extremely welcoming to have this kind of an input and this kind of investment in the local community and in the local region. We're well located at Port Hedland, which is the largest export port for iron ore in the world. And we're sort of, the community are very, very welcoming to us there. We'll be able to offer lots of local employment and look forward to the growth.
It's a solid platform for growth there in Gladstone, similar type of activity. We secured a piece of land holding originally of around three hectares of land and we managed to secure their facilities right next door so the adjoining facilities. So that saved us that time period that we would have to spend on building, etc. We're up and running there. There are some work going through that already. We look forward to a similar type growth and a solid platform for growth in maintenance and capital works in those two areas. A really exciting new addition to our business is that we are now officially an original equipment manufacturer. This is a big opportunity for us. We've been involved in building machines to other people's designs for quite some time, since about 2017, but now we actually have that capability in house to design the machine.
So that opens up a whole new range of things for us. We saw the opportunity, it's big with the existing clients that we have, we know they need 30-40 new machines over in the foreseeable future. They range in value of what they might be, but suffice to say it's probably in excess of AUD 2.5 billion opportunity over the next couple of years for us to be involved in this type of work. Just to be clear, the type of machines we're designing and building are large commodity handling machines that really are integral to our clients to getting the product from the mine site onto the ship and sent off to wherever it is going. So our machines, like you see in the pictures, stackers, reclaimers and ship loaders. So a large, large opportunity for us.
It's a very important product that the client requires. What we're offering is an extended amount of reliability because we will be involved with a cohesive team in house. We'll have our manufacturers and our construction team involved in that design phase. We're designing optimum machines that will give optimum reliability for our clients. That's something that nobody else has been able to offer and certainly no one in Australia has that capability of offering. We're really excited about the opportunity. Beyond that, with maintenance growth, we do feel we'll have the opportunity to maintain these machines for our clients and we also will have the opportunity potentially to look after the spares and control the spares for them so that that machine is constantly running for them.
So with that exciting news that we actually have secured our first OEM supplier machine for Alcoa, a bridge reclaimer. So it's really good that someone has just like anything when you start up something fresh, the clients always are very confident in what our capability is to manufacture. But now someone's realizing that capability to design. So it's really exciting for us. And as I said, the absolute differential is that internal collaboration between the design teams, the manufacturing team, the construction and maintenance teams to make sure we build optimum machines going forward with people who completely understand client requirements and completely understand Australian specifications. So really good market for us. The other area that there is a lot of enthusiasm for us is in the defence sector. So some of you will be familiar with what's going on in Western Australia in general.
But we were very excited to finally get some solid announcements around the future of defence and shipbuilding and Henderson precinct where we operate in from the when the Commonwealth in collaboration with the state government came out recently and announced that they intend to spend tens of billions of dollars on a defence precinct in Henderson. This new naval precinct at Henderson is for continuous naval shipbuilding and nuclear powered submarine maintenance. So the opportunity is huge. I mean we are working collaboratively with the state and Commonwealth government to ensure that there is no impact on the non- defence sectors that we operate in and whatever that will entail. There's some money already been put in by the government to look at planning for the precinct to make sure that no other sector is adversely affected.
So we will continue to work with them to make sure that this opportunity turns into revenue for the business and profit for the business going forward. Second thing that's been very exciting for us as a business is we signed a heads of agreement with Luerssen to take for the transfer of ownership of Luerssen Australia to Civmec. We've been involved in this program for some time. We built the blocks for this program. We've completed our scope of work. The scope of work is for six builds and two of them are well advanced in South Australia and four of them are at varying stages of build in Western Australia. So this obviously we're just entering into the due diligence phase and there's lots of conditions precedent and Commonwealth consent has to happen.
But by all accounts, this would give us an opportunity to truly be a sovereign shipbuilder with that design capability and actually complete the Offshore Patrol Vessel program for the Royal Australian Navy and for the Commonwealth. It would include the transfer of assets, employees, licenses, and the uninterrupted construction program. So a very exciting opportunity for us as well. And as I say, it really puts us up in lights as a sovereign shipbuilder with huge capability and huge facilities and a strong workforce to do it. So then we sort of look at what that opportunity entails. I mean, it's still high level I guess from what we're seeing, but we are getting more transparency from the Commonwealth on what it looks like.
Assuming that we would complete the transfer of ownership of Luerssen, that would mean that we would complete the six Offshore Patrol Vessels that are currently under construction. We've already announced about the joint heads of agreement with the MOU, with Austal to have a JV to build a Landing Craft Heavy for the Royal Australian Navy. And look, while the ship is not designed at this stage, it's highly probable it's a multi-billion-dollar project that will go on for until into the 30s. We're really excited about that opportunity when it does unfold and we'll continue to work collaboratively with Austal and the Commonwealth to turn that MOU into a JV so we can actually work together. It's really what the Commonwealth have been looking for some time. When they talk about consolidation of the Henderson shipyards, this is what they want.
They want us to work together and make sure that we can achieve a good outcome for Sovereign Shipbuilding overall. Then from there is a General Purpose Frigate program which we believe is somewhere in the range of AUD 7-10 billion-dollar opportunity. And then there are other opportunities with large optionally crewed vessels that we know of somewhere in the region of AUD 400-500 million. So while the opportunity is not necessarily today for these builds, certainly infrastructure is going to happen quite quickly because it needs to. These programs will be well underway by the time the build is complete. So we're looking forward to a very strong pipeline, a strong future for us in that defence space. But outside that, and if you put that one side, we still have a very, very strong growing business across the sectors that we ordinarily operate in.
The outlook in the energy sector is positive. We can see there's well over AUD 40 billion worth of opportunities in the foreseeable future of projects that are going on in this space. We are definitely held in higher regard by the clients we consistently work for, the likes of Woodside and Chevron. We even have some of those clients coming down openly saying that the product that we supply at Civmec is the best they get anywhere in the world and they tell our workforce that. So we do see a huge opportunity there. It's more tendering activity and it's buoyant in that space. And we are a leader in manufacturing of subsea modules and components for these clients. And we're progressing well on all the projects that we have underway right now. Our work in hand will mean that we will actually double our revenue from last year.
So we can expect 100% growth in revenue as a minimum this year going forward. The resources sector has always been a huge area for us. We are working hard towards completion on a few major projects in the lithium and in the iron ore space for key clients and we continue to work with them in that space. We do see that the next couple of months are probably going to be order book replenishment by capital works type projects. So the major projects are probably a few months away. The clients are working hard on heritage approvals, different environmental approvals and getting engineering design done. But suffice to say that we talk to the clients on a regular basis. There is a lot of opportunity in this space and we know they're now doing the likes of bulk earthworks and getting engineering done for new process plants.
We know that means work for us in the medium future. Looking forward to that region of what's going to happen there and then also gives us time, I suppose, to focus on utilization of our Port Hedland and our Gladstone facility and to really inject some growth into that maintenance space that we've been talking about for some time. Really, that'll be our focus in the resources that will be growing the maintenance and capital works divisions for now in infrastructure. We've talked about it a few times and we're very pleased to say that we finally got the highest tier of bridge building accreditation. So we have now Category B 4. That's due to the good work that we've been doing across bridges, particularly in Western Australia and in New South Wales. In other regions in Canberra etc.
We've been doing some other bridges as well. We do see that as a big opportunity. By the graphs it seems to be somewhere well over AUD 140 billion worth of opportunities over the next five or six years. We need to get our accreditation up in our road space. We're working hard on that. We sort of have one or two stages to go before we're able to target these bigger jobs. As we are making progress and it's a positive outcome for us in that space. Just in ESG initiatives, we've introduced her already, but we're very pleased to have our first female Board member appointed and very welcome to the Board. We have targets of net zero emissions by 2050 and a 50% reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions intensity by 2030.
And we're working hard towards that. And being a responsible industry participator. One of the very important things for us is around. We feel it's very important for sustainability of our business is what is the amount of effort we put into apprenticeship grad programs and professional development within the business. We have in the region of about 146 young people going through different programs. But we also have an extensive professional development program within the business looking for the next leaders and helping them to fill the gaps of the shortfalls of what they have in their capability right now and make sure they're ready for the future of the business. So just quick closeout summary. I've touched on these things already but very pleased with the award of our first OEM bridge reclaimer for Alcoa. They are a long term and existing client.
We have exposure now to an extensive pipeline in excess of AUD 2.5 billion worth of bulk machines in the future and probably significantly more. And we're working with our clients to make sure they understand exactly the new capability that we have in house. I've spoken extensively about defence and the exciting things that are happening there around development of infrastructure, around partnerships with other local shipbuilders, around the Luerssen takeover. And then obviously that will lead on to hopefully shipbuilding getting involved in the infrastructure build and sustainment as it might go forward in the years to come. So a very strong platform for the business going forward. Infrastructure. We continue to do a good job and we know we'll get accreditations up higher. And in the maintenance division we now feel we have strong platforms for growth with both the Port Hedland and the Gladstone facility.
There's a strong pipeline of work in excess of AUD 10 billion worth of pricing opportunities being tracked and the order book standing above AUD 800 million. We feel is in a good position for where we are right now, but look forward to extensive growth as we go forward into late 2025. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Pat. As the quorum is present, I hereby call the meeting to order. We shall now proceed to the business of the AGM. The notice dated 30-9-2024 convening this meeting has been circulated to all members of the company and as they've been in your hands for the required statutory period, I shall take that the notice has been read. Please note that in my capacity as Chairman of the meeting, I have been appointed as a proxy by certain shareholders and I will be voting in accordance with their instructions. The voting of all resolutions to be passed at this AGM will be conducted by poll in accordance with Rule 44 of the Company's Constitution. I as Chairman of the meeting today demand that the poll being taken on all resolutions be tabled at this meeting.
The result of the poll shall be deemed to be the resolution of the meeting at which the poll was demanded. There are proposed 11 ordinary resolutions to be voted on today's meeting. We shall now go through each resolution and shareholders will be given the opportunity to ask questions on each resolution. Before you ask a question, please give your name and if you are a proxy, please state clearly the name of the person or the company you represent. After any questions have been answered, shareholders will have time to cast their votes on resolutions using the online voting system. Please be informed that CitadelCorp has been appointed as scrutineers for the poll demanded at this meeting. I shall now explain the polling procedures.
Shareholders can exercise live voting by casting their votes in real time for each resolution tabled at the meeting via the Computershare meeting platform. For attendees eligible to vote at this meeting, a vote icon will appear on the virtual platform. Select this icon will bring up a list of resolutions and present you with voting options. To cast your vote, simply select one of these options. There is no need to hit the Submit or Enter button as the vote is automatically recorded. You can change your vote up until the time I declare the voting closed. I now declare the voting open on all items of the business. The voting icon will soon appear. Please submit your votes at any time. Shareholders are welcome to ask questions during the meeting.
If you're in the room, you can ask a question by making your way to the floor microphone or as a resolution is read. If you have joined us online, you can submit questions at any time. To submit a written question online, please select the Q and A icon on the top of the Computershare virtual platform. Select the topic your question relates to. Type your question into that text box, then select Send. To ask verbal questions, please follow the instructions written below the broadcast. Please note that although you can submit questions at any time, I will not address them until the relevant time is right in the meeting. Your questions may be moderated or if we receive multiple questions on the topic, they may be consolidated.
Each shareholder is encouraged to have more, not to have more than three questions to give the opportunity for the other shareholders to submit their questions. Where there are substantially similar questions, the company will consolidate such questions. Not all the questions may be individually addressed. The company will endeavor to do our utmost to address all relevant questions. After the allotted time for shareholders to raise the questions, there will be a queue for the final voting, after which the live vote will be closed. Proxy results for each resolution will be displayed on the screen. As we go through each resolution, we shall now proceed to the first item on the agenda, that is, to receive and consider the audited financial statements of Civmec Limited for the financial year ending 30 June 2024, together with the Directors' Report and independent audit reports thereon.
I shall now invite questions on the audited financial statements and the Directors' Report for the record purposes. Please state your name before asking any questions. We note that representatives from Moore Stephens and Moore Australia are here with us today in person and virtually to address any such questions. Thank you for your cooperation. Any questions?
There is no online question relating to this matter.
Thank you. One. We should now proceed to the non-binding ordinary resolution one to consider. Oh, sorry, yeah, yeah, you can just. The microphone is up here.
I'd just like to know, like many other shareholders, can I just introduce myself? My name is Frederick Tan. I'm minority shareholder of the company. Good morning, Chairman, Board of directors and fellow shareholders. Just a question that I think tickling my mind. Now that the company has successfully transitioned to an Australian domiciled company, I'm just wondering whether there will be any changes to the composition of the Board and the AGM proceedings going forward next year. Do you foresee any changes like the AGM will be held in Australia instead of Singapore and also regarding certain compliance issues, you know, that will come with the change in the domicile status. Thank you.
The AGMs will always be held here in Singapore. So there's no real change and the Board is changing. We got the new directors, but essentially under Singaporean law, directors need to change out after every nine years. That rule was brought in, I think about two years ago and it's affected for this year. So yes, we've got the new directors coming. So answer your question. Yep. Thank you very much. No problem. Thank you. We should now proceed to the non-binding ordinary resolution one to consider and adopt the Remuneration Report. Another one. Oh, yeah, sorry, my name is long.
Long-term investor, but short term with the company. I'm amazed at what you guys can do with such complex work. I'm new to this business. Can you share with us what are the critical success factor in our area of business? What are our competitive advantages that make us so successful so far?
Wow. Pat. Pat will give it, give it a shot.
So I think obviously we've, I think the diversification of the business without going too broad. The fact that we operate across public spend and private spend is very important. So we can actually operate in with the private clients like BHP and Rio Tinto, but we also can operate with the Commonwealth and with state governments, etc. And main roads, etc. So I think that's a very important part of it. I think we've, you know, we're from trade backgrounds in some shape or form that we understand exactly how to deliver a project intrinsically, been involved in them from day one. So I think keeping our eye on the ball is very important to successful outcomes on our projects. But then it's really down to relationship. It's good relationship with clients, good relationship with. Because at the end of the day we are a blue collar business.
We need to make sure that that team are working well, and I think we offer a lot of opportunities for people. When they come in, they can work on where else in the world can you be working on a ship, and you can be working on a bridge, and you can be working on a subsea manifold, and you could be building a process plant. There's not too many companies, certainly in Australia, that can offer that wide range. So if you're a young engineer or a young trades person coming through, where else would you want to work? We make sure we look after our people well, try to give them a safe work environment, and ensure that we're building a quality product. So I mean that's, and doing what we promise. I mean that's very important for our clients.
We commit and we actually follow through. So I think that's one of the key. I'm sure everyone tries, but I think it's one of the key differentials in our business that we more than try, we actually do. So I hope that answers your question.
Yep.
Morning, Chairman, Directors. My name is Fong Hong. I'm a shareholder. I'm thinking of the strategic plan that you have for 2030. What kind of CapEx are you looking at to achieve those objectives? Is it similar to, I think 2019? 2020 is about AUD 70 million, right. For per annum, the CapEx. So do we have a number for that?
So at the moment there's a lot of balls in the air in terms of what the government is doing in Henderson for establishing the defence precinct. What they've committed to at the moment is spending AUD 120 million to study the exact requirements, particularly regarding nuclear submarine docking requirements and the like. Out of that, we expect to be involved in those studies, but also we expect that we'll get a clear direction in terms of what we need to do to maintain the rest of the business to service resources and energy and infrastructure clients and what the government's contribution to that would be if we need to establish a new presence further up the road for them to consolidate defence activities where we currently are. Long way of saying don't know just yet.
Okay, okay, all right.
But there's a lot of things happening to be able to clarify that.
Okay, then the second question is about how you all feel about the outlook, because I think the management has mentioned quite a few times about strong tendering activities, but recently I think the order book is not really going up that much. So how do you reconcile this scenario?
I think we haven't been shy about saying for some time that the order book may dip a little bit from where it was when it was over at the AUD 1.1 billion, and that's really around timing of major projects, so internally it's not necessarily a big concern for us. Obviously we want to keep the order book as high as we can all the time, but we do see a plenitude of opportunities, but as I said in presentation, it is around engineering design completion, it is around environmental and heritage approvals and then clients being ready to actually proceed with those projects, but suffice to say, there's more transparency than ever from our clients around the type of work that they want us to get involved in, and as I said, we are definitely considered one of their key contractors.
So they're actually engaging with us much more about what the future looks like. So timing may be a little bit off, but we certainly know that there's a plenitude of work coming down the pipeline. So even if it does decline in this financial year, we do know it'll pop back out of it even without the defence spend and without that defence opportunity. So in the medium to medium term, very confident. Short term, yes, it's going to be hard to keep that replenished.
Okay, then what about the margin that those projects they're going to give? Are they going to be similar to what we have been getting or?
Yeah, I mean, like, look, we tender with the best norms we can of how to do the job. We get the best prices we can on the supply line into those projects. And we put the same markup across all sectors. So I mean obviously some jobs go a little bit better, some goes not perfect. But on average we can expect to see those margins like we've been able to produce for the last couple of years.
Okay, just one last question. The company. I'm just wondering how many analyst coverage there are in Australia right now. And then are you hearing more analysts wanting to cover the company after the redomicile?
There's definitely a significant increase in interest in Australia since we redomiciled. We now have two or three, well, two, we know three and we know there's one or two others are talking to us around supply and coverage as well, so you can expect at least four or five given coverage, but like the investment houses and everything, are very interested in the story, very keen on the business. See us as you know, we were described recently as a gem, so I think we need to ensure that we stay a gem, but I mean right now, yeah, there's a lot of interest in.
All right, thanks.
Thank you. We shall now proceed with the non-binding ordinary resolution to consider and adopt the Remuneration Report for Civmec Limited contained in the Directors' report for the financial year the 30th of June 2024. I now invite questions on the remuneration set out and the Directors' report. Please proceed to the microphone or use the online questioning function if you have any questions.
We do have one online question from Mr. Stephen Mayne. Stephen is asking: Did any of the five main proxy advisors recommend a vote against any of today's resolutions, including on this Remuneration Report?
What?
So Stephen, the answer to that is no. We did not have any of the five main proxy advisors recommend a vote against any of today's resolutions. There are no other online questions.
No questions from the floor. Okay, so we now put the motion to vote by poll. Shall now proceed to the third item on the agenda. That is to approve the appointment of Moore Australia Audit WA and Moore Stephens LLP as joint auditors for the company and to authorize the directors to fix their remuneration. Moore Australia Audit WA and Moore Stephens LLP have provided their written consent to act as company's joint auditors with immediate effect. Are there any questions on the appointment of the joint auditors? Please proceed to the microphone or use the online function if there's any questions.
There are no online questions.
Since there is no questions on the appointment, I now put the motion to vote. We shall now move to the next item on the agenda that is to deal with the re-election of the directors of the company in pursuit of Rule 53 of the Company's Constitution and for the purpose of the ASX Listing Rule 14. I shall now hand over the chair of the meeting to Pat, the CEO of the company to deal with my re-election under Resolution 3.
Thank you Jim. Are there any questions on the re-election of Mr. James Finbarr Fitzgerald as director? Please proceed to the microphone or use the online question function if you have any questions.
We do have one online question. It comes from Mr. Stephen Mayne who asked could the Executive Chair please explain why we are putting all directors up for election?
Under the Singaporean.
Why are we putting up all directors?
Yes, all the directors? Yeah, I think it's all.
Yeah, the all. Why are we putting up all? All A L L.
So because we've just completed the redomicile exercise, this is the first AGM being held for the new Australian Civmec Limited and as a result of that all directors were considered casual appointments until this AGM, and that's why we're being all voted on at this AGM.
We also have a follow-up question from Mr. Stephen Mayne who asks, also, could James address the issue of whether he's open to moving to a conventional governance model by appointing an independent non-executive chair, which is not to suggest his performance is lacking in any way.
Another trick question. I think I'll have to retire, will I? I suppose both Pat and myself, you know we work very, very closely and we pretty well the main founders of the company and when we restructured the company we decided that I'd go as Executive Chair and Pat would be the CEO. So we're pretty hands on. I think most people know us like we're at work every day. We don't step on each other's toes. I really look over the company, give it I suppose strategic direction. Pat looks after the day to day running of the business. I work with the other directors, the independent directors and I think we've got a pretty good team. Well, I think it's good particularly for the company. Over time you know, we see how things pan out.
But presently I think I should probably still say as Executive Chairman. Yep.
I will name shareholder.
Now to the person who asked the question, I would say that so long.
As the share price keep going up.
Please don't rock the boat.
As simple as that. Right. So until the share price start to.
Drop, then I say, Chairman, what's happening? Give you one more chance.
You know, we can't control the share prices.
The only problem I know, it's the performance that delivers. Right. Yeah. So please keep it up.
Thank you.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
There's no more online questions.
Since there has been sufficient time, I now put the motion to vote by poll. I shall now hand over the conduct of the meeting back to the Chairman to continue with the next item on the agenda.
Thanks, Pat. Resolution 4, the agenda relates to the re-election of Mr. Patrick John Tallon as Director. Are there any questions on the re-election of Mr. Patrick John Tallon as the Director? Please proceed to the microphone or use the online questioning function if you've got any questions.
There are no online questions.
There's no questions on the floor. I shall now put the motion to vote by poll. Resolution 5 of the Agenda relates to the re-election of Mr. Kevin James Deery as Director. Are there any questions on the re-election of Mr. Kevin James Deery as a Director? Please proceed to the microphone or use the online questioning function if you've got any questions.
There is no online questions.
Since there are no questions, I put the motion to vote by poll. Resolution 6 of the agenda relates to the election of Mr. Ambrose Law as a director. If Resolution 6 is passed, Mr. Law shall be appointed as an independent non executive Director of the company and Chairman of the Audit and Risks and Conflicts Committee and a member of the Nominating and Remuneration Committees. Are there any questions on the appointment of Mr. Ambrose Law as a Director? Please proceed to the microphone or use the online questioning function if you've got any questions.
We have one online question from Mr. Stephen Mayne who asked, Could new Director Ambrose Law and the Chair comment on the recruitment process that led to his appointment to the Board? Was the headhunter involved and did the full board interview Ambrose and did they interview any other candidates? Did Ambrose know any of our directors before engaging with the recruitment process?
Working backwards, no, we didn't know Ambrose. We did put out a search through the, I suppose, contacts within Singapore and even in Australia. We're putting out searches. Ambrose's name was put forward. We did interview him. All the directors interviewed him and we felt he was a pretty good candidate for it and we're quite excited to have him join us.
We interviewed more than just.
Yeah, we interviewed quite a few people, and Ambrose was selected.
There are no further online questions.
Okay. Since there are no other questions, I now put the motion to vote by poll. Resolution 7 of the Agenda relates to the election of Mr. Ong Beng Hong as a director. If Resolution 7 is passed, Mr. Hong shall be appointed as an Independent Non-Executive Director of the company and the Chair of the Remuneration Committee and a member of the Nominating, Audit, Risk and Conflict Committees. Any questions on the appointment of Mr. Ong Beng Hong as a director? Please proceed to the microphone or use the online questioning function if you've got any questions.
There are no online questions.
Since there was no questions, I now put the motion to vote by poll. Resolution 8 on the agenda relates to the election of Mr. Gary Gray as a director. If Resolution 8 is passed, Mr. Gary Gray shall be appointed as an independent non-executive director of the company and chair of the Nominating Committee and a member of the Audit, Risk and Conflicts, and Remuneration Committees. Are there any questions on the appointment of Mr. Gary Gray as a director? Please proceed to the microphone or use the online questioning function if you've got any questions.
There is one online question from Mr. Stephen Mayne. As a former National Secretary of the Australian Labor Party, could Gary please provide an update on his insights into and connections with the current leadership of the ALP and does he believe that this will assist with Civmec's attempt to navigate the current defence procurement systems and processes being run by the Australian government as a substantial step up as it substantially steps up investment including at Henderson?
Who answers this question?
It's a question to Gary.
Yeah, Gary.
Thank you, Stephen. Yes, I am a former National Secretary of the Labor Party. I'm a former ambassador to Ireland, and I'm a former member of the Board of the Australian Submarine Corporation. Government policy of the day is determined by the government in the interests of our nation and the people of Australia, and I would expect that to continue to be the case. Thank you, Steve.
There's no further online questions.
Since there's no question from the floor, I now put the motion to vote by poll. We now move to the next item agenda and the agenda, and that is to approve the increase in the payment of non-executive director fees of SGD 32,000 Singapore dollars to be in AUD or AUD 400,000 per annum for the financial year ending 30th of June 2025 and to be paid in quarterly arrears. Are there any questions on the increase in the payment of the non-executive director fees? Please proceed to the microphone or use the online question function if you've got any questions.
Questions.
There's no online questions.
Since there's no other question or no questions even from the floor, I now put the motion to vote by poll. We shall now proceed to the next item on the agenda, that is, to consider and pass Resolution 10 relating to the allotment of shares as set out in the notice of this meeting. The full text of the motion is set out in the notice of this meeting in the annual report. Are there any questions on the authority to allot and issue shares? Please proceed to the microphone or use online questioning function if you've got any questions.
There's no online questions.
Since there are no questions and I'll put the motion to vote by poll. We shall now proceed to the seventh item on the agenda, that is, to consider and pass Resolution 11. The full context of the motion is set out on the notice of this meeting circular dated on 30 September 2024. The passing of this resolution is to approve and grant the performance rights to Kevin Deery who is the director of the company under the 2024 Civmec Performance Rights Plan. Are there any questions on Resolution 11? Please proceed to the microphone or use the online questioning function if you've got any questions.
There is one online question from Mr. Stephen Mayne, who asked if the company will be able to make a copy of this webcast available on its website. To answer, as the company secretary: If we're able to archive it through Computershare, we'll make it available on the website as soon as possible.
Thank you, Maureen. Since there is no other question, I now put the motion to vote by poll. Ladies and gentlemen, all the items raised and noticed to this AGM have been properly dealt with and as we've not received any notice to transact any other further business for today's meeting there is nothing to consider under Agenda 8 as there are no further questions, I can now advise that the voting on today there's two further.
Now two further yeah, general business questions. One from Jonathan Sae. Mr. Jonathan is asking if the announcement of the heads of agreements with Luerssen turns into an agreement with Civmec, will the agreement double Civmec's shipbuilding capacity at Henderson?
The arrangement with Luerssen is only about the taking over of the Luerssen Australian company and will entail the completion of the OPV program. It has nothing to do with the Henderson consolidation.
There's one further question from Mr. Stephen Mayne. Mr. Stephen has raised concerns that Australia is currently in the midst of an unprecedented deluge of takeovers. Does the Chair agree that this is a problem for the nation, particularly with a few new floats? And what is the company doing to prevent this?
I don't quite get the question.
Takeovers.
You know, nobody has approached us for a takeover. So I mean, if there was an approach where we're going to have to speak to the shareholders in any event. So you know, everybody was made aware of it.
The last matter is that Mr. Stephen Mayne asked a follow-up question relating to the re-election of Ms. Ong Beng Hong. However, he later retracted it. Stephen, if the question is still valid, you can reach out to us using our investor relations contact, and we'll answer that question accordingly. Thank you. There's no further online questions.
Thank you. Thank you, everybody. I can now advise that the voting on all today's resolutions will soon close. In the meantime, we can confirm if we have received any further online questions relating to this morning's. Nothing there. We close that out. Sorry. Oh, we have one more question here. Chairman. Since the voting meeting has been over. I believe that members who attend this meeting will be interested to know who directors have been appointed. Local directors have been appointed that we would like to know them better, give a summary of their position and background so that they understand a little bit better on the role that they are playing. Thank you. Okay, do you want to go? So Ambrose will just give you a little brief on his past and Beng Hong, I suppose you can.
Good morning.
Ambrose Law.
I am a chartered accountant by training. Have been working in Singapore even though I'm a New Zealander. For the last 30 odd years. I was working in chartered accountant public accounting and after that was in banking and finance. I was the Global Chief Financial Officer for Merrill Lynch and subsequent to that with OCBC as the Bank of Singapore CFO. My role in Civmec will be the Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee and as a member of the Remuneration and Nominating Committee. Yeah, very excited to be on board from preliminary meetings. It's a fantastic company and we're really looking forward to working with the management group. Thank you.
Hi, I'm Beng Hong. I'm a lawyer many, many too many years. I'm the joint managing partner of a medium sized local firm. So I guess I would hopefully contribute some legal expertise or you know, guidance to the company. I will be the chairman of the Nominating Committee. Also a member of the Audit Committee and the Remuneration Committee. And I look forward to working with my fellow independent directors and of course the executive directors to hopefully grow the company to even greater heights. Thank you.
Thank you. Beng Hong, Ambrose, and Gary. I now declare the poll closed. Results will be announced after a short break. Thank you. So we'll probably take about a 10-minute break, I think. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, everybody, and thank you.