Welcome to the Murray Cod Australia Limited 2025 Annual General Meeting. My name is Brett Paton, and I'm your chair. I'd like to welcome those shareholders who have joined us here today in person, together with those shareholders who are participating through our hybrid online meeting platform. May I now request that all mobile phones be turned off? Thank you. Turning to the agenda for today's meeting, I note it's now past 11:00 A.M. and that this is a properly constituted meeting. As a quorum for a general meeting, it's present. I formally declare the 2025 Annual General Meeting now open. Here we have us today. We have here today our CEO and Managing Director, Ross Anderson. Beside him is Matthew Ryan. Further down is Roger Cummins and Steven Chaur. Also in attendance here today is our CFO, Company Secretary, Wendy Dillon. Thanks, Wendy.
The notice of meeting was distributed to all shareholders, and the copies are available online. I take the notice of meeting as read. Set out in the notice of meeting, the formal proceedings comprise six resolutions. All resolutions will be decided by poll. Voting on the resolutions is now open. MUFG Corporate Markets is appointed to act as scrutineer and returning officer for the purposes of the poll. We also welcome John Findlay and his colleagues from RSM, the company's auditors who are attending online. If you're attending the meeting in person, you would have given us attendance cards and registered on arrival. If you have a yellow voting card, you're a voting shareholder, proxy holder, or corporate representative, and have chosen to vote using a paper voting card. You're also entitled to speak at this meeting. If you have a blue card, you're a non-voting shareholder.
While you're entitled to ask questions and make comments, you're not entitled to vote at this meeting. If you have a red card—you've been a bad person, sorry—if you have a red card, you're a visitor and are not entitled to speak or vote at this meeting. If anyone with a yellow or blue card wishes to speak, please make your way to the microphone at the appropriate time and identify yourself to the audience before asking me your question. Q&A instructions. For those who are participating via our online platform, you'll be able to submit questions by registering as a shareholder or proxy holder and selecting "Ask a Question" tab. You'll have the opportunity to submit an online question or verbal question by selecting the web phone option. Please follow the prompts or refer to the online guide for instructions.
I will consider the questions submitted online and by web phone after I've taken questions from the floor. Out of fairness to everyone present, I will ask that you limit your questions to one at a time and also restrict your questions and comments to the resolution being considered. I reserve the right as Chair to rule questions as not pertaining to the AGM or out of order. Chairman's Address. This year marks a significant period in our company's journey, one defined by resilience, innovation, and strategic evolution. This year, MCA has continued to deliver on its long-term strategy, producing premium quality Murray Cod at scale, while maintaining an unwavering commitment to sustainability, biosecurity, and value creation. A key achievement this year was the successful completion and commissioning of the Stanbridge Grower Facility, our most advanced and large-scale site to date.
This facility represents a major step in our goal to increase production capacity and deliver consistent, high-quality supply to both domestic and international markets. Stanbridge site is now fully operational, incorporating state-of-the-art recirculating aquaculture systems, enhanced water treatment, and the advanced temperature control technologies to ensure optimal growing conditions year-round. The integration of Stanhope into our production footprint has significantly improved our ability to plan harvest volumes and meet rising market demand, particularly during peak season periods. Domestically, our branded products continue to build momentum with chefs and premium retailers. Our ability to deliver a clean, traceable, and uniquely Australian native species has resonated deeply with the market, increasingly focused on provenance and sustainability. FY 2025 saw expanded placement in top-tier restaurants and boutique seafood retailers across Australia's eastern seaboard.
We also increased our focus on expanding domestic distribution channels and our direct-to-consumer presence in order to further cultivate the local customer. International sales and market expansion. Internationally, MCA has made further progress in selected market development and shipments to high-value regions, including Singapore, Hong Kong, and the UAE. Our products have met with strong interest in early repeat orders driven by its unique culinary qualities, consistent sizing, and Australia's reputation for food safety and agricultural excellence. To support these markets, we invest in export readiness, including enhanced processing capabilities, tailored packaging, and compliance with international cold chain and certification standards. We're working closely with distribution partners and government exporter programs to further unlock opportunities in Asia, the Middle East, and North America. Our medium-term goal remains to build diversified revenue streams across select international markets while maintaining strong supply discipline and premium positioning.
Talking about our people and partners, the success of MCA is only possible through the dedication of our team, the trust of our shareholders, and the support of the community. I would like to thank all staff, from farm technicians to operational leaders, who work tirelessly to maintain the integrity and quality of our product. To our investors, thank you for the continued support. Your belief in our vision empowers us to build a company of lasting value. In looking ahead, as we look to financial year 2026 and beyond, MCA remains focused on profitable growth and delivering world-class Murray Cod to more plates domestically and internationally. With our infrastructure now in place and funding secured following the successful placement, the business is positioned to generate strong operational leverage as volumes increase.
We maintain commitment to innovation, food, fish welfare, and ensuring that Murray Cod Australia continues to be an industry leader in land-based aquaculture. On behalf of the board, thank you for your continued support and trust. It is now my pleasure to invite Ross Anderson, CEO and Executive Director, to provide further commentary on the FY 2025 financial year and the business strategy and priorities of the coming period. Ross.
Thank you, Brett, and thank you for everybody who's attending today. It's a great pleasure to see you all here. My great pleasure. I would like to begin by saying that our first last couple of years have been really focused on building our capacity, and we've been very successful in doing that as a team. The completion of the Stanbridge site, the build-out of the biomass, has now put us in a position where in the next couple of years our focus is really on converting that into cash and turning that into a serious sales strategy. Next slide, please. Our highlights for 2025 really were that we turned profitable from being a loss maker, although many of you who can read financial statements will know that basically what we've done is convert cash into trading stock.
The money that we've spent on food, electricity, and power, and labor has been converted into fish that are now coming available for sale. Our revenue was constrained by fish availability, but we did grow record biological assets. We have built up large numbers of fish, and the average size of those fish has increased significantly, which has been great. We undertook an AUD 17 million equity raising in the last quarter, strengthening our balance sheet for harvest operations, infrastructure optimization, and working capital. We have 3.1 million fish at 30th of June at an average weight of over 800 gr, just around 800 gr, which puts us in a very different position to a year before where our fish were sitting at an average of around 300 gr, which is an unsaleable size. The Stanbridge infrastructure completion was great. 51 ponds are operational.
We're stocking the last 27 of those now. Some people who saw them yesterday understand the work that's going into that. The total capacity on that site is about 3.5 million fish, and we have nearly 2,500 tons of fish in stock. As they grow through this year, our whole focus is really on providing those to the market in the size grades that they want and at the margins our shareholders prefer us to get. I'll pretty much just run through that, but those are our numbers in terms of changes over the previous year, all fairly impressive with the exception of cash. A lot of cash has been spent on building the infrastructure and building the stock levels. Next slide. Our platform now is very good in terms of the infrastructure around hatchery, juvenile, and the base that we have for our grow-out.
We can add additional grow-out sites now with the foundations we've built in the hatchery and juvenile sections over the last few years. We can add another Stanbridge, if you like, and continue on without having to spend a lot of money on the hatchery or juvenile infrastructure, which puts us in a very good position going forward. Our key operational metrics are that we now have 128 grow-out ponds across four sites. We have 108 grow-out ponds operational at Whitten, 78 at Stanbridge, 30 at Whitten, and 78 at Stanbridge. We have an implied asset value with our land and water infrastructure of about AUD 70 million, and our share price tends to trade at the moment around net tangible asset value, which is interesting.
From a strategic highlight point of view, we were fortunate enough to become regarded as investment-grade debt by Westpac, who gave us an AUD 43 million debt facility last year and have been very supportive of the business going forward. Next slide, please. This sort of highlights the growth that took place in the business over the last few years, where we started off with two ponds, 12 ponds, 20 ponds, 26 ponds, 34 ponds. We had a bit of a hiatus between the COVID period there, where there was not a lot of growth in ponds. Coming out of that, we have had a major expansion, which we now have been able to produce the biomass from that major expansion. We also have the Gajildri site available for future expansion. We own that site.
The development applications on that site are all approved, and we could put 48 additional ponds on that as we go forward when we need to. Next slide, please. From a biomass growth perspective, you can see that our biomass has grown dramatically in the last few years. So 2023, 2024, and 2025, we've gone 500 odd tons of fish, 900 tons- 2,500 tons. Very significant growth in the biomass. We will be really focusing on translating that into significant growth in sales in the next period ahead of us. This is a slide that we've shown historically because many people couldn't understand why our biomass went backwards for a couple of years. It's not something we want to spend much time on. During the COVID period, we did sell a lot of fingerlings to government for restocking rivers and dams.
We also sold smaller fish, which meant that you can see our biomass growth actually diminished for a period of three years before it started to rapidly pick up again. The black line represents the sales of fingerlings, and the bars represent the biomass that we had on hand at the end of 30th of June each year. We have really turned a huge corner in the last year in terms of the asset backing and the availability of stock for sale. Our sales have been picking up very nicely. We are sort of doing a month-on-month for people to see that July was 70% above July last year, August 50% above in a period when Sydney actually had its wettest August, I think, for 100 years. Not that many people going to restaurants or eating fish midwinter in August when it was raining. September.
In October, we've had another 65% increase. We've seen acceleration where October is actually 18% larger than September just before it. We are beginning to accelerate these sales as we go forward. The catalysts for those going forward will really be that we've, in the last couple of weeks, expanded from 67 to 134 stores with Woolworths. As that gets bedded down, we'll look to expand that even more. We've introduced the distribution to Woolworths via PFD so that they can restock each day. Sometimes a store might need five boxes of fish. To send five boxes of fish from Griffith, they have to go on a pallet. That pallet might cost us AUD 250 in freight, upon which, for example, there might be AUD 100 worth of fish.
Having a distribution partner in the major capital cities who is distributing into the supermarkets every day is a very big advantage. We've also undertaken our sustainability audit with BAP, the international group which stands for Best Aquaculture Practices. We've passed that audit that was undertaken in September, and we're now awaiting the certification to arrive. They've told us they have no further questions or queries. It's just a timeframe for them to provide a certification. We've also undertaken our halal certification, which can be quite onerous for fish farms. Wild caught fish, it's not such a concern for them. When you're trying to be a sustainable protein sourcer like we are in terms of our feed, we try to get offcuts from other fish processing factories or from chicken or beef.
We had to go through quite an onerous process to get our halal certification, which will open new markets for us in the world. Our sales team capability has been strengthened significantly with the appointment of Katherine Bryar as our Chief Sales and Marketing Officer. She'll join us at the end of January. She currently lives in Denmark. She's an Australian lady who originated from the Northern Victorian dairy country and has decided after 25 years of working overseas that she wants to get back home to Australia. She is internationally known and recognized in seafood and aquaculture. We've also added a sales manager in Melbourne to support our existing sales team. We're strengthening that as we go forward because obviously that's a major focus for us. Next slide, please.
From a market expansion point of view, the fine dining part of our chef partnerships are going forward. We were fortunate enough to have a friend of ours give us an introduction to another new restaurant group next week or later this week. We are finding that as we have more stock available and we are able to provide consistent supply, the restaurant groups are starting to take advantage of that more and more because if they have wild caught fish and they have it on their menu—I will give you an example—if they have coral trout on the menu, they will be purchasing that in the Sydney fish markets, for example, at AUD 42, AUD 43 a kilo. As soon as there is a cyclone that goes down the coast in Queensland, they cannot get it. It is no longer on their menu or they are paying AUD 120 a kilo for it, and it becomes uneconomic.
They never know with wild catch how much is going to come in or how much of it they're going to be able to get at or what price they're going to pay for it. The advantage of being able to provide consistent supply into the food service sector is really significant, and it's something that we're going to put more work into. In the Asia-Pacific region, getting great traction in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, where we provided significant numbers of fish prior to COVID, we're now moving back into that market and actively pursuing new ventures there. In China, we are waiting for approval of the processed product. We have approval for the live product on their list, but it's a convoluted rigmarole with the Chinese government, so we'll see how that one goes.
North America have specialty distributors wanting to take our fish back, and now as fish become available, we'll begin to do that again. From a product innovation perspective, our Aquna Gold caviar has been a real highlight in terms of value adding and in terms of sustainability, in terms of using the whole fish. From a branding perspective, it's been great because it elevates the brand in the eyes of the customer. Going forward, we'll be looking more and more at frozen product for export distribution simply because it cuts down the air miles and, of course, the freight costs. From a sustainability and cost point of view, high-quality frozen product makes good sense for us and for our customers. We'll move forward. The CSIRO breeding program has to date been very successful. I think it's into its fourth year now, Matt.
What we're actually doing there is working on breeding a fish which has better characteristics in terms of its growth, its health, its fillet yield, fat content, some of the health traits. That has been very successful. So far, what we've found with the data so far is that the fastest-growing family lines have been growing at rates of up to 80% faster than the slowest-growing family lines. As we move through that, that should add enormously to our productivity. It will also be a breed that we own. We will own the genetics to that. No one else in the world will have that. Aquna means flowing waters in the local indigenous language. It will become a breed of Murray Cod that we will own and control ourselves. It will give us a real point of differentiation in international markets.
One of the risks we face with Murray Cod is that if a poor-quality producer produces a Murray Cod that has a bad taste to it, we're advertising for people to go and buy Murray Cod. You will go out and perhaps buy the cheaper version, which does not taste so good, instead of buying one of ours. Then we have wasted our marketing dollars. You will not buy another one. The whole focus on developing Aquna as a brand and a breed is to differentiate ourselves going forward and have that real point of difference in the marketplace. We are constantly working on securing new channel partners. We have the opportunity for further development at our Gajildri site. The approvals are now in place there. The timing of development will be planned to match cash flow. We are going to look to optimize our earnings margins through our channel mix.
I've spoken about our BAP and halal certifications, looking to open up new markets and our continued investment into the investment team and CSIRO breeding program. One of the competitive advantages that we have as an aquaculture company is the land-based model. Of the 120 million tons of seafood produced in the world, 60 million tons of it is produced from aquaculture. Of that 60 million tons, 85% of it is grown in land-based systems. In Australia, we tend to think of aquaculture as sea cages because we've only seen salmon or kingfish or fish being grown out in open estuaries or oceans. The land-based model has been undertaken by the Asians for thousands of years. It's by far the most sustainable and long-lived model. It gives us a real point of difference from a sustainability and ecological point of view.
It also gives you very different costing to operate. We don't have seals. We don't have sharks. We don't have bad weather. We don't have random algal blooms floating through the ocean affecting us. We can control the quality of the water and the quality of the environment for our fish. The welfare of our fish is another aspect that can be important to us, and we can control better. The other thing is, apart from the land-based model, we're growing a species of fish that not only does it not grow anywhere else in the world, it actually doesn't even grow anywhere else in Australia. It only grows in the Murray- Darling Basin. It's just come off the endangered list, but it's still a protected species. There is no commercial fishing allowed. We have no competition from there.
There are, at this stage, no other large commercial growers of any significance. We are in a position where we have a high-quality fish that is rated well by chefs. No one else is really growing and it does not really grow anywhere else in the world at this stage. When you combine that land-based model with what is effectively the rarest fine dining fish in the world, it gives us a very good platform for going forward. From our sustainability and social report, we have this in our annual report, so I will not run through it for you. Our traceability is very important. Our whole fish philosophy, as I say, using the caviar, as time goes by and we begin processing more and more fish, we will look at utilizing the scales for collagen, utilizing the bones for other aspects. We currently sell the fat.
The fish naturally evolve to have large layers of fat in them. The fat sells separately by itself. We're looking to have a very strong commitment to quality. We've been recognized as a trailblazer in the aquaculture industry for some time. We have a model that no one else in Australia has. I think at the moment, we're probably the only listed aquaculture producer left in Australia. Efficient water usage is a very important part of our system and our production method in that here we are sitting in the heart of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, where the Murray- Darling Basin authority is currently still undertaking buybacks. At the moment, from an economic and productive viewpoint, there's nothing that competes to produce the same level of revenues or jobs per megaliter as our business.
From a go forward point of view, where water is becoming a restrictive asset, our industry is probably one of the leaders in production from that point of view. Go forward. The other part of it is our restocking commitment. I think over the years, we've released, in partnership with New South Wales, Victorian, and South Australian governments, more than 23 million fingerlings into the Murray- Darling Basin system. I heard someone recently, 10 minutes ago, saying that he's starting to catch more and more cod in the Murrumbidgee. Those cod that you're catching will be the progeny or the product of fish that we've released into the Murrumbidgee over the last few years. It's great to see them making a comeback. Thank you very much for your attention. I shall hand you back to our Chair, Brett Paton.
Thank you, Ross.
The formal business. I will now move to the formal business of the meeting. Results will be released to the ASX after the conclusion of the meeting. Please note that only shareholders, proxy holders, and authorized shareholder reps may vote. Any undirected proxy votes given to the Chairman will be voted in favor of the resolution. Any directed proxies given to you by shareholders will automatically be cast as directed when the poll is closed. Financial statements. The first item of business listed in the notice of meeting is to receive and consider the financial statements for the 12 months ended 30 June 2025 and the reports of the directors and the auditor. Please note that a no vote is required on this particular item. As mentioned previously, Mr. Findlay, a partner of RSM, is with us today online.
Questions relevant to the conduct of the audit, the preparation, the content of the independent audit report, the accounting policies adopted by the company in relation to the preparation of the accounts, and their independence in relation to the conduct of the audit may be directed to him through me as Chairman. Any questions in relation to director and executive remuneration policies will be considered when we come to the item of business covering the adoption of the REM report. Are there any questions from shareholders here in attendance today? The mic will be delivered just coming up behind you. There we go. Okay.
Thank you. Hope you can hear me. I'm Ruth Mead, and I'm a shareholder of Mead Waterhouse Family Proprietary Ltd. This is really a question to the auditor. Before I do that, I just want to commend you on hiring Katherine Bryar.
She looks like an outstanding hire. She clearly is something that this time had come to hire such a person to advance the sort of retail and wholesale sales efforts. Well done, everybody, who hired her. My question to the auditor, I've struggled a bit with getting all the documentation together. My apologies if some of my info is a bit sort of flaky. There were a number of related party transactions that were put into a lease on the document that went most recently to the ASX. I'd like to know from the auditor what they did on those matters. Do they think they're appropriate? I actually don't know what they are, really. A bit of info there would be helpful.
Can we tune in the voice in the auditor, please? Can I call you Ruth? Yeah, I'm Ruth.
I just heard that we're having trouble connecting the auditor. We'll come back to that. Yeah. Yeah, surely. Roger has been running some engineering services to the organization. Roger sold his business. I mean, I guess it's hard for you to see on the outside just how effective he is in providing solutions to engineering and farm-related issues. Very prompt, always quick, and probably under the curve for costs. Roger also is one of our external suppliers of fish to our business. He has his own two ponds. Is that right?
Two ponds.
Yeah.
That's why the contract rather cleared today.
Okay. Is there anything else you care to offer there, Roger?
No, those are two lines that.
Yeah. And Ross has his services, the company provided in dual trains. One is consulting service, and one is salary and bonuses if required or if earned.
Would you care to comment any further on that, Ross?
Yeah. Yes, I'm happy to comment. Particularly in arranging international trade shows and international marketing events, it is a scenario whereby it enables us to source some government subsidies and government assistance by having that provided by consultancy rather than just as an Australian player. In terms of the remuneration, there's absolutely no difference to the company.
Thank you. As Chairman, we're pillars that we're getting value for money. We'll come back to the auditor. Yep. Fire away. Have you still got the mic? Can we bring the mic back forward again? Thanks. Yeah. It's working.
It's working. Okay. Second question for the auditor is to do with director options as a general question.
I note when I look at the ASX announcements that there's lots of changes to directors, shareholding, etc., etc., lots of issues of options. I'd like to know how the matter of these options compares with other companies. Does this company spend all its time issuing options, or does it actually do other things at board meetings, so to speak? It's sort of not meant to be critical, but just sort of the impression I had received. Because after all, if there's too much of this stuff about what's the remuneration for directors and options, etc., it detracts from doing other things. Having said that, that's the question for the auditor. Having said that, you seem to be doing very well.
Okay. The company's got a series of outstanding options that have been issued over a number of years, many of which scientifically won't get exercised.
Whilst the outstanding option count is modest, very few of them will turn into issued ordinary shares. As to the current option round, I think most—there's a lot written about option theory and incentivizing executives. I'll just make the point that the non-executive directors do not participate in any options. I'd rather you just refer to them as executives. Options. Yeah. Yeah. Executive options do perform a role in motivating management. Too many or too excessive runs the risk of unusual behaviors from time to time, as recorded in other companies where accounts and communication with shareholders can be supercharged to give rise to share events or share price events. We don't want any executives influencing or behaving in a way to artificially expand the capacity for options to be of value through artificial techniques such as creative accounting.
I believe that the current option issue to executives this year is relatively modest. The three years expiry. There are about a 56% premium to the share price at the time of the issue of the options. I think there is enough incentive in those options to bring motivation to the team. The Black and Scholes valuation technique, which passes the value of the options through the P&L, I think is relatively modest in relation to their total compensation. There is a message there for the auditor when he comes back too, I believe. Hopefully, does that satisfy? Okay. Thanks. We try to keep costs down.
There are a couple of questions online.
Okay. Thanks.
It is probably best for Ross to answer them, but I will leave it to your discretion. The first one is in relation to MCA's marketing plan.
Just provide a little bit more detail around that, especially in relation to Woolworths. The question connected to that is, are we handling market access to Woolworths directly, or does PFD do it for us?
When we had lower numbers of fish available and lower numbers of Woolworths stores, we were directly distributing to Woolworths ourselves. However, now we have more volume of fish available, and we're in the situation where we want to grow our share in the Australian market. We're in the situation where being in Griffith, we're actually logistically uneconomic to restock a Woolworths store every day because if they need the freight component of it and just the logistics of delivering to their distribution centers each day is uneconomic and impractical for us. As an example, you might have to send a pallet to Melbourne.
It costs you AUD 250 on the truck for the pallet to go, and you might only have AUD 200 worth of fish on that pallet if they want a very small order for a store. We have undertaken an agreement with PFD where we supply the fish to them twice a week, and then they restock the Woolworths stores every day. The idea behind that is that that will enable the latent demand in the community to build up and grow and that we are actually able to supply Woolworths. What was happening before is fish would turn up on a Tuesday morning, and we would get people ringing us up Tuesday lunchtime going, "There is no fish left in the shop. We cannot get any fish." We would say, "We cannot get any more there until next week." I hope that satisfies your answer.
Thank you. There are just two other questions. The first one is a gentleman says he values the concept of effluent as fertilizer. To what extent is that being implemented? The second question is, how are mortality rates trending over the last few years?
Yeah. The effluent as fertilizer, it's an option that we can use in our grow-out if we have excess water. We do not use it a whole lot because we do not tend to have the need to flush ponds on a regular basis currently. We do use it in summertime from time to time. Generally, it has been used to water pastures and things like that that we can ad hoc water more so than spending infrastructure on a crop and then realizing we have to water it with water that we did not really need anyway.
It is pretty much an ad hoc basis at the moment and generally being used mainly on pastures. We do have one of our farms that is coupled to another farm, which any wastewater out of that goes directly into their recycle system and is reused. The new farm at Stanbridge has its own recycle system on site, and the water goes into a sort of elaborate recycle channel network. We found we have not had to actually change water as such to reuse anything on site. It has been a bonus for that one. What was the other one? Yep. Mortalities have been sort of in level. We budget on around 10% per year, and that has been pretty much in line with our expectations over the last few years.
Certainly, the open ponds and the free-range ponds have been better than what we're currently seeing out of cage ponds. Yeah, that's a good thing. They're varying from pond to pond a little bit, but we're finding sort of between 50%-60% better mortality rates out of our open ponds versus cage ponds.
If there are no more questions, sorry. This is on the financial statements. If you've got questions now, it's a good time. Yep.
Ruth Mead, I want to ask about your fish. You said basically that we're in a pretty good position because we're land-based and we're not suffering some of the problems that appear every morning on the ABC News. Today we had something else in Tasmania has gone a bit pear-shaped, so to speak.
You did enunciate the fact that this seems to be a low-risk venture. Now, I'm not sure that's true because I don't know. What are the real risks? I mean, the Murray- Darling Basin might decide it won't give us any more water. I assume we get our water from them. Might our fish catch something for it, and it'll go from pond to pond, and they'll sort of die on us. Give me some comfort sort of thing. My second part of the question is, what's the conversion rate from the feed to the fish? Is that global best practice or whatever?
The first thing we need to understand is that when you're dealing with biological assets, you will have risk. It is unavoidable risk in the sense that there may be something you don't know. As Donald Rumsfeld said, there's unknown unknowns.
We don't know what they are. We cover our risk very thoroughly from a biological perspective in terms of the biosecurity plan the guys implement, the quality of the feed, the water monitoring, disease monitoring, and we have had very good results as a result. The land-based model, we believe, is inherently less risky than a sea-based or estuarine-based model. Certainly, nothing is risk-free. From that perspective, I can say to you that we believe we have every check in place and every biosecurity plan available to us, every biosecurity procedure available to us that we're implementing. If there's something unknown that suddenly appeared in terms of the disease and it was transferred via herds or droppings or something like that, we may not be able to control it. That's the first thing we need to know.
We have done a very good job over the last decade of controlling risk from a biological perspective, and I think our guys are going to continue to do that. There are never any guarantees, is what I'm trying to say. From the water perspective, because we're on the Murrumbidgee River, the bulk of our water comes down from the Snowy Hydro scheme. We are in the heart of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. The MIA was purposely built by the government to be an irrigation area for the offtake of the Snowy Hydro scheme. It has probably the most reliable water supply of any temperate water irrigation system in temperate Australia, outside of tropical Australia. In the 100 years that the irrigation system has been operating, since about 1916, high-security water holders have never been without their water.
General security can vary up and down, but high security have never been without it. From a water perspective, we actually use very little water in terms of the amount of production we undertake. The third thing about our water is at our hatcheries, for example, and some of their other sites, a large chunk of our water comes from underground rather than through the irrigation system. We are not so concerned about water as a risk.
Just the risks you do not know about.
That is effectively it, yes. At this stage, all the ones we do know about, the guys do a fantastic job of controlling them.
How much time do they spend worrying about the ones they do not know about?
That is like paying interest on a debt you do not have, madam.
Oh, the conversion rate.
Our conversion rate, there's effectively two conversion rates you've got to look at: your economic conversion rate and the biological conversion rate. They're talking about the food conversion rate. In other words, how much food is consumed to how much biomass is produced just for the benefits of others in the crowd. We were up around two at one stage. In other words, 2 kg of food to produce 1 kg of fish from an economic perspective. The fish will perform at varying stages in their life of one-to-one , depending on the environment they're in. Even the larger fish will perform around 1.2 to one, which is very, very good compared to other fish in the world. Our economic FCR, we work on about 1.5 to one.
Given that some food does not get eaten on a cold day, you might put out, you get a hot day, the water's warm, they'll eat more than they will when it's cold. Sometimes you put out a little bit of extra food, and it gets wasted. Your economic FCR is never as good as your biological FCR. Generally, we try to work on 1.5 to one. If you had cattle, it's eight to one. I think pork is four to three, three to one, and chicken's two, 2.5. Very, very efficient. If you're going to feed the world with protein in years to come, aquaculture is actually probably one of the most efficient ways to do it.
Country, what do we feed them?
We have our diets produced by BioMar, who are a Danish company who have a factory in Tasmania.
They have begun producing a diet for us, specifically for Murray Cod. Previously, we were only using a diet designed for barramundi because we were so small, nobody would make a specific diet for us. So they've fed a floating pellet that has a combination of proteins, amino acids, carbohydrates, and it does float so that we can see how much they're consuming. Do we have a question from the Mr. Findlay's joined. How do we broadcast? Yeah.
Good morning, everyone. It's John Findlay, the external auditor of Murray Cod Australia Ltd. Thank you for the questions. I'll deal with the related party question first. That pertains to note 27 of the audited financial statements. In terms of our audit approach, there's an Australian accounting standard, AASB 124, which deals specifically with the accounting and disclosure of related party transactions and relationships.
From an audit perspective, we have audited management's assessments and compliance with that accounting standard and the disclosure requirements. In this case, I suppose, due to the specialist nature of the industry they're operating, it just so happens that one of the experts is a director in terms of, you know, subject matter experts is also a director. As you can see in note 27, it's been appropriately disclosed, those relationships and any fees charged for the services performed. Yeah. The second question relates to the director's options and the relevant note in the financial statements, note 25. Once again, in terms of part of, I suppose, of a remuneration model for directors, it's normal commercial practice. In this case, essentially, the options relate to service-based.
As part of our audit procedures, we have obviously reviewed the completeness and accuracy and the model that management and board have got in place for those options.
Thank you, Mr. Findlay. If you would just stay nearby in case we get any further questions. There being no further questions, I would like to move on to resolution number one. The item of business relates to the re-election of Steven Chaur as a director of Murray Cod Australia Limited. The resolution and a summary of the votes received before the meeting now appear on the screen. Details of Mr. Chaur's background and experience are set out in the notice of meeting. The board of directors, with Mr. Chaur abstaining, recommends that shareholders vote in favor of resolution one. The resolution is now open for discussion and questions. Are there any questions from shareholders here in attendance today?
Have you still got the mic? Yeah.
I do. I seem to have borrowed
your first mortgage on that one.
Should play it to the meeting. I think that I'm the founder of Women on Boards, which for 20-odd years has had a campaign to increase the number of female directors on listed company boards. I noted in one of your documents that you said something about the diversity policy and that you're too small to consider gender elements of director appointments. I think that's probably a fair summary. First up, I did a bit of research yesterday and discovered that the average size of an ASX 300 company—I'm not sure you're quite there yet—boost, if you're not, was 6.2 directors. You have now reached the point that you appear to have six directors, all male. The last appointment was Mr.
Chaur, unless I'm mistaken, who does seem to have a very distinguished resume. Fair enough. Might I suggest that you update your diversity policy somewhat and contemplate the slightly more interesting selection criteria in future? You have now appointed a very senior person to your executive team, in my view, very senior, Katherine Bryar, who, in fact, I would think, under the guise of the CEO, is expected to drive the sales of this company into the stratosphere. Without some form of mentor or role model or whatever, she might feel a bit as if she's there paddling along with her and the CFO, who seems to be female also. From that perspective, it's not such a bad idea. I don't particularly want to oppose the election of Mr. Steven Chaur because I have relatively few compared to the 76 million that have been voted already.
That is just sort of a comment from me as an interested shareholder into the future.
Thanks for that observation and some of the research you have done yesterday on the 6.2 for the ASX 300, but we are a long way from ASX 300. The board composition has been a journey. I think Australian Council of Superannuation Investors actually would have guidelines on when you are in the ASX 200, what their requirements are of a board and expectations of the chairman. We are a long way also further from the ASX 200 and 300, obviously. I think there are a few observations. I think we are small, and that is an excuse not to deal with diversity, both in terms of gender and background and experience. We have only had one recent board appointment since I became chairman, and that is Steven.
If I could describe a bit about how you go through the process. I mean, the first process is, what were we looking for when we hired Steven? That was strategically one of the important ingredients of Murray Cod going forward. At the time of hiring Steven, our first and most important objective was to turn biomass into cash to grow the sales and distribution of the business. We've got some great farmers, some great engineers, some great talent in nurturing fish, husbandry, but we were lacking some experience in sales and distribution. We were relying very heavily on the CEO and one gentleman in Sydney whose background is that of a chef.
Without going into too much detail, Steven's background was perfect for reaching out to the senior executives at Woolworths, reaching out to the senior executive at BFD, reaching out to his background and understanding packaging, frozen versus fresh, international versus domestic, getting the balance right going forward, and helping our CEO in a way that few people could. Probably the most important part of our career was actually converting fish into sales. Now, if we had—and the other thing is my style is not to hire heavily paid consultants to do executive search or board search.
I'm not saying it's wrong, but I think if you can find the people, introduce them to the board members, test their collegiate skills, test their ability to interact with other board members, you can go a long way your own self and save yourself a lot of money by making those such hires. If there was someone that we had known that had all of Steven's characteristics and he or she had met with the board and gelled, that would have been an easy decision too. Steven's was a very easy decision. I can't promise you the next board appointment, should we make one, would be gender-based. It would be skill-based. What I'd just like to play back is the more important issue, which is women in the workforce generally.
I might just ask Ross to comment briefly about the composition of, A, the gross women in the workforce statistic, the executive team, and the senior management team. Thanks.
I'm really glad that you asked this question because, as a middle-aged white man who's been in business for 31 years and has worked, almost 95% of the people I've worked with have been female. They've been superbly driven, superbly intelligent, with great work ethics and great skills, and they've done much better jobs than many of the other men I've known in that prior industry that I worked in. I'm a great believer in meritocracy, and that's what we operate inside MCA. We want the best result for the best people. We've got some wonderful young men and women who've come through the company.
Our CFO, for example, started working with me 30 years ago as a university graduate. We have another one sitting here organizing our annual general meeting today who's undertaking an MBA with support from this company. We have a young lady at our billable site who came to us. Ella came as a school leaver and is now the manager of that site with, what, 13-14 staff? Our executive team comprises four people, two of whom are female. Our full-time workforce, I think, comprises 98 people. Around 37 of them are female. Of our team leaders, six out of nine team leaders are female in our company. I'm a great believer in having the best person for the job. I personally don't care whether they are male, female, gay, straight, pink, black, green with purple spots.
If they're the best person for the job, they will be the person who gets that job. In many cases, in our company in particular, they are female. Thank you very much for asking the question because it's one that I feel very strongly about, having worked with predominantly a female workforce. They can vouch for me, having worked with me for over 30 years. Thank you.
Any questions online? If there are no more questions, we'll move on to the next item of business, resolution to re-election of Ross Anderson. This item of business relates to the re-election of Ross Anderson as the director of Murray Cod Australia Limited. The resolution and the summary of votes received before the meeting now appear on the screen. Details of Mr. Anderson's background and experience are set out in the notice of meeting. The board of directors, with Mr.
Anderson abstaining, recommends that shareholders vote in favor of resolution one. The resolution is now open for discussion and questions. Are there any questions from shareholders here in attendance today? Any online? If there are no more questions, we will move on to the next item of business. Congratulations to ongoing directorships. Resolution three, issue of incentive options to directors. The resolution and summary of the votes received before the meeting now appear on the screen. The purpose of resolution three is to seek shareholder approval for the purpose of listing rule 10.14 to grant 476,190 incentive options to Mr. Ross Anderson and the same number of incentive options to Mr. Matthew Ryan. All their respective nominees on the terms and conditions in the explanatory statement. The directors, with Mr. Anderson and Mr.
Ryan abstaining, on the relevant resolution recommend that shareholders vote in favor of resolution 3A and 3B. The resolution is now open for discussion and questions. Are there any questions from the audience today? Any online questions? If there are no more questions, we'll move to the next item of business, remuneration report, a non-binding resolution. The next item of business is the adoption of the REM report. The resolution and summary of the votes received before the meeting now appear on the screen. The annual report for the 12-month financial year end to 30 June 2025 contains a remuneration report which forms part of the director's report and sets out the remuneration policy of the company and its controlled entities for 2023- 2024 and the reports of the remuneration arrangements in place for the non-executive directors with senior management during that period.
The vote on this resolution is advisory only. However, the board will take the outcome of the vote into consideration when reviewing our remuneration practices and policies. The directors recommend that shareholders vote in favor of resolution four. Are there any questions from shareholders here in attendance today? Are there any online? If there are no more questions, we'll move to the next item of business, resolution five, ratification of prior issue of placement shares. The resolution and summary of the votes received before the meeting now appear on the screen. On 26th of September 2025, the company announced that it conducted a placement to institutional investors together with an accelerated entitlement offer. The company issued 17,894,737 shares, at an issue price of AUD 0.95 per share to institutional investors on the 31st of October 2025 under the placement.
The funds raised from the issue of the placement shares are being used to provide additional capital for, one, the completion of Stanbridge Grant site, two, initial development of Gajildri placement, processing plant upgrades, and additional working capital and debt reduction. The placement shares were issued pursuant to ASX listing rule 7.1. Resolution five six shareholder ratification pursuant to ASX listing rule 7.4 for the issue of the placement shares issued under ASX listing rule 7.1. The directors recommend that shareholders vote in favor of resolution five. Are there any questions from anyone in attendance? We've got one down the front here. That's Ruth. Yeah.
Thank you very much. It's just really a bit of explanation.
I noticed that page six of one of the documents that you released to the ASX, you said you're going to use the capital raised from this placement for expanded harvesting and processing, infrastructure optimization, and other things. Can I have a bit more detail on what they are?
Maybe that's one for Ross.
Because it doesn't mean much to me, really.
Expanded processing and harvesting capacity, certainly in the processing side of it, we've said in a number of our recent presentations that to move into international markets, we'll need to move to a frozen product because of the logistics. There will be equipment purchased to handle the gutting line and freezing and the bagging. That's part of that. On the harvesting side, we're going to be ramping up the volume of our harvest.
Simple things like buying more bins so that we have enough bins to hold the fish we harvest is another example. Matt and Roger have developed a very sophisticated pumping harvesting electronic stunning system, which really works on fish welfare as well as adding to harvest capacity. Those types of things are really where the money will be spent.
Any? No? No more questions. I'll move on to the next business item of business, resolution six, 10% additional placement capacity. The resolution and a summary of the votes received before the meeting now appear on the screen. Broadly speaking, and subject to a number of exceptions, ASX listing rule 7.1 limits the amount of equity securities that a listed company can issue without the approval of its shareholders over any 12-month period to 15% of the issued capital.
ASX listing rule 7.1A enables an eligible entity to seek shareholder approval by special resolution at its annual general meeting to increase this 15% limit by an additional 10%- 25%. The company is an eligible entity as of the date of the meeting. It is not included in the S&P ASX 300 index and has a market capitalization not exceeding AUD 300 million. The notice of meeting sets key details about the resolution, including potential dilution and the purpose of allocating under the 10% additional placement capacity. This resolution is a special resolution. Accordingly, at least 75% of the votes cast by shareholders present and eligible to vote at this meeting must be in favor of the resolution for it to be passed. The directors recommend that shareholders vote in favor of resolution seven. Are there any questions? Offline. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the formalities of the meeting.
I ask that you now complete your voting card if you have not already done so, and someone will collect these cards. For those attending online, you should now submit your votes. The poll will remain open for a further five minutes to allow you to complete your voting on the electronic voting card with the poll closing after that time. As I mentioned earlier, the results of this meeting will be announced to the ASX as soon as they've been counted and verified. I now declare the meeting closed. Are we having any refreshments? Feel free to stay on for refreshments and any further private questions you might like to address the board or management team. Thank you.