Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is David Chambers, Chairman of Mach7 Technologies. On behalf of the board, I'd like to welcome you to Mach7's 2023 annual general meeting. Today's meeting is being held as a virtual meeting. Shareholders will be able to ask questions through the online platform and to vote electronically when prompted.
This process will be discussed shortly. If we experience any technical issues that impact the meeting, I'll assess the circumstances and communicate further with you. If this isn't possible, you'll be emailed instructions on how and when to rejoin the meeting. I'll now ask my company secretary, do we have a quorum?
Yes, we do, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Tony. I'm informed by Tony, our company secretary, that in accordance with the company's constitution, a quorum is present, and I declare the meeting formally open. Next Slide, please. I'll be introducing my fellow directors joining us today, which include Mike Lampron, our CEO and Managing Director, and Mr. Robert Bazzani, who's sitting here with me in the room, Non-Executive Director. Our other non-executive directors, Dr. Eliot Siegel and Mr. Philippe Wolgen, are unable to attend today's meeting and do send their apologies.
Also joining us are Dyan O'Herne, our Chief Financial Officer, Françoise Dixon, Investor Relations Manager, our company secretarial team, including Mr. Tony Panther to my left, and Ms. Jessica Cahill, and the company's auditors, RSM, represented by Mr. Mathavan Parameswaran . The order of events for today's meeting will be as follows. Firstly, I will say a few words about the past year of Mach7.
Mike Lampron, CEO, will then provide an overview of the business, our FY23 results, and our FY24 focus. Then we'll turn to formal business and the resolutions of the meeting. Lastly, there will be an opportunity for any general shareholders' questions. Our Company Secretary, Tony Panther, will now explain the processes for voting and submitting questions. Tony?
Thank you, David. Voting on the resolutions will be conducted by way of an online poll. If you've already submitted a vote by proxy, your votes will already be counted towards the poll, so you don't need to lodge another vote unless you wish to change the proxy instruction that you've previously provided. If you've not submitted a vote by proxy before the meeting and wish to vote on the resolutions today, you can do so by following the instructions that will be, as shown on the screen.
When the poll is declared open, a poll window will appear on your screen, an example of which you can see at the moment. This will show all of today's resolutions with voting directions for each resolution, either for, against, or abstain.
To vote, simply select the direction in which you want to cast your vote, either for, against, or abstain, and the selected option will then show as being marked. To submit your votes after they've all been selected, simply click on the Submit button that you'll see displayed. You will have—you'll have the ability to change your vote up until the time voting is closed.
Voting on all resolutions will be allowed up until the time that the poll is closed. We'll open the poll after the Chief Executive Officer's presentation, a little bit, in a few minutes time, and a poll window will then appear on your screens, such as the one you can see here. In relation to asking questions, shareholders can wish to ask questions via text. Please note the following instructions.
You'll see that there's a Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen. If you want to submit a question by text, select or click on that icon, type your question in the message box that appears, and press the Send arrow or click the Send box, and the questions will then be provided through to the board, and will be addressed at the appropriate time.
Given that online format, we may experience some time lag, so it may cause some delay in your text questions coming to our attention. Therefore, we encourage you to submit questions via text as early as you can. Alternately, shareholders wishing to speak and raise a question verbally, an audio questions facility is also available. If you prefer this method, please follow this process.
Click on the Raise Hand icon at the bottom of your screen. You'll be then placed in a queue and will be authorized to speak when we reach the Q&A session. Prior to you asking your question, please state your full name and who you are representing.
We just... And also a reminder that shareholders will be able to ask questions. Those who are guests or members of the media, as this is a shareholders meeting, you won't have the opportunity to ask questions. Therefore, I'll just ask you to leave the questions to shareholders or their representatives. Back to you, David.
Thank you, Tony. So before moving to the formal part of the meeting, I would like to provide an overview of the 2023 financial year. I'll then hand over to our CEO and managing director, Mike Lampron. The 2023 financial year was another important year for Mach7, with the delivery of record sales orders, several strategically important contract wins, and a solid financial result.
The market continues to evolve with the rise of network radiology and the shift in diagnostic imaging in all forms, from the acute to the ambulatory care sector. Artificial intelligence, along with cloud technology enablement, are continuing to gather momentum in their application. Additionally, electronic medical records are becoming standard work tools, as shown by the rapid growth in adoption internationally. These technological shifts are enhancing patient treatment and enabling medical practitioners to become more productive and manage ever-increasing workloads.
But they also happen to be immensely beneficial to Mach7, as our technological innovations and business strategies are directly aligned to maximizing the benefits derived from these trends. Our unique technology and track record of innovation continues to achieve high levels of value differentiation from other competitors in our markets.
KLAS and other highly independent industry analysts continue to recognize our technology as high performance and market leading. In 2023, our eUnity diagnostic viewer placed number 2 overall in the KLAS Universal Viewer product segment for the second year in a row, as defined by the Best in KLAS Software and Services report released in February 2023. Turning to our FY23 results on Slide 7, we achieved a third consecutive year of record sales order growth, which was up 21% to AUD 40.3 million, and exceeded our FY23 target of AUD 36 million.
Sales orders continue to be one of the best measures of Mach7's financial progress, as the timing of cash receipts and revenue can vary depending on contract milestones, revenue recognition rules, and the mix between capital and subscription agreements. In FY23, subscription contracts represented approximately 60% of sales orders, compared to a 50/50 split between subscription and capital contracts in FY21.
New customers represented 55% of FY23 sales orders, creating a platform for future sales, order growth and expansion, add-ons, and renewal categories. They also included strategically important new customers such as Akumin, Nuvodia, and St. Paul's Hospital in Hong Kong. We recognized record revenue of AUD 30.1 million, which was up 11% year-over-year, with recurring revenue up 22%.
Our contracted annual recurring revenue, or CARR, was up 21% to AUD 20.6 million at 30 June 2023, and ARR run rate of AUD 17 million was up 18% at 30 June. We recorded an NPATA of AUD 7.2 million, up 61% year-on-year, and a net loss after tax of AUD 1 million, which was a AUD 3.1 million or 75% improvement on FY 2022.
Mach7 is in a strong financial position, with closing cash of AUD 23.4 million at 30 June 2023, and no debt. We've had a strong start to FY 2024, which Mike will cover in more detail shortly. On 10 August 2023, I announced my intention to retire as chair and non-executive director of Mach7. I joined the board of Mach7 in August 2018 as an independent non-executive director, and was appointed chair in June 2019.
After 5 years, I believe now is the right time to step down as part of the board's renewal process. It has been an honor to serve the shareholders of Mach7 during a period of significant growth, and despite the challenges of a global pandemic. I'm enormously proud of the Mach7 team, which, under the leadership of Mike Lampron, has produced top-ranking software and services, built a loyal and rapidly growing global customer base, expanded its footprint in Asia Pacific and the Middle East, and continues to win ever larger and strategically important contracts.
My retirement will take effect at the close of this AGM. It will also mark the end of my working life, which has extended over 45 years, brought me immense enjoyment, and leaves me with few regrets.
A vote of thanks to all of those along the way of the journey who have entrusted their faith in me. As we look to the future, Mach7's innovative and interoperable products are the foundation of an enterprise imaging strategy that provides both hospital networks and private practices with a consolidated image data management solution, with diagnostic image viewing from any location.... Our strengthened team underpins this highly differentiated imaging software portfolio, which I believe will enjoy much ongoing success.
The results achieved and exciting outlook would not be possible without the hard work of our CEO and Managing Director, Mike Lampron, his leadership team, and staff across our key locations in the USA, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Belgium and Australia. To our customers and shareholders, thank you for your ongoing support in our drive to fulfill our vision of being the world's leading enterprise imaging provider.
I'll now invite Mike Lampron to address the meeting. Thank you, Mike.
Good morning, everyone, and I'd like to add my welcome to today's AGM. I want to take some time today to talk about key elements of our business and our recent performance and outlook. So turning to Slide 9, what makes Mach7 unique is the fact that we have separate modules that can service customers across the spectrum of enterprise imaging.
As an enterprise-first company, we enable our customers to bring images from across the hospital system and serve those images back out to the hospital community in a meaningful way. 2 major components of that system that allow us to do that are our VNA and the Enterprise Viewer. There are other components and use cases which are important to our customers, but the idea here is that you do not need to buy our whole ecosystem to find value and to solve today's problems.
This reflects our core value of offering independence to customers. We do that by being innovative in how we produce and build our software, making it modular so customers can take advantage of the components they need to solve the problems they have. We also have the scalability to solve problems into the future, which forms part of our land and expand approach from a sales perspective that we've had since day one.
On Slide 10, we show our workflow solutions, which are a key differentiator for Mach7. Most of what we call enterprise imaging is referring to enterprise radiology. And the tools associated with radiology, as an example, radiology technologists need to do quality control on the images prior to the radiologist reading the studies. Things like making sure markers are correct, image quality is appropriate, patient data is right.
People outside of radiology can benefit from the same applications. This is something that is overlooked in many ways by those that deliver technology for the other ologies. As we look at the enterprise, we provide these historically radiology-focused tools to improve the workflow throughout the hospital setting.
Again, keeping in mind the enterprise over just a single department. So on Slide 11, we're showing you sort of the power of our integration and interoperability. And our customers have the choice, and if you see the bottom workstation, it says Mach7, that's our workstation. And then third-party worklist, sort of giving them a best-of-breed approach to workflow. These are all companies we've worked with in the past. Many radiologists have a preference with what they use, and so we offer that integration. This is just an example of the interoperability that we offer.
So moving to Slide 12, this outlines our major differentiators. Our enterprise-first strategy is a fundamental difference. We are born from the enterprise, and we're moving towards radiology. In contrast to a lot of PACS solutions that were born in radiology, and they're now trying to move out to the enterprise.
We believe in integration and interoperability, and we have tech stack independence. We're a software-only solution that will leverage whatever hardware customers choose to use. In the same way, we do not have a preference for cloud versus on-prem, and we offer migration services for those transitioning from legacy solutions. Oftentimes, that's a service that a third party will have to do for a customer. We have some top-performing products in class, with our universal viewer coming in at number 2 in 2022. That universal viewer is a zero-footprint viewer. That's a differentiator.
It means there's no software to install with our viewer. That's important from an IT point of view, and it makes things easy from outside the walls of the hospital. As we started to see a shift in buyers to the C-suite from the radiologist, the key decision driver is based on security. By consolidating imaging across the enterprise into a single solution, the number of opportunities for failure are minimized.
Along with a more resilient infrastructure, is the ability to have a high-quality data management system that customer IT teams can manage themselves and ensure the security of that solution and of that image repository. So moving to Slide 13, we're providing a summary of market dynamics influencing the adoption of enterprise imaging. The buyers are shifting, with decisions being made by the C-suite or CIO, where historically they have been made by the radiologist.
It's increasingly a decision for the whole hospital system or the enterprise, rather than just the radiology department. This shift is occurring not just within hospitals. As reimbursements increase for outpatient clinics, hospitals are creating joint ventures, and radiology groups are being created with imaging centers in conjunction with the hospitals.
This reflects a shift from acute to ambulatory care, and the volume of diagnostics reads is shifting to correspond to this change. We're also seeing consolidation from an administration perspective, with decisions being made for IDNs, or think of it as a cluster of hospitals rather than a single hospital. We hear every day how AI is increasingly becoming part of the conversation. We're having that conversation with our customers every day. It is a complex concept that represents both risk and opportunity for the CIOs of healthcare organizations.
What is clear is that a vendor-agnostic, interoperable platform that can integrate readily with third-party applications gives the CIO optionality, and this is our sweet spot. Turning to what is preventing enterprise imaging from really getting a foothold in radiology. First up is the ROI. You know what you're going to get paid for a CT of the brain.
You know how much your technology is going to cost, how much your radiologist is going to cost, and you have a good understanding of what your margin is going to be. When we talk about enterprise imaging, you take an image from ophthalmology, as an example, and store the ophthalmology study in the VNA. It is secure, physicians have access to that image, it provides better patient care.
The challenge is that it is a more complicated financial ROI because you're not getting paid for that study. You aren't getting paid to store the study. You're not getting paid to manage that study. So the ROI around enterprise imaging is still evolving, and the market's trying to figure out how to put a value on better patient care.
Moving on from that, we have legacy vendors, which sell software, hardware, and field engineering services all bundled together in what we call managed service. If a hospital has been on Philips for 10 years, and they want to replace them, they have to go out and buy their own hardware, investing $ millions. You have to migrate all those images off the solution at the same time that you have the beginning of a broken relationship with a legacy provider.
It's very challenging to make that change, and we sometimes hear clients talk about being held, you know, vendor captive. Our solution to that is to simply put a VNA in place, migrate all of the data, and then when the renewal comes up, the client has options. That's the value of an enterprise solution, enabling our customers to not be held captive by vendors any longer.
So turning to Slide 14. Over the past 12 months, Mach7 has secured the most significant sales orders in its history, both in terms of contract size and market segment, with the recent Veterans Health Administration contract providing entry into the U.S. public health sector. We're on track for the VHA to go live in June of 2024, which is when the government intends for that product to go live.
There are no contractual hurdles, by the way, that must be met before phase two can begin. We get that question often. Our sales pipeline is the strongest it's ever been, with the greatest diversity of opportunity in terms of geography, care settings, and product combinations. When we move to Slide 15, this is something I wanted to ensure that we discuss today, and it really illustrates how our sales orders translate to revenue and then cash.
We typically sign five-year term licenses, and the customer will choose which business model works for them, capital license or subscription license, but they typically don't do that until the end of the sales cycle. We don't really talk about pricing until the end of the sales cycle for some obvious reasons.
If they do choose a capital license, we deliver the software shortly after contract signing, which is when we recognize 100% of the software fee as revenue. Each customer will have unique payment milestones, so it's difficult to provide a rule of thumb on transition to cash. But once a customer achieves first productive use, we will then bill them and begin to recognize the revenue for the annual support and maintenance components that accompany every capital software license.
With a subscription license, we will not recognize any revenue upfront for software. When the customer achieves first productive use, we will bill and recognize the subscription fees, which include support and maintenance over the subscription period. So when we sign a subscription deal, it will generally be around 12 months before we begin to recognize subscription revenue for that deal.
As far as professional services revenue is concerned, this is recognized on a percent complete basis, regardless of whether the client chooses a capital or a subscription model. The high quality and predictable revenue of a subscription license will be beneficial to us in the long term. However, we will always have some component of capital licenses, especially for customers in the APAC region. Turning to Slide 16.
Sales orders for us, and I've mentioned this for many years now, are a leading indicator of our success. Showing that our products are resonating in the marketplace with new deals. The majority of our AUD 33.5 million in sales orders for Q1 of FY 2024 were subscription-oriented, highlighting the ongoing transition that we're seeing to subscription from a capital license model... In FY 2023, we had approximately a 60/40 split of subscription to capital licenses.
The early indications are that we may see a further step change in that mix this year, although it's difficult to say exactly where that's going to land in FY 2024. What I can say is that 85% of our Q1 sales orders related to subscription licensing fees or support and maintenance fees. So, you know, a 70/30 split for FY 2024 seems possible.
You will note in Q1, we did have AUD 12.5 million in new sales and AUD 15.8 million in renewals, along with AUD 5.3 million in add-ons and expansions. But just for clarity on these definitions, a renewal is when one of our existing customer segments, generally a five-year term, has come to an end and a new agreement is put in place. An add-on is when a customer buys something additional from us.
For example, if a VNA customer buys the eUnity viewer or vice versa. An expansion is when a customer expands the license volume for a product they are already using. These are all important factors in how we grow our book of business and our future book of business.
So turning to Slide 17, CAR is an important metric to understand in terms of how our future book of business will look. Our CAR was AUD 25.5 million at the end of Q1, FY 2024, and consists of an ARR run rate of AUD 18.4 million, plus another AUD 7.1 million, comprising of subscription license fees and support and maintenance fees that are not yet recognized as revenue because first productive use is still pending. I like to see a healthy gap between CAR and ARR.
That gap increased to 7.1 from 3.6 at the end of June 2023. This gap shows that our sales team continues to outpace our deployment team, providing us with a healthy backlog for services team to work through. It also gives an indication of where ARR will land the following year and shows the progress towards our goal of ARR covering OpEx. So from an outlook perspective, the outlook for Mach7 is shown on Slide 18. We have never looked stronger.
We're well positioned with our products to take advantage of what we believe to be a highly fragmented market. We see an ongoing shift to the ambulatory market, which we are prepared to address. We have a strong sales pipeline, which is reflective of a great team that I have a lot of confidence in.
We've had a strong start to the 2024 financial year, and we're cash flow positive in Q1. We expect to return to positive operating cash flow in FY 2024. We reaffirm our guidance we provided in August for sales order growth of 20% year-on-year and revenue growth of 15%-25%. We also expect the growth in operating expenses to be less than the revenue growth. We have a 3-year target for our ARR to cover our OpEx.
Now, we have provided a range for revenue growth because there is some uncertainty around the subscription versus capital license mix. Importantly, as we make this transition to subscription licensing, we will have a more predictable and scalable business model into the future.
Before handing this back over to David, I'd like to thank the board for their guidance over the past year, especially David and Philippe, for their service and the contribution they have made to Mach7. I also look forward to working closely with Rob as chair, and welcome Rebecca Thompson to the board. I'd like to acknowledge and thank our team across the globe for their hard work and dedication. Finally, to our customers and shareholders, thank you all very much for your ongoing support. I'll now hand it back over to David.
Thank you, Mike, for that very positive report. Appreciate it and appreciate your sentiments. So we'll now move to the formal business of today's meeting. After this, we'll address any general shareholder questions for the board or CEO and CFO in a Q&A session. For resolution-specific questions, we'll answer these as we move through each of the resolutions shortly.
Our company secretary has confirmed that the notice of meeting has been sent to all shareholders and other persons entitled to receive it within the notice period. The matters requiring consideration today are outlined in detail in the notice of meeting. The notice will be taken as read. Mach7 Technologies' financial statements for the 2023 financial year, together with the auditor's report, are in the annual report, which is available on our website. Resolutions one through five are ordinary resolutions.
This means that to pass, they require more than 50% of votes cast by shareholders entitled to vote and voting on the resolution. Resolutions 6 through 8 are special resolutions. In order for these resolutions to be passed, at least 75% of votes validly cast by shareholders on the resolutions must be in favor of each of them. I'll now speak to voting.
As mentioned earlier, voting will be conducted by way of poll. Votes will be counted after the end of the meeting, and the results will be published on the ASX. If you are voting, you'll be able to finalize and submit votes up to the end of the meeting. I'll remind you at that time. The proxy votes that have been submitted will be set out on the Slides shown for each resolution.
For some context, there are about 240 million shares on issue. Shareholders have appointed the chair of today's meeting, myself, as proxy for approximately 79 million shares, voting either for, against, or with discretion for all resolutions. As indicated in the proxy form and in the notice of meeting, my intention as chair is to vote all discretionary or undirected proxies held by me in favor of each resolution. As each resolution is put to the meeting, it will be displayed on your screen.
Now to shareholder questions. As earlier noted, shareholders can submit during the meeting by text or verbally. To ensure questions reach us in time, I ask that you submit them now if you haven't done so already. Again, any general shareholder questions submitted online during the meeting will be addressed after the formal business is completed.
If we are unable to get through all of them today, or if there are any specific questions that would be better addressed on an individual basis, we'll respond to them after the meeting. We will now open the poll for voting on the resolutions. Thank you, Tony.
Yep. Mike's open.
Thank you. The first item of business of this meeting is consideration of the audited financial statements and related reports for the year ended 30 June 2023. The Corporations Act requires that audited financial statements and related reports be laid before the meeting. I now declare that these reports, which were made available to the shareholders on 17th of October 2023, have been laid before the meeting.
Although shareholders are not required to formally vote on the company's financial and related reports, I'd welcome any discussion or questions on the reports. As I mentioned previously, the company's auditors are RSM, and Mathavan Parameswaran , the partner responsible for the company's audit for the 2023 financial year, is online with us today and is available to answer any questions on the conduct of the audit or the contents of the auditor's report.
I am advised by our auditors that no relevant questions for attention were received prior to the meeting. Are there any questions or comments on the company's financial and related reports for the year ended 30 June 2023?
We've not received any other questions prior to the meeting, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Tony. I ask the company secretary to record that the financial report for the company and its controlled entities for the year ended 30 June 2023, together with the directors' report and auditor's report, have been received and considered by shareholders. I now move to resolution one, which is the adoption of the remuneration report.
Resolution one is a non-binding resolution to adopt the remuneration report, which is set out in the 2023 annual report. The proxy votes are displayed on screen for this resolution, noting 76.32% of those are in favor of this resolution, and all open proxies will be voted in favor. Are there any questions on this resolution?
No questions have been received, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Tony. I'll now move to resolution 2. The shareholders are asked to consider, and if thought fit, pass the following resolution as an ordinary resolution, the re-election of Dr. Eliot Siegel. The proxy votes are displayed on screen for this resolution, noting 99.34% of those are in favor of this resolution, and all open proxies will also be voted in favor. Are there any questions on this resolution?
None have been received, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Tony. I'll now move to resolution three, which is the approval of issues of securities under the LTI Plan. For resolution three, the shareholders are asked to consider, and if thought fit, pass the following resolution as an ordinary resolution to approve the issue of securities under the Long-Term Incentive Plan. The proxy votes are displayed on screen for this resolution, noting 98.49% of those are in favor of this resolution, and all open proxies will be voted in favor. Are there any questions?
None have been received, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Tony. I'll now move to resolution 4A, which is the approval of options to Mr. Robert Bazzani. The next three items are of business, seek shareholder approval for the issue of securities to directors. I'll read out each of the resolutions before asking for questions.
Shareholders are asked to consider, and if thought fit, pass the following resolutions as ordinary resolutions. Resolution 4A, approval of options to Mr. Robert Bazzani. The proxy votes are displayed on screen for this resolution, noting 54% of those are in favor of this resolution, and all proxies will be voted in favor. Resolution 4B. Shareholders are asked to consider, and if thought fit, pass the resolution as an ordinary resolution, which is approval of options to Dr. Eliot Siegel.
The proxy votes are displayed on screen for this resolution, noting 54.61% of those are in favor of this resolution, and all open proxies will be voted in favor. Resolution 4C, shareholders are asked to consider, and if thought fit, pass the following resolution as an ordinary resolution. Approval of issue of performance rights to Mr. Mike Lampron, CEO and Managing Director.
The proxy votes are displayed on screen for this resolution, noting 75.68% of those are in favor of this resolution, and all open proxies will be voted in favor. Are there any questions on these resolutions?
No written questions have been received, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Tony. I'll now move along to resolution five. Shareholders are asked to consider, and if thought fit, pass the following resolution as an ordinary resolution. Approval to issue 325,000 shares to Mr. Mike Lampron, CEO and Managing Director.
The proxy votes are displayed on screen for this resolution, noting 75.59% of those are in favor of this resolution, and all open proxies will be voted in favor. Are there any questions on this resolution?
No written questions have been received, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Tony. The next resolutions will be proposed and voted on as special resolutions. That is, they must be passed by at least 75% of the votes validly cast on the resolutions by shareholders entitled to vote on them. The shareholders are asked to consider, and if thought fit, pass the following resolution 6 as a special resolution.
The reinsertion of the proportional takeover provisions. The proxy votes are displayed on screen for this resolution, noting 99.17% of those are in favor of this resolution, and all open proxies will be voted in favor. Are there any questions on this resolution?
No written questions have been received, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Tony. I'll now move to resolution 7. Shareholders are asked to consider, and if thought fit, pass the following resolution as a special resolution. Approval of the 10% placement capacity. The proxy votes are displayed on screen for this resolution, noting 73.38% of those are in favor of this resolution, and all open proxies will be voted in favor. Are there any questions on this resolution?
No written questions have been received, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Tony. I'll now to move to resolution 8. As a special resolution, approval of amendments to the Constitution. The proxy votes are displayed on screen for this resolution, noting 76.34% of those are in favor of this resolution, and all, all proxies will be voted in favor. Are there any questions on this resolution, Tony?
No written questions have been received, Mr. Chair.
Very good. Thank you. We'll now move to the Q&A session. As this completes the formal items of business, I can take general questions from shareholders.
We have received a written question, Mr. Chair, from Mr. Peter Cooper. It's a question directed to Mike, and the question is: "Can Mike please outline what opportunities are available in the Middle East, and are there any contracts imminent?
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the question. Look, the, the APAC region, which for us includes the Middle East, is, is always a, a, a primary geography for us. Our, our founder is from Singapore. We continue to invest in that business. Hospital Authority of Hong Kong is sort of the anchor for the region for us. You know, as in regards to the Middle East, we've got great business, in the state of Qatar. We've got a number of opportunities throughout the Middle East. I'd hesitate to say that anything is imminent. I have, I have found that, that much of that business can, change by the day, change by the week. So it's a little difficult to predict.
I wouldn't call it imminent, but I would say that our pipeline for the APAC region, including the Middle East, has substantially strengthened over the past 12-18 months.
I have no further questions at this stage, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Tony. Well, that brings us to the end of Mach7's 2023 annual meeting. In a moment, I'll formally close the meeting. If you're voting on the resolutions, please finalize and submit your votes. We'll now provide shareholders with a further 30 seconds to complete their voting.
... I'll, I'll close the poll now, Mr. Chair.
Very good. So we'll declare the poll closed. As mentioned earlier, the results of the voting will be released on the ASX once the votes have been counted after this meeting. So I'll now move on to a final note of bidding farewell.
So on that final note, I wish to thank the board and management for their support over the last five years. It's been a great pleasure working with you all, and I feel that we have a number of accomplishments to be duly proud of, including, but not limited to, the acquisition of Client Outlook, which I think was a big step change for the company. Winning numerous strategically important projects, extending our profile and reach across the marketplace, and trebling or quadrupling the share price since mid-2018.
I would like to congratulate Rob Bazzani, who's sitting here with me in the room, in assuming the mantle of chairman of Mach7. I know he will do a standout job, and working well with Mike and team will take things in an increasingly positive direction.
I welcome Rebecca Thompson to her role as incoming non-executive director, and know she will bring new skills and also do a standout job as well. I'd like to thank Philippe Wolgen for the contributions he has made with his tremendous global market insights and wish him well. I also thank Dr. Eliot Siegel, who unfortunately is not able to be in attendance today, and look forward to his continuing major contributions to us on the U.S. front.
I thank Mike and all the Mach7 staff for their hard work, as I've stated before, which I've no doubt will continue to pay handsome dividends. I thank the shareholders for keeping the faith in Mach7. There is more success to come.
I think I can assure you of that. With that, I bid you farewell. Give, but give you my assurance that I will maintain a close interest and remain an ongoing and strong supporter of the company. In future, this is my last AGM. In future, I'll be attending as a very avid and interested shareholder. Thank you all, and I now declare the meeting formally closed.