I'll now make a presentation about the company and its activities over the past year and the coming year. This presentation has been released to the ASX prior to the commencement of today's meeting. I'll have some slides that the team will share. We got those slides team. Right.
Inspired by our friend, Mr. Buffet, we've tried to and the Constellation Software Annual Letter. We've tried to come up with a scoreboard that will just help us keep an eye on whether we're making the progress that we'd like to over time. Our emphasis has always been over the long term. And I think as you've heard from both of our guest speakers today, our horizon has always been at least 20 years.
Business is now 15 years old. I've always had a sort of 50 year goal. And so with my friend is also been very influential. I wrote a book called Toughen Up Michael Hill, who built Michael Hill Jewelers. He always talks about a 30 year plan.
So we just wanted to have a simple scoreboard that gave us that sort of followed in the footsteps of best practice, Buffet and Constellation, that could make sure that we had a bit of a focus on whether we're making progress. We'd like to see per share book value compound over time. We'd like to see per share market value compound over time. We think that the ASX All Ords is worth keeping an eye on in terms of how it progresses. And we'd like to share that consistently in a consistent format over time.
So that's Table 1 that we've shared. Table 2 has key financial metrics on a per share basis. And it's our observation informed by the great investors, 2 of whom you've heard from today, that we should keep a very clear eye on per share performance of the business. When we listed the business, we had a strange number of shares on issue. And I remember saying to the Board, guys, how and girls, how many Shares do we have on issue, and we were all sort of scratching our head just to get the exact number because it was such an odd number.
And so it was a key focus from the beginning to get to 45,000,000 shares even that are on issue. And so it makes it easy now with an even number of shares that everyone can remember the denominator that we can now focus on growing earnings per each of those shares. So revenue per share has grown consistently over time. EBITDA per share has grown consistently over time. Net debt per share, you'll see is quite moderate and We're growing the business significantly while not increasing debt per share materially.
We're growing earnings per share. We're growing operating cash flow per share and the weighted average number of shares is falling. So that's a table that you'll see more of consistently over time. We shared a 5 year growth plan. And I've published our letter today where I just say, We'd like to acknowledge some of the key events over the last 12 months as the group continued to execute its 5 year growth strategy to build per share values through organic growth network expansion and the provision of new services.
Taken together, the board and management team believe that this strategy lays the foundation for future long term growth. We continue to grow the group with total revenue increasing 7.5% from the prior year to $48,900,000 underlying NPAT A attributable to the parent entity was $5,100,000 representing a 29.9% increase from FY 'twenty. The group's strong performance through the COVID-nineteen pandemic periods is a testament to the defensive nature of the group's business model with 99% of our revenue annuity style as well as the proactive measures taken by the group early in the COVID-nineteen period. These proactive measures included the group investing in advance in infrastructure to allow for large scale remote working, review and reduction of all ongoing and negotiations of rent abatements as well as ensuring ample liquidity in our operating businesses. I'm really proud of the effort that our team has made in these changed economic environment.
Regarding network expansion, the company continues to make good progress. During the financial year, the group completed 4 acquisitions in the Inner West, Orange Park, Central Coast and New South Wales. These acquisitions together with the annualized revenues of the 2020 acquisitions have contributed $2,200,000 to FY 2021 revenue. In FY 2022. These businesses together with 3 other acquisitions we recently completed in July 2021 are expected to contribute between $200,000 $8,200,000 to the group's revenue.
Subsequent to the end of the financial year, the company continues to be in discussions with multiple accounting businesses on joining the group. Company seeks to continue to execute its strategy by expanding its network through acquisitions. And I think All of our shareholders are aware of our focus in that area. We regard organic growth and acquisitions as two wings of a bird and you just fly better if you've got 2 wings in our industry, particularly with our expertise in that area. So that green area of that graph really reflects where we're trying to accelerate our growth.
But following the same playbook, We're able to accelerate because of the dominant position of the business in the private business market, predominantly in Sydney, and the growing attractiveness of our brand to firms that really want us to strengthen and improve their businesses as well as assist them with their succession planning over time. There is an enormous amount of interest ASX. And we continue just to seek to partner with the right types of people. I think when Lawrence Cunningham mentioned Warren Buffett's mindset about who he does business with. I very much share that mindset if dealing with a person isn't going to make your life better and you wouldn't have them over for a barbecue and they can't behave in a way that you can be proud of, then we don't seek to be in business with those with people like that.
We'd rather than hang out with other people. So total ordinary dividends of $0.0532 per share were paid for FY 'twenty one, representing a 10% increase from the FY 'twenty ordinary dividends. We've now increased the dividend 10% a year for 5 years in a row, which is terrific and reflects a consistent growth of the business. A final special dividend is also expected to be paid at the end of this month with the total ordinary and special dividends related to the FY 2021 financial year equating to a 60% to 65% payout ratio on 2021 underlying NPAT A. There was a shareholder that me and asked me could I give you more guidance as to when special dividends would be paid.
I'm working to build a quality shareholder base, who are long term with the company. And so I'm very happy when they get a surprise special dividend. It's a great reward for them being invested in the company. And so it isn't our aspiration to provide too much guidance in that respect. But you'll see the consistent dividend month to month.
And then from time to time, If it makes sense to pay a special dividend, then we'll continue to do that. In continuation of the company's on market share buyback program, 400,000 shares bought back during FY 'twenty one. The on market buyback conducted today represents a 60% discount to the current share price. In line with our strategy to build per share intrinsic value. The company will continue to repurchase shares when they are available at a meaningful discount to intrinsic value.
We're often in blackout periods because we're in negotiations to buy a business. It means that we don't have many opportunities to buy our shares back. If we're not in a blackout period and we have the capital to make share buybacks, then we will aggressively pursue that strategy and do as much of that as we can over time. Our structure, I'll leave you to read more about that in the letter that we published today. But I do want to make clear that our partner owner driver model was invented by us in the accounting industry.
We've been consistently applying the same agreements across every business and the same operating methodology in all of our deals since inception. It means that we've got real expertise with how we're operating. And we believe there's no better way to structure a professional services firm where the centralization of essential services can deliver a lot of time back to the partners. That means that they can run their teams and look after their clients much better than they would be without would be able to without that structure. And it lowers the cost base and drives higher margin return while all of the firms are investing in making themselves stronger and stronger businesses over time.
We really believe that our structure makes a particular difference to the performance of the business. Now our philosophy around capital allocation is pretty simple. I won't reread the words that are in the letter, but simply these are the principles that come straight out of Will Thorndike's book that you've read, that hopefully you've read and that you've heard about today. We're just seeking to improve the earning power of each of our businesses by growing their margins over time while continually investing in them to allow them to grow. We're further increasing their earnings through tuck in acquisitions.
We're growing our existing accounting subsidiaries our existing complementary businesses. We're looking to repurchase shares wherever we can and we'll make an occasional larger acquisition should it make sense and should we be able to do that acquisition without putting ourselves at any particular risk. And in particular, a larger acquisition is really about the quality of the people that are involved. That's really the best way to mitigate risk. We've published some tables that show how we've allocated capital since IPO.
We're publishing today this capital allocation philosophy. It comes straight out of the outsider's book, very closely resembles Sherwin Williams financial overview structure. But essentially, we've got to make sure that we always do the right thing by our bank partner that we get our net debt to EBITDA leverage at 1.5 times that we maintain financial flexibility so that we can take advantage of opportunities as they come along. You've seen that we've done a large number of acquisitions during the last 12 months in the middle of a pandemic. We see opportunity when things are difficult.
And we're working very hard at the moment in similarly challenging times for the broader economy to do as much as we can while things are a bit odd. So we're not looking to hold cash. If we need cash for a particular useful deployment within the business, then We'll certainly do that. But we want to treat the partners who are external shareholders in the same way that We treat the partners that are internal shareholders and we pay out 100% of our profits to our internal partners, 50% per month during the year, 30% in November, 20% in the following March. So We look to do the same thing for our external investors.
So we're looking to invest in existing business, acquire other businesses, pay dividends, pay down debt, repurchase stock. And we're doing all of those five things, I think, very effectively since IPO and in the public markets and previously as a private company. So our capital allocation goals, investing in existing KP businesses to build competitive advantage, make many consistent acquisitions over a long period of time, have a dividend payout ratio greater than 50% of NPAT A and grow the dividend by 10% a year, have net debt to EBITDA leverage of 1.5 times and do share purchases whenever share price is at a meaningful discount. And the caveat I would put on that is that We'll do more of that when we see a meaningful discount when we're not in a blackout period, which is almost always. And so don't take out inaction in the market as indicating any sort of commentary on value.
We'll simply buy shares when we're not in a blackout period, which is quite rare because of the number of acquisitions we're working on. Now our stakeholders I'm particularly pleased with the progress that we're making with the recognition of the quality of the employment and career opportunities that the business provides to people in our industry. When Beck and I started the business, Our aim was to create a firm that we would be proud to work in, that we would be pleased with the way that we'd be treated no matter what level of the organization we worked in. I'd worked from undergrad through to partnering in accounting firms. So I had a very clear understanding of what was good, bad and indifferent at each of those levels within accounting firms generally.
And so it's pleasing that we've been chosen as a great place to work and certified this year. We've also just been announced, I think yesterday as an Employer of Choice winner in 2021 with some other tremendous companies in Australia, including companies like McDonald's Australia, Swiss Wellness and Aldi. And that's a real testament to our people and the quality of the environment that is available to leading professionals to join our business. Our business has always been about making our people better off right from the most junior level right through to partner. And I think that very much distinguishes the way that we're building the business.
UpStreet is a fantastic app. If you haven't heard of it, look it up, please. All of our team members now have the UpStreet app. They've all been allocated shares. The only way that we are paying birthday presents or other referral for new business or referral for a new team member is rather than pay cash.
We're paying cash into the Up Street trust that buy shares and allocates them to the team member that's done a particular action. We're keen to have no employees or employee mindset at people at Kelly Partners, but rather have all of our people as owners thinking like owners working as owners and sharing the rewards of ownership in the business over time. This is very much expired. We couldn't find an easy way to do it when we started the company. But in reading the book, made in America by Sam Walton, he had a very innovative share scheme for his truck drivers and virtually everyone when he started the business.
And over 50 years, it made an enormous difference to a huge number of families. And so again, we're taking a very long term view there as to what we think we can do that would make a real difference to our people. Net Promoter Score It's a concept that came out of Bain, the Consulting Group and by a guy called Fred Reichheld published a book called The Ultimate Question. And that question is, how likely are you to refer Kelly Partners to a friend or colleague? And the score is out of 10.
Anything under a 6 or below is regarded as a detractor, somebody that's likely to tell a lot of people that have had a terrible experience. A 7 or an 8 is considered a neutral, essentially indifferent to the service that's being provided and a 9 or a 10 is considered a promoter. And the theory is that promoters grow your business. And I think that's true. We've always called them raving fans at Kelly Partners.
And it's those people that you do a good job for that go out and tell their friends and bring their friends and other team members to the business. We found a digital platform this year that we were able to implement that allows us to look at our clients and ask them this ultimate question. The global industry average in accounting is negative 13. Our score at this time is 70 plus, which is a huge testament to the quality of work being done by our teams across all of the businesses. ASX.
It's a mind blowingly good number from a statistically relevant number of people. We know that we have about 9,500 client groups and 20% of those would be 80% of our revenue. So we've got now more than 25% or nearly 25% of our key clients I have actually answered that question. We continue to ask the question, and we hope to be able to build more responses over time. But we know that we need to be very much a client centric business if we want to be able to innovate and deliver over time.
We've published some of the comments that we that have been made by clients. I'm just incredibly pleased with the commitment of our people to do the best they can for our clients. Now we're not always going to get it right. There are always going to be situations where we could have done a better job or where we've missed something or there's a view that maybe we could have done better. And even in that situation, we want to get that feedback and make sure that we make that situation right and make it the best that it can be.
I'm just incredibly pleased that the teams are doing that. And that's been published in the letter today. We're very committed and always have been that the point of our business, the mission of our business was to help our people, private business owners and the communities within which we operate be better off. So be healthier, wealthier and wiser. We focus on private business owners because that's where we have unique expertise and unique systems and processes and depth of knowledge where we can really move the dial on the outcomes for private business owner.
We also focus on private business owners because they're the people that are employing 70% of all Australians. We know that employment is critical to a high quality of life and a meaningful life. And we also know that technology over time is going to challenge the ability to provide employment. And so we really have a half of those people that put themselves out to run businesses and grow employment. The B Corp Certification, It's worth looking up.
To a large degree, these are values that have suddenly been discovered by larger businesses over the last 24 months. We started the business with 15 years ago with a very clear social mission to make people better off. The business has never been about just making an economic return. We've always known that financial outcomes come after doing a lot of other things very well for the right reasons. And that there's a compounding effect from those good values and behaviors over a long period of time.
In particular, we see in the acquisition space where we've done really great deals for people over a long period of time. We continually are referred opportunities to buy into businesses that without that track record, we would never get to see. It's similarly in the client space that every client we do a great job for refers one of their friends. And ultimately, we know If somebody is really pleased with the work that we're doing, we really only know that when they refer one of their colleagues or friends. And finally, with our people, we know that the fact that our people contribute so well to the business and continually bring their friends and colleagues to the business, makes so clear to us how important that stakeholder group is.
More broadly, our business should achieve a net zero certification. We believe in sustainability in terms of good values and behaviors, not using resources that we don't need to grow the business, being frugal in the way we operate and in particular, treating our people well so that they can do their best work with us. And so we see the B Corp certification. We're one of location. We're one of only 4 listed companies in Australia.
And the only firm in the top 50 accounting firms probably in the top 100, certainly only firm of any real scale that's been able to achieve this certification. We believe that our values will distinguish our organization over the next 20 years. There's many firms operating in the chartered accounting space that have involved themselves in behaviors over time with respect of ASX all sorts of conduct, particularly around multinational aggressive tax planning and other things that are really anathema to Society's values today. And I think will mean that they will struggle to attract the most talented young people to join them in activities that those young people as employees can't be proud of and aren't aligned with respect to values. So we think that our certification is a helpful step in public recognition of the values and ideas that have really driven the and will continue to.
What's really great is the Kelly Partners brand has been invested in very substantially now and very consistently over a long period of time. And what we're seeing is as we do our semi annual brand study. The strength of our brand is much higher then the average of the top 23 accounting firms in Australia is much higher than it was. It's more than 50% stronger than it was even 2 years to go. And that brand is about 2 things.
Firstly, bringing talented professionals to work within the group. And because we believe the battle of fatalities is where the game is really won. And then delivering to those talented people great opportunities. And then secondly, encapsulating the quality of the firm to potential strong clients, so that we become really the 1st choice advisor to leading private business owners in any market that we participate in. So we keep an eye on the strength of the brand.
We believe a branded offering in this space has the best chance of growing over time, and I'm particularly pleased with the progress that we're making in that area. I'd now like to take our letter that we published today as read and happily would take ASX. And we'll be joined by our group CFO, ASX. I'll take that first question because that's a great one I've been asked a few times. How do we explain paying a dividend?
There's some multilevel answer to that, but I'll take 5 minutes and give you Joris Jaspers, who's a shareholder from Amsterdam, a thorough answer. Berkshire Hathaway has never paid a dividend. It has never paid a dividend because for two main reasons that I can deduce. And if I did have the opportunity to ask Warren Buffett a single question, it would be, should Kelly Partners pay a dividend, after he'd had a fair chance to have a look at it. But let me explain why we do pay a dividend.
Firstly, Berkshire don't pay a dividend because, Buffett believes that he can get a better return by holding onto that capital. And I think he's uniquely qualified to make that claim, and he certainly delivered that over 50 years. Secondly, Dividends are so destructive from a capital point of view in the U. S. Because they're double taxed.
So they're taxed in the hands of the company and they're taxed in the hands of the shareholder. In Australia, we have what's called a franking credit system, where in that franking system, the tax that's paid by the company is passed on as a credit to the shareholder. And so it is much more tax neutral to an investor that dividend because they're just not paying double tax. Now we have 2 groups of partners within our business. At the operating level, we have equity partners that own 49% in our structure.
And at the Holdco level, we have external partner shareholders that own equity in the HoldCo. I've never regarded that as a HoldCo here with subsidiaries here. I've always regarded that as a partnership structure, internal partners and external partners. Our partners are reinvesting 9% of Their revenue is 6.5% for central services, 2.5% for IP into the business every year. A comparable firm that we compete against reinvestment rate within their business would be 0.
So the Competitive advantage that can be had by that consistent investment is, I believe, over the next 20 years, Stratospheric is just mind blowingly exciting because in most chartered firms that we look at, A dollar is made, there's 2 partners and they take $1.01 So we've already got this 9% flywheel being reinvested within the businesses. It doesn't affect our return because our returns are nearly twice the industry average anyway, which is terrific. And then as we're paying out plenty of cash to our partners, if you want to create alignment and have happy partners, A good way to do that is to pay them plenty of cash. Most people are quite happy to receive plenty of cash. And the way the partners are structured is quite tax effective as well.
At the Holdco level, we're able to fund all of the acquisitions we want to do today and that we can See that we might want to do for the foreseeable future without having to use much of any equity. And so that's an enormous advantage to the business. And so it's much more capital efficient to use debt and equity cheaper and creates better alignment with the partners that we're investing with and creates a much stronger sense of partnership. And so we think that if you leave money in most people's bank accounts, they might invest it well. If they're Mr.
Buffet, they may not. We have enough respect for our shareholders to say to them, well, here is your tax neutral dividend. Now if I was a bright shareholder of Kelly Partners Group Holdings, I'd simply turn around and buy more Kelly Partners Group Holding shares. But we respect that there's many different styles types of investors in our shareholder group, many of whom are looking for retirement income. I believe that over time, if the group can get a reputation for being a consistent dividend payer, as most of the Western world's baby boomers are retiring.
There's going to be a huge desire for income. And I believe that that will make our business more and more valuable as essentially cap rates have been up. So that's a relatively long answer to a short question. I hope that I hope that gives you some comfort, but also the assurance that, ASX. I don't have many views that are set in stone.
And over time we'll take questions and listen to that. There's a similar question there on the topic of a dividend international shareholders that account a large percentage of the register now. It is more than 25% of the register. If this continues to grow, will the dividend payout policy be revised? Thank you for the great work you're doing.
I think that's a great question, Tristan. And if you are an international shareholder, tell us where you're from on the Q and A, because at least while we're locked down here in Sydney, we can let our minds wander and imagine that we're traveling. Look, it's quite possible over time that we'll think about the dividend. But I had I spoke to a shareholder recently and he was complaining that I'd increase the dividend. And I said the last time I gave somebody a pay rise and they complained was a fair while ago.
So bear with us while we make you more money and we'll send it to you in cash. Nick Loco, ASX. Could you please describe KPG's funding strategy for M and A, hurdle rates for M and A, decision to pay dividends instead of reinvesting all the free cash flow back into M and A and buybacks to avoid double tax. And could you please describe reasons for 2019 slowdown in book value per share, revenue per share, EBITDA per share and EPS? And why you think you should not expect such a slowdown to happen again in coming years.
Thank you. Terrific, Nick, our funding strategy for M and A is we typically buy in a special purpose vehicle, the assets in of a business with our partners. We debt fund that with our partners within the subsidiary. And we don't in particular need a great deal of equity to do that. Number 2, hurdle rates for M and A.
We want to buy into businesses where we can ensure that that business will make a 33% EBITDA or more and lock up around 55 days of working capital. And if you pop that into a spreadsheet, That'll look quite nice. We've done that a lot for a long time. And we haven't dropped our hurdle rate, we don't intend to. And the reason is, Our hurdle rate needs to be aligned with the return to the operating partners.
And so unless we run very profitable businesses, It's really not a fair return to our operating partners. Now, most of our industry is running at 19%. That's according to a group called IBIS, as an EBIT number, we think when we look at most firms that we look at that number is 15% or 16%. And that's not in my view, an adequate return to partners for signing personal guarantees as they are in the businesses that they're in and taking the risk of business ownership, as well as working with the brains that they have as hard as they do in the industry. So we're just never going to accept that as an adequate return to our partners.
And most importantly, in any business, standards. You've just got to have standards and you can't, and I certainly have no intention of dropping those standards. So to your question as to dividends, number 3, instead of reinvesting all of the dividends back into M and A. We don't believe that paying we already pay the KPG share of any acquisition that we make down in less than 5 years as a typical target generally 4. And so we believe that that's a good situation and that those acquisitions are better funded from their own cash flow.
We think that the combination of a dividend to an investor plus the sorts of ROEs that we have are the best combination for an investor at this time. But we are aware of double taxation for international shareholders, although that's not been the situation for Australian shareholders who have been the dominant shareholders to date. Could you please describe reasons for 2019 slowdown? We IPO'd 'seventeen, 'eighteen and we did 'eighteen, 'nineteen. There was a reversal of some WIP, which is a book entry.
It would be much more helpful for you just to look at the free cash flow over those 5 years and send us a message. And once you look at the free cash flow, or will become apparent. To Graham Strong, since you've an aim of attracting long term shareholders, Could you let us know where you see Kelly Partners in the next 10 or 20 years? Importantly, Graham, I've never wanted to set up a rod for our own backs. But we've always consistently guided that we thought we could achieve 5% organic growth and 5% acquisition growth to target 10% compounding growth over the very long term.
I think that guidance is still valid. We are picking up momentum in the market, particularly for very high quality acquisitions. I'd expect that we can deliver on that for a long, long time. Now we may have years where we choose not to engage in as much acquisition as other years because we can't find deals that meet our criteria around values and quality of the people in business. But we've got now 15 year track record of consistently growing organically and making acquisitions.
We prepared a summary this week just for my own help. And in the 1st 5 years, we did 10 acquisitions. In the 2nd 5 years, did 9 acquisitions. And in the last 5 years, we've done 24 acquisitions. They still remain the same style of acquisition consistent around size and characteristics.
We haven't dropped our hurdle rate. We haven't changed in any way other than to make, In fact, our criteria are more stringent. And so we're very confident about the long term prospects for that consistent approach. Brett Dorondorf, given KPG's intimate involvement in the financials of the clients, is there anything general that can be shared, which provides a holistic view of the general health of the underlying businesses. Imagine small businesses around the world could be hurting given the turmoil of the past 18 months.
But I think, look, it might be true that small businesses around the world are hurting. We are predominantly 95% of our revenues in Sydney, which we think is one of the world's best economies, not just Australia's best economy. And small businesses uniquely in Australia, they put up their family homes property that is 1st mortgage secured by the bank to lend into their businesses. So Australian business owners that we deal with don't have the option having a bad day and deciding to walk away from their businesses. They'll spill blood and bones to make their businesses work.
And so what we're seeing is an extremely resilient client group, because of the high quality clients that we've attracted and frankly, filtered for over the last 15 years. And I can't see in the client base at the moment, Anything that's even approaching stress, the Australian government has handed out an unprecedented amount of money in all sorts of government programs over the last 18 months. And so what we're seeing is that very high quality business owners, owner operators are doing particularly well. To Christopher Webb, ASX listed accounting firms have had a mixed history. Have you studied why some of them didn't succeed?
Well, Christopher, that's a very good question. I've been in the industry, the chartered accounting industry since I was 18. I'm 47 next year, that'll be 30 years. Have I studied accounting firms? Yes, the history of listed accounting firms.
Of course, as you get to know me better, you'll know that I'm a studier. Why has there been a patchy performance of listed accounting firms because they were run by non accountants. So fundamentally, leadership and values are absolutely critical in a business. The 4 listed businesses, hearts, stocklands, WHK and CountPlus that have been listed. They have 2 core characteristics.
The first one is they were only ever conceived as a financial transaction. They were put together by people with the values of a promoter. And they were just simply an effort in getting a turn on their own money. Don't buy the shares of a listed company that's run by a promoter. That will typically be a CEO that owns very few shares.
Secondly, those businesses were never run by people that have run the underlying core businesses. Imagine if today I decided that I'd run a coal mine. I don't think the coal mine would go very well because I have no idea how to run a coal mine in all of the instances that I've just mentioned that were predominantly run by people with financial planning or merchant banking style backgrounds, not people that had worked from undergrad through partner in chartered firms and really deeply understood the underlying businesses. They are the 2 major reasons I think those businesses have struggled. The final one is structure.
I could give you 2 hours on it, but a roll up is not an effective structure for a professional services firm, our partner on a driver model, so 5149 structure that creates terrific alignment where we can dramatically increase the profitability, the underlying operating performance of the business, drop the working capital by 2 thirds and deliver much, much better returns to partners. To us, that's a very different model. To Edward Vestley. Very quickly, do you envisage Kelly Partners expanding outside of its existing markets eventually? Or is there enough on your plate in New South Wales?
So in New South Wales, every time we seek to take a step to the next place, We get offered another fantastic organization that wants to join our business here. I always thought it would be amusing if we could become a sort of top 25 firm that was only in Sydney. We've achieved that. We are now in Melbourne and we're growing there. We're being offered some tremendous opportunities to grow in Victoria.
I like it down there in Melbourne. I think it's it's suffered a lot in the last 18 months. So we're a little bit careful at the moment. But we do expect to partner with good people wherever we find those good people. It's just that our cup runneth over in, in New South Wales.
But we're certainly, you know, we have a database of more than 18,000 firms across Australia that we're regularly in contact with. And we have a very long and a very large list of potential partner firms across Australia. To Shane, wait, is there a possibility to offer a DRP structure to reinvest the dividends also introduces brokerage, which hurts the returns. I haven't considered a dividend reinvestment plan, but it's a good question and we'll certainly look into it. To Edward, I'll just go to Joshua.
I'll give Joshua a question before I come to that. Looking at your crystal ball, how do you see the accounting landscape changing over the next 10 years? What trends are likely to power it? And how's the KPG business model positioned to take advantage? It's a great question, Josh.
I think the primary driver that I see over the next 10 years ASX is these 2 large forces. So the demographics of Western countries are such that baby boomers are retiring and the working age ASX population is shrinking, absent a large amount of immigration. And so as the population ages, You also have on the other side of that, no political consensus on the left or the right to stop spending money. In fact, you've seen over the last 2 years, Western major Western economies spend more money than they've ever spent. Now, once politicians get into the habit of spending money, the person that comes along and says, well, why don't we spend a little bit less money, that's quite a hard argument to prosecute.
And so the combination of an aging population, and huge spending from governments, I believe will lead to only one thing, and that's increasing taxes. Now, there's not that many people that pay that much tax in Australia. If you're not that well off, you pay very little tax. So people under $80,000 a year of pay very little of the total tax take. And I might actually put a quality shareholders newsletter together on this and show our local and international investors who actually pays the tax in Australia.
Those global tech companies that are large and make a lot of revenues in Australia certainly don't pay any tax. There's some large top 10 taxpayers that pay a lot of corporate tax. And so there's not where is the government going to go? Well, they're going to go at our clients who are private business owners, they employ 70% of all Australians, they pay a disproportionate in my view, amount of tax. And so those taxpayers are going to need more and higher quality tax advice every moment from here to as far as I can see out for the next 25 years.
I believe that are the key trends that are going to drive people to high quality accountants that can help them get organized, have a clear plan, manage their tax and other exposures. And I think that represents a tremendous tailwind for the business generally. Rail, Jacob, Jim Collins talks about clock building, not time telling, How are you building, particularly in terms of succession? Yes, I don't talk about that rail, But I'll answer your question. In case something happens to me, I won't give that words.
But look, in terms of clock building, we've got 54 partners now a total of 300 people 17 operating businesses, there is large diversification across the partner group across the geographies across the employee group and certainly across the client group. We don't have client concentration, which is which to any great degree, which is very helpful. We've built a very strong services team with 15 team members. There is a documented succession plan for me in the event that something might happen to me. There are identified people that can operate the business with me if I was partially unavailable or without me fully unavailable.
So I don't see myself as a particular succession risk. I see the teams is doing a great job. We're very aware of next generation talent. We can't materially grow the business without materially growing that next generation talent. And I hope that that gives you some comfort.
There was a question about a quick update on the OS brokers partnership. We continue to work with OS brokers on the partnership. We've appointed a new senior leader. I'm excited about the progress that will come there. We see it as a 10 year long march, but we think the prospects for it are particularly exciting.
Just looking for if we got Any other questions? There was a question where you slow down. It needs to grow. I hope that's been helpful. We're certainly available and we've got time to answer further questions.
Very happy to do that. Brett, what books are you currently reading? That's a great question. Claude, so I've got a little stack behind me. There's a particularly great little book called How did you do it?
Truett. And it's by a guy called Truett Cathy, who was the founder of Chick Fil A, which is a great book. And I'm also rereading Amazon print edition of Michael Hill, the founder of Michael Hill Jewelers book called Toughen Up. And what's terrific about that version is they sent it to me in old people's print, you know, large print for an old guy like me who can't, can't, can't read little things as well as I once did. But it's got big print, which has made a surprisingly awesome difference.
The other couple of books that I've found particularly good in my stack at the moment. There's a book called Hollywood Raja, The Life and Times of Louis B. Mayer, the Hollywood Tycoon, 100 to 1 in the Stock Market by Thomas Phelps Buffet's Tips. It's a great little book by John Longo and his son, Tyler Longo, The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie, who was a survivor from the Holocaust, which is really terrific book. From Shane Wheat, apart from Mr.
Buffet, who are the CEOs that I most admire. Obviously, Mark Leonard at Constellation Software and being able to spend a lot of time with Lawrence Cunningham has been helpful. We've done a lot of research on them over time. We think that Danaher business model and the leadership at Danaher have done a tremendous job. I think Michael Hill, here locally, he's 82 now.
What's most inspired me about him is his 30 year plan methodology that he's always run a 30 year plan. And he's, you know, he started his business in his 40s after his house burned down, which is pretty, it's a pretty amazing story. If you haven't read it, I'd really I'd read it. I like Charlie Munger, but I like Charlie more in the past than I do in the present. I think he's changed to a degree.
And but I still think, you know, you can you can learn from everybody without without agreeing with everything that they're involving themselves in. And I think that My number 2 hero from Buffett is the founder of LVMH Bernard Arnault. And the reason I like Mr. Arnault is that he's taken older companies and reinvigorated them, added a layer of central benefit around leasing and marketing in particular, but also allowed those businesses to grow out their oftentimes 100 year franchise. I think he's probably, the best, modern day, business person in the world in terms of where he started from and where he's landed.
I discount the tech CEOs versus somebody like I know because they've had to produce less actual profits than someone like I know to achieve the place that he's landed. And I'm not sure what those businesses look like over 50 years. There's a great quote, I know helped Steve Jobs with his Apple Stores. And there's this great quote where Steve Jobs has reportedly commented to I know, I don't know who will be using my iPhone in 20 years. But I know that everyone will still be drinking your Dom Perignon in 200 years.
And so Banos Group very much suits my sensibility about the potential longevity of his business. I'd make the comment that I haven't made publicly before, but there's many, many accounting groups that are over 100 years old. Virtually all the groups larger than us in Australia are more than 50 years older than us. And when I consider the prospects of a business, I really want to think about, as Buffett has often talked about and others, how long do you think You can successfully operate in that space. And so we're not in building rocket ships or new high-tech gadgetry, where the cycle for change is much faster and frankly, completely unpredictable.
I just have the very firm view that death and taxes will remain certainties and that In fact, governments will become even less principled about how they act with respect to taxing their citizens. And that the need for very high quality, strong accounting and taxation services will grow, frankly, exponentially over the next 20 years. And I think we're incredibly well positioned to grow as a result of that in a measured and intelligent way. Well, I must have bored you all stiff with those answers, which is not the intention, but it certainly slowed the list of questions. Is there Another and I want to call out one of our shareholders from the Republic of Georgia that has just advised, which is terrific.
We've got people from all sorts of amazing places. Kenny and I often get to travel while we're in lockdown here in Sydney, Kenzie in Hong Kong. We get to talk to people all over the world. And frankly, ASX. The international shareholder base has been very helpful in giving us information about what's happening with COVID around the world and helping us understand what the pathway for Sydney and Melbourne and our country is likely to be from here.
We've spoken to shareholders in Spain, in London, in Amsterdam, in Finland, in Georgia, in the U. S. And obviously, that's added a huge amount of value for us in considering what happens next with COVID in Australia. So if there are no more questions, just pop in my little book away there. But I'm happy to take any more questions.
It's a sort of once a year opportunity to ask some any random question that you'd like to ask. We'll put all those papers to the side if there's no more questions. Going once, going twice. I'm just reviewing. We've got a couple more.
Great. I hear they are terrific. How do you see technology technological advances such as AI changing the way accounting is done in the future, specifically for Kelly Partners both positively and negatively. It's a great question, Graham. When I started at Pricewaterhouse in 1993, they just put the 1st IBM Computers in.
We had floppy disks. And, you know, they used to work and we take some time to get things done and pull them out and do those sorts of things. They weren't just a little floppy disk. They were the ones that were genuinely floppy. And then MYOB came along as a piece of software that was mind your own business, it was called and then MYOB.
And the idea was that everyone was going to mind their own business. And accountants were going to have nothing to do. But what we saw was our work went up as the world continues to be more and more financialized. Then 0 came along and we were going to have nothing to do then either. But in fact, 0 tends to create more conversation with clients and more needs.
All of these developments over the nearly 30 years I've been involved have taken away some of the basic work that might have once been done by an accountant, but the industry continues to grow. The complexity of the Tax Act is probably the best place to look. If anyone can come up with a technological solution that reconciles the 10,000 unreconcilable pages of the Tax Act and makes it possible for anyone to effectively interact with the tax office and protect their own interests, then that person will be wealthier than Elon Musk, I suspect. I consider that extraordinarily unlikely. I do believe that technology will continue to enable what we can do for clients.
Accounts have a lot more talent, brains and ability than they often are able to deliver to a client simply because Most private business owning Australians are undercapitalized. They don't have a huge amount of wealth. And so there is a limit to what they can spend with their accountant. If we can use technology to be able to do more and more intelligent things for a client, I think we can grow the businesses quite dramatically, frankly. We are working quietly in the background on a digital platform that I think will be very different to what's in the market.
And we have a stated goal to be the most digitally enabled accounting group in the world for privately held business owners that will quietly pursue. And I think you'll see that what we come up with there can dramatically improve the engagement that we have with clients. And as a result, the amount of things that we can assist the clients with. We as an organization are excited about technology and are very adept at using it. We have more data, I think, with respect to our clients than any other organization with which they interact.
But the cost of helping those clients effectively utilize that data has been too high in the past for clients to really get value from that. But that cost is radically dropping and our ability and brains in terms of how to take that data and deliver value to the clients from their own data, I think is rising exponentially. So we're pretty excited about what happens with technology. Frankly, I think the negative of technology is that it'll be harder for a mediocre graduate to get a job in an accounting firm in the future. And so right across the economy, there is, I think, a rapidly accelerating upskilling occurring.
And so just like there's no jobs in factories anymore, There won't be any basic jobs in professional services firms for people that are average at what they do. And it's probably true that we are graduating too many average accountants relative to what the industry might need in the foreseeable future. Edward Vessley has asked the question, are there any Australian listed company CEOs that I admire? Look, the Australian business leaders that I admire in particular people like Brett Blundi. I think Graham Turner at Flight Centre has built an incredible business.
I believe both those 2 are certainly the 2 leaders of of businesses here that I admire the most. I think they have businesses that are relatively similar ASX to what we're doing at Kelly Partners in terms of a branded offer in the case of Bras and Things and Lovisa and other business ASX. Brett Lundy is involved with a branded offering backward industries. And in terms of Screw Return or branded offer in a backward industry. Matt Brazier, how do you select the right partners and is this an objective process that can scale?
Matt, I think We ask a simple question when we meet a person, you know, is this a person for others or a person for themselves? And in our industry, Most professionals are technical people that are impressed with themselves and their own skills. We're trying to find people that are impressed by the idea of taking their skills and the talents have been given and putting them at the service of others to really dramatically change the well-being of our clients. We think those people stand out. But we also know we're the only people looking for them, which is helpful.
So those filters, are they a person for others? Do they do what they say? And are they somebody that works as part of a team? Or are they somebody that regards themselves as better than a team? There's not a lot of competition for those people.
And so we're doing well at finding those people and we always have, but we do believe that there are a small number of people. We're again looking for 2 standard deviations above the mean, maybe 2.5% for people. And that's okay, because there are a lot of those people out there. They're just a small number relative to the industry. They're not highly sought after by other people because the cultures of most other firms Me, me, me, I, I, I.
It's all about me, I'm better than the team. And those types the types of people we're looking for, They don't appreciate that type of culture. And so we think the opportunity to create a different place for the right type of people is frankly, very large. To Gary Sheffield, do you have views on the growth of DFI and blockchain technology? At this point, Gary, no, I don't, frankly.
Christopher Webb, you talked about intrinsic value and buybacks as you didn't pay more than $2.09 in the buyback. Does that mean you think the shares are currently overpriced? Christopher, a better measure would be if you saw me dump 40% of the 50% of stock that I own. If you want to follow listed companies and their founders. There's typically a group of CEOs out there, more promoter style CEOs who announce good news and then sell their own personal stock.
That might be a better guide to my view of intrinsic value. Now I couldn't have done more to help you. I've recommended Robert Hagstrom's book, The Warren Buffett Way. I've said that you should get a 2 stage dividend discount model and pop it into a spreadsheet, stick our numbers in there and assume a growth rate. I've given you today guidance that I think we can grow at 10% forever.
The last thing for you to decide on is the discount rate that's appropriate. Buffett says the 30 year U. S. Treasury rate, given that's 0, that might be too aggressive at the moment. Got one decision to make a discount rate.
Now there's a lot of smart quality shareholders on this call. And perhaps you start a little Facebook group and have a debate about what's an appropriate discount rate. We're operating in a very small circle of competence. We're just doing the same thing over and over again, in an industry that we deeply understand that we don't believe can disappear, because taxing is the ultimate power of a government. And there's no chance that even during a pandemic, if you notice, they didn't give you a year off paying your tax.
I think there's one decision for you to make. Now, when will we buy back? We don't announce when we're in a blackout period, but that's almost all the time. And that makes it very difficult for us to buy our shares back. I'm constantly railing against that, but we're very conservative.
I sort of walk I was walking around the pool talking to somebody yesterday, quite distressed by the fact that I'm often in a position where we can't buy shares back. So look, I'm confident in the quality of the business. And I think over time, as Laurence mentioned this morning, we just want a rational share pass. And you'll see us do very rational things with respect to that. And yes, we should buy back some more shares, and you might see a bit of that at some point.
Andrew, you mentioned you'd consider buying back shares of your company with value below intrinsic value. I've given a lot of guidance on valuation over time if you look at the owner's manual and other things that we've published, have a look there And certainly follow us up if that's difficult to understand. Shane, league or AFL? Who's Your Team? Shane, I sort of love everyone equally.
We live for a good amount of time in Penrith as I was growing up as I was growing the business. I sold our apartment in Kirribilli, put the money in the business and moved to far Western Sydney, Oxley Park, St. Mary's, Penrith. And so Very fond of the Penrith Rugby League team. Bet, my wife's father, has 1 red eye and 1 green eye, so very much a South supporter.
So that was an interesting game on the weekend. AFL, my family, when my dad first came from England to Australia, were in Melbourne. When dad and my 2 half brothers moved to Sydney. They were dyed in the wool AFL people. Was taken to the swans from I think 84 or 85.
My brother, who's now deceased was a Richmond fan. My other brother was a Collingwood fan. I've been following the swans since forever since Barry round was the was the full forward. And so that gives you an insight into My AFL choices, look, I love sports, so happy to watch anything. Can you talk a little bit, Julian Girolamo, Can you talk a little bit about KPG operating business employees account and how does KPG operating businesses go about sourcing above average accountants talent?
Just KPG Offshore Services like so many firms in Australia. So we're not a fan of offshoring for a start Julian in that Leadership and good management makes all the difference. And most people struggle to do that from 6 feet, let you know, 6,000 kilometers or more. How do we find, frankly, we've just worked very hard to find very good people. It's never been easy to find the best people.
And nor should we ever expect that it will be easy. But we have now we've just added another person to our team, 3 people recruiting every day to find great people, we do a lot in the way of marketing to achieve good outcomes. And we have a 17 step documented recruitment process that includes a 2 hour work test, number of interviews, and to particular talent identification reviews that we do profiles that we do. One is identifying people's core strengths, the other is identifying their intrinsic motivation and their ability to complete steps, which is really important in terms of the work that we do. We want to find finishes, people have finished things, not just start things.
And so we consider that we have, like in the acquisition part of our business, a different filter. And so what it means is that rather than looking where everyone else is looking, We're actually looking for a different type of person. So as I mentioned, different values, and then different actual psychological you know, characteristics, so intrinsically value, intrinsically motivated. So you can't put motivation and discipline into somebody. So you need screen for intrinsic motivation and discipline.
You then need to make sure they're intelligent, obviously, and they've got a lot of energy. And we can best measure that through a work test of 2 hours and then a particular test that we've got that shows their ability to complete steps. So I hope that assures you that we do have and have worked on for a long time, a very detailed, very, very rigorous way of identifying the right people. That's always going to be a part of our business that takes a lot of energy. But we're in the marriage business, Julian, not the dating business, you know, we want to find people that we'd be that we would be prepared to commit to for life, in that they're that Good.
We would hope they'd be in our business forever. And so we're prepared to make the effort required to meet that type of person. We don't treat employing somebody from our end as a casual affair. We're not just here for 5 minutes. We really want to find people that we can make better off over the long term, because we know that it takes a decade to really make a material difference to anyone, frankly.
And We think that the effort is absolutely worth it. So with that, I think we've got I might have covered everyone's questions. We've got, I think, most of those answered through that list there. Looks like that might be the end. I'm conscious of time.
I really want to thank everybody for their questions. And I'm just checking both the little message boards here. One final question. This year, the share price was a little over $4 How do you determine intrinsic value? I think we've got I've probably given you enough help there.
I guess the last comment I'd make is typically these firms are private and you wouldn't get to buy any shares. It's a rare opportunity and we think rare opportunities that are well run are probably more valuable than others. But I hope you've been given enough information today and in a spirit of transparency that gives you confidence in who we are and what we're about. So moving to Section 5, past shareholder minutes. The minutes of the previous Annual General Meeting of members of the company, which is the Annual General Meeting held on the 25th November 2020, are available for inspection by contacting the company secretary.
Number 6, a Notice of Annual General Meeting and Proxies. We now move to the formal business as set out in the Notice of Meeting. The notice of Annual General Meeting was mailed to all registered members on or about the 6th September 2021 and is to be taken as read. Voting at today's meeting will be conducted via an online platform. For those entitled to vote at today's meeting, please log on to the online voting portal.
If you are having difficulty navigating the platform, please refer to the Computershare online voting guide. Details can be found in our notice of meeting and in the chat below. As previously notified, voting on all resolutions today will be conducted by way of a poll. Undirected proxies or open votes have nominated the Chairman as their proxy, will be cast in favor of each resolution in the notice of Annual General Meeting. For the purposes of the poll, I appoint Richard Powell of Computershare Investor Services, the company's share register, who have examined and prepared summaries of the proxy forms received to act as returning officer and to conduct the poll.
If you are eligible to vote at this meeting, a new polling icon will appear on screen. Selecting this icon will bring up a list of resolutions and present you with voting options. To cast your vote, simply select 1 of the voting options. You're not required to hit submit or enter as your vote is automatically recorded. I now declare the poll open.
You can cast and change your vote on all resolutions from now until I declare voting closed. The first item of business is to receive the company's annual financial report for the year ended 30th June 2021. The financial report and the reports of the directors and the auditors are now made available before the meeting. There will be no vote on this item and it is a discussion item only. The company's auditor for the 2021 financial year, Leo Tarr and Lloyd Crawford of William Buck are present to take questions relevant to the conduct of the audit and the preparation and content of the independent auditors' report.
Are there any questions or comments on the financial report the reports of the directors and auditors. If you wish to ask a question, please post your questions in the Q and A section. Are there any questions or comments on the management of the company? Are there any questions relevant to the conduct of the audit and the preparation and content of the auditor's report be put to the auditor. We will now proceed to the resolution set out in the notice of Annual General Meeting.
Resolution 1 is as follows: to consider, and if thought fit to pass with or without amendment, Resolution 1, adoption of remuneration report as an ordinary resolution. If you wish to discuss the resolution, please post your question in the Q and A. The proxies received in relation to this resolution are presented on the screen. I now put the motion Resolution 2, reelection of Director, Mr. Ryan McNamee, to consider and if thought fit to pass with or without amendment Resolution 2, reelection of Director, Mr.
Ryan McNamee, as an ordinary resolution. If you wish to discuss this resolution, please post your question in the Q and A. The proxies received in relation to this resolution are presented on the screen. I now put the motion. Resolution 3, reelection of Director, Ms.
Ada Poon, to consider and if thought fit to pass with or without amendment Resolution 3, reelection of Director, Nizaidah Poon, as an ordinary resolution. If you wish to discuss the resolution, please post your question in the Q and A. The proxies received in relation to this resolution are presented on the screen. I now put the motion. Resolution IV, Amendment of Constitution of the Company.
To consider and if thought fit to pass with or without amendment Resolution 4 amendments to the constitution of the company on the use of technology in meetings as a special resolution. If you wish to discuss this resolution, please post your question in the Q and A. The proxies received in relation to this resolution are presented on the screen. I now put the motion. Resolution 5, Amendment of Constitution of the Company to consider and, if thought fit to pass with or without amendment, Resolution 5, amendments to the constitution of the Company for its B Corp Certification as a special resolution.
If you wish to discuss this resolution, please post your question in the Q and A. The proxies received in relation to this resolution are presented on the screen. I now put the motion. This concludes the resolutions to be voted on today. I now declare the poll closed.
Following confirmation by Computershare, the final results will be announced to the ASX later today of today's voting. Other business. Is there any other business that can lawfully be brought forward? If any shareholders wish to bring forward any matters, please post your question in the Q and A. As that concludes the business of the meeting, I declare the meeting closed.
I very much wish to thank all of the members for their attendance. And special thanks to our guest speakers, Lawrence Cunningham and Will Thorndike, for their time today. I'd like to thank all of our team members, our equity operating partners, our Board of Directors and all of our shareholders for attending today and for your very positive contribution to our organization. The greatest thing about our business is the people we get to hang out with every day. And all of you fit that bill.
And I'm incredibly pleased to get to spend my time with people who are intelligent, want the best for other people, and are fun. Have a great day.