Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our 30th Annual General Meeting. My name is Gary Smith, and as Flight Centre Travel Group Board Chairman, I will chair this meeting. Moving on to our official AGM duties, as we have the necessary quorum, I declare the meeting open. This meeting is a hybrid meeting, with shareholders able to attend either in person or online via the Computershare meeting platform. Shareholders online can listen to our live webcast and watch our presentation. They can also ask questions and submit votes online. I'd like to begin today by acknowledging the traditional custodians of country, the Turrbal and the Yugara peoples. We recognize their continuing connection to land, waters, and skies in this place known as Meanjin, now Brisbane, where we meet today. We pay our respects to them, their cultures, and to elders past and present.
As a global business, Flight Centre, of course, operates in many countries, and we pay our respects, as the slide behind me suggests, to people from all of those countries in which we operate. I would now like to introduce directors: John Eales, Graham "Skroo" Turner, Rob Baker, and Colette Garnsey. Our Financial Controller, Adam Campbell, and Company Secretary, David Smith. Unfortunately, Director Kirsty Rankin is unwell and unable to be here in person today, but she is dialed in and listening, so sorry you could not be here with us, Kirsty. We are also joined today by various senior executives representing many of our divisions, businesses, and disciplines. Finally, our auditor, EY, is represented today by audit partners, Alison de Groot and Amy Cinquini. Given this is a hybrid meeting, there are a few matters I need to run through.
Only shareholder representatives and attorneys of shareholders and proxy holders who are attending in person today, and holding blue admission cards and those attending online, are entitled to ask questions or vote during this meeting. For attendees attending in person to ask a question, you'll need to raise your hand when I invite questions at the appropriate time. Online attendees can submit questions at any time by selecting the Q&A icon on your device. Select the topic your question relates to from the drop-down box, then type your question and press the send button. Online attendees can also ask verbal questions by following the instructions written below the broadcast window. Although online shareholders can submit questions at any time, I will address those questions only at the relevant time during the meeting. If we receive multiple similar questions on any topic, we will try to group them together.
I will ask Haydn, our moderator, to read out the questions at the appropriate time. Voting today will be conducted by a poll on all items of business, and I will open the voting shortly. For attendees present in person, on the reverse of your blue admission card is your voting paper and instructions. You will need to follow the instructions, mark a box beside the motion on the voting paper to indicate how you wish to cast your vote, and then lodge it in the ballot box before voting closes. Proxy holders here in person have attached to their blue admission cards a summary of their proxy votes, which detail their voting instructions. By completing the voting paper, you will be deemed to have voted in accordance with those instructions.
Proxy holders who are entitled to cast any open votes will need to mark a box beside the motion to indicate how you wish to cast your open votes. For attendees online, a polling icon will appear on your device when voting opens. Clicking on the icon will bring up a list of the motions and present you with voting options. You simply select one of the options for the relevant motion to cast your vote. There is no need to hit a submit or enter button, as the vote is automatically recorded. You may change your vote at any time up until I declare the voting closed. All attendees, whether online or in person, may submit votes at any time from when voting opens until I declare that voting has closed.
Finally, I appoint Lewis Brimelow of Computershare to be the returning officer and to conduct the poll for this meeting. I now declare voting open on all items of business. We will start today's meeting with the Chairman's address, after which I'll invite Skroo to address the meeting in relation to our plans and prospects for financial year 2026. We will then move to the formal business for the meeting before finishing with general questions for shareholders. I will now proceed to the Chairman's address. The 2025 fiscal year presented challenges, but it also highlighted the resilience and strength of our company. Despite market turbulence, we achieved year-on-year total transaction value growth for the 26th time in our 30 years as a listed entity, again opening up the world for those who want to see and reaffirming our brands and customer propositions' enduring appeal.
While underlying profit before tax of AUD 289.1 million fell short of our expectations, a disappointing outcome for us and our shareholders, we have taken decisive steps to position the company for renewed growth in TTV and profit in financial year 2026 and beyond. Overall, we remain very confident in our future growth prospects and our ability to create shareholder value, given the diversity of our brand portfolio, which includes leading global businesses in both the leisure and corporate sectors. Our track record of delivering year-on-year TTV growth, which means our business value propositions continue to resonate strongly with customers. The strategies that are in place to boost productivity and efficiency and thereby drive stronger net margin and bottom line growth. Our strong balance sheet and cash flow, which gives us flexibility to invest in growth and capital management initiatives.
Our people, led by a very experienced senior executive team, with a laser focus on returning our business to a profit growth trajectory during financial year 2026. We're also seeing positive signs in early financial year 2026 trading, which is something that Skroo will talk about in greater detail shortly. I'd like to touch on a few highlights from the year. Looking beyond financial results, I'd like to highlight some of our notable achievements. As illustrated on this slide, we invested circa AUD 450 million in capital management initiatives. Since year-end, we've also declared and paid a AUD 0.29 per share fully franked financial year 2025 final dividend, taking total payments for the year to AUD 0.40 per share in line with financial year 2024. We've continued to buy back issued capital on market. We've now spent about AUD 110 million buying back about AUD 8.6 million shares.
We've issued a new, longer-dated AUD 450 million convertible note, which has given us the capacity to buy back the 2028 notes in their entirety and to reduce the 2027 notes face value. We view our convertible notes as debt instruments and intend to continually actively manage them, and our capital base to reduce the potential dilution in earnings per share. We continue to invest in growth sectors and innovation. For example, we acquired Cruise Club in the U.K. to expand our My Cruise package holiday business internationally, following the successful growth of our business in Australia. Cruise Club's results look promising, with October TTV increasing about 70% year-on-year. Our investment in the luxury leisure sector has also delivered solid returns with Scott Dunn, the business we acquired in January 2023. It's performing very well and started our financial year 2026 promisingly ahead of its peak second half profit periods.
You can see where these relatively new additions fit into our global leisure network on this slide. While we've not made any additions to our corporate brand stable, we have seen pleasing and promising growth from two specialist businesses that operate under the Corporate Traveller and FCM banners: Stage & Screen and FCM Meetings & Events, respectively. Both segments are large, require specialist expertise, and deliver higher margins than transient business travel, in addition to giving us access to larger, addressable markets. Our corporate brand stable is illustrated on this slide. Group-wide, we've made significant customer experience enhancements by developing a new leisure loyalty program, which is set to launch later in the first half, and upgrading technology for leisure and corporate customers, and leveraging AI for personalisation, dynamic pricing, and operational efficiency. Skroo will talk more to that in his address.
While AI presents us with an opportunity, it does, of course, also represent a threat. As competitive customer offerings emerge, we're very cognizant of this and are working diligently to combat these competitive threats and offerings globally as they arise. I'd like to talk about sustainability and our people. Our commitment to sustainability and our people remains unwavering. The initiatives we are pursuing reflect our belief in contributing positively to the planet and creating a brightness of future for our people. In recent years, we've prioritized reforestation, and through the Flight Centre Planning for the Planet program, which we offered to our customers as part of the Captain's Pack, we've now committed to planting more than 2.7 million trees globally. More than committing, we've actually been successful in planting a significant number of those trees.
A really important part of that program is the social impact that that program is having on communities, and we've seen that personally. It's really quite special. Travel Associates is also supporting a project in Fiji that aims to restore native forests, improve food security, and support local livelihoods. The most satisfying and important investments we make in any given year are in developing and supporting our people. We believe very strongly in providing our people with a brightness of future, a path towards achieving their career and personal goals, which encompass crucial areas like training, learning and development, and personal and financial health and wellness. This is backed by a commitment to promotion from within our ranks wherever possible. During financial year 2025, 34% of our vacancies globally were filled by internal candidates. That's a statistic we're very proud of.
The next two slides show our global brand footprint. The geographical footprint means that our people also have the opportunity to further their careers with us internationally, and a number of people in the room today have done just that. We're also proud of the unique and long-standing benefits programs that are in place and are currently working to reinvigorate the money-wise, which is financial planning, the health-wise, health and fitness, and travel-wise offerings. Travel-wise, obviously, being travel. Those offerings post-pandemic are made to ensure our people have better access to these valuable services globally. During financial year 2025, we moved to modernise and globalise our broader people and culture infrastructure by implementing the Workday Human Capital Management system to gain real-time workforce insights. On behalf of our board, I'd like to again thank our people for their efforts during what was a reasonably challenging year.
I'd also like to thank the directors for their contributions. We have a relatively small board of six with five non-executive directors, including Rob, John, and myself, who all have long tenure. We value this stability, particularly during the very turbulent times we recently saw. We also recognise the need for renewal and fresh perspectives to ensure the board continues to evolve to best support our businesses in a rapidly changing global trading environment. Accordingly, the board has started a director search process that will lead to changes in the near term. On a personal note, I'm conscious that my independence has been questioned by some, given my length of tenure. As announced previously, the board is satisfied that I remain independent, but has taken proactive steps to manage any future perceived conflicts should they arise. We have done that in appointing Colette Garnsey as lead independent director.
This appointment provides a formal mechanism for Colette to step in as Chair if a situation arises whereby my independence is questioned. Colette will do that later today when shareholders are asked to vote on my re-election as a director. In conclusion, I would like to thank you, our valued shareholders, for your continued support. Together, we're building a more resilient, innovative, and profitable future. Early financial year 2026 trading is very encouraging, and we're optimistic in relation to our outlook. With a strong balance sheet, global brand portfolio, and strategies focused on efficiency and innovation, we're confident to return to profit growth trajectory and delivering stronger shareholder returns. I'd like to now invite Skroo to address the meeting.
Thank you, Gary. You obviously read that pretty well. Much bigger print than I've got, you notice. Anyway. No, I'm right. Good morning, everyone. Thanks, Gary.
As we look ahead to financial year 2026, I'd like to share why we believe this will be a year of renewed growth and opportunity for our company. Re-establishing our credentials as a growth business is certainly a priority after our disappointing 2025 financial year. Our fundamentals, however, remain strong, arguably stronger than ever, and we expect to return to profit growth this year. Now, we're a diverse global business. We've worked hard to transform our business divisions and streamline our support structures to create a more productive company with a lower cost base and stronger fundamentals. Today, we operate across four regions: Australia, New Zealand, the Americas, Asia, which obviously includes India, and U.K., Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Globally, we're also structured in four divisions, with large-scale leisure and corporate operations, a global supply, procurement, and distribution arm, and a centralised Global Business Services, or GBS, area.
In addition, we have a small stable of emerging, or what we call Horizon 3 businesses, which is in the touring, DMCs, Air Charter, and the Pedal Group in bikes. They sit within the supply division at this stage. Our global footprint and diversified portfolio, which are highlighted on this TTV contribution slide, are key growth factors and a major advantage. We're not overly reliant on one sector. We can share resources, capitalize on synergies, and leverage supply relationships to deliver better outcomes. Our financial year 2025 results have been widely reported and have been summarized on this slide. I don't intend to run through them in detail today. Instead, I'll provide a bit of color around the factors that impacted our performance. Firstly, leisure trading conditions were challenging. Middle East tensions and a downturn in travel to the United States.
I'm not sure what the reason was there, but it did hit our business hard during this all-important fourth quarter. In Australia, we saw a shift to shorter-haul international destinations, with Japan overtaking the U.S. and U.K. to become our most popular overseas location behind New Zealand. Secondly, corporate profit was below expectations. This was largely due to the Asian losses flowing from system changes and customer downsizing that we outlined during the year. Thirdly, supplier super override income decreased significantly group-wide because of lower TTV growth in core leisure and corporate brands, as we have outlined previously. Finally, we invested in future growth drivers, including digital enhancements, the cruise sector, and TP Connects. These impacted short-term profits but should help drive stronger future returns.
Our TP Connects investment is significant and is geared towards ensuring we capitalise on opportunities flowing from the airlines' adoption of New Distribution Capability, or NDC. This is gradually increasing, and now it's above 50% with some key carriers. Now, despite a challenging trading environment, our corporate division achieved record TTV of AUD 12.3 billion and underlying profit of AUD 190 million in 2025. Excluding Asia's financial year 2025 losses and its 2024 profit, the business delivered a 6% profit growth. Corporate Traveller is set to join FCM and Flight Centre as AUD 5 billion per year TTV businesses during this financial year. Its recent growth in the large but competitive U.S. market is very encouraging, with 2025 second half TTV increasing by 12% and by 16% over the financial year 2026 first quarter.
New products are also being deployed for Corporate Traveller, including a payment and expense solution, and MEL, an AI-powered travel assistant that I'll talk about shortly. FCM is also well placed for growth after securing contracted accounts with projected annual spends of about AUD 1.3 billion in 2025 and developing and deploying new tools and technologies, and increasing its addressable markets through new services, including the expanded global meetings and events offering that Gary mentioned just before. Asia's financial year 2025 losses obscured the tangible benefits flowing from Corporate's Productive Operations project, an ongoing initiative designed to enhance the customer experience and drive efficiencies. For example, TTV per full-time employee increased by 13% in the two years since Productive Operations was initiated and grew again during the 2025 first quarter, sorry, the 2026 first quarter.
We've seen significant growth in adoption of our digital products with Melon, Corporate Traveller's proprietary booking platform in the northern hemisphere, recording more than 60% growth in monthly transactions in October 2025 compared to October 2024, and helping to drive the strong growth we're seeing in the Americas. Leisure delivered AUD 11.8 billion TTV in 2025, and that was up 6.7% year-on-year, with AUD 175 million underlying profit before tax. Underlying profit was 5.3% down year-on-year, but about 35% above the period immediately before COVID. Highlights from 2025 for leisure include productivity gains. The business achieved 86% of its record financial year 2019 TTV, with only 42% of its financial year 2019 workforce. Scalable channels, the independent agents and online contributed about AUD 4 billion in TTV, albeit at a low margin. Thirdly, solid growth in specialist brands.
Examples include Travel Money's 31% TTV growth to AUD 1.2 billion and Ignite Travel's 20% growth to AUD 455 million, as well as cruise and tour sales increased about 20% year-on-year. The reintroduced Cruise About network in Australia and Cruise Club acquisition in the U.K. contributed to this growth, but collectively incurred about AUD 5 million in losses while we invested to ready both businesses for meaningful future profit contributions. The first fourth quarter challenges we encountered overshadowed the progress made earlier in 2025 when our New Look leisure business was tracking towards a year of profit growth. I say New Look because I think people sometimes forget that leisure has undergone one of the most significant structural resets in our history. The business has transformed from a large bricks-and-mortar network of 1,500 outlets pre-COVID down to 590 now.
It has transformed into a diversified capital-light ecosystem with scalable volume growth, access to high-margin categories, and a future blueprint incorporating AI and loyalty. Our new loyalty program, which is set to launch later this month, is an exciting opportunity and will create new engines of growth, rewarding customers, unlocking supplier value, and driving personalization. Scaling this new business is a leisure strategic priority this year, along with growing top and bottom line results in the core Flight Centre brand and doubling down on high-growth as well as high-margin businesses. We are taking decisive action to manage short-term challenges while positioning the business for sustainable long-term success. Our strategies focus on four key pillars. One, cost discipline and capital efficiency, specifically targeting to hold underlying costs broadly in line with 2025 and reducing CapEx by 15%-20% while prioritizing high-impact initiatives.
Secondly, portfolio optimisation, closing, repositioning, or divesting non-core or underperforming businesses to sharpen focus on our growth areas. Thirdly, our margin and supplier leverage, strengthening supplier relationships to capture emerging travel trends and optimise margins. Fourthly, growth investments, accelerating initiatives on AI, loyalty programs, and high-performing sectors such as cruise, tours, and corporate meetings and events. Additional benefits are expected in the 2026 second half financial year from Global Business Services, or GBS, their efficiency programs, which aim to reduce costs across support areas with a committed monthly cost base currently of approximately AUD 20 million. These actions will not only help near-term performance but also create a stronger, more agile business capable of capitalising on future opportunities. AI has the potential also to transform our industry, and we are embracing it.
We're embracing it through partnerships with Quantium and Anthropic, and we are embedding AI in customer service and operations, delivering measurable benefits to our customers and our teams. Our Corporate's Productive Operations initiative is using AI to route inbound requests more intelligently to consultants, in addition to enhancing CX, the customer experience. This capability has assessed about 6.5 million requests with some 64,000 full-time equivalent hours saved. FCM's SAM product has been upgraded with identic AI, enabling it to act as a virtual travel assistant that answers questions and completes tasks autonomously. Corporate Traveller now has a similar product, MEL, which is available to our northern hemisphere customers via Melon and to our southern hemisphere people via Workspace. MEL leverages decades of expertise and rich data to deliver a smarter, more personalised experience while keeping human service at the core.
The leisure business is also infusing AI capability into the customer journey, as outlined on this slide. The initiatives that are underway broadly fall into five categories and include trials of co-consulting and next best action programs that are currently being trialed in Australia in conjunction with Anthropic and Quantium, respectively. Our trading update, outlook, and guidance. The 2026 financial year is off to a positive start with first quarter results and preliminary October trading data confirming momentum across both corporate and leisure segments. Corporate is strong, with FCM securing a pipeline of account wins, totaling almost AUD 400 million so far. Asia returning to modest profitability and the business globally delivering further productivity gains. First quarter TTV increased almost 7% with a 5% average FTE reduction.
Leisure TTV is also growing at a healthy rate, but the temporary travel pattern shifts that emerged late last year continue to impact year-on-year profit comparisons, which is in line with our expectations. We are, however, starting to see signs of recovery, which is a positive signal ahead of our peak second half trading period. Bookings from Australia to the U.S. increased in October 2025 for the first time since the March quarter, and Flight Centre's Big Red Sale, which finished yesterday in Australia, delivered promising results ahead of the upcoming Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Travel Tuesday sales. For the full year, we're targeting underlying profit before tax of somewhere between AUD 305 million and AUD 340 million, and this is a 5.5%-17.6% uplift on 2025's financial year.
First half earnings are likely to be broadly in line with last year's AUD 119.7 million adjusted underlying profit before tax, as indicated previously, with solid corporate profit growth to be offset by leisure profit decrease, reflecting the more volatile climate early in 2026 compared to the same period in 2025 financial year. Higher net interest costs for the half will also slightly increase the other segment losses. Our profit expectations for the half and full years imply a second half profit skew, which reflects our traditional seasonality. Key profit and booking months are typically during the six months to June 30. This year, we expect various other factors to drive stronger second half results, including: one, the likelihood of a more stable trading climate during key trading periods late in the year, the financial year, compared to the volatile conditions that we encountered during the 2025 fourth quarter.
Secondly, a more significant Asian turnaround, given 2025 losses were second half weighted, and tailwinds from cost-out initiatives that are gaining momentum group-wide and from Productive Operations, which is starting to deliver tangible benefits, as well as, fourthly, margin improvement if we can continue to deliver stronger TTV growth in core brands. While we will again prioritize organic growth and expect to continue with our on-market share buyback, we will consider investing in M&A, mergers, and acquisitions if attractive opportunities arise that are aligned with our strategic objectives and that create shareholder value. Areas of interest could potentially include businesses with: one, technology that enhanced productivity or the customer experience, or two, capability in specialized and rapidly growing leisure or corporate sectors.
As announced previously and consistent with prior years, various items will be excluded from underlying results, including about AUD 20 million gain in the recent Cross Hotels sale, which was our Southeast Asian hotel group. These exclusions are outlined here and are expected to decrease during 2026 and again in 2027 financial year as various initiatives transition into a business-as-usual phase. This includes Productive Operations and the GBS transformation costs, along with the loyalty programs, one-off establishment costs, and start-up phase losses. In conclusion, in just under three weeks on December 1st, we'll celebrate 30 years as a listed company. In our first year, we generated AUD 1 billion in TTV, just under AUD 1 billion, I remember, and AUD 19 million in profit.
Now, to put this into perspective, last year, one emerging brand that you do not hear a lot about, Travel Money, delivered comparable results on its own with AUD 1.2 billion in TTV and an AUD 18 million profit. Our corporate businesses delivered more than 12 times our 1995 TTV and 10 times our profit, and leisure delivered almost 12 times our 1996 TTV and 9 times our profit. Pardon me. Over the same period, we have evolved from a business that was heavily leveraged to a single leisure brand and channel, which was basically Flight Centre Shops, to the world's third-largest corporate travel management company and a major player across multiple leisure categories. This ability to adapt and grow is reflected in our business and geographic diversity, and we believe is among our greatest strengths.
I'm reasonably optimistic about 2026 financial year and the chapters ahead, just as I was 30 years ago. With disciplined cost management, strategic investments, and improving market conditions, we're confident in delivering sustainable growth and stronger returns into the future. Thank you very much.
This is Gary Smith again. Sorry about that. Thanks, Skroo. We'll now move to the meeting's formal business. The notice of meeting has been circulated to all shareholders registered as at the 10th of October 2025, and I'll take that notice of meeting as read. The minutes of the previous annual general meeting, which was held on the 14th of November 2024, were approved by the board and signed by the chair of that general meeting. Minutes are available for inspection at the company's registered address. We now move to the company's reports and accounts.
The financial report, director's report, and the auditor's report have been forwarded to shareholders in the annual report, and they are tabled at this meeting. I'll now invite Colette to chair this meeting while shareholders consider the first item of business for today, which relates to my re-election as a director.
Good morning. As the first item of business is the re-election of Gary Smith as a non-executive director of the company, I will chair this meeting while this resolution is put to the meeting. In accordance with the company's constitution, directors may not hold office past the third AGM following their appointment. This, of course, excludes the managing director. At least one director retires each year and offers themselves for re-election. Accordingly, Gary retires and offers himself for re-election today.
The number of proxies received prior to the meeting should now be showing on the screens, and I invite any questions on this item from shareholders attending the meeting in person today. I believe we have Sarah and Chelsea here who are with microphones, so should shareholders wish to ask a question, put up their hand, and you'll be handed a microphone. There being no questions from shareholders attending in person, I shall ask Haydn if there are any online. Very good. As there are no further questions, please now cast your vote if you have not already done so. Gary will now resume as Chairman of the meeting.
I now move to the next item on the agenda, which is the re-election of Director Kirsty Rankin.
The second item of business is the re-election of Kirsty, and as I explained earlier, unfortunately, she's not able to be with us today, but she is online and listening. So, similar to resolution one, Kirsty Rankin retires and offers herself for re-election today. The number of proxies received prior to the meeting should now be showing on the screen. I now invite any questions on this item from shareholders attending in person today. Once again, Sarah and Chelsea are there with roving mics. So, are there any questions on the re-election of Kirsty? No questions. No questions from shareholders attending in person. Haydn, are there any online questions in relation to this? So, as there are no further questions, please now cast your vote if you have not already done so, and I now move to the next item on the agenda.
Resolution Three is the approval of the grant of long-term incentive plan rights to the Managing Director. Approval is sought, including for the purposes of ASX Listing Rule 10.14, to grant to the Managing Director and Group Chief Executive Officer, Graham Turner, up to 95,804 rights under the long-term incentive plan operated under the company's long-term retention plan and to his acquisition of ordinary shares in the company on the exercise of those rights. Voting exclusions have and will be applied as outlined in the notice of meeting. The number of proxies received prior to the meeting should now be showing on your screens. I now invite any questions on this item from shareholders attending in person today. Are there any questions from the floor? Could you state your name, please, and stand, and we'll get a microphone over to you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. George Bomber is my name. I'm a director of Faircase Proprietary Limited, shareholder. I don't know whether this is in the best interest of all the shareholders. You spent AUD 54 million buying back shares, and now you want to issue more shares. To increase the value of the shares that Mr. Turner has already, we need an increase in profit and dividend to shareholders. You put more shares out, the dividend per share goes down. You bought shares back to bring the dividend per share up. You're repeating the purpose. If he gets fully franked dividends, he has less tax considerations because they're more tax efficient. We have clowns in Canberra that want to introduce an unrealized capital gains tax, now offset against capital losses. Gets these shares, creates capital losses. He's better off to have the share price going up without issuing more shares so that these existing shares aren't underwater like most of ours. Thank you.
Thank you for your question, George. It's a good thing that those, I think you said, referred to them as the clowns in Canberra. At least they backed off that unrealized capital gains move. Watch this space. The proposed LTI for Skroo, basically all it does is brings his pay structure in line with other senior executives. It's not just for him. This is to incentivize them to drive the share price. Exactly what you're saying about having a negative impact, we would argue, hopefully, will have a positive impact. The 30% is a transitionary component. The objection, I guess, most people have made is around the LTRP, which is a long-term retention plan.
That's something we'll be phasing out over time. All benchmarks show that Skroo has paid well below his peers. One example of an analysis of this is CGI Glass, who ran some numbers that suggested he earned about half his market rate in financial year 2025. The board's certainly very comfortable with the value that we receive as a company from Skroo in the role of Managing Director. Thank you for your question. Are there any other questions on? Susan.
Thank you. Good morning. My name's Susan Bailey. I'm a representative of the Australian Shareholders Association, and I have a question regarding the long-term incentive plan. Sorry, I'm just going to page over. The proposed plan for Mr. Turner has a 30% weighting for simply being employed at the time of vesting. As you are our founder and a major shareholder, why do we need to pay part of the LTI based on you being employed at the time?
Thank you, Susan. As I said, the plan is the plan that applies to all senior executives, and Skroo is included along the same terms and conditions as everyone else. That 30% is something that is phasing out. We had a long-term retention plan, which we launched partway through the pandemic, if my memory serves me correctly, and that was all about wanting to keep our good people. That is now something we are phasing out, and that will take a couple more years to phase that out, and it will disappear from the LTI, is our current intention. Are there any other questions on this, Susan?
Thank you. Sorry, one more question too. If the issue is, as following on from the previous questioner, that Skroo is underpaid, then why not boost his base salary and show the benchmarking? STI and LTI are supposed to be incentives and at risk, not to correct an underpaid KMP.
We do not really want to pay him anymore. He is good value, and we take your point. We have actually increased Skroo's remuneration over recent years to better reflect the market, but it is still well short of market. We do recognize the fact that in time, in appointing a new CEO, that remuneration will have to increase further. At this point in time, Skroo is happy with the arrangements we have, and the board is happy to leave those as they currently stand. Any further questions? Let me just move on.
If there are no further questions from shareholders attending in person, I ask Haydn if there are any online questions. Thank you, Haydn. As there are no further questions, please now cast your vote if you have not already done so. I'll now move on to resolution four. The fourth item of business is to approve the issue of convertible notes and to refresh placement capacity. Approval is sought to the ratification for all purposes, including for the purpose of ASX Listing Rule 7.4 of the issue of 2,250 senior unsecured, unsubordinated convertible notes. Voting exclusions have and will be applied as outlined in the notice of meeting. The number of proxies received prior to the meeting should now be showing on your screens. I now invite any questions on this item from shareholders attending in person today. Do we have any questions on that motion? Susan.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question is that there's been a lot of dilution with the shares since COVID. There were 80% more shares issued to get through COVID, and then another 10% issued so far to the end of COVID. Although 2032 might seem quite a way off, might there be a risk of further excessive dilution, which might depress the share price for ordinary shareholders? Thank you.
Thank you for that question. We're very cognizant of that risk, and that's why we've been actively looking to buy back convertible notes when it made economic sense to do so. It's our intention to keep doing that so we don't have any dilution. It's something that's actively being managed. Any further questions on that motion? If there's no further questions from shareholders attending in person, I ask Haydn if there are any online questions.
As there are no further questions, please now cast your vote if you have not already done so. The fifth and final item of business is the adoption of the director's remuneration report as presented in the annual report. It's just a reminder that the key management personnel listed in the annual report and their closely related parties are not permitted to vote on this resolution. The number of proxies received prior to the meeting should now be showing on your screens. I now invite any questions on this item from shareholders attending in person today. Yes, sir.
Good morning, Chairman. Good morning, Board. Good morning, all the shareholders. My name is Roman Kniznikov. I'm representing my personal shareholdings, my company shareholdings, and self-managed super fund. I come all the way from Sydney to share with you my worries and my experience with this company. I would like to start with company share price.
Roman, can I just interrupt, please? This is the motion to discuss the remuneration report. We will move on once we complete that to general questions in general business. If you do not mind, we will pick up your question when we get to that part of the agenda. Is that okay?
Yeah, but this is going to be a fact which way people are going to vote for in the remuneration report.
Can you narrow your comments to the motion at hand, which is the remuneration report?
You do not want people, before they are going to vote, you do not want them to hear what the experience people have with your company.
We have a motion specifically about the remuneration report. If you can narrow your focus of the question in this instance, and then when we come back to general business, you can raise your broader question.
Okay, but I'm not going to vote before we discuss it because we're talking about remuneration report. People need to be paid to do the job. If they're not doing the job properly, they're not supposed to get paid whatever you offer them. Now, with Graham, I was sitting quiet for one reason. He really not paid enough for his position. But according to share price, I will never vote for him to get increase because we are the shareholders losing money. We're losing our company, actually, the way which we're going. I'm happy to wait.
Okay, let's take that comment as noted, and we'll move to, are there any other further questions on the remuneration report?
Thank you, Jay. I'm a long-term shareholder, also a member of Team invest. I'm not speaking on behalf of Team invest. One of the things that we do look at quite closely, though, is the remuneration report. And what I noticed this year is the LTI now has relatively relative total shareholder return. Incentives are meant to direct employees to strive to achieve outcomes the board and shareholders want. Relative or RTSR includes the share price and the performance of other companies, both of which are outside of control of an individual. I mean, share prices are subject to the whim of the market. So, how can an RTSR possibly be considered as an incentive if employees can't control what the factors are? So, will the board please, notwithstanding that vote, remove the relative total shareholder return as an incentive because it's not something the staff can possibly control? Thank you.
Thank you for that comment. There was a lot of consideration made about the design of the new LTI, and the total shareholder return metric is a very commonly used metric in public companies in Australia. I think it's something like 80% of the ASX 100. You've got something further?
In John's lead-up at the start of the remuneration report, it says, "Flight Centre do things differently." That's not different. That's just following the proxy advisors.
That's a fair comment. That's a fair comment.
Yeah, you're not doing anything different.
I guess the logic of that metric is to try and align our executives' focus on driving a positive increase in the share price, and distributions to shareholders are also a part of that. I note your comment that the remuneration report vote is with the meeting, basically.
If there are no further questions, please now cast your vote if you have not already done so. Haydn, we have a question online.
Question, Gary. Given the FY 2026 focus on cost optimisation and productivity gains, how will executive incentives be structured to reward sustainable profit growth rather than short-term cost reductions? That has come from Mr. Joaquim Villareal.
I am going to ask our Chair of the Remuneration Committee to answer that question. John Eales.
Gary, I might actually throw this a bit more to Adam because I think Adam is very integrally involved in the cost aspects of the business. I think just in relation to a couple of the other questions, it's probably worth reflecting on the amount of input we took from a lot of shareholders, but also other advisors in how we prepared the report this year and prepared the structures of the LTI moving forward, taking into consideration how we've done things in the past, but also the fact that when shareholders do well, we want our executives to do well as well. We wanted to align that more. Yes, look, we have always been proud of doing things differently, and we have changed how we've done things this year to align to what we think is a better structure moving forward and adjusting what we had previously done the year before. We're not afraid to change. We do listen, and we do make adjustments there.
Adam, I think from a cost perspective, you'd be better speaking on that.
Yeah, sure. Thanks, John. I think I'll answer the direct question in two ways or two parts. The first, from a cost-out perspective, there is a combination there, certainly of short-term cost mitigation. The second element is restructuring our cost base and establishing the business for the future. The reality is that we need to completely redesign the way that we operate and the operating models for ourselves going forward, and that will feed into ongoing sustainable profitability rather than just short-term. The second element that I'll point out is the STI is based on current year profitability for the group or for specific businesses.
But going back to the new LTI, it does have an EPS component of it over three years, which does mean that our executives are focused not just on the current year, but also on the way that the earnings continue to grow over that three-year period. That's probably my response to that one, John.
Thank you. Any further questions on this motion? As there's no further questions, please now cast your vote if you have not already done so. I'll now move to the next item on the agenda, which is general questions. We'll now address questions and comments submitted on the annual financial report, the director's report, the auditor's report, or the company's management.
Alison de Groot from EY is available to answer questions about the audit's conduct, the audit report's preparation and content, the accounting policies adopted by the company in relation to the financial statements preparation, and the auditor's independence in relation to the auditor's conduct, the audit's conduct. Are there any questions from shareholders attending in person today? Roman. You're more than welcome.
Thank you, Gary. Should I start from beginning or should I continue?
I think you can continue. Okay.
I would like to start with the company share price. It's at level of COVID shutdowns. Let me remind you that during COVID shutdowns, people could not travel to neighborhoods, suburbs, so it is understandable why our share price was so low. Now, when everyone's going overseas, including your legal at the report, the share price should force us to ask questions from our company management, why?
I would like to analyze some changes this company introduced after COVID. Before COVID, this company was matching or even provided better price. This is one of the reasons that I recommended to all my family members, friends, and business partners to use this company for all the travel arrangements. They did. After COVID, all these people stopped using this company because there's no price matching anymore. There are much better deals and services on the internet or smaller offices. Now, I want to share my personal experience with this company that I'm sure this management is not aware of. First, I was introduced to one travel agent who I was told is one of the best agents. I had tried to book a business trip to Europe and then a side trip.
I contacted the agent, and she suggested to meet in her office to discuss the trip. I wasted more than an hour in her office and got nothing. She was wasting my money like garbage. We booked with someone else. Second time, I contacted the same agent with a special package. We asked her to book the package, but she decided that we would not enjoy the package and offered us a different package, four times more expensive. We booked this package with a different agent, and we love our trip. What really upset me is that the agent can't decide on my behalf what I like and what not. This is not her job. After this, we decided not to deal with this agent who wasted our time. We were introduced to another agent. His name is Mark and he's a very good agent, and I highly recommend him.
He booked me a couple of trips, but some segments of the trip we needed to book ourselves because this company was not cost competitive. One of the examples is that we needed one night hotel to catch a flight the next day. I was offered a hotel without transfer and no breakfast. We booked the hotel ourselves with transfer and breakfast, from and to the airport, and breakfast at a quarter of the price that was offered by Mark. Now, I want to raise the biggest problem that this company has. Mark booked us another package that we paid over AUD 7,500. At the resort, we met a group of Chinese tourists who paid AUD 2,000 for the same package. This group came with a Russian—sorry. We met a Russian group who also paid AUD 2,000. This group came with a Russian travel agent from a small office in North Russia.
I asked her how she succeeded to get this package at such a low price, and she explained to me that she negotiated this price and immediately offered me her services. Not enough. She offered her group to visit a number of resorts at this price, so not like us stuck seven days at the same resort, but they could go to visit a couple of neighboring resorts at the same price. We met an English couple who paid around AUD 2,400.
Roman, I think we get the gist of what you're saying. Can we get some comments from—I'll ask Greg to comment on. You've obviously had some service issues where you weren't happy with the price that you were given. You've also commented on the share price. Is that the crux of what your question was going to be?
Yes.
Can I ask Greg to respond to those two points?
Yeah, look, I'm not close enough to it, but I know Roman does have my mobile, so he's going to complain directly to me next time. I think we should hand this over to JK as the most senior leisure person in the room to actually answer Roman's queries. JK, why are you not priced correctly?
Thank you for that, Greg. Thank you for the feedback. I'm really sorry to hear of your experience like that, but we would love to talk to you personally one-on-one so we can really address those needs. It's clear that we haven't met your needs, and we'd love to make sure that we can actually sort them out for next time. Thank you.
As far as the share price, we're all very, very focused on improving profitability and growth in TTV, and growth in profit is what's going to drive that share price. There's a lot of innovation happening in the company, which you've heard about today. We would be quite confident that we'll see strong improvement in the coming 12 months. Are there any further questions?
Yeah, thanks. Ray, lots of back again. More, just about trying to understand what the company's doing, etc. Earlier this year, I came across a little story that said Infinity Holidays shifts a number of roles to New Zealand. What's the story with Infinity Holidays' business and its future potential?
Skroo, would you like to pick that up, or do you want JK to talk to that as well?
Yeah, Greg.
Greg Parker is the head of supply for Flight Centre Travel Group, one of our four divisions.
Yeah, Infinity Holidays is our B2B offering where a lot of hotel product and air products actually sold to a lot of packages. We made a decision over the COVID period to close Infinity Holidays in Australia, predominantly because we are changing tech systems. Instead of having our consultants having to pick up the phone and call someone to do an admin function, we deployed an online booking system, which meant our consultants could actually do it in store. It improved the customer experience. We did bring Infinity Holidays back in the New Zealand market over that period. We did not make the same change. All we have been looking at now is an ANZAC approach across Australia and New Zealand.
We moved a lot of the roles that we currently had in Australia across to ANZ because it was a cheaper cost base to be able to do it. There is a huge opportunity for Infinity to actually expand the footprint, not just with our independent business in Envoyage, but also externally to sell our product to other agents in this market as well. We have some really solid plans in place over FY 2026 and beyond to grow that business.
Thanks. That leads to the second question. How much of a drag on that target of 2% impact, which has been around for some time, is the lower margin Envoyage business? I am assuming it is quite a bit lower margin.
Yeah, yeah, it is. I would throw that to Adam. If you could speak to that, Adam.
Yeah, sure, Gary.
Look, I think one of the biggest drags that we have on that 2% margin target is the lower margin businesses. Envoyage is one of those. We've got other very successful and profitable businesses such as FCM, Travel Money, who are lower margin but still bring in very good profitability for us. We don't want to turn away from those. We think that they're a very important part of our infrastructure and our house of brands. I think it's important that we have them there, but they are certainly a drag on that. If you look at some of our other brands like Corporate Traveller, like Flight Centre Brand, Travel Associates, they're all operating well above that 2% mark on average.
It's just the nature of it, unfortunately, that we've seen, or fortunately, we've seen top-line growth in some of those lower margin businesses exceeding the higher margin businesses over the last couple of years. It's interesting. I mean, I think, as I say, we still see that, though, while they're lower margin, those businesses are still really important to us. We are absolutely focused on trying to improve the margin in those businesses. Travel Money is a prime example where we do a lot of wholesaling now, and that's allowed us to increase the margin just in the last 12 to 18 months. We're focused on increasing margin in those businesses. Whilst they're profitable, they're bringing in actual profit for us.
We're not going to turn away from that, both because of that profitability, but importantly, that's the way that our customers want to interact with us as well. We need to give that offering to them.
George, sorry.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is currently a business travel organization which is delisted at the moment on the stock exchange. Does this create more opportunity for you people to move into the business area? I speak to my stockbroker who tells me that he has to book with these people and pay four or five times as much for the travel and all the arrangements because this is the corporate structure. It would appear that it is quite a profitable area that maybe they've been doing some things wrong, that they've been investigated and were supposed to be back several months ago, and it's still off.
I think that it leads to an excellent opportunity there. I would like to know what steps you're taking to fill that gap. Thank you.
Thanks for your question, George. Yes, we're obviously aware of that company. It's Brisbane-based. The issues that it's resolving are accounting-related issues as we understand it. We only know what we've read in the media. As far as their core business, it continues on. Whether this adverse publicity is having an adverse effect on their business, I actually don't know. I could ask Tom Wolley, who heads our Corporate Traveller brand, which is having an amazing current year and last year. Corporate Traveller is more the SME-sized businesses that we specialize in. That particular company, we would come up against them.
Tom might be able to give some informed comment about that if we can have a microphone for Tom.
Hello. Yeah, look, obviously, this company we're all aware of, it does tend to play in a larger market space, more in the FCM world, which is headed up by Melissa, who's not with us today. It has presented some opportunity. They're always a worthy rival. We come up against them fairly regularly. It's not something that we're not in the business of particularly badmouthing our competition. We present our offers. Companies like them or do not like them, but certainly, some businesses come our way over the last few months, and I expect they probably will continue to do so as that evolves.
Thank you, Tom. Roman.
May I just ask a couple of questions which I wanted before you'll rudely interrupt me?
Sure.
My first question to management: why can a small travel agency negotiate packages when we, the biggest company in Australia, cannot negotiate it? It's question number one.
Okay, let's take them one at a time. Skroo, would you like to handle that, or was that one for Greg?
Yeah, it probably is one for Greg. I think one of the things is we've got a number of brands that do packages. For example, My Cruise or My Holidays that are very competitive, and I'd be very surprised if they can be beaten on the market generally. Greg, do you want to have a—
I think that's a good summation, actually, Skroo. What we've done in global supply over the last couple of years is to consolidate our footprint.
We did a lot of procurement in individual regions and individual countries, and now we're grabbing all that content and sharing that content to any of our selling brands in leisure and corporate. Back to Skroo's comment, I mean, in terms of negotiating packages, that's what gets us out of bed every morning. Whether it be air, hotel, cruise, tour, insurance, we are very much across getting best available market prices. If there's any specifics, obviously, you've got some contacts, and we can chat through that a little bit later.
Thanks, Greg.
Again, unfortunately, I can't see it. As I provided in my comments, there's a huge gap difference between the same package for different—
I think, Roman, what we really need to be able to answer the question properly is the detail around what you had. As Skroo said, you've got his number, so you can call him, and he can get someone to look at it.
My second question: why does management prefer to lose paying customers than to cut our commission and get to customer? Why waste millions of dollars for useless and misleading ads?
Sorry, I don't understand your question. Can you just frame it again for me?
If customer comes with a different quote, like before COVID, any quote that you bring to customer, customer brings to agent, we will match it or beat it. Not happening anymore. We're losing the customers who come, like myself, with a written quote, and the agent tells me, "Sorry, I can't match it."
Okay. Skroo, would you comment on that?
I think, Roman, this is about the lowest price, lowest airfares guarantee type thing that we used to have years ago.
I suppose it's pretty much with flights now, the margins are relatively small. If you get NDC, and we're getting a lot better at distributing next-generation distribution fares, particularly on airlines like Qantas and Singapore, you will generally get through our shops at least the same price as the airline prices. We certainly don't have the margin that we used to have when we had that lowest airfares guarantee. Our prices should be competitive. Do you want to talk about that, JK?
Just to clarify a few things, because there are many factors that will affect pricing, particularly around fares and packages that are sourced from different markets. If you meet people and they're traveling from all parts of the world, you can often get different pricing that is set from different locations.
In terms of our offering, where we can beat the price, we will absolutely beat the price. It's a rare occasion that we don't beat the price in those examples because a lot of what we do now, we check to make sure when we're putting pricing out there, what is the competition doing? Is our pricing in market? I believe that we're offering a great price and a great service, and I've got a high degree of confidence in this, largely because of the amount of customers that are coming back time and time again, the amount of customers that are rating our net promoter score really, really strongly. There is a huge percentage of the population that are backing and returning time and time again.
It is clear we do—I would love to speak with you outside so we can actually go deep into some of the detail, as Gary has said.
Thank you, JK.
Thank you. But 400%, I think it is a little bit not small.
Okay, I think it is a good opportunity to talk to—
Last question.
Thank you. Yes.
Many companies doing AGM, like national companies like ours, which are dealing all over Australia, doing AGM every year in different locations. Why are you guys all the time only doing it here in Brisbane?
That is a good question. We always have. Largely, it is probably from a cost perspective to some extent. We have a number of shareholders in the room who work for the company, and it is great to have them here today. That is something we can take on board.
I think it tends to be the big mining companies and the banks that seem to rotate around the country. That is something we have not entertained.
I can give you more, but again, thank you very much.
Thank you, Roman. Are there any further questions from the floor? Yes.
Eric Hammond, shareholder. We have got the Olympic Games coming in about six years' time. What is the company proposing to do to take advantage of the increased number of people that might be visiting Australia at that time?
Let us hope we are ready for them. Skroo, would you like to answer that?
Yeah. Look, obviously, there are a lot of opportunities, and we are talking with the government on some of the things that we can participate in. The main thing is probably whether the infrastructure gets built. There is a lot of focus on that.
From our point of view, as you say, we've got six years to work out what sort of programs and that, particularly from the overseas, particularly from our northern hemisphere businesses, how we can promote them into Australia during that period. I think the Queensland government, in particular, is aware that this is a great opportunity to promote Queensland, particularly to North America and U.K., Europe. We'll certainly be helping them with that, with packages and other opportunities there. From my point of view, I just hope I'm still alive, of course. Six years are a fucking long time.
A follow-up question, Eric?
Have you thought of any mergers and acquisitions? There seems to be going to be a distinct shortage of accommodation at that time. Have you thought of any advantages of taking advantage of any mergers and acquisitions for any companies that you might be involved with?
Yeah, good point. I think the government is, or authorities generally, are feeling that we're not only Brisbane, Brisbane North Coast, South Coast, Gold Coast, we're going to be reasonably short of accommodation. We're not really into the owning accommodation, but we'll be certainly encouraging any of the major operators of hotels and that to grow and to support them wherever we can. We won't be directly investing, as far as I know, into growing accommodation. As you know, it's going to be—there's going to be issues with the amount of accommodation within easy distance of Brisbane during that time. At least the rowing looks like it's going to Rockhampton, so it'll be—rowing will be right. People interested in that.
I don't know when the last time you stayed in a hotel in Rockhampton was, but they probably need new accommodation there, I would think. That's no disrespect to anyone from Rockhampton. Yes, sir.
Leading on from that, will you be sponsoring the cycling at all, Graham?
Can I answer that question?
No.
Are there any further questions from the floor? No. So, Haydn, are there any questions from shareholders attending online?
We've got four questions online. Three from Steven Main and one from Michael Friend, who I think might be the Mike Friend that used to work for us. We might do Mike's question first and then Steven's in a bunch if that suits. Mike's question is, what is the outlook on air overrides for this financial year? Are airlines coming back to Flight Centre with better contracts?
Is the TTV growth sufficient to see a material increase in air overrides this year? He suggested that Greg answers it, which makes me think it probably is our Mike Friend.
I think that's highly likely.
Yeah, thanks, Michael. Some things don't change. Yeah, as Skroo and Gary addressed in a lot of our commentary, there were some challenges last year with the air overrides, particularly with the high vol—well, the TTV growth. By not achieving TTV growth across the businesses globally or the level that we wanted, it means that you achieve entry-level super overrides on a lot of the air agreements. We work very, very hard to see how we make more margin off the existing business that we have.
One of the important ways that was mentioned with TP Connects and NDC and embracing new distribution capability with carriers is accessing cheaper price points for our customers, but also cheaper price points to be able to make sure that the returns actually improve as a group. We get some really good penetration rates with NDC at the moment. We're north of 50% on a few carriers. I think globally across the group, we're sort of averaging somewhere between 12%-15% of overall bookings on NDC, and that's accelerating. Mike, to answer your question leading into air overrides into next year, we're actually quite optimistic. The structure of the deals are quite good, and that's across all our suite of carriers. We don't see any major things coming that we haven't sort of thought through.
The opportunity now is to get growth to fuel those contracts so we can get improvement in overrides in FY 2026.
Thanks, Greg. Haydn, the first of Steven Main's questions, please.
Quite a long question. I'm going to have to take a breath in the middle of this one. The latest ASIC report summarizing net short positions across the ASX 300 shows that almost 11% of the total shares on issue are currently sold short, which makes us one of the 20 most heavily shorted stocks on the ASX. Do you know which of our institutional shareholders are lending their shares to short sellers? Could the CEO confirm that he is not lending his stock to short sellers? Do we know the identity of the short sellers? Have we observed any tactics by the short sellers to try and drive the share price lower? How are we generally handling the overall situation?
I'll ask Adam to talk to that, and Skroo can very easily answer the component of the question related to him.
Thanks, Gary. First of all, I will note that we've previously had much higher rates in terms of short stock. I think from our perspective, the very best way to deal with short sellers, noting that they're just a part of the market, you have people who are long on your stock, you have people who are short on your stock. The best way to deal with short sellers is to deliver on profitability in the current year, and also to educate the market more broadly about the longer-term strategies and the longer-term story about why you are going to be a successful company, not just in 2026, but in 2030, 2035, and beyond.
That is what we are very focused on in terms of short sellers. We think that they are a part of the market, whether you like them or not, and our best way to deal with them is through those mechanisms. Skroo, there was one specifically on whether you had lent your stock out.
Yeah, no, certainly we have not at all lent stock to short sellers. And as far as I know, nor have the other founders, Bill James and Jeff Harris, but I cannot exactly speak for them, but I am pretty sure they have not either.
Hayden, the next question from Steven.
Steven's next question. How many full-time equivalent staff do we currently have? And is this likely to fall over the coming 12 months with the rapid rollout of AI? Which parts of the business and operations are the most prospective for AI productivity gains, and how energetically are we embracing those opportunities? Let me know if you need me to recap on any of those.
I think I might get JK to speak from a leisure perspective, and maybe Adam can talk too from a general perspective.
While Mike's coming up, JK, let me just start by saying we've got about 12,400 FTEs at the end of June. That's down about 100 from 12 months previously. Some of that is actually to do with productivity gains that we've seen, particularly through the corporate business and some of the global business services area as well. I'll just point out before handing over to JK two things to note about the company when we're talking about this. The first is that we are very much a people-orientated company.
We have, as many of you know, core philosophies and values and people, our people is the number one of those, and we actually live and breathe that and do not just use it as a catch cry. We will always be a people-first organization, but we will use AI as an enabler of our strategies, with no doubt at all. The second one is that we are a growth business, and historically, that growth at a top line has come with growth in our people and our FTEs. If we are able to use AI to contain some of that growth as our top line in people numbers as top line grows, then I think we will be successful in utilizing AI as an enabler. JK, specifically for leisure in particular, any thoughts on that?
Yeah, thank you, Adam.
Firstly, I think it's an exciting opportunity, and there's not a business on the planet that's not going to be disrupted in some way, shape, or another. How we are thinking about it is from three different lenses. Firstly, it's about personal effectiveness as to what does it mean for every individual within our organization. We've been setting our people up with the right skill set, the right tools to enable them to perform in a better way. Secondly, we look at it around business efficiency and productivity, which Adam touched on. A lot of these come with investments in the early stage, and it's too early to call what sort of savings will we see in that space.
You will see with rising costs of technology, rising costs of a number of different areas, our objective is to try and hold those costs as lean as we possibly can, and that boosts efficiency in our business. The third part that we think about is the customer journey. We analyze every step of that journey to see how we can infuse AI in that experience to work with our people and lift the experience overall. There are a number of different initiatives going on. Some of them are revenue-generating focus initiatives, and some of them are cost-saving focus initiatives. We will know in time, and we will be happy to report this journey, as you can see in our investment packs. Every review that we talk about now, you will see our journey with AI because it is not a one-hit.
It's basically a journey that we are going on, and I'm quite excited to see the benefit that it will deliver to our company overall.
Thank you, JK. Haydn, there was one more from Steven.
Yeah, correct, Gary. Thank you for disclosing the headcount data with the poll results of the last two AGMs. The 2023 annual report said we had 92,000 shareholders, roughly, and only 845 voted. In 2024, we were down to 80,000 shareholders with only 678 participating in the AGM voting. This year, the annual report says we have 75,000 shareholders. Has the turnout remained below 1% this year, and will you disclose the turnout again in the poll results and further to that? Do you think the continuing low turnout is partly because of the move away from paper to online communication after the pandemic?
I think I could bundle all that up into one word answer, which is yes. Is there anything specifically that that does not cover?
No, I think that pretty much covers it.
It is worth noting, pre-pandemic, we had 22,000 shareholders. During the pandemic, with the capital raisings that we unfortunately had no choice in doing, that is why we are still here, we did them. We ended up with 100,000 shareholders at one point, and we are now down to 75,000 again. Significant change in the register over the past five years. I would say Stephen Mayne is probably well known to many people in this room. He is a very active commentator on public company affairs in Australia. Someone told me last week that he does a podcast with Alan Kohler from ABC News and another well-known commentator. I listened to it. It was very entertaining.
If Steven's listening, well done, Steven, and keep up the good work. I could recommend it's quite an interesting listen. As there are no further questions online, that brings our meeting to a close. Very soon, I'll close the voting on items one to five, but before I do so, I'll pause the meeting to give shareholders a final opportunity to cast your votes. For those attending online, please submit your votes through the online platform, and in-person attendees need to complete and lodge your blue voting cards in the ballot box. I now pause the meeting for one minute so you may finalize your votes. Yeah, he doesn't have a lot of luck in that. We have all those votes. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. All voting is now closed.
The results for each agenda item will be tallied immediately following the meeting and released to the securities exchange later today. Ladies and gentlemen, that being the end of all business, I thank you for your attendance and declare the meeting closed. I invite you to join the board and senior executives for refreshments, which will be served just outside the room. Thank you for your support.