Good afternoon, everyone. As it is now 2:00 P.M., and I am advised that a quorum is present, I officially declare the meeting open. My name is Anna Neuling. I'm the Non-Executive Chair of the company and will chair this meeting. On behalf of the board, it is my pleasure to welcome shareholders attending online to the Annual General Meeting of MLG Oz Limited. I would like to introduce the company's Managing Director, Murray Leahy, Independent Non-Executive Director, Garrett Dixon, and Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary, Phil Mirams. I would also like to welcome Brad McVeigh from HLB Mann Judd, the company's auditor, who is joining us and is available to answer questions on the conduct of the financial year-ended 30 June 2024 audit.
I will firstly deal with the formal part of today's meeting by attending to all the items outlined in the Notice of Meeting, made available electronically on our website and the ASX announcements platform. Our guests are welcome to witness the proceedings of this meeting, but I am sure that you will appreciate that participation in the business of meeting is confined to shareholders. I will conduct the formal part of the meeting by tabling each resolution and addressing any questions that are relevant to the resolution. Following the close of the formal part of the meeting, Murray Leahy will provide a presentation on the current and future activities of the company, and there will be an opportunity to ask more general questions. We have received a number of valid proxies for the resolutions to be considered today. A summary of the results is displayed on the screen.
I confirm that a total of 55 proxies were received, representing 90,938,884 shares and 61% of the voting capital of the company. As Chair, I've determined to call a poll on each of the resolutions, which will be conducted virtually throughout the meeting. At the conclusion of the formal part of the meeting, you will have five minutes to finalize your votes. I inform the meeting that, as Chair, I intend to vote any open available proxies I hold in favor of each resolution. I note that all the shareholder registration and voting for this meeting is being conducted via the online platform. If you are a shareholder and you have not already logged into the platform on your mobile device or laptop, please do so before you leave today so that your vote is counted. A copy of the online meeting guide is available with the Notice of meeting.
As this is an online meeting, shareholders online will be able to ask questions during the meeting in writing or verbally and cast their vote online. The online meeting guide explains how to register for a voting card and cast your votes online and ask questions online via the Ask a Question button or by utilizing the web phone to ask your question verbally. To ask a question via the online meeting platform, you must first register to vote by clicking on Get a Voting Card and providing your shareholder or proxy details. You should then click on the Ask a Question button at the top or bottom of the meeting platform to submit your question in writing. To ask a question verbally using the online platform, click the web phone option and follow the prompts.
I would invite shareholders to send through any questions online as soon as possible after registering to vote, rather than waiting for each resolution to be read. Please note that while you can submit questions at any time, I will not answer questions until later in the meeting. And please also note that your questions may be moderated if necessary. If you are eligible to vote at this meeting and have not already done so, please click on the Get a Voting Card box at the top or bottom of the web page. Please ensure that you have your Securityholder Reference Number or Holder Identification Number to validate your voting registration. You will then be presented with the list of resolutions along with the available voting options to cast your vote.
In order to provide you with enough time to vote, I will be shortly opening the voting for all resolutions. Please ensure that after you have entered your vote, you click the Submit Vote button. If we experience any technical issues today, a short recess or adjournment may be required depending on the number of shareholders being affected. If this occurs, I will advise you accordingly. On the basis of the company's Notice of Meeting dated the 8th of October 2024, which has been made available to all shareholders in accordance with their communication preferences and on the company's website and the ASX announcements platform, if there's no objections, I will take the Notice of Meeting as read. I table the annual financial statements for the year-ended 30 June 2024 together with the Directors' Report and the Auditor's Report in respect of those financial statements.
Does anyone have any questions or comments on the annual financial statements or questions to our auditor on the conduct of the audit or their audit report? I remind you that to ask a question, please follow the prompts on your screen. Are there any questions online, and are there any questions, verbal questions?
There are no phone questions at this time.
Thank you. I refer you to resolution one. This is an advisory-only resolution in relation to the adoption of the Remuneration Report. The resolution and proxy votes received in respect of this resolution are as displayed on the screen. I will now ask our company secretary if there are any questions on this resolution.
No.
Are there any questions on the phone line?
There are no phone questions at this time.
Thank you. As advised earlier, voting on this resolution and all subsequent resolutions put to the meeting will be by poll. Would those shareholders who wish to cast a vote, please do so by submitting your vote online. I refer you to resolution two. This is an ordinary resolution in relation to the re-election of Mr. Garrett Dixon. The resolution and proxy votes received in respect to this resolution are as displayed on the screen. I will now ask our company secretary if there are any questions on this resolution.
No.
Are there any questions on the phone line?
There are no phone questions on this resolution.
As there are no questions, would those shareholders who wish to cast a vote, please do so by submitting your vote online. I refer you to resolution three. This is a special resolution in relation to the approval of a 10% placement facility. The resolution and proxy votes received in respect of this resolution are as displayed on the screen. I will now ask our company secretary if there are any questions on this resolution.
No.
Are there any questions on the phone line?
There are no phone questions for this resolution.
As there are no questions, would those shareholders who wish to cast a vote, please do so by submitting your vote online. I refer you to resolution four. This is an ordinary resolution in relation to the grant of performance rights to the Managing Director. The resolution and proxy votes received in respect of this resolution are as displayed on the screen. I will now ask our Company Secretary if there are any questions on this resolution.
No.
Are there any questions on the phone line?
There are no phone questions on this resolution.
As there are no questions, would those shareholders who wish to cast a vote, please do so by submitting your vote. That concludes the resolutions to be considered at today's meeting. If there are any further questions on the resolutions themselves, please follow the prompt on the online platform. I note that the Managing Director will be making a presentation after the formal business of the meeting has concluded, and there will be an opportunity to ask general questions after the presentation on the company's business activities. I will now open the floor up for any further questions relating to the meeting. Are there any questions?
No.
Are there any questions on the phone line?
There are no final questions at this time.
Thank you, everybody. We have now all addressed any questions received prior to the meeting and during the meeting. If you have any queries about the company's activities, please stay for the Managing Director's presentation or contact the company during normal business hours. As there are no questions, as previously advised, I invite you to vote using the function available on the meeting platform. The voting function will remain open for five minutes after the formal meeting is closed. Please make sure you have voted before you leave the online meeting and refer to the online meeting guide for guidance on the voting process if required. That concludes the formal business of the meeting. I now declare the meeting closed at 2:09 P.M. The results of the poll will be announced on the ASX market platform later today.
I thank you all for your attendance, and we invite you to stay for an update from our Managing Director, Murray Leahy.
Thank you, Chair, and welcome, ladies and gentlemen. I'm very pleased to be able to address all the shareholders and to walk you through what has been a very successful year in the company's history. I'm very excited about our outlook and the strength of our current market position. MLG is extremely well placed to take advantage of what is an unprecedented demand for our services, particularly from our gold customers, but also widely across the broader commodities industry. Gold prices are currently trading at a very high level with potentially further to run. Our clients have already significantly expanded their processing capacity and have been doing so for several years. Their strategic plans were well established some years ago, and we are now seeing the impact of that with demand for higher volumes to be mined and hauled to support their higher processing capacity.
MLG's scale, market position, and reputation are now more than ever a critical part in supporting this expanded mineral processing infrastructure. I want to acknowledge the support of our shareholders and also the hard work and dedication of our more than 1,300-strong workforce, many of which are also shareholders who together are the most important elements of MLG's success. The continued acceleration of volumes across our client base and the success of our business development has driven long-term growth in revenue. Our compound annual growth rate and revenue has exceeded 28% over the last six years, and in the last 12 months, has seen growth of almost 25% in one year alone. To deliver this level of revenue growth, many things need to come together.
We have increased the number of MLG employees to 1,162 as at the end of last month and currently have approximately 350 current contractors and labour hire staff, which have pushed our total workforce to over 1,500 people today. In addition, we have continued to invest in fleet with over 150 road trains and more than 150 loaders and excavators. This investment in people and equipment has been carefully planned and is a key point of difference to enable us to maintain and grow our market position. The strong market position MLG has now resulted in a materially stronger financial performance in FY 2024. As you can see here, all of our metrics were well ahead of prior years. Profitability grew strongly with a significant increase in our profit after tax.
Strong cash flow helped reduce our debt ratios, delivering an overall reduction in our financial gearing to only one times our EBITDA, down from 1.6 at the same time in FY 2023. There were many highlights through FY 2024, but the key areas of focus continue to be improvement in the retention of our people and to attract new staff. The growth in staff across this year helped deliver the sustainable increase in revenue and to drive our profit. Importantly, a key area of focus for us has been to improve our profit margin to ensure we establish a sustainable level of return for the investment in capital and for the services we support. Our EBITDA margin rose to 11.8% as compared to just over 9% in FY 2023. We anticipate margins to grow further over time, albeit not in a simple linear fashion.
The timing around commencement of new work and impacts of material weather events will impact margins in certain periods. We continue to invest in equipment, increasing our net assets by over 10%, with net tangible assets now equivalent to $1 per share. The profile of our fleet remains relatively young, and with the gold price at record levels and a significant tender book, MLG remains well placed to continue to sustainably grow our business. We have and continue to grow with our clients. Once MLG is established at a new project, we are typically there for multiple years beyond the initial contract term, unless the project itself ends or the creditworthiness of that client's exposure becomes too great for MLG. Our gold customers currently deliver approximately 85% of our revenues. These gold customers are predominantly the lower-cost producers and typically of a larger size.
Technology has become a significant differentiator for MLG. Our systems now provide real insight into operational performance and overall profitability on a project-by-project basis. As I said earlier, the market has materially invested in recent years in the overall expansion of gold processing capacity. Across the Goldfields, processing facilities have been scaled to handle larger volumes, and in addition to this, further new processing facilities have been built. These hubs do not have any rail infrastructure or the ability to justify investment in rail, and as a result, the only mechanism to feed these mills is via road trains. In addition, the Tier-one iron ore producers have older facilities and fixed rail infrastructure, where the large-scale mines that they have for so long serviced, the volumes are now facing deteriorating grade profiles.
They do, however, still hold multiple high-grade deposits near these facilities, which are not serviced by rail and hence are now looking at the gold industry's utilization of the hub-and-spoke road solutions to look to supplement grade. This is leading to large-scale opportunities for MLG to provide such solutions. At this time, we have yet to win such a project, but the opportunity remains for us to secure a long-term large-scale iron ore project should the commercial conditions be in line with our strategic priorities. We've seen strong revenue growth over the last few years, but importantly, also strong profit growth. As we continue to focus on margin and in the context of high demand, we remain well placed to continue this trend. Strong cash flow is a key element to supporting this growth.
The business does generate strong free cash flows and effectively uses financing facilities to fund growth CapEx. Our intention is to expand the size and scale of our operating cash flows to enable both reinvestment in fleet and deliver shareholder returns. The board determined that no dividend will be declared at the end of FY 2024 due to the opportunities in front of us and the greater potential to reward shareholders with higher returns from these opportunities. The board will continue to assess the capital needs of the business and review the potential to also fund dividends. To summarize, the business is well positioned with a competitive advantage born from our integrated service offering and our scale.
Our current client base and potential new clients are experiencing very high levels of demand for these services, which we expect to drive further growth in both cash flow and profit, the sum of which gives us confidence in our outlook for the long-term sustainability of MLG. In summary, the business remains well placed for continued growth and is materially exceeding market metrics for a business of our type. Assuming we continue on this path, the business will create significant options for both reinvestment and shareholder return. In addition, there is further potential for material upside above our current business model. Profit-share arrangements with third-party mine owners do present a manageable risk option. We have been approached by smaller gold operators which have known ore reserves but are currently not producing gold.
These are smaller-scale mines, but the potential for us to effectively mine, haul, and feed local processing mills in return for both payment for these services and a share of gold profits does present a potential option. Whether these types of opportunities proceed will depend on access to processing capacity and the satisfactory negotiation of risk versus reward. While the business is evaluating a series of these opportunities at this stage, the business has not entered into any such agreement as we speak. Once again, I want to thank shareholders, clients, and staff for their continued support. I'm truly excited about the coming few months and the next stage of our growth. I'll now open up the floor to questions.
There are no phone questions at this time.
With that, I think I'll declare the meeting closed.