Good morning, everybody, welcome to the 2022 Monadelphous Annual General Meeting. As it's now 10:00 A.M. and we have a quorum, I declare the meeting open. For those who don't know me, my name's Phil Trueman. I'm the CFO and Company Secretary here at Monadelphous. I thank you for joining us today. I'd like to commence today's proceedings by welcoming Claudia Bellis, one of our Local Content Coordinators, for an acknowledgment of country. In her role with Monadelphous, Claudia is responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and organizations. She also plays a key role in retaining and attracting Indigenous employees to our business. Welcome, Claudia.
In Noongar language, this translates into, "Hello, my name is Claudia Bellis, and I'm a Ballardong Whadjuk woman. Welcome to Whadjuk country." I'm proud to be invited to present this acknowledgment of country today. I would also like to acknowledge that this meeting's being held on the lands of the Whadjuk people, members of the Noongar nation, and traditional owners of the Perth and surrounds. Welcome to the Monadelphous board, executives, and shareholders to this place where my ancestors gathered to meet, embrace family, and hold great ceremonies. I would like to draw your attention to this video on the slide, which was taken in our 2022 NAIDOC Week celebrations this year, where we launched our latest Stretch Reconciliation Action Plan following its endorsement by Reconciliation Australia.
Our fourth plan and the second Stretch plan articulates Monadelphous' pledge to take meaningful action to advance reconciliation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and is based around the core pillars of relationship, respect, and opportunities. Finally, I would like to acknowledge our elders past, present, and emerging, and pay my respects to the Aboriginal people who are present here today. Thank you.
Thank you, Claudia. Today's meeting's being held online as well as here in person at The University of Western Australia to ensure that all of our shareholders, proxies, and guests can either attend in person or virtually. For those of you who are in the room today, I'll quickly go through some important safety information. In case of emergency, you will hear an alarm and a voice over the PA system telling you to evacuate the premises. Please do so immediately if that occurs, following the fire exit signs at the front of the auditorium. The club's fire wardens will be on hand to assist, you will be directed to assemble at the far corner of Riley Oval near the Dolphin Theatre, you must remain on that oval, please, until instructed to return to the building.
As we're also running the meeting virtually today, there is a 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 meeting is affected. Should there be any technical difficulties, we will immediately publish a notification on our website. For those of you attending online, questions can be submitted via the online Computershare meeting platform at any time. If you'd like to ask a question, please select the Q&A icon and type your question in the text box. Once you have finished typing, press the Send button.
You'll be able to submit questions on the platform throughout the meeting up until we commence question time. Any questions which have not been addressed in the presentation or have not been answered previously will be put to the board at the end of the meeting. Please note your questions may be moderated. If we receive a number of questions on the same topic, we may amalgamate them. To ask a question verbally, please follow the instructions written below the broadcast. Unfortunately, if due to time constraints we're not able to answer any questions, we'll answer them in due course via email or by 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.
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 are eligible to vote at this meeting, once voting opens, press the Vote icon and all resolutions will be activated with voting options. To cast your vote, simply select one of the options. There's no need to hit a Submit or an Enter button as your vote will automatically be recorded, and you will receive a vote confirmation notification on your screen. You can change your vote up until the time I declare voting closed. I now declare the online voting open on all items of business. Please cast your votes at any time, and I'll give you a warning before I move to close the voting.
With us in the room here this morning from your left to right are our Deputy Chair and Lead Independent Non-Executive Director, Sue Murphy. Our Managing Director, Rob Velletri, and Non-Executive Directors, Peter Dempsey, Helen Gillies, Dietmar Voss, and Ric Buratto. Also here this morning on your far right is our Executive General Manager of Maintenance and Industrial Services and our incoming Managing Director, Zoran Bebic. In addition, representing our auditors, EY, we're joined in the room here by Darren Leeson.
Our Chair, John Rubino, is not able to join us today, so our Deputy Chair and Lead Independent Non-Executive Director, Sue Murphy, will commence today's AGM by reading John's Chair's Address. Sue will then hand over to Rob, who will speak in more detail about the company's highlights and performance for the 2022 financial year before we hear from Zoran about the company's outlook for the foreseeable future. I'll take care of the formal business of the day before opening to shareholders for questions and conducting the poll. With that, I'll hand over to our first speaker this morning, Sue Murphy.
Thanks, Phil. Good morning, everyone. Unfortunately, our Chair, John Rubino, can't be here in person today due to health reasons, but I'm honored to be able to deliver his address on his behalf. I start by thanking you all for joining us here today, either in person or online, and I extend a warm welcome to you all. This year, Monadelphous is celebrating its 50th year in operation, providing a wonderful opportunity for our team to reflect and celebrate everything that has made Monadelphous into the fantastic company it is today. Over the past five decades, Monadelphous has developed a reputation for delivering high quality, safe, and cost-effective service solutions. Our commitment to delivering what we promise has cemented our long-term customer relationships, and in more recent times has helped us to diversify our customer base.
The sustained efforts of our very dedicated people over such a long period of time have culminated in Monadelphous being recognized today as a construction contractor of choice in the resources and energy sectors, and a leader in the provision of Maintenance and Industrial Services. The 2022 financial year represented another good performance by Monadelphous. We secured a significant volume of new contracts and contract extensions built on our already expansive service offering and continued to grow and diversify internationally. Our engineering, procurement and construction joint venture, Mondium, successfully completed its largest ever contract. Our renewable energy joint venture, Zenviron, continued to build on its strong reputation, securing a substantial package of work in the largest wind farm ever to be constructed in New South Wales.
Through all of this, the safety of our people remains at the heart of how we work. We will continue to focus our efforts on the implementation of initiatives that reinforce Monadelphous' philosophy that the safe way is the only way. Our team of almost 8,000 loyal and passionate people from around the globe continue to drive our success. Our team strives to operate with an owner's mindset, which is something of which I'm extremely proud. Their integrity, passion, desire to learn, and willingness to roll up their sleeves never ceases to amaze me. We continue, though, to experience an unprecedented shortfall of available skilled resources. This is expected to persist for some time. This is likely to continue to constrain our capacity, which means that people retention and attraction remains more important than ever before.
Industry forecasts indicate a strong pipeline of opportunities for Monadelphous within our core sectors, as well as within the fast-growing market segments which support decarbonization. Our long-standing reputation for reliable delivery ensures we are well-placed to capitalize on these opportunities. Before I hand over to Rob, John has asked me to acknowledge the outgoing Non-Executive Director, Peter Dempsey, for his significant contribution to our sustained growth and success over almost 20 years. Peter has played an instrumental role on the board and its subcommittees over that time, and we sincerely thank him for his loyalty, dedication, commitment, and hard work, and wish him all the very best in retirement. As you are aware, at the conclusion of today's meeting, our Executive Chair, John Rubino, will retire as a director of the company.
Following John's retirement, in accordance with our long-term board succession plan, Rob Velletri will take on the role of Executive Chair of the board, and Zoran Bebic will take on the role of Managing Director. Rob joined us in 1989 as Group General Manager and was appointed to the role of Managing Director in 2003, almost 20 years ago. Under his guidance, Monadelphous has become one of the most trusted and respected engineering service providers in Australia. Rob has worked extremely closely with John throughout their time at Monadelphous, and the two of them have played a pivotal role in making Monadelphous into the successful business it is today.
Rob's experience and knowledge of the industry, the company, and all its stakeholders make his appointment to the role of Executive Chair an obvious one, underlining the significant and valuable contribution he makes to our great company. On behalf of the board, Rob, we thank you for your time as Managing Director, and we're all looking forward to working with you in your new role. On a personal note, I would also like to take this opportunity to thank and acknowledge our outgoing Chair, John Rubino, after more than 30 years of service. John has spent three decades dedicating himself to building the successful business we enjoy today, commencing as Chair and Managing Director in January 1991, before handing over the role of Managing Director to Rob in 2003.
John's no heirs and graces leadership style and his innate ability to forge long-term trusting and mutually rewarding relationships are the stuff of legend. On behalf of the board, our Monadelphous team, and our shareholders, thank you, John. In conclusion, on behalf of John, I 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 also extend our appreciation to all our shareholders, our customers, and other stakeholders for their ongoing support. I'll now hand over to Rob, who'll provide you with a more detailed insight into our 2022 performance.
Thanks, Sue, and good morning to everyone. Now firstly, I'd like to reiterate the comments about Peter's outstanding contribution to our company over many years. Peter, I would like to express my personal thanks to you for your own tremendous support and the wise counsel that you've provided me over the probably about the same time we've both been on the board at Monadelphous, nearly 20 years. I sincerely wish you all the very best in the future. Now, I'd also obviously wanna take this opportunity to thank our Chair and my really long-term mentor, John. Now, John described his early, sorry, foray into Monadelphous as the best mistake he ever made. Having bought shares in a company he would later find out was on the brink of collapse.
Since that time, he's been instrumental in transforming Monadelphous into the successful business it is today. For so many of us who've had the opportunity to work with John, we've admired his generosity, his phenomenal negotiation skills, his ability to charm any room. His strong belief in relationships and values defines us as a company, and we're lucky to have spent more than three decades with John at our helm. On a personal note, John's a wonderfully kind and generous person, a family-first man. He's played a huge role in my as my mentor during our time working together. He has many attributes that make him such a great person, but above all, his integrity, his honesty, and his loyalty stand out to me the most.
I'm truly grateful to John for all his support during my time, and I am honored to call him my friend. The legacy of the business he's built is a great one, and we look forward to continuing to develop the business he's proud of. As Sue mentioned earlier, this year, we are celebrating 50 years in operation, and I wanted to highlight some of the milestones in the Monadelphous journey so far. Established in 1972, the company was once a small labor hire business in Kalgoorlie called Contract Engineering Associates. From there, it expanded slowly into manufacturing, fabrication, and construction services, and in 1978, the name changed to Monadelphous. Don't ask me why. Growth and diversification continued at pace, both here in Australia and overseas. From the outside, Monadelphous looked like a company that was going places.
From the inside, however, the strains of rapid growth were beginning to show. In the highly competitive environment and largesse of the late 80s, Monadelphous fell into receivership in 1988. John Rubino and his United Construction partners, who had only just made a significant investment in the company, engineered a major corporate restructure. John and his partners, together with a new management team, set out to revive Monadelphous, and the company eventually relisted in 1990 with a market capitalization of around AUD 2.5 million . John and many of the current senior management who joined at that time got to work and inch by inch began to rebuild the company and its reputation. We had to work harder, offer better value, deliver on our promises over and over and over again. Suffice to say, since that time, there's been no looking back.
Monadelphous has gone from strength to strength, firmly establishing its engineering construction credentials, tackling resource development projects of ever-increasing size and complexity, continuing to build out an enviable track record in Maintenance and Industrial Services. We've entered new markets, expanded our services, established joint ventures, grown our global reach, and worked on some of the largest and most challenging projects. Over the years, we've learnt what we're good at and tried not to stray too far from that, which continues to pay off. We've grown into a multibillion-dollar Australian company, which employs around 8,000 people today globally. We have a significant presence in many of Australia's regional mining hubs and are proud to be able to give back to those communities.
For our shareholders, we've funded our own growth and delivered a 28-year unbroken record of dividend payments, which now totals over AUD 1.17 billion, which is a pretty good story for a company once in receivership. Now turning back to the present and having a look at our performance in 2022 financial year. It delivered a solid sales revenue of AUD 1.93 billion for the year, which was a similar result to the previous period. Our Maintenance and Industrial Services division achieved record revenue of AUD 1.17 billion, 19.4%. We did see strong demand across the board, with increased activity in the oil and gas sector, as well as significant growth overseas in Chile and Papua New Guinea.
Our engineering construction division reported revenue of AUD 774 million, which was down 21%. As we'd forecast following a busy first half, construction revenue declined in the second half due to several major resource projects reaching completion and the timing of award and commencement of new projects. Net profit after tax was AUD 52.2 million, an increase of 11%, representing earnings per share of AUD 0.549, which was up a similar amount. The board declared a final dividend of AUD 0.25 per share, taking the full year to AUD 0.49 per share, fully franked, which was up from AUD 0.45 the previous year. We ended the year with a strong cash balance of AUD 183 million.
Importantly, we secured around AUD 1.1 billion of new contracts and contract extensions with a further AUD 630 million since June 30, which I'll talk about a bit more on the next slide. This slide highlights the size and location of each of our new contracts. As you can see, our contracts are spread across a broad range of industries and geographies. Within our core markets, we secured new work in the iron ore sector with long-term customers BHP and Rio Tinto, as well as newer customers Fortescue Metals Group and Roy Hill. In addition, we were awarded new contracts and contract extensions in the oil and gas sector with Woodside, Origin Energy, and Shell.
Also in Australia, as Sue mentioned earlier, you can see our renewable energy joint venture, Zenviron's AUD 250 million contract for the balance-of-plant work at the Rye Park Wind Farm in New South Wales. Internationally, we also secured new contracts in Chile, Papua New Guinea, and Mongolia. Moving now to our safety performance. Our 12-month Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate was up on previous year to 3.07 incidents per million hours worked, with our performance affected by high levels of operational activity and a larger number of new employees onboarded during the period. In response, we rolled out a series of targeted safety campaigns, increased our focus on frontline safety programs to further promote and support in-field safety leadership.
The good news is our Serious Incident Frequency Rate improved by 55% over the course of the year as a result of our sustained focus on fatal risk hazards and the application of our Fatal Risk Control Standards. We continued to invest in the important area of safety innovation. We're pleased to be recognized in a number of industry safety awards during the year, including one for breaking down the stigma associated with mental health. More recently, we were named a winner at the WA Department of Mines Safety Excellence Awards in the Best Solution to a Work Health and Safety Risk category for our Ergonomic Poly Weld Stands, shown here on the slide. Turning now to our people highlights.
As I said, we finished the year with a workforce of around 8,000 people, particularly seeing growth at our operations in Chile and Papua New Guinea. As I mentioned earlier, higher levels of industry activity and COVID-19 travel restrictions significantly impacted our ability to source and retain talent. The last couple of years have seen us implement a number of employee-related cost reductions in response to COVID-19 impacts, including salary reductions and freezes, while also putting a hold on the award of any short-term incentives. As a result, our key equity-based employee retention measures had become diluted. In response to the extremely competitive labor market, which rapidly emerged post that period, we implemented an employee retention plan to bolster the retention of our key employees.
The plan provided a one-off issue of retention rights to around 180 key employees, vesting over a three-year period, subject to continued service conditions. To help with employee attraction, we launched our new talent acquisition and performance management system. We continued to enhance our employee referral and alumni programs. We reinvigorated our international sourcing strategy. During the year, we spent significant amount of time reviewing and refreshing our code of conduct and supporting policies to reinforce acceptable workplace behavior. As part of this, we rolled out our It's Up to Us campaign, which highlights the important role every employee at Monadelphous plays in creating a safe, respectful and inclusive work environment. Looking now at our operational highlights.
As I spoke about earlier, our engineering construction division successfully completed a number of large resources projects, including packages of work at BHP South Flank project, Rio Tinto's West Angelas Deposit C and D project, and MARBL Lithium Joint Venture's Kemerton Lithium Hydroxide plant. Now during the year, we also successfully delivered one of the largest shutdown campaigns ever undertaken at BHP's Olympic Dam copper mine in South Australia, and provided construction services to assist Rio Tinto to complete the Gudai-Darri project, iron ore project in the Pilbara. More recently, we've also been engaged to provide construction services at Fortescue Metals' Iron Bridge magnetite project in the Pilbara. The division is currently very busy working on a number of tenders and early engagements with customers for a large wave of new resource development projects that are in the pipeline.
Over the next two slides, I just wanna talk about some of the division's overseas and joint venture highlights. The first one's Mongolia. We've been operating in Mongolia since 2017, and we've had a strong focus on upskilling Mongolian national employees. Our last contracts at Rio Tinto's Oyu Tolgoi underground project spanned two years on site, during which time our workforce peaked at around 1,500 people. With the commencement of the next phase of the project, we've recently recommenced work on site after securing another strategically important construction contract, with further prospects at the project becoming available to us over the next couple years. Sue talked about Mondium early on. Big Western Turner Syncline Phase Two project for Rio Tinto was completed during the year.
It was the largest contract that Mondium's completed at a value of around AUD 400 million. The joint venture also completed works on the tailings retreatment plant at Talison Lithium's Greenbushes mine in the southwest WA. Earlier this year, we established a joint venture with Fagioli, which is a global logistics and heavy lift company, to provide turnkey heavy lift solutions to the Australian market. The joint venture, which is named Alevro, extends our existing heavy lift capability and capacity to deliver larger scale heavy lift and logistics services contracts. Alevro aims to capitalize on the large number of opportunities that are in the pipeline coming through in the resource and energy sector. Zenviron, our renewable energy business, continues to cement its reputation as a market leader in the delivery of balance-of-plant works for wind farms.
Since being established now since 2016, Zenviron has completed balance-of-plant work on wind farms with a total of 425 wind turbines, with another 66 currently in construction. During the year, Zenviron completed its work at the Murra Warra Stage Two Wind Farm in Victoria, as well as for the Crudine Ridge Wind Farm in New South Wales. As spoken about earlier, we've commenced work at our largest wind farm at Rye Park in New South Wales. Favorable government policies, a robust energy market, are really driving accelerating growth in the renewable energy market, Zenviron is in a great position to capitalize on an increasing number of wind farm developments that are coming to market. Now moving to our Maintenance and Industrial Services division.
As I said earlier, they that division had a had a stellar year, achieving a record annual revenue of AUD 1.17 billion. The result reflects strong demand for maintenance services across the resources and energy sector as customers maintain high levels of production, capitalize on favorable commodity prices, both in Australia as well as overseas, in Chile and Papua New Guinea. Our maintenance division secured more than AUD 850 million in new contracts and contract extensions during the year, with an additional AUD 500 million since June 30. I'll quickly take you through some of our key maintenance highlights. In the iron ore sector, we continue to deliver a significant volume of maintenance shutdown and project works.
During the year, our long-term customers, BHP and Rio Tinto, awarded us a number of new contracts as well as new packages of work under existing panel agreements. Importantly, we continue to diversify our customer base, securing a five-year maintenance and shutdown services contract for Fortescue Metals' Pilbara operations, as well as a contract for the construction of dewatering pipelines and associated infrastructure at the Roy Hill mine site. To better support our customers in the Pilbara, we established a new workshop facility in Port Hedland. We opened an expanded facility in Tom Price, and we've recently approved the development of a new larger facility in Karratha.
In oil and gas, we secured a two-year extension on our existing maintenance contract for Woodside for both their onshore and offshore gas production facilities, as well as a two-year extension to our maintenance contract with Shell. We've also recently commenced decommissioning work on the Northern Endeavour FPSO facility, which will be the first of a growing number of decommissioning opportunities in the oil and gas sector in the years to come. Moving now to overseas. Again, we saw record levels of activity in Papua New Guinea, where we've been providing brownfield projects and maintenance services since 2007. A key highlight was the award of a major package of work with Newcrest at Lihir Island, including a major contract on the front-end re-recovery project.
Earlier this month, we announced we'd secured a 12-month extension to our existing contract with Santos for the provision of engineering, procurement, and construction services in joint venture with Worley on their oil and gas production facilities in the highlands region of Papua New Guinea. In Chile, our Chile-based maintenance and construction services business, Buildtek, continued to grow strongly, capitalizing on a buoyant copper market. Buildtek secured around AUD 80 million of new work during the year, including several important contracts with Codelco, which is the world's largest copper producer. The outlook continues to be positive for us in Chile, and we remain committed to strengthening our position in South America and pursuing a number of growth opportunities in the region. Moving now to our slide on sustainability.
We continue to make a positive contribution to the communities in which we operate, focusing on the key areas of diversity, community, and environment. During the year, we launched our latest Stretch Reconciliation Action Plan, which Claudia spoke of earlier. It's our fourth plan now. Together with our partner, Rio Tinto, we continue to deliver traineeships through our Indigenous Pathways Program and renewed our partnership with the Polly Farmer Foundation. In 2021, we launched our second Gender Diversity and Inclusion Plan, which is aimed at ensuring a safe and respectful working environment for all employees, the removal of gender-based barriers, and increasing our targets for female candidates in vacation and graduate programs. We extended our partnerships with the University of WA and the Queensland University of Technology, supporting programs which aim to increase female participation in early STEM career pathways.
We participated in more than 100 community initiatives across 25 of our operating locations, contributed over AUD 370,000 in funds, and supported our employees who participated in 600 hours of voluntary work. During the year, we formalized our goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050, underlining our commitment to the sustainable management of the unique environments in which we work. Our environmental strategy is focused on decarbonizing our operational activities as well as supporting our customers with their decarbonization goals. Our objectives include improving energy efficiency, the transition to renewable power, greening our fleet, and offsetting carbon emissions. As Sue mentioned earlier, given John Rubino's retirement, I'll be taking on the role of Executive Chair of the board at the conclusion of today's AGM, which was in line with our long-term succession plan. It's just come a little earlier.
When I joined Monadelphous, it was a very different company to the one we know today, and it sincerely is a great honor to have been Managing Director since 2003 and to have played a part in seeing Monadelphous grow into one of the most respected engineering service providers in Australia. With this, I'd like to formally introduce, or perhaps reintroduce, given he has met many of our shareholders over the years, Zoran Bebic, our incoming Managing Director. Zoran's been part of Monadelphous business for almost 30 years. Not quite there. Will be next year. He's held a broad range of operational, financial, and management positions. During his time as Executive General Manager of Maintenance and Industrial Services, his current role, the division has broadened its scope of services, geographies, customer markets.
It's nearly doubled its sales revenue to well over AUD 1 billion per annum. Prior to this, Zoran was our Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary. Now, the board and I believe that Zoran's personal attributes, his company and industry experience, his financial acumen, and his deep understanding of the markets where we work make him the perfect choice for Monadelphous. I must say, I'm excited by the prospect of another era of growth and development under his leadership. I now take the opportunity to hand over to Zoran, who will provide you with an update on the company's outlook for the future. Thank you. You got your own?
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Firstly, I'd like to thank you, Rob, for your kind words, and more importantly, I'd like to acknowledge you on behalf of the Monadelphous team for your contribution, which has spanned more than 33 years and counting. Thanks. Change provides the opportunity for new growth, and as we look forward to our 51st year in operation, I am extremely pleased to be able to build on our already strong foundations as we work hard to achieve our Monadelphous vision and strategy for continued growth into our next chapter. Moving now to our industry outlook. This slide shows relevant current and forecast Australian market conditions for our business. As you can see, the sectors in which we operate are expected to remain strong over coming years.
The resources sector in Australia and in our overseas locations continues to provide a significant number of prospects for our services across a broad range of commodity markets. The Australian iron ore industry is expected to remain buoyant, with capital and operating expenditures required to sustain and maximize production levels, driving demand for our services. High global demand for battery metals is driving significant investment in lithium, copper, nickel and rare earths. These markets, along with the gold sector, will present ongoing opportunities not only in Australia but also in South America, Mongolia and Papua New Guinea. In the oil and gas sector, there are a number of new LNG construction projects currently in the pipeline, with heightened demand for maintenance services expected to remain.
Australia's transition towards clean energy is strengthening and an increasing pipeline of new wind farms will provide opportunities for Zenviron, both in the electricity market as well as in the private sector as industrial operators move quickly to meet their decarbonization objectives. The development of the hydrogen sector will also provide prospects in coming years. More broadly, favorable conditions and aging assets across all resources and energy sectors are driving demand for maintenance services. As reported in the full year results, the shortage of skilled labor is the most significant challenge for our operations, especially here in Australia. We are also seeing challenges posed by heightening supply chain risks and escalating, and an escalating cost environment. With capacity constrained, we are taking a strategic and targeted approach to new work, engaging and collaborating earlier with customers and an increasing focus on earnings quality.
We remain focused on employee attraction, training and development, and making Monadelphous a great place to work. With travel restrictions lifted, we have also recently reengaged our international labor sourcing strategy. Following a ramp down of construction activity last financial year, a new wave of major construction projects is in the pipeline. We currently have over AUD 2 billion of new project work in the tendering phase. However, we are seeing some delays in the timing of awards and commencement. Consequently, we are anticipating engineering construction revenue to decrease this year before ramping up in the 2024 financial year. At this stage, we are expecting to see a reduction in group revenue for the first half of 10%-15% compared to the prior corresponding period. Full year revenue for the group will remain dependent on the award and commencement of new construction contracts.
Supported by a strong balance sheet, we will continue to assess acquisition opportunities to achieve ongoing service and customer market diversification and support long-term sustainable growth. In conclusion, both Rob and I take this opportunity to thank our loyal and talented team. At the heart of our success is our people. They are the ones who have made Monadelphous successful over the past 50 years and who will no doubt drive our success well into the future. We would also like to extend our appreciation to our shareholders, customers and other stakeholders for their ongoing support. I'll now hand back to Phil to complete the formal proceedings for the day.
Thanks, Zoran. I'd just like to take this opportunity to wish you all the best for your new appointment, and we all know you'll do an amazing job. As we still have a quorum, I'll commence the formal business of the day. As we mentioned previously, if you're online and have a question, please select the Q&A icon and type your question in the text box. Once you've finished typing, press the Send button. If you're online and you wish to ask a question verbally, please follow the instructions written below the broadcast on the online platform. For those of you in the room, I ask that all questions be held until all resolutions have been introduced, and we'll do all the questions at once.
Today's resolutions will be voted on via a poll which will be conducted after all the items of business have been introduced and discussed. I'll provide some guidance to the people here in the room about the poll prior to commencing. There will be assistance available to shareholders who have queries. We'll tally the results of the poll at the end of the meeting and announce them on the ASX later today. As at the proxy close date, we've received valid proxies representing 52.7 million shares, or about 55% of the issued capital of approximately 96 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's 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 have a talk to me afterwards. We've got four items of business to consider at today's meeting, and these were 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'll take that notice as read.
The 2022 annual report contains the financial statements of the company and the reports of the director and the auditor for the financial year ended 30 June 2022. No resolution is required. However, if shareholders would like to raise any questions or comments with either Darren Leeson from EY 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 until after all the resolutions have been introduced. The meeting will now consider the formal items of business. The first item is Resolution One, which is to re-elect a director, Ms. Sue Murphy, who retires by rotation in accordance with the company's constitution and being eligible offers herself for re-election.
Sue was appointed to the board in June 2019, and her background and experience are contained in the notice of meeting. The board, with the exception of Ms. Murphy, who abstained, unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of her re-election. The proxies received in relation to resolution one are displayed on the screen, and as previously mentioned, we'll conduct the poll after all resolutions have been discussed. We'll move on to the second resolution, which is Resolution Two, granting of retention rights to Mr. Rob Velletri. It is proposed that Mr. Velletri or his nominee be issued with 43,600 re-retention rights under the Monadelphous Group Limited Employee Retention Plan, and the key terms of the retention rights are contained in the notice of meeting.
Voting exclusions do apply to this resolution. The details thereof are also set out in that notice. The board, with the exception of Mr. Velletri, who abstained, acknowledges the outstanding contribution that Rob Velletri has made to Monadelphous for many years and the critical significance of his ongoing employment with the company, and therefore unanimously recommends shareholders vote in favor of resolution two. The proxies received in relation to this resolution are displayed on the screen. We'll now move to the third resolution, which is the granting of performance rights to Mr. Velletri. It's proposed that Mr. Velletri or his nominee be issued with 29,020 performance rights under the Monadelphous Group Limited Combined Reward Plan. The key terms of the performance rights are contained in the notice of meeting.
Voting exclusions do apply to this resolution. The details thereof are also set out in that notice. The board, with the exception of Mr. Velletri, who abstained, acknowledges Rob's outstanding contribution that he has made to Monadelphous and will continue to make to the company, and therefore unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of Resolution Three. The proxies received in relation to this resolution are displayed on the screen. We'll now move on to the fourth resolution, which is Resolution Four, the adoption of the remuneration report, which is contained in the directors' report to shareholders. The vote on Resolution Four 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. The proxies received in relation to this Resolution Four, are displayed on the screen. Before we move to the poll, as mentioned, we'll now open the floor for questions. If you have something that 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, please, if I could ask that you speak into the microphone so that everybody can hear your questions clearly. As mentioned previously, if you're online and have a question, please select the Q&A icon and type your question. Once you've finished typing, please hit the send button.
David Mania, shareholder. Are Monadelphous' main markets in the iron ore and oil and gas have been absolutely booming lately. They've been reporting record prices and record profits. And Monadelphous, over the last two years, has had revenues of about AUD 1.9 billion. The new work secured is reported as being AUD 1.45 billion, depending on where you look on the notice here, it said we secured AUD 1.1 billion last year. On the notices to shareholders over the last 12 months, there's just over AUD 1 billion worth of new work secured in 12 months. This is only half a year's work secured in a year.
How worried should we be? The other thing associated with the securing of new work is that our margins have, you know, declined from 5%-6% a decade ago to less than 3% for the last three years. That would, to me, seem cause for further worry. Am I out of tune? Should I be worried?
Okay. To answer the two questions. The one about the volume of work. In the two parts of our business, the maintenance part of our business has long-term contracts and a lot of repeat business. When we announce secured work, we're only talking about any extension to existing contracts. Those contracts may have still four years to run. It doesn't, that number doesn't really represent the amount of work in hand that our maintenance business has. It only talks about the new work. I think there is a section in the annual report, Phil, about that talks to committed work going forward.
There is, yes.
In, that's where you should get your guide in terms of the forward workload. Our maintenance business is, you know, recurring. We might have, in other words, we may have a five-year contract that is, you know, I don't know, AUD 100 million a year, AUD 500 million. We'll say we won AUD 500 million, but it'll run for five years. AUD 100 million a year. When you, the number that's we're talking about that being one for the year doesn't necessarily represent the amount of work in hand, which is represented in the, I'm not sure of the section. Phil, perhaps you can refer to the section for David.
I will, David.
Yeah.
I can take you through it afterwards.
I don't know. I don't think you should be worried. I mean, we've said that if you look at our maintenance revenue, it has continued to grow essentially over the last four or five years, from, you know, I mean, probably AUD 600 million-AUD 700 million to well over almost AUD 1.2 billion last year. That work is essentially recurring. We do have to keep winning contracts and winning and extending our contracts to ensure that that continues to, you know, continues to grow for us. On the construction side, the work, as we've said, we've run down some of our major projects, and there hasn't been new ones secured to cover the large volume that we'd won probably about two years ago.
We've made the point that there is significant amount of tendering that's going on for another wave of construction work. We are expecting to see growth in our construction business over the coming years, particularly the next two or three years. No, I wouldn't be concerned on that, in that respect. The issue is really what falls in what particular period, given the lumpiness of that construction work. On the margin side, I guess we've probably come up.
We are, the fact that we have more recurring revenue, and more secure revenue, that, you know, with the lower risk of margin in that part of the business, generally we'll run a lower margin and you'll see a higher percentage of maintenance will, the margin will be diluted by the amount of percentage of recurring revenue. Having said that, it has been still a very, it's very competitive environment. Customers have been focused on reducing, continuing to reduce costs, particularly over the last... The last two years have also been impacted by COVID and the restrictions that we've had with COVID both in terms of, the, and in particular, with people, et cetera. I think we've seen...
We've seen, to me, we've seen the last of that, and we're seeing our business today that is, we're much more in the mode of being able to or having to select the work. I think, we're in a period of going forward of opportunity to increase our margins. I think, I think you shouldn't be worried in the sense of in the sense of sort of continuing to deteriorate, although timing will be an issue as to where, as to when the next wave of construction work, I guess, comes to our revenue and to our, and to our earnings. I don't know if that answers your question, David?
Sure.
Sure it does.
Thanks for the question, David. Are there any further questions? Just hold on. We'll just make sure that microphone is working.
Yep, okay.
Yeah.
My question concerns the resolution to pay performance rights to the current managing director. At present, those performance rights are listed as available amongst the senior staff for the MD, CFO, and EGM. You're going to cease to be the managing director, which category are you going to fit into if you're going to be assessed on those performance rights? By the way, my name is Geoff Corrick, and I'm representing 88 friends and members of the Australian Shareholders' Association.
Well-
You're not.
As long as I continue as an employee.
I can answer that. All the share options, share rights, retention bonuses, everything that's listed there is based on the performance at this point, and those shares run off. The intent, Rob has earned those, all of those rewards, and they'll run off through the period. Going forward, we'll be releasing a bit more detail about salary going forward. Going forward, Rob is unlikely to be in those schemes. It's a transition point. The board reserves the right to investigate different forms of remuneration as we go forward. Our remuneration is generally around the market median. We're not excessive payers, and we like a retention component to all of our remuneration schemes, and that's served us well historically, and I think will continue to do so.
What you're seeing in the annual report is the reward for services already occurred. Going forward will be different.
Okay. Are there any further questions in the room? Okay, we've had a number of questions come through, the online platform. I will try and amalgamate and summarize these. Perhaps, Sue, I can ask you this question.
Mm-hmm.
There's been a question that has been put around the proxy advisors and their views in terms of some of the voting instructions, or not instructions, but voting advice that they have put forward. There's also been a question around the retention rights and the comparatively lower for vote compared to the other votes. Perhaps could I ask you to maybe give a little bit of context.
Sure.
To the purpose, of the retention rights, that are being considered today for Rob?
Sure. I don't think anyone would doubt that the last three years have been exceptional in many circumstances, not the least of which is the way COVID's impacted everybody's business. During 2020 and 2021, we took some proactive steps to help us through the COVID period. It was very unclear then what the impact would be on the business. Rob, the board, and virtually all the executive of the company and senior staff took a salary reduction. Salaries were reduced during that period. The board also elected not to pay any form of Combined Reward Scheme for 2020 or 2021. Because the Combined Reward Schemes are paid in tranches over three years, missing two years of the Combined Reward Scheme means that you end up with a year where you have only one tranche still in extent.
That is this year, which coincided with probably the most, the biggest boom in the need for our people that we've ever seen. Retaining our people is always problematic when they're offered obscene amounts of money, often by our clients, which is very flattering to the organization, but not very conducive to ongoing success. This year, we made a decision as a board that we needed to pay some form of variable reward to reward our staff and fill that gap. Also, we wanted to pay that in a way that locked our staff in for the next couple of years of service and also locked them into shareholders' needs, which is by delivering them shares through that scheme. That was the logic to come up with the retention scheme, and that's why the retention scheme was put in place.
Most of the proxy advisors don't like retention schemes per se. Whether you like them or not, we felt it was the right decision for the company. This company is based on its people. Its people are exceptional. Without them, we don't have a business. We would far rather retain our people by making them shareholders and paying them appropriately than lose them to the, a very hot market and risk the future of the organization. I think from the board's point of view, it was a quite a straightforward decision, and I believe it was totally the right decision.
Thank you. We've also had a couple of questions, Rob, that relate to the very sizable shareholding that you have in the company, and a few people are interested to know, you know, over the 30 or so years, that that shareholding has built up, have you ever had any incentives that have lapsed during that period? I think there have been some options that, way back when.
Lapsed?
-unvest. Yes. Any incentives that you've been offered that perhaps didn't, that didn't vest over that 30 period, 30 years.
Oh, yeah. I think I can't remember exactly, but.
I think there were some years.
There was definitely a tranche or two of options that lapsed.
Yeah.
Probably, I don't know.
10 or 12 years ago.
Can you remember, Owen? maybe, yeah, maybe ten years ago or something. Yes.
Also the other question was, you know, over the 30-year period, have you ever sold any shares in Monadelphous?
Yes, I have.
If so, how many occasions?
I, yeah, I have. I have. I can't recall. I think it's the last time there was a large tranche of maybe, I'm guessing now. No. Of about AUD 500,000 that was sold. Probably about eight, seven or eight years ago.
just one occasion over a very long period of time.
Oh, look, 30 years.
Yes.
I have sold some earlier than that.
Yeah.
A bit here and a bit there, mainly I've accumulated them over time.
There's also been a lot of comments that have come in also, wishing our exiting chair the best of luck for the future as well, which is very nice to hear from shareholders. We haven't got any audio questions from shareholders online. I think we've exhausted all of the questions in the room, unless anybody else would like to say anything. With that, we'll now conduct the poll. For those shareholders, representatives of shareholders and proxy holders attending online, please ensure that you've cast your vote on all resolutions using the online voting button. We will now conduct the poll for the shareholders in the room, and this should only take three or four minutes, and then we'll return to close out the meeting.
For those 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's anybody who believes they're entitled to vote but is not registered to vote, can you also please raise your hand. If you're 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 a summary of proxy votes, which details the voting instructions where these have been directed by the shareholder. By completing the voting paper when instructed to vote in a particular manner, you're deemed to have voted in accordance with those 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've finished filling in your voting paper, please lodge it in one of the ballot boxes being circulated to ensure your votes are counted. If you need any help, please raise your hand. I will close the voting system in a couple of minutes. Please ensure you have cast your vote on all resolutions, I will now pause to allow you time to finalize your votes.
Put in, so sorry.
Okay, have we collected everyone's voting papers? Okay. I now declare the poll closed, and the results of the poll will be tallied and published on the ASX later today. Is there any other business that anybody wishes to raise before we close the meeting? Mr. Corrick from the ASA. Hang on, Geoff. Let's just get that microphone working.
Geoff Corrick from the Australian Shareholders' Association again. I'd just like to ask, perhaps Sue, as the senior board member, to pass on our thanks to John Rubino for meeting with us over the last at least 10 years, we've lost count, at our meeting that we hold generally a month before the AGM. On all occasions, we've had friendly discussions, frank discussions, and informative discussions, and we've enjoyed coming to meet him, and we're very pleased that he's put the time aside to do that. There are a number of lovely adjectives you've used in the notice that you put out about the board changes. Amongst them, I note trusting and mutually rewarding relationships, and I feel that he's had one of those with the Australian shareholders.
I hope that I look forward to similar acceptance of our role as representatives of retail shareholders in the coming years, importantly, go away with the thought that we've very much appreciated John's contribution and feedback and so on.
Thank you, Geoff. Thanks for those kind words, and we'll make sure we pass those sentiments on to John. If there's no other business, I declare the meeting closed. I'd like to take this opportunity on behalf of the Chair, the Board, and everyone at Monadelphous to thank you for your attendance today and for your continued support of our company. That ends today's formalities. For those of you online, thank you for joining us. For those in the room, we'd like to invite you to join us for some light refreshments afterwards. Thanks. Thank you.