It's now 2:30 P.M., the nominated time for the meeting. On behalf of the board of directors, I am pleased to welcome you to the NobleOak's 2022 annual general meeting, our second since listing on the ASX in July 2021. I've been informed by the company secretary that a quorum is present, so I'm pleased to declare the meeting open. I'd like to introduce my fellow directors who are in attendance. Anthony Brown, our CEO and Managing Director, Kevin Hamman, Deputy Chair, Inese Kingsmill, Andrew Boldeman, and Sarah Brennan. Also present today is Scott Pearson, our Chief Financial Officer, Suzanne Barron, and Anand Sundaraj, our Joint Company Secretaries, and Max Murray, our Audit Partner from Deloitte, who will be available to answer any questions on the financial statements later in the meeting.
This meeting is also being made available online by Automic online meeting platform. This platform enables shareholders and proxy holders to participate in this live webcast of the meeting, as well as ask questions and submit votes. The business of today's meeting will begin with an address by myself, followed by our CEO Anthony Brown. We'll then conduct the formal business of the meeting with a live vote by poll. There will be opportunity to ask questions after each item of business, as well as general Q&A before voting closes. As this meeting is being conducted as a hybrid meeting, I would like to welcome those shareholders that are joining us via Zoom and ask that you please submit any questions or comments via the Q&A function, which can be found at the bottom of your Zoom screen. Questions can be submitted at any time.
If you have joined online to answer a question, press the Q&A icon. This will open a new screen. At the bottom of that screen, there's a section for you to type your question. Please start your question by typing the shareholder SRN or HIN. This will allow the moderator to identify you as a shareholder. If you have joined online and would like to ask your question verbally, type your SRN and HIN and then type, "I'd like to speak." Once you have finished typing, please hit enter on your keyboard to send. Please note that whilst you can submit questions from now on, I will not address them until the relevant time in the meeting. Kindly include the agenda item number to which your questions relate. Please also note that your questions may be moderated or if we receive multiple questions on one topic, amalgamated.
Due to time constraints, we may run out of time to answer all your questions. However, we endeavor to get through as many questions as possible. If this happens, we'll answer them in due course via email or post a response on our website. All questions should be addressed to me as chair. I'll either deal with the question personally or ask someone who is better placed to respond. We will do our best to answer any relevant questions raised. I ask that you keep your questions brief and to the point, so that as many shareholders as possible have a chance to ask a question. For those of you in attendance physically, we also give you an opportunity to ask questions. At the relevant time, we'll ask that you please raise your hand.
When we reach the formal business of the meeting, voting on all resolutions will be conducted by a poll. Shareholders attending virtually and wishing to vote on the resolutions being put to the meeting can do so through Automic investor portal. If you're not already logged into the investor portal, instructions on how to do so can be found in the notice of meeting. If you have already lodged a proxy vote, please note that you do not need to vote again through the online voting portal. Your votes will already be counted in the poll on each resolution as per your proxy instruction. If you have any problem voting or registering your shareholding with Automic, please call the support number shown on the screen. To allow shareholders time to log in, I now declare the poll open.
Online voting is now open and will remain open till I declare it closed at the end of the formal business. Your votes must have been submitted prior to the portal being closed for them to count. I'll move on to my Chairman's address. I'm pleased to report that NobleOak's full year as a listed company was a successful one. The company continued to outperform the market, delivering strong growth in premiums and profits, and exceeding our prospectus forecasts, while continuing to make good strategic decisions and progress. As well as preparing for our successful IPO, our team, led by our Chief Executive Officer, Anthony Brown, did an excellent job to remain operationally resilient, manage the ongoing impacts of COVID-19, and regulatory change in the Australian life insurance industry.
This included developing and rolling out new individual disability income insurance, IDII, products in time for the October 1st, 2021 APRA deadline. The team did this while maintaining excellent customer service that has seen NobleOak become Australia's most awarded direct life insurer for the last two years, and we're very proud of that. Since the rollout of the IDII products, the market has been going through a pretty difficult period of adjustment, with new business volumes down materially. Green shoots, however, are appearing. However, sales across the market remain down by 20% from normal levels. The higher priced new products are beginning to improve industry profitability, which benefits all insurers, including NobleOak. The team continues to execute our growth strategy in a disciplined way, and as Australia's fastest growing life insurer, our strategy is working.
We continue to take market share from the incumbents while investing in our platform, people, and building our brand. We are confident in the long-term prospects of our direct business, where our ambition is to be a leading challenger brand in the AUD 11 billion Australian individual life risk market. With our market share at around 2%, there is still a lot of room to grow, and well-capitalized and strongly positioned for growth as the market continues to improve. This year, we've made good progress in our environmental and social governance, our ESG efforts. We've worked with a range of stakeholders to develop an ESG framework suitable for a business our size, including targets and developing framework aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
We focus on areas that make sense for NobleOak, including, you know, recycling, workplace diversity, human rights, ethics and governance, importantly have committed to reducing our CO2 output and achieving net zero emissions by 2030. We'll report back to the framework annually and look forward to discussing with shareholders. Following the retirement of Emery Fazzini at AGM last November after 10 years as director, Sarah Brennan has joined the board in December 2021. Sarah brings 25 years' experience in financial services, including life insurance and a highly regarded executive and public company director. She has proven to be an excellent addition to the board, bringing fresh insights and perspective. Thanks, Sarah.
Thank you.
Board renewal has been a priority for us as a listed comp, and we will continue to ensure we have the right depth of skills and experience to deliver on our strategic objectives and ensure we maintain strong governance. On behalf of my fellow directors, I would like to thank the NobleOak team, who a lot of them are actually here in the back, for all their hard work and results this year. Thanks also to you, our shareholders, for your continued support. As an nimble life insurer with a clear customer focus, a service-led value proposition, and a prudent approach to risk management, we believe NobleOak is well positioned for future growth and success and look forward to another successful year ahead.
I'm gonna hand now to Anthony, to address the meeting and provide more detail on the company's performance this year, as well as some color on recent trading and our outlook for financial year 2023. Thank you.
Thanks, Stephen. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for coming along. I'm hoping it's a good thing that it's so full today. It's definitely been the fullest AGM we've ever had in NobleOak's history, I believe. Thanks very much. Look, we are really pleased that we had a good year in 2022. We've got some of the numbers on the board there, but our number of in-force policies increased by 33% to 103,000. That was backed by some lower lapse rates across the industry, but in particular across our own direct channels and our strategic partner channels, resulting in our in-force premium going up by 40%, which is a really substantial increase in what is the real value driver of the business.
In-force premium is that annuity stream of income that really creates value in a life insurer. It's lovely to see that increase to almost AUD 255 million, and that is 9% ahead of what our prospectus target was. Really pleased with that. As Stephen mentioned, new business sales have definitely been impacted across the industry. We had the new IDII products launched in October last year, and they were more expensive products and less featured, and they were required by APRA that all insurers had to launch this range of products. What that meant was that sales went down across the industry. We did expect that to happen. They're still, it's still recovering. There are green shoots, but sales across the industry had dropped.
Really pleasingly, we're still taking more market share, and we're sort of batting above our weight, which we're particularly pleased about. We also continue to invest. This isn't just about short-term targets. We are growing a really strong business for the future as well. We continue to invest in our direct business with brand and digital technology. Our strategic partners, we had to launch these new products, and we've refined them to make them more competitive over the year. Our Genus administration business, where we onboarded the Auto & General book of business we purchased about a year ago, and that's Genus is our administration business. That's offset a lot of the reduction in the Freedom portfolio that is the previous main driver of value in Genus.
A lot of work in all three of those streams. Therefore, it's lovely to see that the profit also went up by 35% to 9.5. NPAT was AUD 9.5 million, which is about 5% ahead of prospectus targets. Hopefully, you're pleased. Overall, for what was a relatively challenging year in the market, you know, we're really happy with how we finished off. I suppose just as important to us, though, on the next slide is, as I mentioned, we are building a great business for now and the future. Implementing strategic and operational initiatives is just so important to us. Stephen mentioned our awards. We are the most awarded direct life insurer for the second year in a row.
We're the smallest, but we're also the most awarded. There are a couple of real signature awards that we achieved. One is the Platinum Trusted Service Award from Feefo. I don't know if many of you are aware of Feefo. It's a bit like TripAdvisor. Anyone can get on, they can rate you. You have no control over the reviews. We've consistently got more than 4.5 out of five. In fact, we're close to 4.8 at the moment, and we've won the Platinum Trusted Service Award from Feefo 'cause we had the right number of reviews and the scoring is excellent.
The other one was a one-off, which was a bit of a surprise, was from GRIST Consulting that do shadow shopping across many industries, and we won the Best Call Center in Australia across all industries. That was a signature award for us. The team were very proud of that achievement. I think it's a real endorsement to them because we didn't even know we were in the award in the first place. Team's really happy with that. It does give a lot of credibility and confidence to us that the products that we're delivering are great value, we're backed by great service, and we're doing the right thing by our customers, which is the backbone of NobleOak.
The second point is we launched those new IDII products, or income protection products, ahead of the APRA deadline, which was October 30 last year. Which took a lot of resource and a lot of time. Importantly, we developed a new white label capability. It was only within the 12-month period that we signed RAC WA, that has more than 1.1 million members, and Budget Direct, that has over a million customers, as alliance partners, where we white label our products to sell to their customer and their membership base. We had to actually build the white label capability as well as onboard those partners. Wonderful achievement for the team during a busy year.
We've now got over 30 alliance partners, allowing us to distribute our products through many channels, plus a pipeline of other potential partners that we're looking at. You know, we're all about the team. I mean, NobleOak is basically a team of people, so having a good, engaged, great quality, passionate team will, you know, gets us to where we wanna be. We do a survey each year, and we had 86% engagement on our staff survey during a year when, you know, we're in the middle of, obviously, COVID and hybrid working arrangements and so on. We're really pleased that people kept that connection and the culture during a tough year. I think it's a real credit to the NobleOak team that they're so engaged.
Now, we have been, I believe, punching above our weight in the industry, and we are a small and nimble player. I mean, that does come with advantages as well as the regulations change and consumer behavior changes and so on. It does allow us to adapt probably more quickly than some of the larger competitors of ours. We have seen market reduction. As Stephen said, it's probably been down about 30% from last year, but we're still taking market share. We will also enjoy the increase in industry profitability that all insurers will enjoy now that these new products, more higher priced products, have come into the market. There's been a lot of market consolidation. There is changing behavior in the consumer behavior. People do seem to be going a bit more direct.
We really believe we are well-placed, you know, as we look to the future as well. The chart on the bottom right there just shows you a picture of what our in-force premium market share was two years ago in 2020. It's about 0.8%, not quite 1%. We moved forward two years to 2022, and it's 2.1%. You know, that's really impressive market growth in a pretty challenging, relatively flat market. Now that we've talked about the market, it is improving, though we the new IDII products came about a year ago. We are seeing green shoots, so we are expecting a bit of a pickup across the market. We remain very tight with the way we underwrite and write business.
We do think we're well-positioned as that recoups. Lapse rates will increase across the market. There was a reduction in lapse rate market wide during COVID-19. Of course, now there's more inflation pressures across the market. There's more cost of living pressures. We do expect lapse rates to increase across the industry. That will impact NobleOak, but we still believe that we will remain under the market lapse rate. We remain under now, and we still remain under our prospectus forecasts. Rising interest rates, we all know about, and we're all experiencing. Fortunately, NobleOak's investment portfolio is really in short duration fixed interest investments.
We can only see upside as interest rates go up as far as our returns go at the moment, which we do believe will offset any cost inflationary pressures that, you know, we face in the business. I suppose in short, we do expect to continue to outperform. We do expect to continue to increase our market share going forward. Over the first four months of 2023, so from July to October, our in-force premium grew by 7%. Looking ahead, we do expect to deliver material in-force premium growth of around 20% in 2023 in a market that's probably expected to grow by less than 5%.
With our disciplined approach to keeping our margins stable, we will continue to obviously invest in capability in the business as well going forward. The team is highly engaged. It's a wonderful team. We're all very excited to also move into a new location. Currently, we're on 1.5 floors. We've taken out a new floors which we negotiated during COVID at a very attractive rate, but we'll all be on one floor together. You know, we're looking to further really encourage people to come back in, you know, permanently into the office and collaborate together while we continue to refine our flexible work environment. I would like to thank the team. The NobleOak team is just, as I said, they have batted well and truly above their average this year.
It's an amazing team. The capabilities only got stronger and stronger. I just wanted to thank you all so much for your involvement. There's quite a few people here today. Of course, thank the board for their amazing support during a very eventful year as well. Thank you all fellow shareholders for your support. It's greatly appreciated, and I really hope that you're comfortable with the results. Thank you very much, and I'll pass back to Stephen.
Thank you, Anthony. Thank you very much. Okay, before we start the formal business of the meeting, may I remind you that if you have any questions on my or Anthony's address or of the auditor in relation to the financial report, for those online, please raise them through the Q&A function you find at the bottom of your screen. Please note these questions are general business. We will collect any questions received and respond to them after the completion of the formal business. We'll also take questions from the floor at that time. We now move to the formal business as set out in the notice of meeting. The notice of annual general meeting was made available to all registered members via the ASX platform and also dispatched either electronically or in hard copy on the October 21st, 2022 and has been taken as read.
Voting on all resolutions will be conducted by poll. For the purpose of the poll, I appoint an officer from Automic, the company's share registry, who has examined and prepared summaries of the proxy forms received to act as a returning officer and to conduct the poll. Shareholders in attendance virtually that have already submitted a vote by proxy should note that your votes will already be counted towards the poll. You do not need to lodge another vote unless you wish to change your proxy instruction. Shareholders in attendance virtually that have not submitted a vote by proxy and wish to vote on the resolutions being put to the meeting today can do so by registering your shareholding with Automic. Instructions on how to register your holding were provided in the notice of meeting.
As mentioned earlier, online voting is open and will remain open until the poll is declared closed. Your votes must have been submitted prior to the poll being closed for them to count. Those shareholders in attendance that are entitled to vote on the poll are all shareholders represented as attorneys of other shareholders and proxy holders who hold the yellow voting card. Hope you've all got one. If you are attending in more than one of those capacities, you will have been issued with as many voting cards as you have separate capacities. If anyone believes they are entitled to vote on this poll in any capacity and does not have a yellow voting card in respect thereof, please raise your hands now and a member of our share registry team will assist you. Nobody? That's good.
At the appropriate time, I will ask that you mark your vote for the resolutions on a yellow voting card. If you are a shareholder and wish to cast all your votes for a resolution, please place your mark in either for, against, or abstain box. If you wish to split your votes, please write the proportion of your votes you wish to cast in the corresponding for, against, and abstain boxes. Please note that the sum of the split votes must not exceed your total holding. If you are a proxy holder, a summary of the votes to which you are entitled has been attached to the voting card. If the summary of those votes includes discretionary votes, these are yours to cast at your discretion.
If you wish to cast the discretionary votes, please place a mark in the corresponding for, against, and abstain boxes. If your summary of votes does not have any discretionary votes, you do not need to mark your voting card and will simply need to hand it to the returning officer at the end of the resolutions. After all resolutions have been read and voted upon, place it in one of the ballot boxes that will be circulated throughout the room. Any questions on the voting track process? No? Thank you. No questions. Proxies have been inspected, and all those validly lodged have been accepted. Proxies have been received representing 46,453,533 shares at 54.04% of the issued capital of the company.
Please note all undirected proxies or open votes that have nominated the chairman of the meeting as their proxy will be cast in favor of each resolution in the notice of the meeting, subject to voting exclusions as contained in the notice of the meeting. The first item of business is to receive the company's financial report, directors' report, and auditors' report for the company and its controlled entities for the year June 30, 2022. The financial reports are now laid before the meeting. Please note there is no requirement for shareholders to actually approve the annual financial reports. The company's Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Scott Pearson, and the company's Auditor for 2022 financial year, Mr. Max Murray of Deloitte, are present to take relevant questions on the financial statements, the conduct of the audit, and preparation and content of the independent auditor's report.
Any questions on the financial statements? Nothing. Okay, thank you. No, no questions. We will now proceed to resolutions for the meeting. Resolution one as follows, to consider and, if thought fit, pass the following resolution as an ordinary resolution: That for the purpose of Section 250R(2) of the Corporations Act, and for all other purposes, the remuneration report of the company for the year ending June 30, 2022 be adopted. If you wish to discuss the resolution, please submit your question via the Q&A or raise your hand. Are there any questions? Okay. No questions. Thank you. The proxies received in relation to this resolution are on the screen. Well, it's pretty clear we're for. I now put the motion. Those physically in attendance, please mark your voting instruction on your yellow voting cards.
Shareholders can vote via the online portal. Are reminded not to click on the Next until you have finalized discussing and you have selected your votes for all resolutions, not just this one. Resolution two: Re-election of Director Sarah Brennan. Resolution two is as follows: To consider and, if thought fit, pass the following resolution as an ordinary resolution: That Sarah Brennan, a non-executive director of the company, who, having been appointed to the office of director since the last annual general meeting in accordance with Rule 63 of the Constitution and ASX Listing Rule 14.4, being eligible and offering herself for re-election, be re-elected as a director of the company. If you wish to discuss this resolution, please submit your questions now. No questions? The proxy received in relation to Sorry?
Could Sarah just give us a brief outline-.
Yeah, certainly.
... of your history.
No, I'd be delighted to. Thank you for the question. My history, I started my career at MLC Life and with the MLC group. I actually started in a call center, which is a fantastic way of sort of learning about customers and customer needs for insurance. I operated as a product manager for MLC Life. I then moved to Citicorp. I was actually the principal officer of Citicorp Life. I worked, ran that life business for a number of years. I then had a brief sit back at MLC. I then went to Deutsche Bank. At Deutsche Bank, I operated the retail financial services business for Deutsche Bank in Australia as well as for Asia Pacific. While I was there, I actually started a life company.
I was, at the time, I think we're about the sort of 50th life insurance license ever issued in Australia. I had the benefit of, you know, not only running a life insurance company, but starting one as well, which was fantastic experience. Subsequent to my corporate life, I have operated as a consultant in the industry, and working with both funds management groups and life insurance groups, as a consultant and providing research services to those businesses. I'm also a director of AMP Superannuation. I sit on the board of AMP Superannuation. I'm also an advisory board member of a business called Investment Trends, which is a research business, and also of a non-bank lender as well. That's sort of...
I'm married with two children and two dogs and a cat. A cat. You've got to remember the cat. I think hopefully that gives you a good sense of my background. Deeply steeped in financial services, and hopefully bring, you know, a new perspective, having recently joined the board, which is fantastic.
Thanks very much.
It's a pleasure.
Funnily enough, I first met Sarah when she was at MLC a long time ago.
A long time. Not long ago. No, that's right.
Yeah. I. Okay. I'll now put the motion. Those physically in attendance, please mark your voting instruction on your yellow card. Shareholders can now vote online. A reminder not to click next until all four resolutions are passed. Thank you. Resolution three, re-election of Director Andrew Boldeman as follows: to consider and I thought fit pass the following resolution as an ordinary resolution. That Andrew Boldeman, a non-executive director of the company, who retires from the office of director by rotation in accordance with Rules 64.1 of the Constitution and ASX Listing Rule 14.4, be eligible and offering himself for re-election to be re-elected as a director of the company. Any questions? No questions. Thank you. The proxies received in relation to this resolution are also on the screen. I will now put the motion.
Those physically in attendance, please mark your voting instruction on your yellow voting card. Again, shareholders can also vote, but please don't do it until all resolutions have been read through. Thank you. Resolution four, re-election of another director, Inese Kingsmill. To consider the board fit pass the following resolution as an ordinary resolution, that Inese Kingsmill, a non-executive director of the company, who retires from the office of director by rotation in accordance with Rule 64.1 of the Constitution and ASX Listing Rule 14.4, being eligible and offering herself for re-election, be re-elected as a director of the company. Any questions, please, on this resolution? No? Thank you. The proxies are again on the screen. I now put the motion. Those physically in attendance, please mark your voting instructions on your yellow voting cards. Again, shareholders can vote via the online portal.
A reminder not to click on next until we finish all resolutions. Resolution five is as follows: Consider and I thought fit pass the following resolution as an ordinary resolution. That for the purpose of Exception eight of ASX Listing Rule 10.12, ASX Listing Rule 10.14, and all other purposes, approval has been given for the company to grant awards to an ex-executive director of the company under the LTIP plan, Long-Term Incentive Plan, on the terms and conditions as set out in the explanatory notes which accompany the form and form part of this notice. Do you wish to discuss this resolution? Are there any questions? No questions. Thank you. I now put the motion.
Those physically in attendance, again, please mark your yellow voting cards and please those who now can vote via the online portal have a reminder not to click on next till we have finished discussing all resolutions. That concludes the resolution being voted on today. As noted, we are conducting a poll on all resolutions. I note the poll is already open. Can all shareholders voting online please now ensure they have submitted their vote. I will allow another minute before the poll is closed. If you have any questions relating to the submission of your online votes, please send them through the Q&A function now. For those shareholders attending physically, I now invite the staff of Automic to collect your voting cards. Thank you. Oh, yeah. Good idea. Have you voted? This is just a job. Okay. That's it. Thank you. Is that everyone?
You've personally voted. Thank you. Okay. Are there any questions? Any quick more further questions?
Um-
Okay. Sorry.
Anthony talked about.
Do you want me to take it at the end after we've just finished this?
Oh, sorry.
That's okay. No, we'll take it. Don't worry, Alex. The staff Automic now process the poll. The results will be made available via ASX platform. On our website shortly will show the details after the close of the meeting. We will now address any general questions raised on the floor and via the Q&A function. Could you please ask your questions now, Alan? I think Alan might be our longest shareholder here. I think from... Is that probably right? I suspect he is. Is there any... Oh, ask the question.
Anthony, you talked about reinvesting and most of the capital that was said was in short-term money. Is there an idea that in future years you might look at blue chip invest or some blue chip shares as well and invest some blue chip shares or not?
It's a good question. I mean, the answer is no really to blue chip because the way that your capital charging is managed by APRA, the higher the risk of the asset, the more capital you need to hold. We'll probably always remain in pretty blue chip fixed interest type investments. At the moment, they're short duration as the market sort of works itself out with interest rates. We would certainly move to longer duration investments once we're confident that, you know, interest rates are close to peaking. Scott, I don't know if there's anything you wanted to add.
Well, as an insurance company, it's important that our assets are held in safe hands to ensure that they're there to pay claims when the time comes. Generally speaking, that those assets will be held in a fixed interest income rather than more volatile potential equity type investments.
You also do limit yourself-
Mm-hmm.
by having only a majority in that form of investment.
That's right. That's right.
We do, but we're again conservative, right?
Yeah.
Nature of the business is we're conservative.
Okay.
Yeah. I mean, look, down the track, number of years and the portfolio grows, we're much, much bigger, yeah, you can put a proportion into equities. Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions?
Can I ask a question? Anthony, can you explain the discrepancy between company performance and share price?
I was warned about that question. Our focus is just on the business at the moment and building the best business we can in the medium to long term. Of course, that you keep an eye on the share price. It has been a bit volatile. The shares have been very small trades. Clearly there's a market dynamic with small caps. You know, I'm sure you're well and truly aware of the market dynamics. Trading is very, very limited and very volatile at the moment. We just believe we've been caught up in that market dynamic. It has gone up again today.
Our aim is just to focus on building the business, you know, focus on the team, focus on our customers, and we think the market will just correct itself later on and the share price will look after itself.
Just think that there's a correlation between share price performance and how tightly the shares are held by some optimum shareholders.
It's. Yeah, it's a good question. We are looking, you know, next year at increasing the number of shareholders. You know, so we will be actively engaging with potential new investors, you know, to increase that footprint of shareholders as well.
Yeah. Just, and also market awareness, you know.
Yeah.
We're still a small business we're, you know, we're talking to our advisors and help to get out there and just continue to talk to people and just do what we do. Our business is growing. We've done really well. Absolutely, I mean, it's disappointing to see our share price where it is. Again, it should be going up, not going down. I can't predict that.
One. One more.
Yeah.
Is there any prospects for getting dividends going forward?
I mean, we do have a dividend policy that's based on us being, you know, positively cash flow, and cash flow positive and also generating enough profits that we feel like it's the best result for shareholders to provide dividends. At the moment, we believe the best outcome for shareholders is to continue to invest in the business and grow that in-force premium, which is the value pool of the business. That may change, you know, in the future.
Unfortunately, the more successful we are, the bigger our book gets, the more reserves we have to take the capital and put it in the reserves. That's the nature. This is why this insurance business is different from a lot of other businesses. Certainly, I think we'd all of us as shareholders here would love to get a dividend. Don't worry about that. Sorry, Scott first.
Anthony.
Yeah.
A lot of these companies are now providing quarterly cash flow updates. Is that something that NobleOak will look at doing soon?
Can I hand that over to Scott?
It hasn't been a question been raised for us, to be fair. It's not something that we've been considering doing. As an insurance company, obviously, we're a much more longer term proposition. For us, we talk about in-force as being the value driver and as that grows, so you'll find that our cash flows are much more stable over longer term. You don't have as volatility for that quarterly metric. You probably wouldn't see as great a value in doing, in seeing quarterly stats in that regard anyway. If that helps answer your question.
Yeah. It does.
Rick?
Comment and a question. First is, as representing the largest shareholder, I'm sure we can comment that part of the reason that we bought into this company is a belief that NobleOak has for the next few years, opportunities to invest capital at very good terms. I hope-
Yeah, we last thing in mind here expecting dividends anytime soon. I hope that you folk will go on reinvesting our capital at good return. Question, Anthony, you mentioned that you're planning on bringing new shareholders next year. Is that you're gonna market the stock to new people or are you planning on doing some sort of equity raise?
Oh, no, just marketing the stock to new people. Yeah, there's no plan there to raise.
Yeah.
Oh, it's on.
Yeah. Fred, we've got really good institutional support. We just don't have the retail support, you know. We've either got a lot of tiny small shareholders or more of the institutions. We need to get that sort of retail mix. Also to go back to what you said before, our value is our in-force premium. You're exactly right. That's what our true value is, the net present value of our future cash flows. It's like funds management. Our aim, we believe that, you know, by investing in... Exactly right. By investing that capital, we should get a better return paying a dividend. Any other questions? Oh.
My final question, this is not a Dorothy Dixer, it's actually a genuine question. Useful for the audience to be reminded, if Anthony or somebody else could remind the people in the room of why it is that you generate above-market growth in your business, and why you believe, hopefully, that the company does in fact have some sort of sustainable advantage, that it's not just a blip that will go away in the next year or two.
Yeah. That's a, that's a really good question. I suppose why we think we'll continue with above-market growth. When I think about the three products that we're selling, one is our direct NobleOak product. We've got PPS and we have NEOS. All three of them have very unique selling propositions. The direct product is a lower cost, far better service than what you can get externally. Our PPS has a unique bonus account, the more you keep the policy, the longer you keep the policy for, the greater amount of money you end up drawing out of that particular product. It's a very attractive product, very successful in South Africa. NEOS has an amazing proposition of fantastic online ability and service to their advisor base.
Similar to what we do on our direct side, NEOS does on the advisor side. We can't really see any major changes that we're, you know, where competitors, you know, are able to compete on that basis. I think being smaller and more nimble than the other players with a lower cost base does allow us to continue to adapt and not have to build the same expenses into our premiums as a lot of our larger competitors. We do really believe it's sustainable. We have to grow carefully. We've got to be very disciplined with our growth and our cost management, and we've got to always make sure we're ahead of the market when it comes to product design and service. We're very, yeah, very aware of that.
I think the people. Fred, I think, we've got a drive from the board right down to key management people, with a lot of experience and knowledge, and they all challenge each other and, they're also really good people. I'm not being a bit flippant here if it's true. It's the team we actually have in place that I think helps grow this business.
Yeah. The other thing which is very relevant and we see ongoing and which we rely on is our low, relatively low lapse rates which have remained low. Of course, that's, that is a product of being relatively new with a lot of our book. A lot of our book is quite recent because of our growth. Nevertheless, because of our service levels and the satisfaction from our audience, the tendency is that our book is a lot more sticky, and that is something which is superior to any other insurance company. That helps and that will, you know, just distinguishes us and separates us from any of the others.
Thanks for the question, Fred. Anybody else have more questions? Okay. If no further questions, I'd like to thank all shareholders for all you coming today and your attendance and will now end the formal part of today's meeting. I declare the meeting closed. Thank you, everyone, for coming.