Everybody, welcome to the 2021 Monadelphous Annual General Meeting. As it's now 10:00 A.M. and we have a quorum, I declare the meeting open. My name's Phil Trueman, and I'm the CFO and Company Secretary here at Monadelphous. I'd like to commence today's proceeding by welcoming Matt Macfarlane, our local content coordinator, to present an acknowledgment of country. Matt's been with Monadelphous now for over 15 years and is responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, organizations, and businesses. He also plays a key part in retaining and attracting Indigenous employees to our business. Welcome, Matt.
Thank you, Phil. Kaya wanju. Hello and welcome. I'm proud to be invited to present this acknowledgment of country today. I'd like to acknowledge where we hold this meeting today is on the lands of the Whadjuk people, the traditional owners of Perth and surrounds, members of the Noongar Nation. I would like to welcome the Monadelphous board, the executive, and shareholders to this place where my ancestors gathered to meet, embrace family, and hold great ceremonies. I'd like to draw your attention to the photo on this slide. Up here. Monadelphous is a proud partner of the Polly Farmer Foundation's Follow the Dream and Living the Dream programs. This year we decided to do something a little different to celebrate NAIDOC Week, for which the 2021 theme was Heal Country.
Heal Country means to embrace First Nations cultural knowledge and understanding the country as part of Australia's national heritage. We asked the students in the Follow the Dream program at Newton Moore Senior High School to paint one of our sea containers in any design they wished, using the NAIDOC Week theme as a reference. Under the guidance of Indigenous artist Karinda Farrant, a former Follow the Dream participant, they came up with this design. An enormous effort by the students involved, particularly as the painting was carried out over the one of the wettest winters we've had in years. The resulting artwork speaks for itself. Importantly, the container is now being used at shutdowns around the southwest to promote Aboriginal culture in line with this year's NAIDOC Week theme and to showcase and celebrate our partnership with the Polly Farmer Foundation.
Finally, I would like to pay my respect to elders, past and present, and while in this place, and always, may their spirits watch over us, protect and guide us, and keep us all and their families safe. [Noongar language] Kaya wanju, ˈnalung Monadelphous moort. Hello and welcome to you and all our Monadelphous family. Thank you.
Thanks, Matt. Today's meeting is being held at the University of Western Australia in Perth, as well as online, to ensure our shareholders, proxies, and guests can attend either in person or virtually. For those of you in the room today, I'll quickly go through some important safety information. In case of an emergency, you'll hear an alarm and a voice over the PA system telling you to evacuate the premises. Please do so immediately following the fire exit signs at the front of the auditorium, and the club's fire wardens will be on hand to assist. You'll be directed to assemble at the far corner of Riley Oval near the Dolphin Theatre, and you must remain on the oval until instructed to return to the building.
Now, as we're also running the meeting virtually today, there's a small chance that despite all of our preparation and backup plans, technical difficulties may arise during the course of the meeting. In the unlikely event this does occur, our chair has the discretion as to whether and how the meeting should proceed, having regard to the number of shareholders impacted and the extent to which participation in the business of the meeting is affected. Should there be any technical difficulties, we will immediately publish a notification on our website. For those attending online, questions can be submitted via the online website at any time. If you'd like to ask a question, select the Messaging tab at the top of the Lumi platform, and at the top of that tab, there is a section for you to type your question.
Once you've finished typing, press the arrow symbol to submit it. You'll be able to submit questions on the platform throughout the meeting, up until we commence question time. Any questions which we have not addressed in the presentation or have not been answered previously will be put to the board at the end of the meeting. If we receive a number of questions on the same topic, we may amalgamate these questions. For those shareholders attending online who wish to ask a verbal question, an audio questions facility is available. To use this service, please pause the broadcast on the Lumi platform and then click on the link under Asking Audio Questions. A new page will open where you'll be prompted to enter your name and the topic of your question before being connected.
You will listen to the meeting on this page while waiting to ask your question, and if you have any issues using this system, please return to the Lumi platform. Due to time constraints, we may not be able to get to all of the questions, and if this does happen, we will answer them in due course via email or posting responses on our website. As usual, voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business. There will be time later in the meeting for voting here in the room in person. However, in order to provide our online participants with enough time to vote, we will shortly open the online voting for all resolutions. For our online attendees, if you're eligible to vote at this meeting, a new Voting tab will appear.
Selecting this tab will bring up a list of resolutions and present you with voting options. To cast your vote, simply select one of the options. There's no need to hit the Submit or Enter button, as your vote will automatically be recorded. You can, however, change your vote up until the time I declare the voting closed. I now declare the online voting open on all items of business. The Voting tab will soon appear, so please cast your votes at any time, and I will give you a warning before I move to close the voting.
Now that we're finished with the housekeeping, I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce to you our board of directors. With us in the room here today, from your left to right, are our Managing Director, Rob Velletri, our Lead Independent Non-Executive Director and Deputy Chair, Sue Murphy, and our Non-Executive Directors, Chris Michelmore, Helen Gillies, Dietmar Voss, and our most recent addition to the board, Ric Buratto. Attending online are our Chairman, John Rubino, and Non-Executive Director, Peter Dempsey. In addition, representing our auditors, Ernst & Young, we're joined in the room by Darren Lewsen. Welcome, Darren, and thanks for joining us. As our Chairman, John Rubino, is joining us online from Melbourne, our Lead Independent Non-Executive Director and Deputy Chair, Sue Murphy, will commence today's AGM by reading John's chairman's address.
Sue will then hand over to Rob, who will speak in more detail about the company's highlights and performance for the 2021 financial year, as well as the outlook for the foreseeable future. Kristy Glasgow, my fellow company secretary, will take care of the formal business for the day before opening to shareholders for questions and conducting the poll. I'll now hand over to our first speaker of the morning, Sue Murphy.
Thanks, Phil. Thank you, Matt, for that lovely acknowledgment of country. Good morning, everyone. I'm delighted to have been afforded the opportunity to talk to you this morning. On behalf of our Chairman, John Rubino, I would like to thank you all for joining us today, either in person or online. I extend a warm welcome to all of you. Next year will mark 50 years since the inception of Monadelphous. Over that time, we have developed a terrific reputation for consistently delivering high quality, safe, and cost-effective service solutions for our customers. Our commitment to delivering what we promise has led to the development of many enduring and mutually beneficial relationships with our stakeholders, and we have a track record that is widely respected across the industry.
While life as we know it has changed significantly over the last couple of years, especially, I am pleased to report that we have continued to strengthen our position as a leader in our markets and are well-placed to build on the strong foundations that have been developed over those last five decades. Through the efforts and commitment of our dedicated group of people, we have established ourselves both as the preeminent construction contractor to the resources and energy sector and as a leader in the provision of maintenance and industrial services, which provide us with a strong recurring revenue base to support our long-term sustainability. In more recent times, we have focused on diversifying the business, broadening our service offering, and expanding our footprint into other industry sectors and geographical markets.
Over the last few years, we have added a variety of other services to our repertoire, including offering rail, civil construction, and bespoke heavy lift services to our customers. Through our strategic joint venture with Lycopodium, we have developed a highly regarded presence in the engineering, procurement, and construction market to the resources sector. Our other joint venture, Zenviron, has earned a leading reputation for the provision of balance of plant EPC services to the growing renewable energy market. We've also expanded the company internationally into the buoyant copper sectors in Chile and Mongolia, which we believe will provide further opportunities for us. As we grow and diversify the business, the safety of our people will continue to be our number one priority.
Pleasingly, we have seen a big improvement this year in our safety performance, and we will continue to focus our efforts on the implementation of initiatives that reinforce that at Monadelphous, the safe way is the only way. Our people are our greatest strength, and the attraction and retention of the right people who live our values will continue to be one of our key areas of focus. Over the past years, we've experienced an unprecedented shortfall of available skilled resources with industry levels at incredibly high activity levels, particularly in Western Australia, where border restrictions have significantly impacted the availability of labor. Activity levels across Australia are predicted to remain at these high levels for some time yet, with labor pressures to persist.
Industry forecasts indicate a strong pipeline of opportunities for Monadelphous, both within our core sectors such as iron ore and oil and gas, as well as within the fast-developing market segments which support decarbonization, including renewable energy, battery metals, as well as the rapidly emerging hydrogen sector. Our long-standing reputation as a leader in our chosen markets and as an employer of choice ensures we are well-placed to capitalize on these market opportunities as well as to deal with many challenges ahead. Before I hand over to Rob, John has asked me to extend a warm welcome to our newest board member, Ric Buratto, who was appointed as a Non-Executive Director last month. By way of introduction, Rick is a civil engineer with more than 45 years of experience in the resources and infrastructure sectors.
He has enjoyed a distinguished career at a number of ASX-listed companies, including CIMIC, Decmil, and most recently, NRW. Ric brings an abundance of industry knowledge, experience, and relationships which strongly complement the existing capabilities of our board. John has also asked me to acknowledge outgoing Non-Executive Director, Chris Michelmore, for his loyalty and hard work over these last 14 years. Chris has been a highly valued member of the board and its subcommittees and has played a key role in the company's success over that time. We would like to take the opportunity to wish him the very best in his retirement and sincerely thank him for the wonderful contribution he has made to Monadelphous. We will all miss you very much, Chris.
In conclusion, on behalf of John and the whole board, I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank our loyal and dedicated team for their continued efforts. We truly have a very talented group of people here at Monadelphous. I would also like to extend our appreciation to all our shareholders, to all our customers, and to all our other stakeholders for their ongoing support. I'll now hand over to Rob, who'll provide you with some more detailed insights into our 2021 performance.
Thanks, Sue, and good morning, everyone. Firstly, I'd like to reiterate John's and Sue's comments regarding the outstanding co-contribution Chris has made over the many years he's been with us. Monadelphous has seen significant growth throughout your tenure, and I wish you all the best for the future. Look, moving now to some highlights for 2021. The 2021 financial year has been best described as a busy one. After the previous year, where sales revenues were stalled by the initial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 year saw a rapid progressive recovery in demand, which resulted in an 18% increase in sales revenue to AUD 1.95 billion. Our engineering construction division's revenue surged almost 60% to AUD 979 million on the back of significant progress made on a large portfolio of major construction projects.
While our maintenance and industrial services division reported revenue of AUD 977 million. Demand for maintenance services within the iron ore sector was particularly strong, with reduced levels of activity in oil and gas. Net profit after tax for the period was AUD 47.1 million, an increase of 29%, representing earnings per share of AUD 0.497. The board declared a final dividend of AUD 0.21 per share, fully franked, taking the full-year dividend to AUD 0.45 per share. We ended the year with a strong cash balance of AUD 176 million. Since the beginning of the financial year, we continue to win work. We've been awarded over AUD 1.2 billion of new work, including around AUD 460 million more recently since 30 June.
This slide highlights the size and location of most of our major new contracts. As you can see, a significant portion of this work is in the buoyant iron ore sector in the northwest of WA, with our major long-term customers, BHP and Rio Tinto. Around 20% of the work won was secured in the copper sector in both Chile and Australia, and we secured our largest wind farm contract to date via our joint venture, Zenviron, in New South Wales. Moving now just to our safety, important safety performance. As Sue highlighted earlier, in a year, in fact, where more than 2,000 new employees.
I'm particularly pleased to report a 39% improvement in our total recordable injury frequency rate, which was down to 2.26 incidents per million man-hours worked. Driven by our core value of safety and well-being, our unwavering focus on safety improvement saw us continue to strengthen safety leadership throughout our business. We introduced a new fatal risk standard and life-saving rule relating to the use of mobile plants and equipment. We released a revised and updated Supervisor Safety Leadership program, and we completed the rollout of our Delivering the Safe Way behavior program. We also continued to focus on the mental health and well-being of our employees, implementing and participating in a range of initiatives relating to resilience development and improvements in mental health awareness right across the organization.
Our safety culture is focused on finding better and safer ways of doing things. One example comes from our heavy lift team. The team was tasked with moving and installing gas pipeline sections weighing up to 8 tons each on unusually steep terrain in a very narrow corridor and near another live gas pipeline at Woodside's Pluto LNG plant in Karratha. A conventional cranage and equipment couldn't be used, so our team developed a unique solution. It was the self-propelled modular transporter davit frame, which is what's being shown here on this slide. The solution significantly reduced manual handling risks. It reduced exposure to pinch points and crush injuries, as well as reducing property damage risks. The solution also delivered significant savings in cost and time.
The innovation was subsequently nominated for the 2021 Managing Director's Safety Innovation Award, for which it received special commendation. It was also a finalist in the 2021 Western Australia Work Health and Safety Excellence Awards. Well done to our heavy lift team. We've got our GM here, Lorna, for helping to keep our workplace safe. Moving now to our people highlights. We ended the year with a total workforce, including subcontractors, of around 7,800 people, which was up 37% during the year. We in fact achieved our largest employee base since May 2013, with our direct employee numbers peaking at over 7,600.
Our high levels of industry activity in an already tight labor market, combined with COVID-19 related travel restrictions and border closures, placed significant pressure on our ability to attract and retain labor. In response, we undertook a number of initiatives to bolster employee engagement and attract new employees. I'll just touch on some of these initiatives now. Our people have always been our biggest strengths and there's no question that employee retention and development have been the keys to our success and are vital to our ongoing success. Now with this, we continue to focus our efforts on what makes Monadelphous a great place to work.
This includes building on our already strong culture, identifying and facilitating challenging and rewarding career opportunities for our employees, supporting growth and development, creating an inclusive and flexible work environment, and constantly reviewing and updating our benefits and reward program to ensure we remain competitive. During the year, we strengthened our employee development program to focus on performance management and succession planning, and we formally established our workplace flexibility policy to support work-life balance for our workforce. We also progressed a number of strategic attraction initiatives. This included streamlining our internal processes to ensure application and onboarding is as easy as possible, updating our employer branding program, which now clearly articulates why our employees choose to work with us and what's on offer to prospective employees, and having the right entry-level programs in place to help get the right people in the door from the get-go.
Importantly, we've also continued to invest in a range of technology to support our attraction strategy, including a new and improved recruitment, onboarding and talent management system, which will help ensure that we're set up efficiently and effectively to source, select and mobilize the right people at the right time. Now, we've spent a significant amount of time this year reviewing and refreshing our code of conduct and supporting policies with the aim of reinforcing acceptable workplace behavior. As part of this, we recently launched our It's Up to Us campaign across our work sites. The campaign aims to reinforce the important role every employee at Monadelphous plays in creating a safe, respectful and inclusive work environment. One that's free of sexual harassment and sexual assault, while also reminding employees of appropriate behaviors and how to manage associated situations.
This slide shows some of the communication material displayed at our work sites and offices, which is part of the campaign. Now moving on to operational highlights. This year, our Engineering Construction division achieved significant revenue growth, recording its highest revenue since 2015. On the back of our long-term track record and strong relationships with our customers, the division secured new contracts totaling approximately AUD 620 million, including AUD 200 million since 30 June. As you can see, a lot of our work during the year was undertaken in the iron ore sector, as well as in battery metals and renewable energy sectors. This slide outlines some of the division's key highlights from the year, and over the next few slides, I'll take you through some of these in a bit more detail.
We've now completed all three of our packages of work at BHP South Flank project, including the construction of the project's inflow and outflow infrastructure, as well as installation and construction of the world's largest rail-mounted stockyard machines. The project's inflow infrastructure is what's pictured in these pictures here. In what was a significant milestone for our customer, as well as our own team involved in this major construction project, BHP officially opened its South Flank mine last month after achieving first production in May. Another of our major iron ore projects was Rio Tinto's West Angelas Deposits C and D project, which was valued at over AUD 100 million.
This project is now being completed, and our work included the supply and installation of structural, mechanical, piping, electrical, instrumentation work, so full multidisciplinary contract associated with the construction of all the new iron ore facilities, as well as major modifications to existing plant. This image is some of our employees on their newly constructed primary crusher, which is an integral part of the project. Last month, a number of our directors visited the Kemerton lithium hydroxide plant, which is in the southwest of Western Australia. Our team is completing the structural, mechanical, and piping package of work associated with the pyrometallurgical plant. The project continues to progress well, and we expect to finish our scope of work over the coming months.
Our solid performance on this project demonstrates our growing capability in the lithium sector, which is important given the increasing number of opportunities available in this sector as the demand for battery metals grows. Mondium, our engineering procurement and construction joint venture with Lycopodium, made excellent progress on a strategically important contract with Rio Tinto for construction of the Western Turner Syncline Phase 2 project. I'm pleased to say that first ore was achieved last month. You can see this little people on this, on the primary crusher structure to commemorate that day, which was, as I said, last month. We expect the project to be totally complete by the end of the calendar year.
Our demonstrated performance on this project places us in a strong position for similar new major EPC work that's currently in the market. Our renewable energy business, Zenviron, has now completed work at the Dundonnell Wind Farm in Victoria, as well as the Crudine Ridge Wind Farm in New South Wales. During the year, Zenviron also commenced work on the Murra Warra Stage Two Wind Farm in Victoria, which is pictured here. Subsequent to the year-end, Zenviron secured a contract for the balance of plant work at Rye Park Wind Farm, which is the largest wind farm ever to be constructed in New South Wales. The 250 million dollar contract is expected to be complete early in 2024.
Since establishment 5 years ago, Zenviron has worked on 10 wind farms with around 400 wind turbines installed to date, with about 100 currently under construction. Now, collectively, these will provide enough energy to power 1.1 million homes, displacing nearly 6 million tons of carbon annually. We're doing our bit. This during the year, we were awarded a 5-year crane services contract with Fortescue Metals at their Solomon and Eliwana operations in the Pilbara, valued at around AUD 150 million. We continue to supply specialist heavy lift services and equipment to our existing construction and maintenance contracts, including at the Woodside Pluto LNG plant in Karratha. Pictured on the left is a heat exchange module being lifted into position at site.
In collaboration with global heavy lift services company, Fagioli, we also secured a contract to deliver lifting and haulage services at Fortescue Iron Bridge Project. Fortescue's Iron Bridge project in the Pilbara, which is what's pictured there on the right. Now, I want to just grab the mouse. Moving now to our Maintenance and Industrial Services division. As I said earlier, division reported revenue of AUD 977 million for the financial year, which reflected the significant volume of work we undertook in the iron ore sector with customers seeking to optimize production and manage maintenance deficits created during the initial stages of COVID-19. Demand in the oil and gas sector improved steadily during the year and has recently returned to pre-COVID-19 levels.
The division secured AUD 585 million in new contracts and contract extensions since the beginning of the financial year, including around AUD 260 million since 30 June. I'll now take you through some of our key maintenance highlights for the year. Hopefully this video works. This year we delivered a number of packages of work under BHP's iron ore site engineering panel. In this video, you can see our team removing, refurbishing, and reinstalling car dumper 3 at BHP's Nelson Point in Port Hedland. Rail car dumpers are an integral part of the site's inflow infrastructure and have a direct impact on production. This project was a high-profile piece of work. Our scope of work for this project included civil, mechanical, structural, electrical, blasting, painting.
The project required a comprehensive planning process and collaborative approach with the customer and was successfully and safely executed over a 5-month period. The shutdown was a lot shorter than that, but the whole job took 5 months. The team also completed work, so we also completed work on car dumper 2 during the financial year. In October this year, last month, we completed the refurbishment of car dumper number 1. During the year, we were awarded 3 multi-year master service contracts with Rio Tinto for the delivery of sustaining capital projects across their operations in the Pilbara. Under these contracts, we've delivered a significant number of projects, most recently securing work at a number of sites, including Marandoo, Cape Lambert, East Intercourse Island, Tom Price. You can see pictured here some modification works being undertaken recently at the Parker Point Wharf near Dampier.
In the oil and gas sector, we continue to provide services under our existing long-term maintenance contracts, performing turnarounds for both Woodside and INPEX during the year. Planning's commenced for major turnarounds scheduled across Woodside, Shell, and INPEX-operated facilities over the next couple of years, and the division continues to provide EPC services to Oil Search in Papua New Guinea. Our Chile-based maintenance and construction services business, Buildtek, performed strongly, securing approximately AUD 100 million in new contracts since the beginning of the financial year. Capitalizing on strong copper prices, the business progressed several contracts with major operators Codelco and Minera Escondida, which is majority owned by BHP. Leveraging Monadelphous' experience within the LNG sector, Buildtek also secured a significant LNG contract with GNL Quintero for the removal and replacement of LNG loading arms.
In the 2 years since acquiring Buildtek, we've seen their revenue grow by more than 40%, with similar growth seen in their workforce numbers, which are currently sitting at more than 1,000 people. We remain committed to strengthening our position in South America, and we're currently looking at further growth opportunities in the region. We continue to diversify our service offering, expanding our rail, civil, and industrial services capabilities and investing in specialist plant and equipment to support this growth. During the year, we started providing general rail maintenance services to multiple customers on the east coast of Australia, complementing our existing track resurfacing capability in the region. In addition, we commenced underground rail maintenance services at BHP's Olympic Dam mine site in South Australia. We also purchased dedicated equipment to support our strategically important rail services contract with Rio Tinto in the Pilbara.
In addition to organic growth, we acquired fabrication business RTW Steel Fabrication and Construction, a small business in the south-west. The acquisition complements our existing operations in the south-west region of Western Australia and gives us the opportunity to offer additional services to our existing customers in that region. Moving now from our operational highlights to social value. At Monadelphous, we're committed to making a positive contribution to the communities in which we operate. Our efforts are focused around the key areas of diversity, community support, education, and environment. Across our operations, we took part in around 70 community events spread all over our business throughout the year.
Now examples include events such as Explore the Goldfields Community Expo in Kalgoorlie, Welcome to Hedland event in Port Hedland, Shift Youth Festival in Bunbury, through to junior rugby league s-club support in Mackay, Queensland. Our commitment to the environment saw the establishment of a environmental lead team to review and refresh our environmental strategy, ensuring due consideration for key stakeholders, as well as a greater focus and operational level on implementing initiatives that make a difference. Our environmental initiatives help to reduce the potential for uncontrolled emissions and impacts to the atmosphere, minimized waste to landfill, prevented ground and water pollution, and removed the potential impacts to heritage sites associated with our work. During the year, we significantly progressed our reconciliation journey, which is underpinned by our Stretch Reconciliation Action Plan.
We were proud to launch a 3-year Indigenous Employment Pathways program in partnership with Rio Tinto, showcasing our joint commitment to creating meaningful and sustainable employment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The program aims to increase the number of skilled and tertiary Indigenous people in the resources sector and is open to prospective apprentices, trainees, and tertiary cadets in a range of fields. We also commenced a pre-employment upskilling program for Indigenous job seekers, as well as renewing our partnership, Matt mentioned earlier, with the Polly Farmer Foundation. In addition, we participated in more than 20 career information sessions for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, educating participants on career pathways available within the sectors in which we operate. This year, we continued our commitment to developing sustainable relationships with Indigenous businesses and achieved a 45% increase in Indigenous business spend.
Our fourth Reconciliation Action Plan, which is currently with Reconciliation Australia for final endorsement, places a renewed focus on engagement with Indigenous businesses and improving mentoring and support for existing and new Indigenous employees. Now to gender diversity. In line with our focus on gender diversity and inclusion, we successfully maintained female participation in excess of our 20% target for graduate and vacation programs, and retained more than 90% of our key female talent over the course of the financial year. We also announced the appointment of our first female operational general manager. Lorna is here. I was proud to see more than 1,000 members of our team participate in our in-house International Women's Day panel discussion. This high level of interest and support is what will help us to achieve sustainable and meaningful change in this space.
Our team's commitment also extended to external events, where our employees volunteered at local schools to promote STEM subjects and participated in events and conferences to educate and engage with females regarding our industry. Matter of fact, UWA, I think today is hosting a Girls in Engineering Expo, which we're sponsoring once again. During the year, we commenced the consultation process for our second gender diversity and inclusion plan. It's a 2-year plan which will focus on ensuring a safe work environment for women, removing gender-based barriers, offering opportunities for women to enter trade roles, and extending targets for female candidates in our vacation and graduate programs. That plan will be officially launched next week. Just moving to our outlook. There's a...
This slide here, shows the relevant current and forecast market conditions for our business, the sectors in which we operate in. You can see just about in every sector, we've got strong, either strong stable conditions or growing conditions. Looking forward, the outlook for Monadelphous continues to be positive. In resources, while iron ore prices have normalized in recent times, the Australian iron ore industry remains buoyant. Significant levels of capital and operating expenditures required to sustain current production levels continue to drive heightened demand for the company's services. Maintenance activity is expected to be strong on the back of aging assets and customers deferring work in prior periods. With demand for battery metals increasing rapidly, related developments in lithium, copper, nickel, rare earths will provide a solid pipeline of opportunities in the coming years.
These markets, along with the gold sector, will continue to present opportunities for Monadelphous in Australia, but as well in South America and in Mongolia and Papua New Guinea. Conditions in the oil and gas sector have been improving, with construction opportunities from the development of new LNG projects. In fact, Scarborough was given FID yesterday. In terms of opportunities in that sector, we're seeing many more opportunities emerge in relation to new projects. Maintenance activity also in this sector has now returned to more normal levels, following a major demand disruption during the early stages of the pandemic. Australia's transition towards clean energy continues to gain momentum.
The portfolio of wind farms coming to market in the next few years is expected to provide many opportunities for Zenviron, particularly as electrical grid access improves in New South Wales and Victoria. Also rapid development of the hydrogen sector will also provide opportunities for us in the coming years. Now, the 2021 financial year saw an extraordinary surge in construction activity. This momentum has continued into the current financial year, with the first-half revenues expected to be at least similar to the previous corresponding period. With several of our large construction projects completing in the first half, full year revenues for the year are forecast to be lower than the previous year due to the timing and award of commencement of new major projects. Construction activity is expected to be stronger in the 2023 financial year.
Now, as Sue mentioned, the shortage of skilled labor has been and will continue to be a major challenge for the company's operations, especially in Australia. While the effects in Western Australia are being felt right across all industry sectors, the impacts are particularly acute in WA fly-in, fly-out operations, where interstate border restrictions directly impact the supply of labor and the mobility of personnel, as a consequence, operational productivity levels. Border restrictions are expected to be relaxed in the coming months. However, with demand remaining strong across all sectors, labor constraints are expected to continue for some time. In response to this issue, the companies will continue to focus on initiatives to enhance the attraction and retention of people working collaboratively with customers and taking a more strategic approach to targeting new work opportunities.
A remuneration strategy that specifically focuses on the retention of talent will be key in this environment. Our reputation as a leader in our markets and as an employer of choice, together with our long-standing commitment to delivering safe, reliable, and cost-competitive solutions, places us in a strong position to capitalize on the many opportunities and to deal with the challenges ahead. In conclusion, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our loyal and very talented team of people for their continued commitment and dedication. I'd also like to extend my appreciation to our customers, our shareholders and other stakeholders for their ongoing support during these very unique and interesting times. I'll now hand over to Kristy Glasgow, the Company Secretary, to complete the formal proceedings.
Thanks, Rob, and good morning, everyone. As we still have a quorum, we'll now commence the formal business of the day. As mentioned previously, if you are online and have a question, please select the Messaging tab and type your question. Once you've finished typing, press the arrow symbol to submit it. If you're online and would like to ask a verbal question, please pause the broadcast on the Lumi platform and click the link under Asking Audio Questions. A new page will open where you'll be prompted to enter your name and the topic of your question before being connected. You will listen to the meeting on this page while waiting to ask your question. For those of you in the room, I ask that all questions be held until after all resolutions have been introduced.
Today's resolutions will be voted on via a poll, which will be conducted after all items of business have been introduced and discussed. I'll provide some guidance to the people in the room about the poll prior to commencing, and there will be assistance available to shareholders who have queries. We will tally the results of the poll at the end of the meeting and announce on the ASX shortly afterwards. As at the proxy close date, we'd received valid proxies representing around 48.8 million shares or 51.4% of the issued capital of approximately 95.1 million shares. We'll show the manner in which the proxies are to vote on the screen before each resolution is voted on.
Where a proxy vote has been directed to the chair without a specific voting instruction, the chair will vote in favor of each resolution, except where a voting exclusion applies. The minutes of last year's AGM have been signed and a copy is available for inspection. If you'd like to view the minutes, please speak to Bill. We have four items of business to consider at today's meeting. These are set out in the notice of AGM and the accompanying explanatory memorandum released to the ASX and available to shareholders on our website. Unless anyone objects, I will take that notice as read. The 2021 annual report contains the financial statements of the company and the reports of the directors and auditor for the financial year ended 30 June 2021. No resolution is required.
However, if shareholders would like to raise any questions or comments with either Darren Lewsen from Ernst & Young or with the board regarding the financial statements and reports, for those online, please type in your questions now, and for those in the room, please hold your questions to the end. The meeting will now consider the formal items of business. The first item of business is resolution one, to re-elect a director, Mr. Dietmar Voss, who retires by rotation in accordance with the company's constitution and being eligible offers himself for re-election. Dietmar was appointed to the board in March 2014, and his background and experience are contained in the notice of meeting. The board, with the exception of Mr. Voss, who abstained, unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of his re-election. The proxies received in relation to resolution one are displayed on the screen.
As previously mentioned, we will conduct the poll after all resolutions have been discussed. We will now move on to the second resolution. The second item of business is resolution two, to re-elect a director, Mr. Ric Buratto, who has been appointed by the directors in accordance with the company's constitution and being eligible offers himself for re-election. Rick was appointed to the board in October 2021, and his background and experience are contained in the notice of meeting. The board, with the exception of Mr. Buratto, who abstained, unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of his re-election. The proxies received in relation to this resolution are displayed on the screen. We will now move to the third resolution. The third item of business is resolution three, granting of options to Managing Director, Rob Velletri. It is proposed that Mr.
Velletri or his nominee be issued with 300,000 options under the Monadelphous Group Limited employee option plan. The key terms of the options are contained in the notice of meeting. Voting exclusions apply to this resolution, and the details thereof are set out in the notice of AGM. The board, with the exception of Mr. Velletri, who abstained, acknowledges the outstanding contribution that Rob has made and will continue to make to the company, and therefore unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of Resolution 3. The proxies received in relation to this resolution are displayed on the screen. We will now move to the final resolution. The last item of business for today is Resolution 4, adoption of the remuneration report, which is contained in the director's report to shareholders. The vote on Resolution 4 is advisory only and will not bind the directors or the company.
However, the board will take the outcome of the vote into consideration when reviewing remuneration practices and policies. Voting exclusions apply to this resolution, the details of which are set out in the notice of meeting. The board recommends that shareholders vote in favor of the adoption of the remuneration report, and the proxies received in relation to resolution four are displayed on the screen. I will now hand back to Phil for shareholder questions.
Thanks, Kristy. Before we move to the poll, as Kristy just mentioned, we'll now open the floor for questions. If you have something you wish to ask, please raise your hand and one of our attendants will bring you a microphone. Especially for the benefit of those listening online, if we could ask if you could please speak into the microphone so that everybody is able to hear your questions clearly. As mentioned previously, if you're online and you have a question, please press on the speech bubble icon and type your question. Once you've finished typing, press the arrow symbol to submit it. I'll now open the floor for questions if there are any. No? Oh. Mr. Miller from the ASA.
I'm a shareholder and representative of Australian Shareholders' Association. We represent about 110 shareholders, a small percentage, but they're fairly interested and keen shareholders. Firstly, I'd like to thank Mr. Rubino, if you could pass that on, for meeting with us, he has, as he has done regularly over many years, and that's been a big help to us in continuing to understand the company. ASA would like to congratulate the board and the manager of the company on what seems to us is an excellent year in spite of all the difficulties that you faced. As Rob's presentation just showed now, it's, I think, even better than we had expected after reading the annual report.
I'd also like to thank the board or the management for resolving the Rio issue, which was in many ways, I think, a dead weight on the share price over quite a long period last year. I have a couple of questions, if that's okay to progress with.
Please go ahead.
The margin, this is one of our typical questions every year, sitting at 5.6% for the last couple of years. In the past, it's been quite a lot better. Is there any prospect for that getting better over the coming years? Certainly listening to the presentation, it sounds like there's a lot of interesting and new work. From a shareholder point of view, it's a very tight margin, I think you've got to say.
Hello? Yeah, look, we'd love to get that margin up. I think we've certainly seen potential for that going forward given the volume of work that is out in front of us, and perhaps our ability to be a little bit more selective in the work that we take on. It's important to understand that what we've seen in the last couple of years is a couple of very interesting situations or circumstances that proved very challenging in respect of margin. First one was COVID-19 when it first hit last year.
That's the year before last when really we had major disruption in our business and volumes just dropped significantly for a quarter, which impacted margins. Then we had the reverse happen, if you like, in the following year, where most of that work still had to be done. It was all work won pre-COVID, and then we had major restrictions in labor, which increased our costs. That were unforeseen at the time. Those two factors will have a negative impact on our margin. Going forward, I'm presuming we don't have any further major disruption, and that's an interesting prospect going forward given the opening of borders and the freeing up of COVID around the country will present some challenges there, I think.
Notwithstanding that, the newer work is clear of those impediments to margin, and hopefully we will definitely have the potential to improve our margins going forward. Yeah. So am I.
I shall maybe Phil can answer. Yeah. 90% seems extremely high compared to almost all other companies. Will you be able to continue to maintain that high level of payout? With, particularly with the growth areas you're talking about, the shareholder starts to wonder that you might need a bit more money retained in there.
The board, Mr. Miller, has had a stated dividend policy, a formal policy for at least the last 15 or 20 years, that we pay out between 80% and 100% of our net profit after tax as dividends. There is a proviso there that we need to consider the working capital requirements, the investment requirements of the business going forward. We've consistently been able to pay out dividends in that range. I would hope that that will continue.
You seem to do a remarkable job with it.
Thank you.
The final point is on the mining services industry in general, and I interpret it seems to be a bit out of favor with the otherwise investment community. Hence the flat share price over a number of years. Not only in your area, but in the drilling area as well, it seems that's the case. Is it due to more competition coming into the industry and new competitors? I see a number of contracts go to what apparently are small construction companies in recent times. I just wonder whether that's a trend of the industry.
No, I think so what we've seen is, we've seen that also the earlier period, I spoke about the last couple of years that with respect to, actors that would impact our margin, our profitability and therefore perhaps sentiment in the sector. Previous to that period , I think there was a significant downturn, and customers were definitely putting a very large focus on cost reduction through their organizations and hence service providers were, they were, their performance was influenced by that.
I'm not sure why the sector has that sentiment attached to it going forward, given I think the opportunities that are emerging post this, if we can get away from these COVID impacts and labor impacts, which is really the big brake on capacity. I think looking beyond that, it should be an improving sector. Perhaps it's lost a bit of its appeal to the broader, the broader market in terms of employment, et cetera, as well, much more difficult to get people to work fly in, fly out, et cetera.
It just seems a bit of an anomaly, too, looking at it, that the industry you mainly work in, iron ore, has got a margin of about 70% or 80%, and they're screwing you down to 5%. You gotta wonder what they're thinking.
Sure.
in the real world is what
How it is. Finally, just a point. I wonder whether we could ask Ric to make a few comments about his background, as a new director.
Thank you. I think I said over 40 years experience, 25 board in construction, mining, maintenance across all the sectors, the infrastructure, civil infrastructure and the resource sector. I have a fair knowledge across Australia. I have a national, 2 or 3 national roles overviewing significant projects. I think I'm well placed to add value to the board at board level on that basis. J oining Monadelphous is actually a real delight and a pleasure to join. I've known them for a long time. I've known a lot of their senior players as friends and colleagues. Culture is very much aligned with what I've, how I value things, and I think I can add value, given the board experience I've had, particularly at senior management and executive roles. If that helps.
Thank you, Ric Buratto. Are there any further questions from the room? Rob Velletri, we've had one question posed online from one of our shareholders. Mr. John Marsden has asked if you could please tell us about the size, activities, and growth potential for Buildtek in Chile. Specifically, is this operation currently profitable?
Okay. It's definitely profitable, I can say that. The Buildtek is essentially if you think, if you wanna think about Monadelphous, what we do, particularly in terms of probably our maintenance part of our business, where there's a lot of supporting existing operations, it gets involved in, maintenance contract, both surface and underground. Remember that key industry in Chile is copper mines. It has one of the, if not the, largest copper precincts in the world. We're talking large scale mines with large, blue chip customers. Similar market in regards to that in Australia, other than clearly it's in a different part of the world, different languages, et cetera.
We service, Buildtek is now servicing more and more. Its office is in Santiago. It has bases and works all up the north and south, up in the mountains, essentially, where all the copper mines are in Chile. Very similar service offering that we have here in Australia. The business is, I think I said, I think, it's grown significantly, probably 40% in the last couple of years. Very well-run, very well managed. We're very happy with the acquisition, the opportunities in front. I think, in the longer term. It has about 1,000 people.
It, the turnover's probably somewhere around the AUD 60 million mark, Australian dollar mark. Could easily get to a hundred. Can be a significant part of our business. There is clearly further opportunities for us through that acquisition in terms of other countries in South America. Peru, particularly. Does that answer the question?
Yep. Thank you. Okay. We don't seem to have any further questions, so I'll hand back to Christine now, who will conduct the poll.
Thanks, Phil. For those shareholders, representatives of shareholders and proxy holders attending online, please ensure that you have cast your vote on all resolutions using the online voting button. We will now conduct the poll for the shareholders in the room. This should take only a few minutes, and then we'll return to close out the meeting. For those here in the room today, at the time of registration, those entitled to vote, being shareholders, representatives of shareholders and proxy holders, were given green admission cards. Each shareholder present, either in person or by proxy, has one vote per resolution for every share owned. Rod Somes from Computershare has agreed to act as Returning Officer for the poll. If you have any queries during the polling process, please raise your hand and someone will come over and assist you.
If there is anyone who believes they're entitled to vote but has not yet registered, can you please raise your hand? If you are here in more than one capacity, for example, on your own behalf and as a proxy for another shareholder, you will have been issued with as many green admission cards as you have separate capacities. On the reverse side of your green admission card is your voting paper and instructions. I'll now run through the procedures for filling in the voting papers. Attached to the admission card of proxy holders is the summary of proxy votes, which details the voting instructions where these have been directed by the shareholder. By completing the voting paper, when we're instructed to vote in a particular manner, you are deemed to have voted in accordance with these instructions.
In respect of any open votes a proxy holder may be entitled to cast, you need to mark a box beside the resolution to indicate how you wish to cast your open votes. Shareholders also need to mark a box beside the resolution to indicate how you wish to cast your votes. Please ensure you print your name where indicated and sign the voting paper. When you have finished filling in your voting paper, please lodge it in one of the boxes currently being circulated to ensure your votes are counted. If you need any help at all, please raise your hand. I'll close the voting system in a couple of minutes, so please ensure you have cast your vote on all resolutions. I'll now pause for a moment to allow you time to finalize your votes.
Does anyone in the room need more time to complete and lodge their voting paper? Okay, great. Okay. Thank you, everyone. The poll is now closed. The results of the poll will now be tallied and published on the ASX shortly after the close of today's meeting. Is there any other business today that can be brought properly to the meeting about the management of the company? If there's no other business, I declare this meeting closed. I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of the Chairman, the Board, and everyone at Monadelphous to thank you for your attendance today and for your continued support of our company. That now ends today's formalities. For those online, thank you very much for joining us, and for those in the room, please join us with some light refreshments in the foyer. Thank you.