Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name's Michael Nossal, and on behalf of the Board of Directors, it's my pleasure to welcome you to the Annual General Meeting of IGO Limited, being held here in Perth today. Today's meeting is also being live-webcasted via the Computershare platform, and I'd like to welcome all of you who have joined online. I'm advised by the Company Secretary that a quorum of members is present, and I therefore declare the meeting open. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today, the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation, and pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging.
I note that IGO works with more than 40 traditional custodian groups across Australia, and we'd really like to extend that respect to each of those groups, as well as the traditional custodians of the land on which all of you online join us, and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here today. To start with some housekeeping, in the unlikely event of an emergency, you will hear an alarm.
For those in the room, you'll hear an alarm. The first alarm is a precaution. We ask you to remain seated during this time. If there's a need to evacuate, there'll be a second alarm, along with evacuation instructions from hotel management. During an evacuation, please do not, under any circumstances, use the lift. Hotel staff will guide you to the closest fire exit and walk you down the stairs to exit the hotel through the main entry.
We also ask that you take a minute right now to ensure that your mobile phone is turned off or on silent for the duration of the meeting. Joining me today in Perth are my fellow Non-Executive Director s, Debra Bakker, Marcelo Bastos, Sam Hogg, Justin Osborne, and Keith Spence. Joining us online from the United States are Tracey Arlaud and Xiaoping Yang. I think we're just going to switch for a moment to Tracey and Xiaoping. They're there. All of us look forward to answering your questions a bit later in the meeting. I'm also joined by our Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Ivan Vella, as well as our executive leadership team, who Ivan will introduce when he speaks to you.
Our Company Secretary, Rebecca Gordon, is also present, as are many of our team members, and I really encourage you to meet with them during refreshments after the meeting. It's a great opportunity to meet the broader team. I can also advise that Ashleigh Woodley from BDO, the Company's auditor, is present today with her colleagues and will be available to answer questions on the financial statements, the conduct of the audit, and the auditor's report as required. We meet today following a year of significant change for both our industry and for IGO.
Change within our industry has been born out of significant volatility in commodity markets, evolving consumer dynamics, geopolitics, economic policy, and the demands being placed on the global economy from the transition to a low-carbon future. Within IGO, this changing backdrop has come alongside our ongoing evolution as a business, including the launch of a refresh strategy.
While the year has had its share of challenges, and we're very aware that the outcome for shareholders has reflected those challenges, I'm confident that IGO is strongly placed to deliver sustainable growth and returns into the future. This confidence and optimism looking forward come from three key characteristics of IGO today. Firstly, our exceptional platform.
During cyclical lows in commodity markets, such as the one we're experiencing at the moment, it's critical to have assets that can continue to generate cash flows and returns. Our exposure to the Greenbushes Lithium Mine, via our TLEA joint venture, and our Nova nickel operation are both examples of this type of low-cost asset. Nova is a world-class ore body that's generated significant value for IGO over its eight-year lifespan. The financial year 2024 highlighted Nova's operating excellence, evidenced by strong cost control and reliable production.
Greenbushes, which remains the highest-grade and lowest-cost hard rock lithium mine in the world, continued to generate strong operating margins and free cash flows. The operating and financial performance of Greenbushes delivered an EBITDA margin of 85% for FY 2024 and facilitated the payment of AUD 761 million in dividends to IGO via our TLEA joint venture. Even at the depressed lithium prices of recent quarters, Greenbushes continues to maintain enviable EBITDA margins. During the year, we made some difficult but necessary decisions to ensure we maintain our strong platform. This included the decision to transition the Cosmos nickel project into care and maintenance. While our team was successful in completing construction and commissioning of Cosmos, prevailing market conditions resulted in the board determining that continuing to operate the asset was not in shareholders' best interests.
With the changing shape of our portfolio and in line with a disciplined approach to managing the business, we also reviewed our operating model and made substantive changes to our corporate structure. Combined with a comprehensive review of our exploration businesses, these changes have resulted in a reduction in the overall headcount at IGO, which, while difficult for those people impacted, has positioned the business appropriately for our current operational footprint. Finally, our strong platform is reliant on maintaining a strong balance sheet.
The cash generation from both the lithium and nickel businesses during the year enabled us to declare a final FY 2024 dividend of AUD 0.26 per share. That brought total dividends for FY 2024 to AUD 0.37 per share, or AUD 280 million, while retaining a healthy cash balance of AUD 468 million at year-end. The second characteristic of IGO is the strength of our team.
While we've had to restructure our corporate and exploration teams in recent months, which has seen us farewell to valued colleagues, we retain an exceptional group of people who have the capability, experience, and alignment with our purpose to drive our future success. At the leadership level, we've made several changes this year. In December, we were pleased to welcome our new CEO and Managing Director, Ivan Vella, to IGO. The board believes Ivan is an exceptional executive and leader. We've been impressed with his strong start, and we look forward to working with him as he executes on our refresh strategy and delivers value for our people, our customers, and our shareholders.
Since commencing, Ivan has strengthened the executive leadership team with the appointments of Marie Bourgoin as Chief Development Officer Lithium and Brett Salt as Chief Growth and Commercial Officer, who joined the business in recent months and who have already made an excellent contribution. Critical to any team's success is its culture, which remains incredibly strong at IGO. People have always been at the heart of the IGO story, and we're fortunate to have a team of experienced, driven, and caring professionals who are committed to ensuring that IGO remains a leader and innovator in the mining sector. I recognize that some of the recent changes have presented challenges for our people. However, in testing times, they continue to demonstrate commitment to IGO's purpose and values, and importantly, to each other. For that, the board is deeply grateful.
Throughout this period, our people have also remained focused on keeping themselves and their colleagues safe, and I'm pleased to report that our safety performance metrics have improved. The board is committed to ensuring the company maintains this momentum throughout the current financial year to minimize both the physical and psychological harm at every opportunity. Safety and sustainability are inextricably entwined within our business values and culture, and we remain focused on the continuous improvement of our governance, risk management, and safety procedures. The third characteristic that gives me cause for optimism for IGO today is our strategy. Under Ivan's leadership, we've undertaken a comprehensive refresh of IGO's strategy, which was released to the market just eight weeks ago.
Informed by deep market research and analysis, the strategy has provided a detailed framework and guidelines around how we will focus on returns, efficient capital allocation, disciplined decision-making, strong governance, and great operating performance. The strategy is underpinned by our faith in the strength of the global energy transition and the long-term prospects for critical minerals.
It leverages IGO's distinct advantages, defines an aspirational but realistic future, forms a framework against which we can measure success, and guides our stakeholders as to how we will allocate capital. Our strategy focuses on upstream mining of lithium, copper, and nickel, which we believe will present the most attractive growth and return opportunities in the battery metal space. The board was closely involved in the design of this strategy and has the utmost confidence in Ivan and the team's ability to deliver on it.
We acknowledge there will be challenges, but firmly believe in the scale of the opportunities and that IGO is ideally placed to succeed. Turning to matters of governance, throughout the year, the board has continued to test and evolve its systems and processes to ensure we maintain our culture of continuous improvement. This included a comprehensive annual review of the board's performance, facilitated by external experts, with a range of recommendations coming out of that review, which are now embedded into both the board and relevant subcommittees. We recognize that as IGO evolves, it's important that our board's structure and composition supports this. With that in mind, the board was strengthened in July with the addition of highly experienced Non-Executive Director Marcelo Bastos, whose deep skills and knowledge are already proving valuable.
Subject to his reelection at today's AGM, we also look forward to Keith Spence remaining on the board until the 2025 AGM, at which point he has indicated to the board his intention to retire. Before closing and in summary, the 2024 financial year has marked a period of significant evolution for IGO. Amid changes we've made to the business over the year, we've stayed close to our purpose. The energy transition and our industry's critical role in enabling it is experiencing a period of high growth, volatility, and change. The relationships we have with our partners are strong, and we are working to closely manage the near-term impact of this volatility. Our board is confident that we're building a strong foundation for the next chapter of the IGO journey.
I'd like to thank Ivan and his executive team and my fellow board members, whose guidance and unwavering support have been invaluable. I'd also like to thank our host communities, all the members of the broader IGO team, and most importantly, you IGO shareholders, for your support over the past 12 months. As we look ahead into the future, I'm confident our focus on sustainable growth, enhanced corporate governance, and strong relationships with our partners and customers will deliver value for our shareholders. Our refreshed strategy, strengthened leadership team, and the underlying quality of our assets place IGO in a strong position for the future despite the difficult and prevailing market conditions. Our board looks forward to another successful year in FY 2025.
Thank you, and I'd now like to invite our Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Ivan Vella, to provide an update on the company's activities over the last 12 months.
Clicking my clicker. That's all right. He's got it. Richard's got it. All right. Great. Well, look, welcome, everyone. It's great to be here. My first AGM at IGO and just over 10 months in the role, a lot to talk about. I'm going to take a moment to reflect back on some of that, but also look forward as well. Before that, I also want to acknowledge the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation and recognize their custodianship of these lands and the waters around us and pay my respects to their elders past, present, and emerging. It's been a busy and challenging year for the business and for me.
While certainly I didn't expect to deal with all of the issues and challenges that I have been presented with, what I reflect back on is the reasons that I joined IGO and what I saw in the company still stands. I'm still incredibly positive and optimistic about the future. I have tremendous confidence about the prospects of IGO, and I'll talk more to that through my presentation about what brings that confidence or maintains that confidence.
Ultimately, IGO's purpose and values and the quality of our assets and, most importantly, the exceptional people that make up our team are the foundations of a great company and the value that we can continue to deliver for our shareholders and stakeholders more broadly. I'm deeply connected with the purpose, and that was one of the core things that drew me to IGO.
You'll see that come through when we talk one-on-one, but in everything I do, how I think about the business, it's very fundamental. I see enormous opportunity in realizing and driving towards our purpose. The energy transition is an enormous physical change in the world. It will require a lot of materials, and I think IGO is incredibly well-positioned and very unique in its ability to drive a lot of impact there. I'm going to talk, as I said, a bit about the past 12 months or so, 10 months at least, that I can reflect in detail on our strategy as well. But before I do that, I also wanted to thank Mike, thank the board for their support and guidance as I've onboarded.
For me, it was a big transition, a big change, and a lot to learn, and I'm still learning, but the board's been very supportive. The team around me, more importantly, right across IGO, the leadership team, but also right through the whole organization has also been incredibly welcoming. And you can really feel that culture firsthand. Despite the challenges, despite all the change, despite a lot of stress in the business, people have never, ever wavered from that sense of care and connection, and that's been really heartfelt by me.
He's onto it. Thanks, Richard. Let's go one more forward, Richard. Let me start with a brief look back on the past year. As I mentioned, there has been a lot of change. Some of that has been external due to extremely volatile markets. A very nascent commodity, lithium, emerging on a global stage. Huge change.
Unprecedented in my career in mining, seeing this scale of change. And we're all still learning, and we're still evolving and understanding how this is going to mature. But of course, some of that change has been initiated by us as well, as we've worked hard to set the business up for its future and for its success. There's been a range of internal changes that we've worked through since I started, and I'll talk through some of those. Firstly, on safety, and I'm going to touch on some of these in some more depth. But safety for me is core. I mean, that's something in my career growing up in mining is absolutely fundamental. The safety, health, and well-being of our people is fundamental, and there is a lot to do.
I want to recognize the work the team's done in the last 12 months, and there has been noticeable and marked improvements in some statistics, but ultimately, there's still a lot to do. I'm not sure you could ever say that's done, of course. It is the old story of it never ends, but we're certainly not where I think we should be or the broader business our team thinks we should be. So that's an ongoing piece of work. Building a new team is something that generally would take a little more time, but in this case, for a variety of reasons, we've moved through that quite quickly, and I'll talk more to the team in depth, but it's great having the executive team here with us today.
Sam, who's been with the business a long time, many of you will know Sam Retallack, Kath Bozanic , who came off the board and is the best CFO you could dream of. She's amazing. Marie and Brett, who joined more recently and are still learning about the business, and then Cameron Wilson deserves a huge call-out. I mean, he was retired and focusing on his farming career.
He was focusing on fixing fences and fixing his tractor, and we put the call in, and he brought his wisdom and his experience to help us in an acting capacity of Chief Legal Officer, and he's been absolutely fabulous, so I am really grateful for the team that we've put together, and as I said, I'll talk more as we go. Our lithium JV, lots happening there, and there's lots still to do.
That is a huge, important source of value for our business. There's been change through this year. The pricing mechanism changes at Greenbushes. We have a new CEO in Talison. Significant change. Laurie had been there in that business, I think, 30 years in total, but 10 years as a CEO. It's a big deal to change. We've done that transition well. Rob's been there a month, and he's already making great change. I'll come back to that. Plenty of work to do at Kwinana, and I'll touch on that as well. Cosmos, we made that necessary, but very hard decision. I think it was my second week in role to say, "This is not going to work.
We do need to call time." And that's very hard to look the team in the eye and say, "We have to stop." Despite all of their efforts and huge momentum and commitment, conviction around that project, it just didn't make sense to continue putting money into it. It's very difficult because that was also seen as a future for a big part of the business in terms of how we grew our presence in nickel as Nova starts to come to end of life. Exploration and Susan sitting in the back of the room, she's been leading a significant review.
I would call it a transformation in our exploration team. I will again come back to it in more depth. I have enormous conviction, but we do have to recognize the need to change gears there. We've reviewed our corporate structure, as Mike called out, our operating model.
We've made a number of changes in the organization. We've had very good people leave the business doing an outstanding job, but ultimately, we had to resize the business to suit the nature and the footprint of our current operations. And we've refreshed our strategy. And again, you can say that quickly, but that was a big piece of work done very comprehensively. So it's been a very busy three quarters.
That's on top of just running the business, doing the normal job of dealing with the issues and whatever grade and recovery issues there are and other problems there are in a normal mining business. Significant amount of work done to get to this place, and that's a lot about positioning our business for the future. I said I'd come back to safety, and I won't spend too long.
I think I want you to take away my conviction and commitment to delivering a dramatic improvement in our safety, health, and well-being performance. It's on the right track, but there is a lot to do. And for me, what's important is sustainability in our safety performance, something that steadily improves month on month, quarter on quarter, year on year, and that we embed that in the core of our leadership and the core of our culture.
And that's something that's still very much a work in progress. But it is at the core of any good mining company. It's fundamental to our agenda in sustainability and absolutely core to our culture. On culture and purpose, look, as I said in my opening remarks, this is one of the reasons I came to IGO, and this is quite unique and quite special.
It has been under stress, as you can imagine, with all these changes. That's when it's easy to let go of the culture and some of the things and the decisions that make it. And we're making hard decisions, and it's very hard sometimes to say no or yes on these critical calls when you know that people are impacted. But ultimately, this is about building a stronger and more resilient business that still stays true to our culture and our values and can deliver on our purpose. For me, that purpose and the focus on the energy transition, and in particular, the segment around battery materials, is fundamental. I think it offers enormous opportunity. It harnesses energy and discretionary effort and commitment and conviction from our people.
It was something that was co-created, and I give Peter Bradford enormous credit for the work he did in leading that thinking. A long time back, before many other people saw that same opportunity, he saw that, and he brought his team together. They talked through that. They distilled that purpose, and they distilled those values, which are quite unique, as you know. There's something also that resonates for me, and I think that gives us a great platform. Our test now is when we're at this difficult period, a lot of change, a lot of stress on the business and on our people is to look in and strengthen that culture and our conviction and not deviate or give up on it. I mentioned our new executive team, so there's some nice profile shots for everyone.
As I said, they're in the room, Marie and Sam and Cath sitting down the front, and Brett and Cameron sitting at the back. I don't think that was planned, but there you are. But look, each brings very deep experience and wisdom in this space. It's quite a different makeup of team to what we had. I'm very, very excited with the work that we're doing together as we form up.
And look, Cameron's helping work closely to find that next Chief Legal Officer and someone that really fits inside the fabric and the dynamic of our team. But equally, we're getting huge benefit from his wisdom and experience of his time in the industry across multiple mining businesses. So look, that's the first step. What I can't describe here is the leadership through the rest of the business. It's more fundamental, to be honest.
The people that really translate our strategy into action, our senior leadership team, we're spending a lot of time working through. And with the new operating model, that work will take time, but that's something that we're investing very closely in, and for me, it's fundamental to driving that change and making it sustainable. Our financial performance, so that's, I guess, the other end of the strength that IGO has. And despite a very tough year and extremely difficult commodity markets, IGO still delivered the goods. And this is back to tier one assets, true tier one assets. Greenbushes, it's as good as it gets in its space in lithium. It's unparalleled. Nova, it's the same thing. It's amazing assets. And these are assets that are well-run. They deliver up through the cycle.
Mike talked to the statistics, but AUD 713 million of free cash, AUD 468 million at the end of the year on our balance sheet, our undrawn debt facilities. This is a strong company. Yes, okay, we're not generating the same volumes of cash we were two years ago, but that was the high point in the cycle. This is the low point, and this is a company that's got tremendous capacity inside that asset, Greenbushes and Nova.
I think the other part of the story here is then the dividends, and this chart, I think, brings this to life. AUD 1 billion of dividends in two years. That's something that I think is great. I think you saw the last dividend decision we took as a board. Recommendation from management was very clear that we're not going to hold and sit on cash.
This is part and parcel, and I'm about to talk about our capital allocation framework. We're confident in the underlying strength of our assets, and therefore, we will return cash to our shareholders. We will follow our capital allocation policy and our dividend policy, and that's what we've done. This is one of the things that I think gives us a signpost for the kind of company we want to be, that we can be very consistent and very predictable and very reliable in the way that we manage shareholder funds. Onto capital allocation. Look, this has been in place since 2023. It's something that Cath helped pull together, and there's nothing special in there. If you've looked at capital allocation frameworks across other companies, you see the same mechanisms.
A big part of it is how it's applied, the discipline and the focus and the rigor with which it's applied, and that's something that I really expect that you will hold me and the team accountable on, something that we will thrive on and focus on. I think that's absolutely critical. Our relentless focus on generating returns is core to the business that we want to be. We have high-return assets, and we want to make sure we maintain that strength, that balance sheet and the strength. The focus on metrics like ROIC and ROCE are part of this focus, and these are all things that you'll see come through in the way that we measure and test and challenge ourselves. We are also focused on managing risks and protecting that balance sheet.
Cath, obviously, in the first instance, but the whole leadership team, the focus and the understanding of how we take those decisions and the potential consequence of those to make sure that we maintain that capability. And then the other part of it is building out this playbook. I'll talk more to our strategy in a minute, but having a playbook that captures how we do mining, how we manage our operations, how we manage our business so that that's enshrined, predictable, and consistent and can be applied as we grow and change our business.
M&A is always a question I get, and of course, for a business that wants to grow, it's one pathway. It's hard. It's difficult, and you need to be really, really thoughtful about it. But there are other pathways for our business, and that's what's so exciting.
We have exploration, which I'm going to come to in a minute and as we continue to focus there, I believe that's a great source of growth and potential and our existing assets offer huge organic opportunities, particularly Greenbushes. So we're blessed with a number of options there. It is about us prioritizing and showing discipline in the way that we allocate capital, and this, I think, helps us bring that to life.
Ultimately, as we look forward, we have a sense of urgency to drive performance and drive growth. We don't have a sense of urgency on growth for the sake of growth. What we need to be doing is making sure it's value accretive and it meets the criteria and the high standards that we've set for this business and I think Greenbushes is the place to look for that.
It's such a reference point for a high-returning asset at any point through the cycle. It is the largest, lowest cost, and best hard rock lithium asset in the world. It's an enormous competitive advantage for us in terms of its positioning. As the global lithium cost curve evolves, certainly external analysts, our own analysis suggests this will be a reference point in the industry in five, 10 years' time, and that positions us extremely well in an industry or industry segment with lithium being highly volatile.
It will be up and down, and this is the kind of asset that will generate value regardless. I'll keep going. Kwinana, look, this has been a challenging story. I've only got a short window on it for 10 months. I see how hard the team down at Kwinana have been working on this refinery. They're just coming out of a big shutdown.
You cannot fault the conviction and the dedication, the effort, the incredible input from Tianqi Lithium. They're deep experts coming and helping, but it's a challenge. That's not to beat around the bush, and I think I've been open about that in multiple conversations in my quarterlies and other shareholder meetings. It is difficult. They started with a very tough hand. That asset was not built in a way that was easy to ramp up. The world's moved on. I mean, the engineering, the design, and the development of these refineries has changed over time. Remember, Tianqi first started this work back in 2016, 2018. I think they took the investment decision and started construction. So it's quite a way back, but that doesn't speak to their conviction. They have been absolutely strident and committed to finding that pathway.
For us, I guess, we look at it as an important part of the asset base in our joint venture, but we do need to make sure that we're very thoughtful economically about how we're managing that, and it's a very difficult situation to be in given where the market's at, so something that we continue to work closely on with our partner. I'll push on to the nickel business.
And look, there's not too much to say here. Obviously, it is sad that Nova doesn't have more time to run. It is such an amazing resource, ore body. The team out there continue to do such an exceptional job in the way they run that. And the production is so reliable, so dependable. We've got a great relationship with our customer in supplying that. And it delivers fantastic returns.
It's right at the bottom of the cost curve in the nickel space. And so it's a standout, one of the few in WA that could keep going. Unfortunately, that orebody does run out. And you can't fault the team for trying hard to find more nickel in the area. They have sort of turned over every rock, so to speak, given it a red-hot go. That's not to be. So we do need to think forward about that asset coming to an end and closing, which is very sad.
And the deep thinking about what we do and how we handle that is underway already. So it's not like that's going to sneak up on us. We've got two years, and we need to do that work well in advance. What we also need to do is optimize that asset safely in the intervening period.
And that largely means pulling forward the production as much as possible while maintaining that focus on safety and stability of production. And that's complicated because as you get to the end of life in any asset, it is a bit more tricky. There isn't as much optionality. And of course, the sequence that we have available to us isn't as open. So the team's working through that.
I'll share more in due course about what we think that looks like right through to end of life once we can. But I guess I have confidence that we're working hard and on optimizing the cash generation from that asset as we look forward. On exploration, and I said to you I'd come back to this. I mean, this is an area I have enormous conviction. And I was talking with a couple of the audience before we started.
I mean, this is a long part of IGO's history. It's where IGO began in many respects. And the world needs more resources, the world, particularly for the energy transition and the battery materials needs more. We're extremely well positioned. If you look at our tenure, the ground position that we have, our people and technical capability, the relationships that we have, both with traditional owners, with other landholders and stakeholders that are involved, communities, joint venture partners across the board, fantastic relationships. All of that together with the tools and the technology that we have, we've got the ingredients, and we're focusing that.
As I said, this is an area that's very much in my focus and something that I believe is critical for the future value of our company, critical for us to be able to contribute in a very meaningful way to the energy transition, bringing more minerals and resources online across the world and doing that in a responsible and ethical manner. On our strategy, look, and I'll keep this brief. I'm sure many of you would have sat through our presentation a little while, a couple of months back, talked at length on this. We're obviously in the process of implementing and executing.
I talked at that point about I sort of see 20% of the work being the deep thinking and the reflection to determine what is your strategy. The next 20% is the work and the decisions to make those hard calls.
And then the 60% is actually the execution. And that's often where people lose their way. And that's something that I'm very focused on. And we're implementing very tight structures and controls to make sure that our execution realizes the full value and benefit of this strategy, which has been well thought through. Ultimately, there's a set of beliefs that sit behind this.
You can't know everything, and we'll continually test those. We have a view on lithium about what good looks like. We think that it does have a very important place in the world, and there is a lot of value to be generated, but it's not through any lithium resource. You need to be extremely selective and thoughtful. And we believe we have a point of view on that, certainly in the hard rock space, that will position us well for our decision-making.
Copper is more straightforward in some respects in terms of it's got, I think, a reasonably strong consensus about the importance and its future. The hard part is how you drive value from it and how you position the business in that space. And nickel is a little more nuanced, somewhere in the middle. Nickel is a very important part of the world of base metals and battery materials, but its supply dynamics have changed, and that's shifted the cost curve, the industry structure. And positioning within that is something, again, we have a view.
We've got a lot of expertise in the company, and we'll look to realize and take benefit from that as we look forward. They're the big three commodities that we look for. Of course, lithium, we work through with our joint venture partner, Tianqi, through the TLEA JV.
And if you look underneath the covers, we think about our role in exploration, developing and bringing mines online, operating them well. And in the case of lithium, we also think that there's work to do with our partner around the commercial side as that market and commodity still evolves. Other capabilities that we need to build out, we certainly need to continue to strengthen our understanding of lithium technologies.
We believe that this industry is still very nascent and very new, and there is opportunity for disruptive technologies to be applied to drive costs out and to improve the economics of certain assets. And along with that then goes to how you run a great, sustainable, ethical, and responsible mining company, and that's going to be captured in our playbook. A lot of that's there in the DNA of IGO, but it's not written down. It's not distilled.
And that means it's not easy to replicate if we look forward. And that's something I really want to make sure it's captured. And I think the essence of a management operating system, the standards, and the way we do business, and the way that our culture and values speak into the way we do business is fundamental. And once that's written down and captured in a full extent, I think it'll be an incredible asset and something for other partners that they will look on very favorably. Our objectives, I won't spend long on this. I certainly won't go through all of them, but I think about our objectives in time frames. There's obviously immediate work to do in the next year or two, a five-year horizon and a 10-year horizon.
The key here is that right now there is a lot of work to do at home in our existing business, refining and finishing and getting our corporate structure working and operating model working well, making sure Nova's set up to finish extremely well and have a very proud finish to a very as a very proud mining business. Our role in the joint venture with Tianqi, getting the very best out of Greenbushes and Kwinana, our exploration team going through and finishing that review and getting back to full speed. So there's a lot of near-term work that we need to focus on. We'll continue to work through the other elements of our strategy in parallel, but we think about the work in time frames. And lastly, I guess, is our value proposition.
And I think this is just a way of trying to bring it all together and summarize who we are and why we believe that we offer real unique value in this space in the mining sector. Firstly, our culture. I think it's pivotal to who we are. It has been obviously challenged, and there is stress inside our business right now with all the change. It's something we recognize and we want to actively work on. We are working on. But it's the piece that we also look back into to build on and our values and our purpose to guide us through that. We want to continue to maintain that diversified position in this industry. And I've talked about it in depth in our strategy presentation.
The complement that lithium and copper fit together, the way they bring strength in terms of different timing of cash flows helps us think about our role in the lithium world very differently to a pure-play lithium player. And obviously, nickel somewhere in the middle if you look at the correlation of those commodities. But that's something that we maintain our conviction around. Operating excellence, exploration capability, and Greenbushes, I guess, all tie together. Our strategic partnerships with Tianqi in the first instance and indirectly with Albemarle in the JV at Greenbushes. Our management team, I've talked about, the ELT and SLT and our broader capability, continuing to build that out to be the envy of the industry. Our clear focus on battery materials. We know where we want to play.
We know what kind of assets will drive value through the cycle and how best to operate them to succeed in a very complex environment. The discipline and robust decision-making that you would expect from us and working well as a team with that purpose in mind and our values guiding us in terms of how we operate. So look, that's my update. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your ongoing support as shareholders. It's been a very difficult time through the cycle of commodities, but with a lot of other changes.
And I've talked with shareholders, obviously, very actively in my first 10 months. I'll continue that and sought a lot of counsel and guidance and input. I've been listening hard, and I hope you see some of your feedback reflected in the changes and the work that we've done in the last 10 months. Obviously, lots more to come, and I'm excited to be here and take you on that journey. So thank you.
Thanks, Ivan. And I think I'd reiterate the board's thanks to you and the team for the less than a year than you've had already. I'd now like to move to questions on the update that Ivan just provided us and the general business. I'd ask that questions relating specifically to the resolutions, we defer those until the formal part of the meeting. And for those of you in attendance, if you wish to ask a question, please raise your hand. Someone will wander over with a microphone. And then please state your name for the record and whether you're a shareholder or a proxy holder who you're representing. For those of you online joining us online, please follow the instructions available on your screen to ask your questions.
Please note, questions we may have to moderate or summarize questions in the interest of time. Are there any questions to Ivan, myself, or the broader team on the general business update?
Thank you. Well, it won't surprise you, Mr. Chairman. I've got a whole list of questions. My name's Ann Pryor. I'm proxy for my superannuation fund. Just a quick one. First of all, note 17, you've impaired Mount Goode and Silver Knight to the sum of AUD 286 million. How much of that is attributed to Mount Goode? As ballpark, I'll do.
The majority of it was Mount Goode, and I'll defer to our CFO for the exact number.
So I can show you the exact number. I can't remember the last number. But Mount Goode was AUD 176 million impairment.
176 million.
Right. Second question. At the end of the September quarter, the cash remaining was AUD 259 million. According to me, in stripping out the AUD 51.2 million stamp duty, you'd actually spent AUD 158 million in that quarter. There was no TLEA dividend declared for the September quarter. So how are we going with cash, and is there a TLEA dividend expected this quarter? And if not, are we going to have one and a half quarters of cash left?
Firstly, I think there's a waterfall in the results showing the pluses and minuses of cash movement for the quarter. And I note there was a major dividend payment was one of the large movements in the September quarter. In terms of we don't forecast dividends going forward in the business, and largely the result of that will be as a result of the lithium price and where we are in the cycle.
So you don't know whether there'll be a TLEA dividend?
We don't forecast that.
Right. You're not in a position to forecast it, are you? Next question. The lithium hydroxide plant. For the September quarter, it delivered 1,502 tons of its nameplate capacity of 24,000 tons. That's about a 25% nameplate capacity if I annualize it. What's wrong with the damn thing? Because you've talked about all this waffle. Now, I'm not a chemical engineer, so I'd like it in layman's terms. What is wrong with it? I'm also mindful that Wesfarmers are commissioning their plant, which is going to be 50,000 tons per annum. If you're not careful, Wesfarmers is going to be eating your lunch.
I think Ivan addressed in some detail our views on the plant. I think the words you used, there's no sugar coating this. It is very hard. It was started well before our time. With the best input of the team and with the best input of Tianqi itself, the results have not been spectacular. I don't disagree with it. What is wrong with it? I think it partly comes to, in the way I think about it in layman's terms, is the fundamental engineering of the plant at the beginning when it was constructed wasn't adequate for the job that it had to do.
The main components of the plant function reasonably well. It's the linkages between the components and maintaining a continuous flow through the plant that is proving to be very, very difficult. Some of it needs engineering solutions, and we're in the middle of a, or we're towards the end, I think, of a significant shutdown, which is supposed to put a step change in place in terms of the performance. We'll have to just wait and see how that comes back up.
Is it correct? I've heard on the grapevine that this was largely an experimental plant and that Tianqi's other plants in China were a different technology. Is that correct?
Most of Tianqi's plants are lithium carbonate. This is a lithium hydroxide plant, but they do have lithium hydroxide two plants in China, which do operate well. They are proven operators, and they have, but operating in the Chinese environment is very different to operating the first one outside of China in the world, now joined by Kemerton. As you correctly point out, in Western Australia, the Wesfarmers Covalent one is in the final stages of construction, as I understand it. Is the engineering of the Tianqi plants in China the same as that in Kwinana? My understanding is similar. I'm not able to comment in detail on that.
Right.
Ivan, unless you'd like to add anything.
Right. That'll do for now. Thank you very much. I do have some comments later.
Thanks, Ann.
Very briefly, I was part of the commissioning team that got to the first production on that plant.
Sorry, could I just ask you to state your name for the record?
It's Philip Wilkie. I was part of the commissioning team that got first production going. The broad answer is correct. The fundamental engineering was flawed on the 2016 designs. The units themselves, the process units themselves, all seem to work correctly. The linkages between them or the flows between them were very difficult to automate. The core difference between the Chinese operations, they were essentially highly manual with many hundreds of people operating the plant in a very manual batch-like fashion.
This plant was intended to operate in a very continuous, highly automated fashion that had never been done before with this technology. That was not properly thought through right from the very beginning. I don't have recent experience with the plant because I haven't been involved in the last year or so, but I do believe it is fundamentally a solvable problem.
Thanks, Philip, and I hope you're right on the last one. I would just note that in China, a lot of the plants are now very automated and yeah. Other questions from the floor?
Jared Miller, shareholder. Just following on from Ann's point on the Kwinana plant, I've had a lot of experience with starting up plants, BHPs, HBI, Murrin Murrin, Ravensthorpe. We were 40% after two years, and they were disaster plants. This thing is something like 20% after two years.
And I'm frankly at a total loss. A bit of an explanation is there, but how can we be such a mess when there's not as though there's not skills in Australia? That's been one of the reasons given to us at various times that the skills aren't here, the supply chain's not here. But you're heading to me, you've just been through a monumental disaster with Western Areas.
I would read you're heading for a monumental disaster with this Kwinana plant. We've heard about the shutdown for the last 12 months or so that it's going to fix it all up. But frankly, the confidence, I think, and Ann puts it out pretty nicely, the confidence that that will work, it completely eludes me. And the disaster we've already had, we just don't need, or the shareholders don't need another disaster.
We were given a reason in this room two years ago at the Annual General Meeting that it was a continuous flow plant, and that was unusual. But surely to heaven in that time, those sort of issues can be solved. And Ivan said nicely, the people are working very hard, but have you got the direction in there? One of my experiences in some of these issues like this is you're better off to get in a world-class consultant, some retired gentleman from Albemarle or one of the other lithium companies, and get them in to help and solve the problem. I'll just leave it at that. As a shareholder, you're totally losing confidence in the company with the way this has gone on. Thank you.
Thanks for the comment, Jared . And I think we share your disappointment, no question about it, with the performance, TLEA's performance in terms of the Kwinana plant. Ivan, is there anything further you'd like to add? I thought you gave a pretty full description during your.
Look, not really. I think we've covered it. The team started on the back foot. The engineering construction was problematic, and I think Philip covered that well. They've made progress, but it's far below what you would expect. So I mean, Jared , your point's well made, and there's no shortage of focus or effort and energy on this, but there isn't a simple solution either.
Further questions? Why don't we go there and.
Yeah, Doug mentioned shareholder. With regard to Nova, I understand you're saying it's on care and maintenance. Is this just the plant? Is there any mining going on? I hear that from the presentation that there's another two years or so of production. Is that production currently on hold, or is there still mining proceeding with but not processing, or where are we at with Nova?
Nova's not on care and maintenance. Nova's fully operational, both mining and production for another two years, and I think Ivan's presentation showed the expected production over FY25, FY26, and then question marks over FY27, which is all around how fast can we extract the remaining ore at there, but it is fully operational.
Oh, okay. I thought you were saying it was on care and maintenance.
Forrestania has been put on care and maintenance, and Cosmos during the year was put on care and maintenance.
Okay, Cosmos. Just one other question regarding Greenbushes. Is there any potential for exploration around that area? I know it's a very green belt and it's built in around the town, and it's a world-class deposit, but are you able to do any further exploration in that area, or are you restricted by the fact that it's in virtually an urban belt and problems with agriculture and so forth?
Look, we think there's enormous potential at Greenbushes in just about every area that you look. Ivan's talked about optimizing the existing operations. I think we believe that applies to further exploration in the area. Obviously, in any area in Western Australia or in Australia generally at the moment, any exploration has to be done extremely carefully, working closely with community groups and all stakeholder groups. The potential for that ore body to continue and to grow, we certainly believe in it. And that's why we keep coming back to a core part of the strategy over the near term is the optimization of that fantastic Greenbushes asset.
John Campbell, representing Australian Shareholders. I have 38 shareholder proxies, about 300,000 shares. Going back to Western Areas, last year at the meeting, we asked a number of questions about responsibility for the disaster. It cost shareholders AUD 1.3 billion. You borrowed AUD 900 million to effect the takeover. Had it not been for the spike in lithium spodumene sales in that period after 2022 or 2023, I think the company would have had to go bust. I don't think you could have been able to generate the repayment of that money. And so it was almost by luck that we're still here today talking to you.
I ask you as chair, why last year when we asked the same questions, you said, "Well, wait for the report. We're having an independent report to produce the answers to your questions." Well, the independent report did produce answers. It produced answers that the due diligence wasn't adequate, that estimates were wrong, that other problems occurred in the process. But is that good enough from a shareholder point of view? Why directors that were in office, why didn't you not take responsibility for that situation that would have sent us bust?
John, I won't comment on the speculation around what could have been or would have been, only to say that all decisions are made in the full context of the time. And at the time the Western Areas decision was made, there was already very strong cash generation coming out of the very successful acquisition, which was the board's previous M&A decision.
So the decision to purchase Western Areas was made in that context. It's now three years ago. The review this year was taken very seriously. We share your great disappointment in the process and in the outcome for both shareholders and all of us in the company. In terms of taking responsibility for it, I think we have done that as a board. There are significant changes that have been put through the board's processes and systems as a result of the review, and all of the recommendations have been and are being adopted on an ongoing basis.
So we're confident that the systems and processes that are now in place should prevent the types of issues that were uncovered during the review, and I think beyond that, we just ask you once again to consider that decision in light of some of the very strong M&A decisions that were made by the board of IGO over the years, but we share your disappointment. We haven't ducked responsibility for it. We did the review. It was quite an extensive review done by external parties, and a lot of the changes that you've seen and Ivan talked about within the company and I've talked about within the board have been implemented as a result of that review.
Chairman, the changes in the board have been to increase the size of it to a size that I think you now have nine directors. One of the things you're asking us to approve at this meeting is the increase in the fee pool. I mean, why should we even think of doing that? But that's an aside. I can come back to that later in the meeting. But I mean, just in general terms, the board is too large for what is now a small exploration company with a magnificent asset at Greenbushes, or at least will be when Nova's finished.
We think the board has eight Non-Executive Director s and one executive director in Ivan. Keith Spence has signaled his intention to retire in one year, and that would bring us back to seven non-exec directors. We think each person brings a particular set of skills and experience and way of looking at the world and value to the board process, and we're quite comfortable with where we are at the moment.
I suppose I'd add to that as to reflect back on Ivan's comments on the way that we've gone about the corporate restructure is sizing the business and putting in place the skills that we believe are necessary for the company that is implementing the strategy. And the implementation of the strategy would not necessarily have us remain in our current structure over the next 10 years. And I think Ivan gave a fairly extensive review of how we see the future. So we also are mindful of setting ourselves up for success over the longer term. Are there any further questions in the room? And then I'm looking over at Rebecca as Company Secretary. Do we have some questions online around the general business, not the resolutions?
Yes, we have received a number of questions online. The first question comes from shareholder Stephen Mayne . Could the CEO please summarize the extent and breadth of engagement he has with analysts, brokers, fund managers, and institutional investors after each six-monthly results release? How does this compare with what the company does for its 30,000 retail investors? Were retail investors invited to attend the recent strategy day? Finally, thank you for offering shareholders a hybrid meeting today, which maximizes retail shareholder participation. Will you commit to maintaining the excellent hybrid AGM model going forward?
Let me make a few comments, and I'll pass to Ivan. Firstly, transparency is really important, and I don't think we've ducked information or been transparent, and all the quarterly calls, this meeting, the strategy day presentation were all available to any shareholder that wanted to dial in. I think in terms of the meeting, I'm quite happy to commit to on an ongoing basis to the hybrid model.
We think it works well. It enables people to, again, share in that information transfer. With that, I'll hand over to Ivan.
Okay, thanks, Mike. Yeah, it's an extensive question to build on Mike's point. All of our quarterly strategy day, AGM, all of that's hybrid and being streamed and is available, and it's recorded so that people can go back to it should they not be available at the time. I think we provide great clarity in our updates through those different forums. Our reporting suite is, having been in the industry a long time, I think very comprehensive and thoughtfully put together. The team works extremely hard to prepare a very comprehensive set of materials for our annual report, sustainability report, REM report, and so on. Then in terms of engagements, look, it's mixed.
I'm 10 months in, and I spend a lot of time talking to shareholders, analysts, fund managers, etc. We also deal with individual questions from individual shareholders as well that come through either directly to me or to our investor relations team. And so, look, I can't benchmark the extent of access that retail shareholders might have for other companies.
I think to Mike's point, we want to maintain that transparency and that openness and connection and make sure that we're not disadvantaging any shareholder in terms of their ability to pose questions, to get a sense of what's driving the company and our performance.
Rebecca.
Next question.
Next question.
So the next question comes from Mr. Robert Clark, who is also a shareholder. You've invested substantial time and resources into establishing lithium as a strategic focus for IGO's growth. However, Rio Tinto recently indicated their belief that lithium brine operations will occupy the lower end of the cost curve. Could you help shareholders understand how IGO's perspective on lithium's future differs? Specifically, how does IGO view the competitive positioning of hard rock lithium versus brine sources, and what gives you confidence in the long-term value of IGO's lithium strategy?
Thanks, Robert, for that question. And again, I'll pass to Ivan in a minute, but I'll make some general comments. So firstly, our current position in lithium is partly the thing that gives us strength about our future position. Greenbushes occupies a big chunk of the bottom end of the cost curve in hard rock. And some of the commentators now are very clearly saying, as you project forward to 2030 in roughly 10 years, that will include hard rock and brines.
So there's some estimates that are already out there that show that Greenbushes will hold its place towards the bottom end of the cost curve. For the other bits, I'll pass to Ivan, who talked extensively on the strategy with shareholders.
Yeah. Look, and I mean, I'd love to follow up. Maybe we take it offline because I could talk for hours.
I'll talk for a long time.
I'm going to keep it brief. Look, first of all, the conviction we need to have is around demand and the growth in demand, and we believe in that. And we've done a lot of analysis to support that. I think I won't go into that further, but it will be volatile. So the demand's not going to come through smoothly, and it's not predictable based on large industrial take-up.
It's driven by consumers and consumer behavior and government incentives and a variety of other factors. So what we need to do is think about a business that's resilient when demand is not smooth and supply can come on. Lithium's highly ubiquitous, not just brines. There's various sources of lithium around the world. It is all about having very low cost, very lean operations that are very targeted to meet the requirements of the market. And so I think that speaks to what really drives our strategy. And I think we talked to this in our strategy before.
Rio Tinto shared their perspective on the back of their acquisition of Arcadium. We also believe, and I think I said openly in our strategy day, that we believe that brines will form the bottom end of the cost curve. That's our view, and that will evolve in time.
Not all brines are made equal either. So just saying it's brine means it's good, that's not true. There are a variety of brines, oilfield, conventional brines, and so on. The technology around supporting brine extraction is also still evolving. Again, there's a lot of talk about DLE. That's still a work in progress, and there's seven different versions of DLE. Those technologies are still being developed, and the environmental impacts and footprint of different sources of lithium also vary significantly. Brine requires water, a large land footprint, and so on. Mining's got a different set of challenges. I think it comes back to us, first of all, sticking to what we know, which is mining and understanding how resources can be modelled and efficiently mined and responsibly mined and how you manage those impacts.
Secondly, is the cost of that and having deep insights using our technical and exploration teams' expertise to work with our commercial and business development teams to see through a resource and what its economics will be through its life, not at one single point in time, because these are resources or these are assets that we want to be performing through the cycle, which we know will be highly volatile.
And so ultimately, I think it's not as simple as saying brine's the bottom of the curve, and so if you're not in brine, you lose. It's a lot more complicated than that. And the thing that, of course, gives us a lot of clarity on that point is Greenbushes, which is a phenomenal resource. It is very unique in the world. It could be that someone finds something similar. No one has yet.
But it shows you what good looks like. It gives you a benchmark, and it allows you then to test other resources and compare them and benchmark them in a way that gives us a good insight as to what really would deliver value through the cycle for our shareholders. And so I might leave it there. Good question, very complex set of issues to work through. And I guess we also hold a belief that we don't understand this fully, so we continue to work very hard on it with our technical teams. We want to maintain a very current view, constantly challenge ourselves and test that because we think this market's still evolving, and no one really has all the answers yet.
Thanks, Ivan. Rebecca, next.
Another question from Mr. Robert Clark. You've emphasised that Tianqi is a valued partner, yet some recent developments seem to challenge this perception. The ramp up at Kwinana has faced significant setbacks, and the reset of the spodumene pricing occurred under circumstances that may not align with IGO's interests. Can you please explain how the board assesses Tianqi's commitment to a fair and balanced partnership, and how can shareholders be confident that the interests of IGO are being fully safeguarded and not subordinated to Tianqi's agenda?
Thanks, Rebecca, and thank you, Robert, for that question as well. I think the first thing is there's a very strong governance structure around the joint venture that gives us significant input and decision-making at the board level, both at the TLEA level and then at the Greenbushes operations or Talison joint venture level. So we're quite confident in terms of the governance structure and our position within that.
But beyond that, we do see Tianqi as a major player in lithium in there. We have a global alliance, and we're working very hard with Tianqi to make sure we get the best out of that alliance and the best out of that joint venture across the world. And we think that the interests of the shareholders are very aligned at Greenbushes, and we're very aligned also at Kwinana in trying to find a pathway to economic success at Kwinana. Ivan, is there anything you'd like to add to that as sitting on both joint venture boards?
I think you've covered it well, Mike. I think maybe to deal with specific examples Robert shared. So Kwinana, look, I see it. Marie sees it when we're there. They have their team there, their experts. They're trying so hard. They've got such conviction, and they've been at it since 2018.
You can't fault their effort and energy, and they're bringing all the expertise they've got. It's a hard problem to solve. On the price mechanism change, look, that was taken as a decision ultimately between the different JV partners, which is Tianqi Lithium Energy Australia and Albemarle, so Albemarle was a party to that. And of course, in a falling market, there's a point where you have to decide when you move that price mechanism from a three-month average to a one-month average to apply, and it was actually all unfolded just as I was starting, and I think it was done in a very thoughtful and balanced way.
Tianqi had a very sort of, I guess, somber outlook on 2024 and initially asked for less production in their nomination that first quarter of this year, which there was a huge reaction from the market because it meant some slowdown in operations at Greenbushes. They came back not long after in March and said, "Actually, we'll take that 200,000 tonnes of inventory.
We recognise the impact, and we'll take those tonnes." And then there was further criticism saying, "Well, they were timing the market." Well, if they were timing the market, why didn't they wait till now? They actually didn't buy at the low point, even at that point. What they did was look through their business and their interests and ultimately helped Greenbushes to get back to full production and to have what's so far, from a calendar year point of view, running really well.
They've just had a great quarter on production as well, so I mean, I look at the whole story, and what I see as a partner that is actually very invested in those two assets is doing all they can to contribute. Of course, they have their interests as a customer and a shareholder. We only have our interests as a shareholder, and so there is some difference in outlook, but when I see that come through, we're having very healthy conversations, and ultimately, I think they're making very balanced decisions.
Thanks. Next question, Beck.
There are no further general questions.
Thanks. We have one more in the room here.
Yes, Mr. Chairman, Alan Woolford, shareholder. It worried me last year with the answers that we got to these questions. So I'll just put another question to you that follows on from that last gentleman, and that is that the Kwinana is obviously using up a lot of money, and the results coming are very slow. Now, obviously, at some stage, a decision has to be made as to whether you continue that partnership and continue as a partner in that project or not. That's a normal business decision like you made with Cosmos, etc. Now, has the board considered that, or is the problem the tie-up with Tianqi at Greenbushes?
I think how I'd respond to that is say we always consider all scenarios, but we're working very closely with Tianqi on the whole picture. And that's particularly we've talked about the optimization of Greenbushes and what we can do there. And equally at Kwinana, what's the best pathway to the right economic outcome at Kwinana?
I think the answer to your question is yes. We consider all options and all scenarios and continually re-evaluating it, but we're doing it with and in concert with our joint venture partner there. Got anything you'd like to add, or we'll leave it there.
That's fine. You've covered it.
Jared .
I've been involved with IGO for 10 years. The original core skill of which is longer than any of the directors, I would frankly guess. May not be, is that right? But the original core skill was exploration. Now, to the best of my knowledge, you haven't really found anything in all those years. What your core skill has developed to be is mergers and takeovers. And you've made two very successful takeovers, Nova and Lithium. But my question is, did you give any consideration when Telfer was on the market to buying that?
I know Ivan will say it's gold, but it's in an area where there's massive potential for copper and perhaps nickel. So the question is, did you give any serious thought to getting hold of Telfer?
I think Ivan talked about the strategy, and so therefore that would say a large gold operation that's 30 or 40 years old and is probably not directly fitting with that strategy. I won't comment specifically on what we look at and what we don't look at. But I would agree that the exploration is a core part of our future, and I think we've talked to that quite extensively.
Can I add, Mike, I think the point you make around the prospectivity of the ground around Telfer or in that Paterson region is well recognised. I think it would be fair to say that most of the people who understand the area well would say it's very prospective for gold and to some degree copper. Of course, Winu and Nifty, there's various copper operations in the area, all copper-bearing operations.
And our team has got a very good ground position and is very active in that area, has been for some time. So I guess we do look through it from that lens. We would love to discover some copper. As you can imagine, that's exactly on strategy and the sort of place that we think we'd add a lot of value. They're working hard on it, but equally, there's been a lot of people working in that area for some time looking for copper and still haven't produced the goods yet.
So I don't want anyone to take away a view that we've lost conviction around our exploration history and roots and the potential there.
Telfer would have given good budget control and all of their computers versus Telfer there. Sorry, that's just a comment.
Thanks, Jared , for the comment. And I think within the interest of time, sorry, we have one more question.
I've got two very quick ones, Mr. Chairman. Firstly, is there any update on the South32 royalty claim? That's the first question. A second question is you reported a seismic event at Spotted Quoll. Now, I do understand there's a fault near the bottom. So could you give us some information on both of those? And perhaps in the case of Spotted Quoll, is that going to render some of the ore unusable?
In relation to the South32 claim, I've got no further update to what we've said publicly. We're vigorously defending that claim. In relation to Spotted Quoll, as you get down very deep, seismic activity isn't unusual, but where it's near the end of the reserve, it did affect the timing of the closure of Spotted Quoll mine. So that seismic event did actually accelerate, and we probably a few weeks or months, a couple of months, we lost in terms of, from a safety point of view, deciding not to try to get that last bit of ore out of Spotted Quoll before we closed the mine.
No further questions from the floor. I think that allows us now to move on to the formal part of the AGM. So voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business.
Rod Somes of Computershare, who is in attendance, has been appointed the returning officer for today's poll, and for those attending in person, the reverse of your green admissions card is your voting paper. I now declare voting open on all the resolutions. For those attending online, if you're eligible to vote, please select the vote icon at the top right of the online meeting platform. To cast your vote, simply select one of the options. You can cast your vote and change your vote on each resolution at any time until I declare the voting closed at the end of the meeting. If you experience any difficulties during the meeting, please raise your hand if you're in the room, or for online participants, refer to the Computershare online platform guide available on the company's website.
We've received valid proxy appointments representing 489,778,326 shares or 64.7% of the securities on issue for the resolutions to be considered today. The proxies received are held by Computershare and available for inspection. I advise that as chair of the meeting, I intend to vote all available proxies in favor of each resolution. Details of the proxy numbers received prior to the meeting will be displayed on the screen as the resolutions are put to the meeting. Please note the four numbers include the open votes given to the chair and the board that will be voted in favor of all resolutions. The notice of meeting was lodged with the ASX on the 7th of October 2024 and has been made available to all shareholders.
The first item of ordinary business is the tabling of the financial reports and the directors' and auditors' reports for the year ended 30 June 2024. Copies of the annual financial statements are available at the meeting here today and can be viewed on IGO's website. A copy has been sent to all shareholders who requested one.
There's no voting on this item, but I would now like to invite shareholders and their proxies to comment or ask questions on the reporting suite. Are there any questions of the board on the financial statements or other reports? In addition, are there any questions of the auditor on the auditor's report, the conduct of the audit, the independence of the auditor, or the company's accounting policies? I don't think we've got any questions in the room. Rebecca, do we have any questions online in this one? No. Thank you.
Thanks very much. I'll now move on to the resolutions. To help manage the slight time delay for those following the meeting online, we'll read out all eight resolutions first and then take questions on any of the resolutions at the end. As the first resolution pertains to my re-election, I'd like to hand over the chair of the meeting to my fellow non-executive director, Samantha Hogg. Sam.
Thanks, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. The first item of business noted as resolution one is the re-election of Mr. Michael Nossal as a director. Michael joined the board as a non-executive director in December of 2020. Having been appointed as a director at the 2021 annual general meeting, in accordance with the company's constitution and ASX listing rule 14.4, Michael offers himself for election as a director of the company. I now hand over to Michael to say a few words for his election.
Thanks, Sam. I note that the last couple of years has been extremely challenging for all of us at IGO and as shareholders. However, as I mentioned in my address just now, I'm excited about the future of IGO and therefore pleased to offer myself for re-election. We're well along the way towards becoming a high-performing board, and I assure you I will be working hard to ensure the board meets your expectations going forward. Looking at the proxy results, I am humbled and very grateful for your support. Thank you.
Thanks, Mike. I now hand the chair back to you.
Thanks, Sam. The next item of business noted as resolution two. I think what we said, John, is we'll hold all the questions because of the online delay until the end of reading out the resolutions, and then we'll take all the questions on the resolutions together, if that's all right. The next item of business noted as resolution two is the re-election of Mr. Keith Spence as a director. Keith joined the board as a non-executive director in December 2014, having been appointed a director at the 2015 annual general meeting.
In accordance with the company's constitution and ASX listing rule 14.4, Keith offers himself for re-election as a director of the company. I'll now hand over to Keith to say a few words.
Well, thanks, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. Look, I want to focus on sort of my experience and what I can bring over the next year, and I'll come back to that in a moment. I've got over 40 years of experience, particularly in the oil and gas industry in Australia and internationally, and then for the last 10 years involved with various mining operations as well. So some good experience there,
I think. I've had 15 years plus of deep board experience, having served as both Non-Executive Director s and chairs of several companies over that period of time, working in both energy, oil and gas, mining, engineering, and construction services, and in renewable energy. So relevant experience there as well. I've got significant experience, I guess, in my career in terms of exploration, appraisal, development, construction of projects, and many of them multi-billion-dollar projects, operating environment as well as marketing of resources. And I've also been an executive in senior large companies.
I've got a deep knowledge of the energy transition, which I think is very relevant to what IGO does, particularly its technologies and challenges, and again, that can contribute quite considerably to its strategy. I'm standing for re-election with the intention that I would resign from the board if re-elected in November next year because I'll have been on the board at that point of time for a little over 10 years, which I think is a sort of time that really going any longer would be wrong, but I do think that I can make a significant contribution over the next year, particularly since the company is going through this period of board management and sort of strategy renewal and refreshment.
And I just think it's sort of a responsibility I feel I have to continue with the board until we're sort of through that period of time, and then I will step down. Thank you.
Thanks, Keith. And I certainly would reiterate my thanks for your contribution, which is substantial. The next item of business noted as resolution three, which is the re-election of Ms. Xiaoping Yang as a director. Xiaoping joined the board as a non-executive director in December 2020. Having been appointed a director at the 2021 annual general meeting, in accordance with the company's constitution and ASX listing rule 14.4, Xiaoping offers herself for re-election as a director of the company today. I'll now hand over to Xiaoping online to say a few words on her re-election.
Thank you, Mike. Good afternoon, everyone. Sorry I couldn't be there in person. Just like to say a little bit about myself. I work in the energy industry for more than 30 years. The first 18 years was in the U.S., working in areas of technology development after my Ph.D. Later, I got into the business, sales, marketing, liability management, financial, and project management.
After 18 years working in the U.S., I took a variety of executive roles in Asia in the areas of Major project execution, downstream refinery chemical operation, new frontier energy solution development, strategic initiatives, growth agenda. And it has been an honor to be part of the IGO family with the purpose, focus, and passion for clean energy solutions. We have had challenges, but we are confident that we will continuously improve, strive for excellence. I really appreciate your support for me to contribute to IGO board, to IGO family business, and thank you for your confidence in me. I hand over to you, Mike.
Thanks, Xiaoping. The next item for business is resolution four, which is the election of Mr. Marcelo Bastos as a director. Marcelo joined the board as a non-executive director in July this year, having been appointed a director since the last annual general meeting. In accordance with the company's constitution and ASX listing rule 14.4, Marcelo offers himself for election as a director of the company. And Marcelo, will you come and say a few words to the meeting?
Thank you, Mike. And thank you, everybody. I'm pleased to be here today for the first time and before the shareholders to present myself for the IGO board election. I would be honored to become a director of this IGO board. The past years have been very dynamic and filled with challenges for the world's economy, decarbonization, but IGO brings important contributions to this decarbonization.
I started my career as an engineer more than 35 years ago, and I have worked for resources and logistics companies since I started. I held executive positions in iron ore, metallurgical coal, gold, copper, nickel, zinc, and others. I worked as a director of Vale, CEO of BMA, BHP Mitsubishi Alliance, president of Nickel Americas in Australia for BHP, and a global CEO at MMG, China Minmetals Corporation.
In these various roles, I have had responsibilities for overseeing projects, design, constructions, operations, from feasibility to operations all the way through, mining to logistics and marketing. During this time, I gained a vast knowledge of the mineral mining industry in the world. I'm also a non-executive director of ASX listed company Aurizon Holdings, that is Rail, the largest rail freight company of Australia, and Anglo American PLC listed in London, one of the largest mining companies in the world.
And I was a director of Oz Minerals, Golder Associates, and Iluka Resources for many years. I want to recognize the importance of meeting shareholders' expectations of financial performance and care for environment, community, health, and safety. I'm prepared to collaborate towards the success of IGO as a member of the board. And thank you very much, everyone. Thanks, Mike.
Thanks, Marcelo. The next item of business noted as resolution five is the adoption of the remuneration report, which can be found at pages 58 to 80 of the company's annual report. This is a non-binding vote to enable shareholders to voice their opinions on matters in this report. I put the following resolution as an ordinary resolution that the remuneration report for the year ended 30th of June 2024 contained in the annual report for the year ended 30th of June 2024 be adopted.
Seem to have lost our slides for those in the room. Are we getting them back? I think we're working on it, but we have the notice. Everyone has the resolutions in their notice of meeting. The next item of business noted as resolution six relates to the issue of service rights to Mr. Ivan Vella, as explained in pages 16 to 18 of the notice of meeting. The next item of business noted as resolution seven relates to the issue of performance rights and to Mr. Ivan Vella, as explained in pages 19 to 24 of the notice of meeting. And the last item of business noted as resolution eight relates to increasing the maximum aggregate amount of fees payable for payment to Non-Executive Director s, as explained in pages 24 to 25 of the notice of meeting.
As the company's Non-Executive Director s have an interest in resolution eight, the Non-Executive Director s do not consider it appropriate to make a recommendation to shareholders in relation to this resolution. The company's Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Mr. Ivan Vella, recommends that shareholders vote in favor of resolution eight. The chair of the meeting intends to vote all available proxies in favor of resolution eight. Before I move to questions on the resolution, behind me is a summary of the valid proxies received for each resolution.
Unfortunately, we can't see the proxies in the room. I'm not 100% sure where they can be seen online, but they are substantially in favor of all resolutions except resolution five. And in relation to resolution five, the remuneration report, I can confirm that there were insufficient proxies received before the meeting to enable that resolution to pass on proxies alone.
There is, of course, still voting, still to count of shareholders here in the room, and the final outcome of the resolutions will be released to the ASX later this afternoon. I wanted to assure you, though, that regardless as to whether the resolution passes or not, resolution five passes or not, we acknowledge that some shareholders and proxy advisors have had concerns with respect to our remuneration outcome for FY24.
Already following last year's AGM, we instituted a process of detailed engagement with shareholders on remuneration, which resulted in significant changes to the financial year 25 remuneration structure. We undertake to continue this engagement and to ensure going forward that we strike the appropriate balance between attracting and retaining executive talent and the return outcome for shareholders. This mainly happens through the People and Performance Committee, this engagement and discussion.
I note that Debra Bakker is here as chair of that committee. Debra and myself and all of the directors will be happy to take any questions on the FY24 remuneration report or the changes that we've made in FY25. Now, with that, I'd like to invite questions or discussion on any of the resolutions put to the meeting. Let's deal firstly with those in the room and then Rebecca to those online. So do we have any questions in the room on any of the resolutions? Now we have behind us on the screen. We had for a minute the proxies. I think we have a first question from John from the Australian Shareholders' Association.
Yes, so just looking at the proxies. Chairman, just by way of explanation, I'm going to vote in favor of the remuneration report. Having reviewed it in line with our guidelines and the Shareholders Association, we don't have a great deal of problem with it. And I suspect maybe that the vote against the strike that you're earning is going to be an expression of opinion about the board and its past actions rather than current remuneration. So with that said, my votes are going to be against the re-election of all four directors.
Proxy will be cast against all four directors. And particularly with regard to Mr. Bastos, that's not a reflection on your abilities or experience or anything of that nature. It is simply that we think there are too many directors for such a small operation these days. And I'd be delighted to see IGO grow into a much larger operation, but I think it's time to expand the board when that happens if that's necessary.
And I think particularly having overseas resident directors at this point in time is a bit pointless when unless there was, well, perhaps one exception because she is Chinese, but the direction that needs to be focused here in Australia rather than overseas. I believe that the shareholders should not have any great confidence that this board will be able to supervise and approve a deal that's going to be successful for shareholders.
I believe that's the reason we're voting against the re-election of yourself and the other two directors without anything personal in relation to that. And we're going to be voting also against the increase in the pool because it wouldn't be necessary to have an increase in the pool if you had a more reasonably sized board.
Thank you for that comment, John.
I'm voting against most of the resolutions, Mr. Chairman, because I'm so gobsmacked at how much money has been wasted in this company. I've got a beautiful piece of paper here, and I think I'm up to about AUD 1.6 billion with the Western Areas debacle. So I disagree with my colleague over there, John. And we've heard a bit today about shareholder value. Well, there's been no shareholder value created in the last, well, since the 1st of July 2022. You've only got to look at the financial statements to see that the total equity was AUD 3,435 million at that date.
And as of the 30th of June, it had diminished to AUD 3,209 million. So there's been very little apart from the dividend. I mean, there's been very little equity or value created for shareholders. And we've also heard Mr. Vella speak at length about resizing teams and letting good people go and change.
Well, it's about time that we saw the same philosophy applied to the board. So we've got nine directors here. We only have to have three. We need a couple of spares. So that brings the number up to about five. So if the board was resized, we wouldn't need to be considering an increase in the directors' pool. And quite frankly, given the reduction in shareholder equity, that just does not pass the pub test.
Well, thanks for the comment. And I think I can only share your disappointment with the results for the last couple of years, remembering, of course, though, that strong cash flow from the Greenbushes and Nova did enable us to pay substantial dividends over that period of time, which is real returns to shareholders. Any more questions in the room on the resolutions? Otherwise, I think we have got some online.
We have a series of questions online from Mr. Stephen Mayne . The first question pertains to resolution one. Did any of the five main proxy advisors, ACSI, Ownership Matters, Glass Lewis, ISS, and ASA, recommend a vote against any of today's resolutions, including the re-election of Mike Nossal? If so, what reasons did they give, and will you disclose the proxy votes before the debate of each resolution?
On the very last question, I think we have got in front of us in the meeting the proxy votes. And I think we've also heard from John on the ASA recommendations. In terms of the other main four proxy advisors, ISS, ACSI, Glass Lewis, Ownership Matters, and ACSI, all of them voted in recommended voting in favour of all resolutions except ISS, which recommended voting against the remuneration report.
The rationale I just summarised in the ISS report for those that can access it goes into a lot more detail, effectively talks about the disparity in outcome between the shareholder experience and some of the remuneration decisions made in that report. So I think I'll leave it there on that one.
The next question has been shortened for conciseness and timeliness. It relates to the capital raising IGO conducted in 2020-2021. We've summarised the question as follows. With the benefit of hindsight, was the placement component of the raising too large? Should the pro-rata component have been renounceable? And will a share purchase plan be considered to make good for retail shareholder dilution?
Okay, thanks for the question. So in terms of the very last one, which is a specific question on going forward, there's no intention to relook at the capital raising that was done in 2021 at all. So there's no intention for any pro-rata offering going forward in relation to that capital raising. I'll just remind people the capital raising in 2021 was for the acquisition of Greenbushes and I think the acquisition of the TLEA joint venture, which brought with it the shareholding in Greenbushes. And I think by any measure that turned out to be a spectacularly good acquisition and therefore the capital raising to enable that. I'm not going to re-examine the structure of that for four years ago, but the outcome was very strong for all shareholders.
I remind people, some of the numbers that we gave last year showed that the cash outlay for that acquisition was returned to the company in dividends within two years. So, with still another 20-30 years of life left at Greenbushes. So it was a very good acquisition.
The next question from Mr. Main relates to resolution for the election of Mr. Marcelo Bastos. Could new director Marcelo Bastos and the chair comment on the recruitment process that led to his appointment to the board? Was a headhunter involved? Did the full board interview Marcelo as a group or individually? And did they interview any other candidates? Did Marcelo know any of our directors before engaging with the recruitment process?
Let me see if I can get all of those and come back to me if I miss one. But we did engage an international executive search firm for the search. It was very extensive and comprehensive, normal process of a very long list shortening to a short list. And then all of the board did interview both Marcelo and the other preferred candidate. A subset of the board interviewed a larger group of potential candidates for that director role.
So it was a very comprehensive process. We didn't interview Marcelo from memory as a whole board together. We interviewed in groups of two over a period of time and then brought back our thoughts and consensus. And we did that for both the two final candidates and unanimously decided that Marcelo was the chosen candidate. Did I miss one of those? Marcelo was known as a senior industry executive. A number of us knew Marcelo over the years.
In fact, I worked in the same company as Marcelo more than 10 years ago, I think, at some point in the past. But it's not unusual in the mining industry. We do tend to know each other and often end up working in the same companies.
The next question has been submitted against resolution five, the remuneration report. I note that proxy results have not been made available prior to today's meeting. When disclosing the outcome of voting on all resolutions today, including the remuneration report, can you please advise the ASX how many shareholders voted for and against each item? This will provide a better gauge of retail shareholder sentiment on all resolutions and insight into the chronically low retail shareholder participation rate.
I think we'll take on notice the idea of sending out the proxy numbers prior to the meeting. There's no reason that we can't do that. So we'll consider that for next year. In terms of we don't detail how any individual shareholder or group of shareholders votes. I don't think that's for us to detail. I think we just provide the overall both proxy numbers to start with and then the final votes, which will be released this afternoon to the ASX.
And the final online question is in relation to resolution eight. Please clarify what is proposed in terms of the next change to the annual fees paid to directors, assuming that this resolution passes. Also, did you consult with major shareholders before putting up this proposal, and are they supportive?
I think from the proxy results, we saw the support for the shareholders. In the notice of meeting, we did point out that there is no increase in director fees or membership fees, committee membership fees. And in fact, as part of our board review, we reduced the number of committees. We stopped forming a separate Nominations and Governance Committee so that we deal with nominations issues at the board and we deal with the other governance, the issues that were dealt with in the Governance Committee in relation to governance.
We allocated to each of the other committees where appropriate. So we've actually reduced the overall number of board members who serve on committees in aggregate, and we're not increasing the fees. We simply, because we were right at the close to the limit, we thought it was prudent. And we don't, as a last change, I think four years ago, and we don't want to do that every year.
So we put in one change, which should take care of us for the future. And I don't think we're talking about any FY26 remuneration issues at today's meeting, but we will continue to evaluate all remuneration issues very carefully. And I said before, really noting the votes that we've received against the remuneration report this year and making sure that we do that engagement and all remuneration decisions that we engage very carefully with shareholders on it and take the comments very much to heart.
There are no further online questions. Can I just clarify? I think Stephen Mayne . Could we ask you, John, just grab a microphone so that people online can hear you?
I think Stephen Mayne 's penultimate question was about shareholder numbers, the numbers of people voting in favor or against the resolution as opposed to the number of shares. He believes that companies should be disclosing, and I appreciate that you'd be in the minority if you did, the number of votes for and against in terms of showing how many people, individual shareholders, as against the institutions voting in particular directions.
Apologies, I misunderstood the thrust of that question. But to that extent, I think we'll take that on notice and always look for transparency, but we probably won't deviate very much from our current practice on that one going forward. So I think that brings us to the end of questions on the resolution. And so now I'd like to ask everyone to complete their poll voting, as previously explained. And for those in attendance, Rod, can I ask you and your team from Computershare to walk around the room and collect the green voting cards?
If anyone in the room requires assistance, please raise your hand. And I'm going to shortly ask that the online voting system be closed. So for those online, please ensure that you've cast your vote on all resolutions. So now pause for a minute just to complete this process. Rod? I haven't got the form. So Rod, I'm looking to you for confirmation that we've collected all the cards in the room. One more over there. Great. Well, thank you very much. And the online voting has now been closed as well, I hope. So ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the formal business of today's meeting, and I officially declare the meeting closed. As I mentioned earlier, the results of the poll will be lodged on the ASX platform later this afternoon and on the company's website.
I'd like to take this opportunity to reiterate again the understanding that it's been a very tough year for shareholders, and we share that at the board and we reflect on that very often. But we do, as I come back to, as I said in my address, we do come back to looking to the future with a lot of optimism and excitement. And so thank you again for your continued support of the company and for your attendance here today. For those of you online, thanks for your attendance. Can't offer you a cup of tea, but for everyone here in the room, please come and join the board and management team for some refreshments. Goodbye and thank you.