So far, our goal has always been to open that market, streamlining the property settlement journey and transforming an entire industry along the way, but our work is far from done. It's the opportunity to make a broader and more positive impact that really pushes us forward, like analyzing market trends, giving the public and policymakers more certainty when making big decisions, sharing our experience as a startup by supporting the entrepreneurs and businesses who want to progress the property industry, building a sustainable future for our people, communities, and planet, committing to becoming a net-zero organization by 2025, and with our shared value partnership with Homes for Homes, we're working towards helping put roofs over the heads of homeless or at-risk Australians. We'll keep supporting our property market's continued growth, even in the face of world-changing challenges.
We're collaborating with housing industries in overseas markets, introducing near-real-time property settlements and all the benefits it brings to home buyers and sellers. Because whether we're here in Australia or overseas, that's what we've always stood for: setting new standards in buying and selling property and opening new doors for as many people as possible. We are PEXA. The Australian property market, home to trillions of AUD worth of assets and the foundation for countless dreams, plans, and new beginnings. As the world's first digital property settlement platform, we're redefining the steps Australians take towards these life-changing milestones. With millions of transactions completed so far, our goal has always been to open that market to as many people as possible, streamlining the property settlement journey and transforming an entire industry along the way. But our work is far from done.
It's the opportunity to make a broader and more positive impact that really pushes us forward, like analyzing market trends, giving the public and policymakers more certainty when making big decisions, sharing our experience as a startup by supporting the entrepreneurs and businesses who want to progress the property industry, building a sustainable future for our people, communities, and planet, committing to becoming a net-zero organization by 2025, and with our shared value partnership with Homes for Homes, we're working towards helping put roofs over the heads of homeless or at-risk Australians. We'll keep supporting our property market's continued growth, even in the face of world-changing challenges, and we're collaborating with housing industries in overseas markets, introducing near-real-time property settlements and all the benefits it brings to home buyers and sellers.
Because whether we're here in Australia or overseas, that's what we've always stood for: setting new standards in buying and selling property and opening new doors for as many people as possible. We are PEXA. The Australian property market, home to trillions of dollars' worth of assets and the foundation for countless dreams, plans, and new beginnings. As the world's first digital property settlement platform, we're redefining the steps Australians take towards these life-changing milestones. With millions of transactions completed so far, our goal has always been to open that market to as many people as possible, streamlining the property settlement journey and transforming an entire industry along the way. But our work is far from done.
It's the opportunity to make a broader and more positive impact that really pushes us forward, like analyzing market trends, giving the public and policymakers more certainty when making big decisions, sharing our experience as a startup by supporting the entrepreneurs and businesses who want to progress the property industry, building a sustainable future for our people, communities, and planet, committing to becoming a net-zero organization by 2025, and with our shared value partnership with Homes for Homes, we'll...
Good morning, shareholders. My name is Mark Joiner, Chair of the Board and of the meeting today. It's my great pleasure to welcome you to our fourth annual general meeting. The land we are on today has a rich history and is a place of culture, kinship, and knowledge. I respectfully acknowledge and honor the traditional custodians of this land and wherever you are. I pay my respects to elders past and present and recognize the continued and enduring connection all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have to country. We are hosting today's annual general meeting from Collins Square in the Docklands region of Melbourne, where the Yarra River and the Maribyrnong River meet the sea. For thousands of years, these waterways have sustained life and hold a spiritual and cultural significance to Aboriginal peoples. We have a quorum present.
I declare the meeting open and also open the poll on all resolutions. It's my pleasure to introduce you to the members of the PEXA Group Board: Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Glenn King, Independent Non-Executive Director, Ms. Helen Silver, AO, Independent Non-Executive Director, Ms. Melanie Willis, Independent Non-Executive Director, Mr. Vivek Bhatia, Non-Executive Director and CBA Nominee Director, Mr. Paul Rickard, and Independent Non-Executive Director, Mr. Jeff Smith, who's joined us electronically, and Independent Non-Executive Director, Ms. Georgina Lynch, who's also joined us electronically. Also in attendance are Mr. Scott Butterworth, our Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Eglantine Etiemble, our Group Chief Technology Officer, Mr. Joe Pepper, the CEO of our UK business, Ms. Sabina Sopov, the Group Chief People Officer, Mr. Les Vance, who's the CEO of our Australian business, Mr. James Orr, our Company Secretary, and Ms.
Jodie Dawkins, who's the Audit Partner representing the Company's Auditor, Ernst & Young. Jodie is available to answer questions in relation to the conduct of the audit, the preparation and content of the independent external auditor's report, the accounting policies adopted by the Company in relation to the preparation of the financial statements, and the independence of the auditor in relation to the conduct of the audit. Representatives from PEXA's share registry, Link Market Services, are also in attendance, and I'll now pass to our Company Secretary, who will talk you through the procedural matters. James.
Thank you, Mark, and good morning, shareholders. The notice of meeting dated 2 October 2024 has been made available to all shareholders on the Company's website and on the ASX announcements platform. For each item of business, the Chair will first ask whether there are any questions from shareholders physically present in the room. Please approach the microphone in the center of the room to ask your question. Hany will then read out any written questions received via the online platform, followed by any questions received by the phone operator. Shareholders who are joining the meeting virtually are encouraged to submit written questions online by clicking the Ask a Question button located at the top of your screen. You will need to select whether your question relates to general business or a specific resolution and then type your question in the space provided.
If you'd like to ask a question via the telephone, you must quote your unique PIN or PIN provided by Link Market Services. The teleconference operator will introduce you at the relevant time. I ask that you mute your computer while you ask your question. Voting on all resolutions is by way of a poll. For those attending the meeting in person, you can cast your vote by completing the yellow voting card received from the registration desk. If you have any questions, please see a Link Market Services member at the registration desk outside the room. For shareholders joining virtually, to cast your vote, click the Get a Voting Card button, which appears at the top of your screen. You'll need to enter your SRN or HIN or proxy number and postcode and click Submit Details and Vote.
Please complete the online voting card for each item of business and click Submit Vote. The Chair will vote undirected proxies in favor of all resolutions. During the meeting, we will display the number of votes already received for each resolution. The final results of voting by way of poll will be released to the ASX as soon as they are available and will be displayed on the Company's investor website. I'll now pass back to the Chair.
Thank you, James, and thanks again for joining us today for PEXA's fourth annual general meeting. I'd particularly like to send a warm welcome to shareholders who are joining us, whether in person or virtually. I'll begin with a few comments on what has been achieved in the business over the course of this, our third year as a public company. In broad terms, it has been another year of steady progress on the implementation of strategy and one demonstrating discipline around delivery against financial objectives. In Australia, the exchange achieved a number of important objectives. First, our technology resilience was outstanding, with our platform being available 100% of the time during business hours over the full year. The number of customers deeply embedding PEXA into their technology through their own technology through the purchase of APIs also increased, delivering us growth in non-regulated revenues. Customer satisfaction remains very high.
Our reach was also extended by August of this year to include Tasmania in accordance with our obligations as an ELNO, and we now need only to add the Northern Territory to have full national coverage. Finally, sound financial disciplines allowed us to maintain margins in the face of a fairly soft property market. On the regulatory side, as many of you will know, ARNECC, our regulator, has now paused efforts to bring about interoperability, including standing down their project team. PEXA has suggested an alternative model that will increase market competition without the cost, complexity, and risks that the original proposal embodied. This would include the separation of the core exchange from our other activities, allowing regulators to focus their attention there and allowing others to on-sell the exchange services.
Having been declared critical infrastructure by the federal government, we are now finding ourselves a party to discussions around other important issues such as anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism financing reform, affordable housing, and so on. As a trusted piece of Australian financial services infrastructure, we're keen to play a broader role where that makes commercial sense and it can increase productivity in the Australian economy. Our property insights businesses, now called Digital Solutions, continue to scale up, and between them landed some large reference quality customer contracts. Collectively, they achieved a break-even run rate at the EBITDA level by year's end, and we expect them to be largely self-funding from here on. In the U.K., the team has made significant progress towards a successful market entry.
Most important among these were the extension of the tech platform to be able to service a wider array of finance transactions, the substantial progress made on delivering the all-important sale and purchase functionality, probably by June next year, and the deeper engagement with a number of large financial institutions as they position to incorporate PEXA functionality into their mortgage origination processes. The integration of PEXA tech into Optima Legal was completed, offering customers an easier way to adopt our services, and the acquisition of Smoove brought us relationships with around one-third of the fragmented conveyancer industry. Many forget that it wasn't until COVID that PEXA deepened its penetration of WA and South Australia, so engaging these small but vital agents is critical to meaningful market penetration. It's worth highlighting that the technology platform being built to support entry into the UK market is largely reusable in other markets.
In fact, parts of it have already been deployed to the Australian exchange. Given, therefore, our interest in eventually extending to other international markets, it's increasingly seen as a group asset rather than a U.K. investment. Turning to group governance, we've been very pleased to welcome four new directors across Australia and the U.K. All have highly relevant experience. At the group level, we've already introduced you to Jeff Smith. We recently welcomed Georgina Lynch to the board. I'll let her introduce herself a little later. Suffice to say, we're already benefiting from her contributions. With this latest year-end, we've completed approximately five years under the leadership of our CEO, Glenn King. Glenn has recently announced his intention to retire when a suitable replacement has been identified.
Your board is extremely grateful to Glenn for all that he has accomplished over that period and will be sorry to see him go. He has completely transformed the leadership team, worked tirelessly and constructively with regulators towards a workable industry structure, positioned the U.K. business for eventual success, and established the state-of-the-art, highly flexible new technology platform. He's also led the meeting of our ESG responsibilities, growing key industry and community partnerships central to our purpose of connecting people to place. He achieved all that while maintaining a strong culture and generally high levels of engagement. He leaves an impressive legacy. I'll have more to say on succession in due course. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our loyal customers and staff for their contributions and support this year and to thank you, our shareholders, for your interest and support. I'll now hand over to Glenn.
Thank you, Mark, for those kind words. I would like to add my welcome to all of you joining us here in person and online for your continued interest and support in the PEXA Group. I have more to say on our journey as a company over the last five years, but first, let me turn to our performance in FY24. The starting point for our business is the support we give to our customers and the value we provide to them and to the wider communities in which we operate. As you can see from this slide, the breadth and depth of our customer relationships continues to grow. Across all our brands and segments, we have a broad, interconnected customer base of government, financial institutions, lawyers, conveyancers, and developers.
In Australia, we support approximately 160 financial institutions, more than 10,000 conveyancing and legal practitioners, more than 70 developers, and 345 government agencies. In the U.K., we provide services through our brands to approximately 18 financial institutions, including seven of the eight largest institutions and more than 2,000 practitioners. Our consistent goal and strategy are to deepen our customer service and deliver long-term sustainable value in line with our purpose of connecting people to place. To do this in Australia, we support our customers by enhancing our exchange to maintain Australia's leading electronic lodgement platform. We have further extended our relationships with our existing customers with property insights and other digital solutions that use our distribution and data capabilities. Internationally, we are expanding, utilizing our intellectual property to solve customer problems in markets with Australia-like land title systems, starting with the U.K.
Now, we have made steady progress in executing this strategy. The PEXA Exchange strengthened its position in both transaction volumes and market penetration, with customer satisfaction and platform uptime 90% and 100%, respectively. I should also touch on an additional point relating to our exchange business. As Mark mentioned, the interoperability program being progressed by ARNECC has been paused since June. We will, though, continue to work with authorities on sound policy and customer outcomes. Now, despite a modest overall contribution and below our expectation, digital solutions remain strategically important, providing the foundation to build non-regulated revenues. For example, in FY24, Value Australia signed up its first Tier 1 lender, which has opened the door to positive discussions with other customers. Digital solutions also delivered break-even operating EBITDA for the month of June, as forecast, due to our focus on financial management.
We also remain confident of our UK aspirations due to our unique position, our platform progress, size of the market, consumer needs, government policy, and now our distribution network. From a PEXA platform point of view, we have increased this functionality in respect of remortgages, and we are on a path to launching our sale and purchase product. I note that whilst the UK is the first market in which we have deployed this platform, our estimate is that 85% of the work we have done on the platform can be deployed in other Torrens Title markets. We have connected with the Bank of England and HMLR, with two financial institutions transacting on the platform, and our continued work with other financial institutions.
While we would have liked to see NatWest transacting on our platform, we continue to work with them and the other major lender that we have previously noted. It is important to note that platform onboarding does take time, as it includes Bank of England providing testing slots, and these slots are limited, which I'll have more to say shortly. While implementing our strategy, we have been focused on uplifting our culture, operational efficiency, and diversity of our business. We have made positive steps towards gender parity within our leadership group and created operational efficiencies through structural redesign and better utilization of technology, particularly AI. We have also continued to serve our broader communities, as set out in our inaugural ESG report, which details our ongoing partnerships with organizations such as Homes for Homes and continued maturity in our ESG governance practices.
The efforts of our people in serving our customers have led to solid results for FY24. We took the market through these results in August, but I'd like to highlight some of the key performance outcomes. Group business revenue was up to AUD 340.1 million FY24. This was up 21% in the past year and up over 200% since 2019. At a group level, our operating margin, excluding the Smoove acquisition, was 36.5% against a guidance of greater than 35%. This was 1.7 percentage points higher than the prior year on a like-for-like basis. International digital solutions revenue continued to climb and represents 15% of total business revenues, highlighting the growth of our new revenue streams with the PEXA Group, which were nonexistent in 2019.
The exchange, though, continued to be the foundation of the business, with improved revenues and margin, which at 54.5% was up almost one percentage point on FY23. This was achieved against a backdrop of persistent inflation and relatively high interest rates presenting challenging conditions. Overall, NPATA was AUD 21 million. This increased by 22% and was driven by a combination of factors, including higher revenue, improved margins, and controlled cost growth. Now, turning to the outlook, the economic environment for both Australia and the UK remains mixed. In Australia, we remain cautious about the operating environment due to subdued economic growth, low confidence, and low residential construction volumes. In the UK, market conditions remain challenging despite recent bank rate cuts due to the very weak growth in GDP and employment. Yet, it is worth noting there have been promising signs of volume recovery across property sale and purchase transactions.
Notwithstanding this uncertainty, as we stated in our trading update earlier this week, we are reconfirming the guidance for FY25 that we gave at the time we released our FY24 results. I'd like to highlight that inclusive of Smoove, we expect an increase in group revenue of between 13%-19%, group margin greater than 34% compared to 31% for the prior year, net interest expense broadly aligned to the FY24 experience, and cash outflow in our international operations to fall to a range of AUD 55 million-AUD 58 million. To underpin these results, we have a clear set of things to focus on the remainder of this year. Our priorities for FY25 are all extensions of our strategy.
From an exchange perspective, we will continue to improve the effectiveness and performance of the exchange by expanding coverage to Tasmania and progressing our proposed entry into Northern Territory and contributing to a market structure that supports customers and stakeholders. We continue to prudently invest in our Exchange platform to benefit our customers and through our obligations as national critical infrastructure. We will continue to deliver on our emerging digital solutions business, allowing the group to tap into unregulated revenue opportunities and broaden the Australian TAM, and in the U.K., we will continue to build out our international platform and deploy the sale and purchase capability and integrate Optima Legal, Smoove, and PEXA service. We aim to progress the onboarding of lenders. This will be done against a backdrop of reducing our cash spend in the U.K. and improving the overall U.K. financial performance..
Overall, there is continued momentum and good engagement with a range of UK lenders. As part of this progress, Metro Bank, one of the UK's leading challenger institutions, recently announced that it will be working with PEXA to improve the remortgage journey for its customers. Hinckley and Rugby Building Society has also recently stated that it will be providing its customers with a fees-assisted remortgage product utilizing the PEXA platform through Optima Legal. The Bank of England, though, has advised that there has been a further delay to their system upgrades, which will impact the timing of testing slots for potential users of our platform. Revised testing dates are still to be confirmed by the Bank of England, but this is now expected to fall in FY26.
Our ambition yet remains to achieve a sale and purchase product market share of 25% and to achieve a remortgage market share of 25%-40%. We are focused on working to realize our ambition in respect of sale and purchase market share by the end of calendar 2027. However, because of factors beyond PEXA's control, there are inherent and unavoidable uncertainties affecting the timing of when such sale and purchase or remortgage market share aspirations may be achieved. We also continue to heavily scrutinize our progress in the U.K. and the expenditures we are incurring in respect of the market.
Lastly, at the group level, we will continue to build our capability that supports all areas of our business, such as ensuring platform security and resilience across all our markets, developing talent to grow our business, performance, efficiencies, and ensuring our capital finds its way to the most productive activities across the group. Given this may be my last AGM as a Managing Director and Chief Executive, I hope you will indulge me as I offer a few reflections on our journey in the past five years. PEXA is now the embodiment of the vision set by the board back in 2019 and larger than the sum of its parts or its people. In 2019, PEXA was a one-product, one-jurisdiction business operating in Australia in five states, with some 50% coverage, having settled close to AUD 500 billion worth of property since its launch in Victoria in 2013.
Five years ago, the brief was clear and a challenge accepted. This included building strong stakeholder relationships and positioning the PEXA Group as a critical contributor to national discourse and sensible economic reform, diversifying revenue and profit by initiating value capture uplift in areas of data insights and adjacent businesses, exploring PEXA's unique IP in new geographies. To highlight some transformative changes in the intervening five years, we have expanded national coverage to just shy of 90%, operating in every state and territory in Australia except Northern Territory, facilitated a cumulative 21 million transactions since the first transaction in 2013, with property value worth AUD 4.3 trillion. We have delivered productivity savings of circa AUD 300 million per annum in the economy, recorded 90% customer satisfaction, and a reputation score of 72 in FY24. In fact, we are now tracking just over 75, which is very pleasing and strong.
We listed on the ASX in July 2021, requiring the rapid acceleration of the group's capabilities, processes, governance, and talent. We were declared critical infrastructure by the Australian Commonwealth Government. We created new revenue streams here in Australia around augmented data solutions. We leveraged our IP with the build of a modular PEXA platform for international markets, starting with the UK, and we developed a strong purpose of connecting people to place, enhancing our relationships with industry, community, regulators, and stakeholders, and we focused on diversity, inclusion, learning, and development, and innovation recognized by industry. Now, of course, there were areas in which we could have done better, and we always take on the feedback and strive to improve. I can say it's been a real honor and privilege to be part of the PEXA story through this exciting period of change and working with a wonderful team.
I want to again thank all the directors, past and present, including the former Chair, Alan Cameron, who headed up PEXA for an incredible 11 years, and the inaugural PEXA team. In particular, I want to say thank you to Mark Joiner, who was appointed Chair in 2021, and for working together with me to take the PEXA Group forward. He's been a wonderful support and counsel over the past three years. Mark's collaboration is a testament to the genuine commitment and confidence in the future of the PEXA Group. I'd also like to thank my team, again, past and present, because everything is a collective team effort. Their dedication, commitment, and passion for the PEXA Group is boundless, and they are all making a real difference to our customers, stakeholders, employees, shareholders, and the community at large.
To our wonderful PEXA employees who have delivered time and time again on optimum customer experience, demonstrated only last month with our customer operations team named the Customer Service Team of the Year at the 2024 Australian Service Excellence Awards. I thank you. To all our partners from government, academia, NGOs, business industry, and more, your connection to PEXA has, in turn, helped us deliver for customers and the community as a whole. Finally, to our shareholders, your belief in the PEXA Group has been invaluable and motivates us collectively to strive for greater heights. Thank you for being an integral part of this journey. I look forward to steering, as part of the team, the group through the coming months as we set the path for a new chapter in FY25 and beyond. This concludes my presentation. I again thank you.
I'm very happy to answer any questions, and I'll now hand back to Mark. Thank you.
Thank you, Glenn. We'll now take any questions in relation to the chair and CEO presentations. So are there any questions from shareholders in the room?
Good morning. Stuart Oldfield, here's the mic working. Do I need to—I think you got me now.
Yeah, we got you.
Thank you. Thanks, Mark. I take an interest in ESG matters, so I note your comments about commitment to net zero, and I note Glenn's leading of the ESG program, and I note your comments about ARNECC pausing the interoperability program in June this year. So my question is a related one, and it focuses on whether PEXA in the 2024 financial year wrote to both the regulator ARNECC and the Minister for Customer Service in New South Wales, reserving the right to take legal action against those parties if the path to interoperability was continued to be pursued.
Glenn, since I'm not across all your correspondence, do you want to take that?
Thanks, Stuart. So just so I'm clear on it, you're asking about what our correspondence with ARNECC and the Minister for Customer Service about our IP and protecting our IP, that's the sense?
Specifically, whether you reserve the right to take legal action if they continue to pursue that path.
Yeah, so there's a couple of points of it. The first aspect that I can say to all shareholders: we'll always operate within the rules, the regulatory rules, and that is something we take very seriously, both in terms of the regulation, but also our social license. So I want people to be aware of that. The second thing is that interoperability covers certain aspects of the exchange and us being an ELNO. But we've also developed elements that is our own intellectual property that is enhanced the service of the exchange, and that intellectual property is something that we're not going to share because that's ours and something that we've invested and developed on behalf of shareholders. It's that which is what we've written to ARNECC and the relevant other stakeholders.
And we do reserve the right if an organization tries to use our IP that we do reserve the right to take appropriate action and protect our organization and our shareholders. And that's what we've corresponded on.
Taking that path, is there a risk that other bodies such as the ACCC might intervene in the interest of competition?
Do you want me to take that?
Yeah.
There's always a risk that you could inappropriately trigger a response from a regulator such as the ACCC. However, what I can say, again, we also ensure that we operate within the ACCC guidelines, and we also are very open about competition. There's no issue about competition. In fact, we have stated in numerous forums that we welcome competition, and in fact, there's nothing stopping anyone coming into the market. But what we won't do is, again, share our IP and our information that we've developed with someone else. And that's an obligation that we don't believe we have to actually share.
In fact, beyond that, we have suggested models for competition to enable it to occur, so.
I could also just add to that, Mark. We also have constant engagement with all different regulators.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. Any other questions in the room? Yep.
Thank you very much. Brett Morris from the Australian Shareholders' Association came last year and, as a user of PEXA, and I said, "Here's some ideas." You had a committee reach out to us and another law firm just down the road who I know very well. We sat there and had an engagement with them, which was very positive, so it's always great to feel heard, and I know PEXA's got a lot of obligations and it works towards the solutions and so forth, so that was very nice. My question today is just really about the cyber threats and so forth. I'm just really interested in that. Companies like this, tech companies and so forth. We've got a shift now in AI. We've got other companies like Medicare and so forth, Medibank, I think it was, who had some issues.
I'm just wondering if you can talk a little bit more, just talk a little bit about what you see the threats are at the moment and what the cost of the business is? How are you going to abate that in the future? How are we going to avoid a situation where PEXA in the next year, two years, five years is going to be the doors closed, we're safe, and we don't have those sorts of problems?
I'll just tee it up by saying it's our number one risk, and it has attention at our risk committee and our board every meeting. So we are very, very vigilant. I think it's impossible to completely nullify those risks. You can just do the best that you can do. And we are vulnerable, like all companies are vulnerable. We don't keep customer data, so we're not vulnerable in that sense, but we are infrastructure. And so state-based actors or someone like that wishing to do harm to Australia could try and take us down. So we're very aware of that and very vigilant. But Glenn, you might want to add.
Yeah, it's good to see you, Brett. To Mark's point, firstly, cyber is one of the number one areas that we work on. So if I just take the Australian market, given we're talking about Australia on here, from a governance perspective, I'll talk about that first. We have a number of governance forums where we look at not just in terms of the cyber risks associated with our organization, but also what's going across industries and also sectors and industries outside of where PEXA operates, because we always want to see what practices are in there, what worked, what didn't work first.
The second area we have a number of partners that we work with, including international partners that are part of our broad ecosystem to ensure that we've got the right security measures in place and ensuring that they're supporting us in terms of not only our capability, but also response as well. Thirdly, we invest consistently in terms of our platform, not just in terms of resilience, but also recovery, because that's an important area, and coming back to Mark's point, we're also taking into consideration what that looks like in our broader ecosystem, so if we use that last point as something else that we do, as part of the critical infrastructure regime, we've got certain obligations, but we also work very closely with our bank customers.
And all the banks, including the majors, have particularly strong skills, and we're an important partner there, as we do with the land registries, as we do with our conveyancers and practitioners. And in fact, on that last part, and you'll probably be aware of this too, but we also work with organizations to help with our practitioners to become even more effective in terms of their cyber response. Lastly, we're continually looking at what other services can we offer to help our customers and our stakeholders. And an example of that is the product that we should be aware is PEXA Key, which is an important part of a cyber service that protects the customers just generally. But to Mark's lens, any business now that operates within any sector or ecosystem has to ensure that they're cyber safe, always investing in cyber, and never takes it for granted.
I would add that that's something that we continually look at. It's very much about doing business, but ensuring that we continually get better.
I'll just add one other thing that having been declared essential infrastructure by the federal government, that sort of raises the bar in terms of what we need to be doing to protect it, to maximize our resilience.
Very good. And thank you very much. And congratulations on a great result.
Thank you very much.
Any other questions in the room? Okay. Any by written or telephone? Okay. All right. Okay. So we're ready to move on. So we'll move now to the formal items of business. The first item of business is to receive and consider the financial report of the company and its controlled entities for the financial year ended 30th of June 2024 and the related director's report and auditor's report. Please note that there's no requirement for shareholders to approve these reports. We'll now turn to questions on item one. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room in relation to the financial reports? Okay. Are there any written or on the telephone? Okay. Okay. So we'll now move to the resolutions. The first resolution is the reelection of me. And so I'll ask Melanie Willis to chair this part of the meeting.
Briefly. Thank you, Mark. I now invite you to address the meeting, Mark Joiner.
Thank you. Sorry, we have to do that pantomime. Thank you, Melanie. I've been chairman for the last three years. I bring a good depth of relevant experience to the board after a career as a chartered accountant and a strategy consultant, which took me to many countries around the world. I spent the last decade of my executive life as a chief financial officer, first for Citigroup and their wealth management division in New York, and then for NAB in Melbourne. While I was with NAB, I was executive director finance and also a member of the board. After leaving NAB at the end of 2013, I joined a number of other boards. Perhaps more notable among them, the appointments were the chairman of QBE's Australian businesses, Australasian businesses, and I'm chairman of the large life insurer, TAL, together with various other NED roles.
I'm excited to be at PEXA, and I thank you for your continued support. Melanie.
Thank you, Mark. We will now turn to questions. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room in relation to this resolution? No? Thank you. Company secretary, have we received any written questions to this resolution? No? Phone operator, have we received any questions?
There are no questions on the phone line at this time.
Thank you. So the votes received are shown on your screen. As Chair, I'll be voting under undirected proxies in favor of the resolution. All directors with Mark Joiner abstaining recommend that shareholders vote in favor of the resolution. I now put the motion to shareholders and request that you vote using the online voting platform or by completing your yellow voting card. I will now hand back to the Chair, Mark Joiner. Congratulations.
So far, so good, I think. Item three is an ordinary resolution to approve the reelection of Vivek Bhatia as a director of the company. I now invite Vivek to address the meeting.
Thank you, Chair. Dear shareholders, a very good morning to all. I too would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we present today and pay my respects to elders both past and present. It has been my honor to serve as a non-executive director of the PEXA board since June of 2021. In asking for your support today, please allow me to briefly recap my experience and credentials, which are outlined in more detail in the notice of meeting.
My leadership experience of over 20 years in financial services, technology, government, and management consulting across multiple geographies, as well as senior executive roles in leading large ASX-listed entities such as the CEO of Australia Pacific Division of QBE Insurance Group and the CEO of Link Group, is highly relevant in the governance of PEXA, especially as PEXA seeks to establish itself into new regions and across new products. Having been significantly involved in technology across most parts of my career, I'm passionate about the enablement it creates and continues to provide for the betterment of our community. PEXA is a shining example of this and even better, an excellent homegrown success story. It is something that I'm extremely proud to be associated with, as I know are my colleagues on the board and employees and leadership across the organization.
I'm extremely fortunate to be in the company and supported by an exceptional group of fellow non-executive directors and senior executives, and thank all of them for their ongoing guidance, advice, and assistance. As you have heard earlier today from both Mark and Glenn, PEXA faces an exciting and bright future. And as a non-executive director, I will continue to encourage and support the PEXA leadership team as they fulfill their strategic plans. I also would like to thank Glenn for an outstanding tenure as the CEO and guiding and shepherding the organization and positioning it for future success. Together with my fellow directors, I will assiduously work with the PEXA team to deliver on its goals, identify areas of improvement and opportunities, while governing with the best interests of all shareholders in mind.
I would be very privileged to receive your support today and thank the shareholders who have already submitted their votes for this resolution and humbly request those remaining for your support. Thank you.
Thank you, Vivek. We'll now turn to questions. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room in relation to this resolution? Company secretary, have you received any written or telephone? No? Okay. The votes received are shown on your screen. As Chair, I'll be voting undirected proxies in favor of the resolution. The directors, with Vivek Bhatia abstaining, recommend that shareholders vote in favor of the resolution. I now put the motion to shareholders and request that you vote using the online voting platform or by completing your yellow voting card. Item four is the election of Director Georgina Lynch. Item four is an ordinary resolution, and I will now invite Georgina to address the meeting.
Thank you, Chairman, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for the opportunity to address this AGM and provide you with some relevant information about my background and experience that has prepared me for the opportunity to seek your approval to serve as one of your board representatives. I am an experienced non-executive director, having served on a number of boards as a director and chair, both listed and unlisted companies. I have over 30 years' combined executive and board experience in the property and financial services sectors, including significant experience across all classes of property and in corporate transactions, capital raisings, funds management, corporate strategy, and acquisitions and divestments. I carefully consider the existing skill matrix of the PEXA board when assessing this opportunity and believe my experience and style will be a useful addition to the PEXA board. PEXA is a fascinating business.
It has a world-class technology offering that is literally second to none. The breadth of opportunities to grow this business are extensive. I believe that as a director, one of my core responsibilities is to ensure that we are not pursuing growth for growth's sake, but are broadening the impact of this remarkable platform in a manner that is aligned with long-term value creation and sustainability. I understand the importance of building a strong culture with a focus on good governance and proactive risk management to deliver long-term sustainable value for our shareholders. I am deeply committed to maintaining this focus, particularly as our operating environment evolves and we expand into offshore markets. I am committed to acting in the best interests of shareholders, supporting initiatives that drive innovation, operational efficiency, and value creation at PEXA.
I'm very happy to be here, and I thank you very much in advance for your support.
Thank you, Georgina. We'll now turn to questions. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room in relation to this resolution? Okay. Written or on the phone?
There are none on the line.
No. Okay. The votes received are shown on your screen. As Chair, I will be voting under undirected proxies in favor of the resolution. The directors, with Georgina Lynch abstaining, recommend that shareholders vote in favor of the resolution. I now put the motion to shareholders and request that you vote using the online voting platform or completing your yellow voting card. Item five is to consider the remuneration report for the financial year ended 30th of June 2024, and if thought fit, pass a non-binding resolution to adopt the remuneration report in accordance with Section 250(r) of the Corporations Act 2001. We'll now turn to questions. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room in relation to this resolution? Company Secretary, have you received any written or telephone questions? No? Okay, so the votes received for this resolution are shown on your screen.
As Chair, I'll be voting under undirected proxies in favor of the resolution, noting that each director has a personal interest in their own remuneration from the company. The board unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of adopting the remuneration report. I now put the motion to shareholders and request that you vote using the online voting platform or by completing your yellow voting card. Item six is an ordinary resolution to approve the grant of performance rights to the company's Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Glenn King. We'll now turn to questions. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room in relation to this resolution? Okay. Written or telephone? No. Okay. So the votes received are shown on your screen. As Chair, I will be voting under undirected proxies in favor of the resolution. All directors recommend that shareholders vote in favor of the resolution.
I now put the motion to shareholders and request that you vote using the online platform or completing your voting card. Item seven is a special resolution to approve the renewal of the proportion takeover provisions in the company's constitution. We'll now turn to questions. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room related to this resolution? Have we received any written or telephone? No? Okay. Good. The votes received are shown on your screen. Again, as chair, I'll be voting under undeclared proxies in favor. All directors recommend shareholders also vote in favor. I now put the motion to shareholders and request that you vote using the online platform or via your yellow voting card. Item eight is the approval of PEXA Group Equity Incentive Plan. We'll now turn to questions. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room in relation to this resolution?
Any written or telephone? No? Okay. Good. The votes received are shown on your screen. As Chair, I again will vote under unacted proxies in favor. All directors recommend shareholders vote in favor. I now put the motion to shareholders and request that you vote using the online platform or completing your card. That concludes the formal part of the meeting. I declare the poll closed in five minutes to allow time for those in the room and online to vote. Final results will be released to the ASX as soon as they're available and displayed on our investor center website. I'd like to thank you for your attendance today and your ongoing support of PEXA. We'll close the meeting. Thank you very much.