Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the 2024 Monadelphous Annual General Meeting, and as it is now 10:00 A.M., I declare the meeting open. My name's Phil Trueman. I'm the CFO and Company Secretary here at Monadelphous. I'd like to commence today's proceedings by introducing Claudia Bellis, one of our Learning and Development Coordinators, for an acknowledgment of country. In her role with the company, Claudia is responsible for the engagement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples within Monadelphous and plays a key role in the retention, development, and attraction of our Indigenous employees, so welcome, Claudia.
Kaya Nyang Kwera Claudia Bellis, Nyang Nerim Balladong Whadjuk Yoga, Kaya Wanju Nijag Wajak Buja, Nala Kadich Nungamu, Kining Kadik Nijak Buja. Hi everyone, welcome to Wajak Country and welcome to the Monadelphous family. I'm delighted to be speaking with you today. My name is Claudia Bellis. I'm proud to open the AGM and present this acknowledgment of country. We are holding this meeting on the lands of the Wajak people, members of the Noongar Nation and Perth and the surrounds. We are meeting, oh, sorry, welcome to the Monadelphous Board, 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 this photo on the slide.
During NAIDOC Week 2024, which was recognized across the business, our team in Roxby Downs, South Australia, connected with the Andamooka Primary School and the local students designed and painted the Monadelphous shipping container aligned for this year's theme for our elders. This was a huge opportunity to engage the broader community, and the container is now used in the team at the Monadelphous Roxby Downs workshop. Finally, I'd like to acknowledge our elders past, present, and emerging, and pay my respects to other Aboriginal people joining us here today. Thank you.
Thanks, Claudia. Well done. So today's meeting is being held at The University of Western Australia as well as online to ensure that all of our shareholders, proxies, and guests have the opportunity to attend either in person or virtually. For those of you in the room today, I'll quickly go through some important safety information. In the case of an emergency, you will hear an alarm and directions 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, and you'll be directed to assemble at the far corner of Riley Oval near the Dolphin Theatre. Please remain on the oval until instructed to return to the building.
As we're also running the meeting virtually today, there's a chance that despite our preparation and backup plans, technical difficulties may arise during the meeting. In the unlikely event that 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'll publish the notification on our website as soon as possible. For those attending online, questions can be submitted via the online Computershare meeting platform at any time. If you'd like to ask a question, select the Q&A icon and type your question in the text box. Once you've 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 that 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 that questions may be moderated, and if we receive several questions on the same topic, we'll amalgamate them. To ask a question verbally, please follow the instructions written below the broadcast. Now, due to time constraints, it may not be possible to answer all questions, but if this happens, we will answer them 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'll be time later in the meeting for voting here in the room.
However, in order to provide our online participants enough time to vote, we'll shortly open the online voting for all resolutions. For our online attendees, if you're 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 vote, sorry, enter button, as your vote will be automatically recorded. You'll receive a vote confirmation notification on your screen, and you can change your vote up until the time I declare the voting closed. So I now declare the online voting open on all items of business, and you can cast your votes at any time, and I'll give you a warning before I move to close the voting.
So I'd now like to take the opportunity to introduce to you our board of directors and our executive management team. With us here in the room this morning, from your left to right, are our Chair, Rob Velletri, our Managing Director, Zoran Bebic, our Deputy Chair and Lead Independent Non-executive Director, Sue Murphy, and our non-executive directors, Dietmar Voss, Helen Gillies, and Rick Buratto. We also have members of the executive team here today, including Adam Cook, our Executive General Manager of the engineering construction division, Alistair Reed, our Executive General Manager of our maintenance and industrial services division. At the front here, Chris Tabrett, our General Manager of growth and strategy, and Dean Bavich, our General Manager of human resources. In addition, representing our auditors, Ernst & Young, we're joined in the room by Darren Lewsen. Welcome, Darren.
Our chair, Rob Velletri, will commence today's AGM by providing an overview of Monadelphous's strategic progress over the last 12 months, and then Rob will hand over to Zoran, who'll speak in more detail about the company's highlights and performance for the 2024 financial year, as well as the outlook for the foreseeable future. The operational executive general managers, Adam and Alistair, will also speak to some of the divisional highlights, and after that, 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 now hand over to our first speaker of the morning, our chair, Rob Velletri.
Thanks, Phil, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to present the chair's address for Monadelphous, reflecting a year of significant growth, achievement, and opportunity. Throughout the last financial year and into the current one, we've experienced sustained strong demand for our services. We've reinforced our market position with the award of approximately AUD 1.9 billion of new contracts and extensions in the 2024 financial year, and an additional AUD 1.5 billion secured since the year-end. We've achieved major contract wins in key industry sectors, including energy, lithium, iron ore, and renewable energy, and we're proud to have extended long-term maintenance partnerships with INPEX, Shell, and Woodside, and we've won significant construction contracts with Talison Lithium, Liontown Resources, and Albemarle, although the latter was terminated for convenience by Albemarle following strategic review. The Western Australia iron ore sector remained a major driver of our success.
Monadelphous maintained its strong relationships with industry giants, Rio Tinto, BHP, and Fortescue, securing new contracts and extensions while delivering a high volume of maintenance and construction work. Our reputation for service excellence was highlighted last year when we were named Rio Tinto's 2024 Western Australia Supplier of the Year in April. It's a tremendous honour that speaks to the quality of our work and our people. This prestigious award is a fantastic recognition for our teams and a testament to our relationship with Rio that dates back more than 30 years across the Pilbara region. Last financial year also marked our strategic acquisition of Perth-based Melchor Contracting, a move that strengthens our civil construction capabilities and positions us for new opportunities across a range of markets.
We continue to invest in our future by expanding our heavy-lift crane fleet, which I'll talk a bit more about shortly, and we completed a state-of-the-art workshop and office facility in Karratha. This investment underscores our commitment to the Pilbara region, again, where we've operated for over 35 years, ensuring that we remain well-positioned to deliver high-quality services to our customers on a long-term basis. Now, pleasingly, last year saw significant improvement in the critical area of health and safety performance, along with the recognition of several industry awards. We also made significant strides in employee development, achieving improved retention rates despite the ongoing skill shortages throughout Australia. Our focus on attracting, developing, and retaining talent that aligns with our values is critical to our continued success.
Additionally, we advanced our fourth reconciliation action plan, a RAP, which is our second stretch RAP, surpassing our targets for Indigenous workforce participation and business engagement. Gender diversity and inclusion remains a focus of our initiatives, and we were honored to receive the Outstanding Company Initiative Award at the 2024 Women in Resources Award for our Crane Operations Pathway Traineeship Program. On the environmental front, Monadelphous remains committed to achieving net zero by 2050. This year, we enhanced our data capture process to improve decision-making and ensure that we remain on track to meet our targets. Our teams continue to focus on reducing the environmental impact of our operations and facilitating the transition to renewable power. Now, looking ahead, the long-term outlook for resources and energy demands remains strong.
While short-term uncertainties persist, the pipeline opportunities across energy and resources sectors are significant, particularly as investments related to decarbonization continue to grow. The demand for maintenance services remains robust, and the energy transition metal sector, especially copper, will require significant capital investment to meet future demand. Zenviron, our renewable energy-focused joint venture, remains a key player in Australia's clean energy transition and is poised for growth as it capitalizes on the expanding pipeline of wind farms, battery storage, and energy infrastructure projects. So, in conclusion, Monadelphous is well-positioned for continued growth and success. We'll maintain a selective and targeted approach to new contracts, focusing on quality, risk management, and strong customer relationships. With a strong balance sheet and a commitment to sustainable growth, we're excited about the opportunities ahead, and we remain committed to delivering strong returns to our shareholders.
On behalf of the board, I would like to extend my deepest thanks to our dedicated team for their exceptional contributions and to our shareholders, customers, and communities for their ongoing support. Thank you. Now, just before I hand over to Zoran, you'll see on the screen behind me the newest and largest addition to our crane fleet, the Rubino, unveiled during the year in Port Hedland, Western Australia. As I mentioned earlier, we took the opportunities to invest further in our crane fleet this year, broadening both the capacity and heavy-lift capability. Our vast fleet of heavy-lift cranes provides the company with a competitive advantage in the market, supporting our self-execution strategy and giving us the flexibility we need to provide the level of services that customers expect.
Built by Tadano, the Rubino has a remarkable load capacity of 1,600 tonnes, capable of lifting the equivalent of three Boeing 747 airplanes at a radius of 42 meters. With a total of 1,155 tonnes of counterweight, it can lift more than any other mobile crane currently in Australia, making it a true powerhouse. Now, we named the crane in honor of our former chairman, John Rubino, whose early vision for Monadelphous was to invest in our own crane fleet, giving Monadelphous the ability to self-perform and reduce reliance on the external hire market. So now I'll hand over to Zoran to provide you with an overview of our operational performance for the business for the year. Thank you.
Thanks, Rob, and good morning, everyone. Turning to Monadelphous's performance in the 2024 financial year, the company delivered revenue of AUD 2.03 billion, which was an increase of 11% on the prior year, reflecting continued strong demand for maintenance services and higher levels of activity in engineering construction. Our ongoing focus on operational discipline and productivity enhancement contributed to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization of AUD 127.4 million. This is an increase of 16.8% on the previous year, resulting in an improved EBITDA margin of 6.28%, up from 5.96%. Net profit after tax was AUD 62.2 million, up by more than 16%, delivering earnings per share of AUD 0.64. The board declared a final dividend of AUD 0.33 per share, taking the full-year fully franked dividend to AUD 0.58 per share. This represents an increase of 18.4% on last year, yielding a dividend payout ratio of 91%.
We ended the year with a very healthy cash balance of just under AUD 226 million, supported by a number of significant advance payments associated with construction contract awards. Our cash flow conversion from operations was AUD 187.7 million, delivering an outstanding cash flow conversion rate of 169%. Our disciplined approach to maintaining a strong balance sheet continued to support our investment in new opportunities, including Melchor Contracting, which Rob mentioned earlier. We continued to strengthen our position as a leader in the resources and energy sectors, securing approximately AUD 1.9 billion in new contracts and extensions in the year to the 30th of June, 2024. This slide highlights the size and location of the new contracts we secured. We secured a number of material long-term contract extensions and variations in the energy sector with key customers, including Shell, Woodside, and INPEX.
We awarded approximately AUD 570 million of new major construction contracts in the 2024 financial year, with a further AUD 570 million of major new construction contracts since year-end in iron ore, energy, rare earths, and renewable energy sectors, as well as several major contracts in the lithium sector. Demand from the Western Australian iron ore sector remained strong as we secured new contracts and extensions with long-term customers, BHP, Rio Tinto, and Fortescue. Our renewable energy joint venture, Zenviron, was awarded its first EPC contract in the energy storage market and post-year-end secured a significant contract for the Lotus Creek wind farm in partnership with Vestas.
Post-year-end, we secured two contracts for maintenance services and minor project works at South32's Worsley Alumina Operations, where we have been providing services for more than 20 years, and our civil business, Melchor, was awarded a construction contract at Perdaman Industries Project Ceres near Dampier. Overall, we are very well placed moving forward. Now to people. We finished the year with a workforce, including subcontractors, of around 7,400 people, up more than 30% from the prior year. This growth reflects improved retention rates, a ramp-up in construction activity during the period, the acquisition of Melchor, and the award of the INPEX onshore work scope. In response to the employee engagement survey undertaken in the previous year, we implemented a range of initiatives to support employee retention, including enhanced workplace flexibility, improved communication and opportunities around opportunities and benefits, and a continued focus on maintaining safe, respectful, and inclusive workplaces.
We saw more than 300 people participate in our diverse early career pathway initiatives, including graduate, vacation, apprenticeship, and traineeship programs, and offered winter internship programs for the first time. Throughout the year, our registered training office delivered more than 1,800 courses to tradespeople, including high-risk work license accreditation and verification of competency training. We also undertook a review of our long-term leadership rewards program to support the retention of key talent in a manner aligned to shareholder interests, implementing the long-term senior leadership performance reward plan. Turning now to safety and well-being, we continued our unrelenting commitment to our goal of zero harm, delivering work in line with our safety principle, the safe way is the only way. Our total recordable injury frequency rate for the year was 3.02 incidents per million hours worked, a 12.5% improvement on the previous year.
Pleasingly, our serious incident frequency rate remains at historically low levels. We achieved industry recognition for our contribution to safety and innovation, including a Queensland WorkWell Award for the best demonstrated healthy and work-safe design and the 2023 Queensland and Northern Territory Welding Excellence Awards Health and Safety in Welding Award. Melchor's commitment to employee well-being was also recognized, with the business named a finalist for a Mentally Healthy Workplace Award in the Western Australian Mental Health Awards. Our continued focus on safety improvements included the extension of our Fatal Risk Controls Campaign to identify, reduce, and eliminate fatal risks and the rollout of annual divisional health and safety campaigns. To help us identify opportunities for continuous improvement in supporting the well-being of our people, we completed an independent review of psychosocial risk management systems.
To promote employee health and well-being, we offered a range of complementary physical health services to our people, as well as online information sessions on a range of relevant topics. Now looking at diversity, community, and environment. We made good progress on our Stretch Reconciliation Action Plan commitments, focusing on providing long-term Indigenous employment opportunities, training and development programs, and supporting Indigenous businesses. Pleasingly, we increased Indigenous workforce participation, reaching 4.1%, and spent more than AUD 20 million with Indigenous businesses, significantly exceeding the targets we set for ourselves. Together with Rio Tinto, we continue to deliver the Indigenous Pathways Program, offering current and future employees traineeships, apprenticeships, and tertiary study support. We continue to progress initiatives within our Gender Diversity and Inclusion Plan, focusing on increasing female participation through early career pathways, nurturing key female talent, and removing gender-based barriers to entering trades roles.
We achieved recognition as the winner in the Outstanding Company Initiative Award at the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia 2024 Women in Resources Awards for our Crane Operations Pathway Traineeship Program, a three-year program designed to prepare female and Indigenous trainees to qualify as crane operators. In the community, we supported more than 80 initiatives, contributing more than AUD 250,000 in funds and nearly 550 volunteering hours to charities, local groups, and grassroots organizations. This includes the support of the company's charity partner, Starick, supporting women and children escaping domestic violence in Western Australia. We continue to progress towards our net zero by 2050 goal, with initiatives including trialing alternative low-emission welding preheating methods to reduce reliance on LPG, along with trials of hybrid power solutions using diesel generators together with solar panel solutions, as well as increasing our hybrid vehicle fleet.
Moving now to our operational highlights. Our Engineering Construction Division reported revenue of AUD 712.7 million for the year, a 31.5% increase on the prior financial year. Increased construction activity followed the award of several significant new contracts, with more than AUD 1.3 billion of new work secured since 1 July 2023, including approximately AUD 740 million so far this financial year. We secured major construction work in Western Australia's lithium sector, including contracts with Talison Lithium's Greenbushes Expansion Project, Liontown Resources' Kathleen Valley Lithium Development, and Albemarle's Kemerton Expansion Project. In iron ore, we progressed work on BHP's Car Dumper 3 Renewal Project at Nelson Point in Port Hedland and secured a shutdown contract at Rio Tinto's Western Range Project in the Pilbara region.
We completed the construction of an overland conveyor for Fortescue and supported the expansion of iron ore export capacity of its stockyard facility and managed a number of shutdowns at Anderson Point in Port Hedland. In Mongolia, we progressed construction of surface infrastructure at the Oyu Tolgoi Underground Project, with Inteforge completing the fabrication of mechanical plate work and piping for the project. In the energy sector, following the year, we were awarded a major construction contract with Woodside, valued at approximately AUD 200 million, to provide mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, and commissioning works required for modifications to the Pluto LNG Train 1 facility and associated infrastructure in Karratha. Also, post-year-end, Mondium, our Engineering Procurement and Construction Joint Venture, was awarded a design and construct contract with Rio Tinto for a new sampling facility at a port operations in the Pilbara region.
As mentioned earlier, Zenviron recently secured a major contract with CS Energy for delivery of the Lotus Creek wind farm in central Queensland. I'll now hand over to Adam Cook, Executive General Manager of our Engineering Construction Division, to talk through some more of the divisional project highlights.
Thanks, Zoran, and good morning, everyone. As Zoran previously mentioned, we secured a multidisciplinary construction contract with Liontown Resources to deliver a wet plant at the Kathleen Valley Lithium Project, which is one of the most significant long-term spodumene lithium and tantalum mining and processing operations in the world, located in the Northern Goldfields region of Western Australia. On the screen is a video of the project completed in July this year, during which you will hear more from our highly capable team that supported the delivery of this project.
We're building a wet plant for Liontown. We were awarded the contract back in August last year. We've got roughly 350 people on site. We started off building our ball mill as an initial first stage of our contract. We executed that successfully, and we rolled into the wet plant construction from there. So the wet plant process consists of mainly mechanical work and piping work. By the time we finish this project, we will have installed 25,000 meters of pipe.
I love working projects like this. When we started this job, it was just dirt behind me. Then you see all of the things we've built in such a short period of time, which is such a huge change and amazing experience to get in to build something massive and then see it operating as an end result. Monadelphous within the industry has been going for over 50 years now and has a reputation of coming in and doing the projects that no one else can.
As you've just heard, this was a significant project, which we delivered over a nine-month period safely and very successfully. During the year, we also completed the construction of the overland conveyor and transfer station at Fortescue's Christmas Creek iron ore mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The scope included civil, structural, mechanical, piping, electrical, and instrumentation works, with steelworks supplied by Inteforge. The 13.6 kilometer overland conveyor enables the transport of primary crushed ore from the new primary crusher plant to the existing processing plant, eliminating the need for extended truck haul. Now over to our heavy lift business. Alevro, our heavy lift services joint venture with Fagioli, delivered specialist haulage services and lifting equipment to Bechtel at Woodside's Pluto Train 2 project in Karratha, Western Australia.
We achieved a major milestone with the successful arrival of the first module shipment in February this year, which consisted of three modules, including the cryogenic rack module weighing over 2,800 tonnes. Overcoming challenges such as navigating one of Australia's steepest port roads, the Alevro team ensured the safe transportation of the module using specialized self-propelled modular trailers, which was the culmination of 12 months of detailed planning. You can see some of the highlights now in the video on the screen. In October 2023, we expanded our construction services offering to include civil capability with the acquisition of Perth-based civil business Melchor Contracting. Melchor provides earthworks, formwork, reinforcement fixing, and concrete placement, and is well positioned for a pipeline of opportunities across multiple market sectors, including both standalone civil packages and vertically integrated multidisciplinary construction contracts.
On the screen, you will see the Melchor team on site at BHP's West Musgrave Project, located approximately 1,000 kilometers northeast of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, near the South Australian and Northern Territory borders. I'll now hand back to Zoran to introduce some highlights from our Maintenance Division. Thanks, Adam. As mentioned earlier, our Maintenance and Industrial Services Division had another fantastic year, achieving a record annual revenue of AUD 1.32 billion. This reflects the continued high demand for maintenance and shutdown services and sustaining capital projects across all sectors. The division secured a significant volume of work during the 2024 financial year, valued at more than AUD 1.3 billion, with greater than AUD 800 million of new contracts and extensions awarded since 1 July 2024. In the energy sector, we secured a number of significant contract extensions and variations with our key customers and undertook several major turnarounds.
Pleasingly, we were awarded a three-year extension to our long-term maintenance, shutdown, and brownfields project services agreement with Woodside for onshore and offshore gas production facilities in WA's Northwest region, with an option for a further two years. The contract is valued at approximately AUD 180 million per annum. We also progressed work on our first oil and gas decommissioning project with Petrofac on the Northern Endeavour Floating Production, Storage, and Offtake Facility, or FPSO, strengthening our position for a future pipeline of decommissioning activity in Australia's Northwest shelf and the Bass Strait regions. In iron ore, we provided a high volume of maintenance and sustaining capital services to our key customers, including Rio Tinto, BHP, and Fortescue, and secured a number of contract extensions and panel appointments. Al will talk more on these shortly.
Also, with BHP, we secured several maintenance services and our maintenance services contract extensions across its operations at Nickel West, Western Australia, Mt Arthur Coal in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales, and Olympic Dam mine site in South Australia. I'll now invite Alistair Reed, Executive General Manager of our Maintenance and Industrial Services Division, to take you through some further contract highlights from the year. Thanks, Al.
Thanks, Zoran, and good morning, everyone. One highlight of the year was the award of a significant variation to our existing offshore maintenance services contract with INPEX Operations Australia, valued at approximately AUD 75 million per annum. This variation adds to our existing contract works and is for the provision of maintenance services for INPEX's onshore processing facilities at Bladin Point in Darwin, Northern Territory. Our existing maintenance services contract with INPEX, first awarded in 2017, includes operational, campaign, and shutdown services and brownfields project implementation associated with the INPEX-operated Ichthys LNG offshore facilities in the Browse Basin, approximately 650 km from Broome in Western Australia. Securing this new work is a testament to our team's commitment to delivering quality outcomes at Ichthys LNG over the past 10 years, which dates back when Monadelphous played a major role in the organization, sorry, the construction phase of the project.
Also, in the energy sector, we performed a significant turnaround at Shell Australia's Prelude Floating LNG facility, where we have been providing services for the past nine years. The turnaround was not only the largest we have delivered to date in terms of hours worked and duration, but was also the first of its kind in the world, involving almost 600 people working around 90 days to ensure successful execution. Subsequent to the year-end, we were awarded a major long-term contract to continue providing onshore and offshore maintenance services associated with Shell's Prelude FLNG facility for further seven years. In Western Australia's iron ore sector, we continued to deliver a significant volume of work for our key customers, including Rio Tinto, BHP, and Fortescue.
Adding to our existing long-term maintenance and non-process infrastructure panels, our scope was broadened to include the provision of fixed plant projects across Fortescue's Pilbara operations until the middle of 2025. We secured a one-year extension to our sustaining capital works master services agreement with Rio Tinto and progressed work on the construction of a potable water distribution system at Rio Tinto's Hope Downs 4 Mine. We were also awarded an extension to our existing contract with BHP, providing general maintenance services through to the middle of 2025. Overseas, we were awarded a three-year contract to continue providing sustaining capital projects and maintenance support activities at Newmont's gold operations at Lihir Island in Papua New Guinea, where we have been providing services since 2017.
We also secured a three-year services contract with three one-year extension options to continue providing sustaining capital projects and maintenance support at Santos's production and support facilities in the Southern Highlands region of Papua New Guinea, where our involvement dates back to 2007. Our long-term success in the region is testament to our focus on delivering for our customers, engagement with the local community, and our commitment to training and developing opportunities for the national workforce. I'll now pass you back to Zoran to present the outlook.
Thanks, Al. This slide shows relevant current and forecast Australian market conditions for our business. As you can see, the sectors in which we operate have a positive outlook for capital investment and operating expenditure over the next few years. Now to the outlook statement. The underlying drivers for long-term resources and energy demand, such as sustained global economic growth, urbanization, and decarbonization, remain robust. Despite ongoing global uncertainties and cautious sentiment, the resources and energy sectors continue to provide a significant pipeline of opportunities. Investment related to decarbonization is making up an increasing share of capital expenditure forecasts. Production across most commodities is expected to remain high, supporting demand for ongoing sustaining capital and maintenance activity. Australian iron ore miners are anticipated to continue investing to sustain production levels while maintaining focus on operational discipline and efficiency to preserve their globally competitive cost position.
Price volatility in some commodities over the past year led to reduced production, cessation of some operations, and the deferral of capital spend, particularly in nickel and lithium. Despite this, the level of mining and mineral processing development in the energy transition metal sector is projected to remain high over the long term. This includes the copper sector, which will require significant capital investment to address forecast demand shortfalls. Activity in the energy sector has increased with several new gas construction projects underway or in development and strong ongoing demand for maintenance services. Additionally, decommissioning of oil and gas assets is expected to create significant opportunities over the coming decade. Decarbonization investments for customer operations, including electrification, energy storage, and hydrogen, are proceeding to investment and provide opportunities.
Investments in the power sector to support Australia's Net Zero emissions objective have been affected by network constraints, delayed planning approvals, and supply chain pressures. Despite these challenges, the pipeline of renewable energy opportunities is expanding, particularly in the battery energy storage sector, with Zenviron well placed to capitalize on the significant growth anticipated in the market over coming years. Additionally, substantial and ongoing investment in electricity transmission infrastructure and grid stability will be essential to support the increased introduction of renewable energy generation. While forecast labor demand has moderated and general labor availability has improved slightly, the resources and energy sectors continue to face a shortage of skilled labor. We remain focused on employee attraction, training, and development initiatives aimed at fostering retention and bolstering workforce capability and capacity.
With a robust level of major construction activity underway, we have secured around AUD 740 million of new projects, bringing the total of contract awards post-year-end to more than AUD 1.5 billion. Monadelphous is currently forecasting revenue for the first half of FY25 to be up slightly on the prior corresponding period. With activity levels increasing, the company is anticipating to see high single-digit revenue growth for the full financial year. Monadelphous's selective approach to new work, collaborative customer engagement, high standards of delivery, and focus on the appropriate allocation of risk is expected to result in continued margin improvement for the financial year. Supported by a strong balance sheet, we will continue to assess potential acquisition opportunities to facilitate service expansion, market diversification, and long-term sustainable growth.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the talented and committed team at Monadelphous for their loyalty and dedication to the company's continued growth and another strong year. I also extend my appreciation to our shareholders, customers, and our many other stakeholders for their ongoing support. I'll now hand back to Phil to complete the formal proceedings for the day.
Thanks, Zoran. So, as 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 want to ask a question verbally, please follow the written instructions written below the broadcast on the online platform. And for those of you in the room, I ask that all questions be held until after all the resolutions have been introduced. Today's resolutions will be voted on via a poll, which will be conducted after all the items of business have been tabled 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'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'd received valid proxies representing around 58.6 million shares, or approximately 60% of the issued capital of about 98.5 million shares. We'll show the manner in which the proxies are to vote on the screen behind me before each resolution is voted on. And where a proxy vote has been directed to the chair without a specific voting instruction, the chair will vote in favour of each resolution, except where a voting exclusion applies. Now, the minutes of last year's AGM have been signed, and a copy is available for inspection. And if you'd like to view these minutes, please come and have a talk to me after the meeting.
So we've got six items of business to consider at today's meeting, and these are set out in the notice of the AGM and the accompanying explanatory memorandum, which was released to the ASX and is available to shareholders on our website, and unless anyone objects, I'll take that notice as read, so the 2024 annual report contains the financial statements of the company and the reports of the directors and the auditor for the financial year ended 30 June 2024. 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, we'll address questions during the Q&A session, so we'll 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. Now, Dietmar was first appointed to the board of Monadelphous in March 2014 and is a member of the company's audit, nomination, and remuneration committees. He's a chemical engineer with a range of operational accounting and finance experience gained throughout his time in project management and from serving on and chairing a number of boards and committees throughout his career. He has 50 years of experience in the energy and mining and minerals industries throughout Australia, the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The board, with the exception of Mr.
Voss, who abstained, unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of his re-election, noting the valuable contribution Dietmar makes to the mix of skills required by the board, his past performance, commitment, and dedication, and the current and future needs of the company. And the proxies received in relation to resolution one are displayed on the screen. And as previously mentioned, we will conduct the poll after all the resolutions have been discussed. So the second item of business is resolution two to re-elect a director, Mr. Rick Buratto, who retires by rotation in accordance with the company's constitution and being eligible, offers himself for re-election. Now, Rick was first appointed to the board in October 2021 and is also a member of the company's audit, nomination, and remuneration committees.
He's a civil engineer with extensive leadership and management experience in engineering, mining, and construction across a wide range of disciplines, as well as maintenance and shutdown execution. He has almost 50 years of experience in the resources and infrastructure sectors. Now, the board, with the exception of Mr. Buratto, who abstained, unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of his re-election, noting the substantial value and skill set Rick adds to the board, his ongoing loyalty, contribution, and efforts, and the current and future requirements of the company. And the proxies received in relation to resolution two are displayed on the screen behind me. The third item of business is resolution three, the granting of performance rights to the managing director, Mr. Zoran Bebic, under the company's short-term incentive plan for the year ended 30 June 2024. It's proposed that Mr.
Bebic or his nominee be issued with 28,869 performance rights under the Monadelphous Group Limited Combined Reward Plan for the year ended 30 June 2024. The key terms of the performance rights are contained in the notice of meeting. Now, voting exclusions apply to this resolution, resolution three, as well as to resolutions four, five, and six, and the details thereof are set out in the notice of meeting. Now, the board, with the exception of Mr. Bebic, who abstained, acknowledges the outstanding contribution that Zoran continues to make to the company and therefore unanimously recommends shareholders vote in favor of this resolution and the proxies received in relation to resolution three are displayed on the screen. The fourth item of business, resolution four, is the granting of performance rights to Mr. Bebic under the company's long-term incentive plan for 2023.
Now, the timing of the proposed grant in December 2023 did not allow for resolution to be tabled at last year's AGM, and therefore approval is being sought at this meeting. It's proposed that Mr. Bebic, or his nominee, be issued with 34,440 performance rights under the Monadelphous Group Limited Long-Term Senior Leadership Performance Reward Plan for 2023, and the key terms of the performance rights are contained in the notice of meeting, and the board, with the exception of Mr. Bebic, who abstained, unanimously recommends shareholders vote in favor of this resolution, and the proxies relating to this resolution are displayed behind me now. The fifth item of business, resolution five, is the granting of performance rights to Mr. Bebic under the company's long-term incentive plan for 2024. It's proposed that Mr.
Bebic, or his nominee, be issued with 41,716 performance rights under the Monadelphous Group Limited Long-Term Senior Leadership Performance Reward Plan for 2024. The key terms of the performance rights are contained in the notice of meeting. And the board, again, with the exception of Mr. Bebic, who abstained, unanimously recommends shareholders vote in favor of this resolution. And the proxies received in relation to this are on the screen. The last item of business is resolution six, which is the adoption of the remuneration report contained in the director's report to shareholders. So the vote on resolution six 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. And the board recommends that shareholders vote in favor of the adoption of the remuneration report.
And the proxies received are on the screen behind me relating to resolution six. So before we move to the poll, and 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. And for the benefit of those listening online, can I please ask that you speak into the microphone so that everyone 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. And once you finish typing, please hit the send button. Do we have any questions in the room? Okay. No questions in the room. Okay. So we'll now move to questions from our shareholders listening online.
So I'll introduce Chris Tabrett, our General Manager of Growth and Strategy, who will provide an outline of the questions that have been asked by our shareholders attending remotely.
Thanks very much, Phil. Good morning. We've received three questions online, each posted by Mr. Stephen Mayne. The first question relates to the industrial relations environment directed to Zoran. Three parts to the question. Firstly, how many enterprise agreements with unions does the company have across the country? Are there concerns about the changing industrial relations landscape with right to disconnect and same job, same pay changes? And final part is, has there been any impact from the appointment of administrators to the Western Australian branch of the CFMEU?
Thanks, Chris. I'll say I'm guessing, but I would expect that we would have probably around 20 to 30 enterprise agreements that cover the work that we perform around the country. And those enterprise agreements would consist of, I'll say, Greenfield aggreement . There'd be other agreements that have been negotiated with the workforce directly, and there would be other agreements that the unions would be a party to and would have had participation in the development of. And those agreements would cover client sites or geographical locations or by discipline. So it really is quite a mixed bag. The second part of the question was.
Concerns about the changing landscape.
I mean, I guess there is a level of the change itself has created a level of uncertainty. It has only recently transpired. And I think at this stage, we're not seeing too many issues, but I guess that'll play out over the course of the next 12 months. And the reality is, I mean, the change in the environment is equally applicable for all our peers and competitors. So we just need to ensure we manage that the best we can and do a better job than they are.
Okay, and the final part was any impact from the CFMEU administration?
Very little to the best of my knowledge.
Okay. Thanks, Zoran. Second question we have from Mr. Mayne. Firstly, thanks the company and the board for running a hybrid AGM. And thanks also for disclosing the proxy positions prior to the vote. Mr. Mayne is asked if it could be considered to include disclosure of the poll results by both number of shares and also shareholders to provide better view of the sentiment of retail shareholders. I'm not sure if that's a comment or something you want to comment on.
I think the only comment I can say is that, yeah, we'll take that on board and consider it for next year's AGM.
Thank you, Phil. This question is directed to Rob Velletri. Mr.mayne Ma acknowledges, Rob, your more than 30 years' service with Monadelphous and makes the note that in his knowledge, no public takeover discussions have been had with Monadelphous over that time, which is quite unique in our peer group and in our landscape. Mr. Mayne's asking if perhaps you could comment on why you think that might be. And the second part is, what do you consider the two best decisions the company has made over your tenure?
Wow. Yeah. Why haven't we had a takeover bid? Look, I suspect I would consider that the value that and IP that we have at Monadelphous is very much a people culture value and that people considering any sort of takeover for the company would be likely to be a friendly one. But I don't understand exactly why we've never really been approached, but I suspect it's really because of that, because of the risk around losing the people on the way through would completely lose and destroy the value in the business.
Comment on what you consider the two best decisions.
Gee whiz. There's two best decisions. Look, I think the first thing that comes to mind is really sticking around from the early days. I mean, the early days were very tough. And so just, I guess, taking the decision to persevere through was, I think, for me personally, I guess at the end of the day, if you look at history now, was a decision that really stands the test of time in terms of the journey we've been on. Probably strategically, I think best decisions we make, I think, that I've involved in is really the people that we take on in the business and the decisions we make about how we retain and keep our culture in the business.
But the other one I often think about is probably back in the early 2000s when we were really emerging as a player that we took very much a decision to concentrate our business in a couple of key sectors and look for opportunities to become tier one. So getting our business into larger contracts with larger players that had a long pipeline of work was a very, I guess, deliberate decision we took in the early 2000s, which really drove the growth of the business through those years.
Thank you. We did have one final question came through from Mr. Mayne relating to the audit services. Questioning how long the current audit firm has been engaged for, when were those services last tendered, and when does the company envisage tendering those services again?
Thanks, Chris, for the question. The auditors have been in place since 1994. We do review our auditors every year, and indeed we've just done so. We are satisfied with both the capability and the caliber of the audit team that we have. And we do receive regular briefings from our auditor about the measures they have in place, ensuring that they achieve quality outcomes. This includes rotating their audit partner every five years, and they also have second partner reviews of the audit outcomes. But as I said, that's something that we review every year.
Wonderful. Thanks, Helen. No more online questions, Phil.
Thank you, Chris. And as we have no further questions, we'll now conduct the poll. So 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. And we'll now conduct the poll for the shareholders in the room. So at the time of registration this morning, those entitled to vote were given green admission cards, and each shareholder present in person or by proxy has one vote per resolution for each share owned. Rod sones from Computershare has agreed to act as returning officer for the poll. And if you have any queries during the polling process, please raise your hand, and a Computershare representative will come over and assist you.
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, and on the reverse side of your green admission card is your voting paper and instructions. If you're a proxy holder and have only directed votes, as shown on the summary of votes attached to your admission card, all you need to do is print your name and sign the voting paper and then lodge it in the ballot box, which is being circulated throughout the room. 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, and when you've finished filling in your voting paper, please lodge it in one of the ballot boxes to ensure your votes are counted, and if you need any help, please raise your hand. I'll close the voting system in a minute or so. Once we've finished, please ensure you have cast your vote on all resolutions, and I'll now pause to allow you time to finalize your votes. Yeah, yeah. Can I just confirm that we've got everybody's voting paper in the room? Okay. Well, on that basis, thank you. I now declare the poll closed, and the results of the poll will now be tallied and published on the ASX later today.
Is there any other business that can be properly brought to the meeting about the management of the company? Okay. If there's no other business, then I declare this meeting closed. I'd like to take this opportunity on behalf of the chair, the board, and everybody at Monadelphous to thank you all for your attendance today and for your continued support of our company. That ends today's formalities. For those online, thank you for joining us. And for those in the room, please join us for some light refreshments in the foyer. Thank you.