Ladies and gentlemen, this seems like almost a one-day cricket, isn't it, with the countdown? Anyway, welcome to the first annual general meeting of Webjet Group Limited. My name is Don Clarke. I will be chairing, c an we remove that, please? Thank you. I'll be chairing today's meeting. It is now 2:00 P.M., and there being a quorum present, I declare the meeting open for business. I confirm the meeting has been properly constituted. Before we proceed, please note that in the event of any technical difficulties or unexpected disruptions during the meeting, I will advise whether the meeting will continue or determine the best course of action in the interests of all shareholders. In opening the 2025 AGM, I would like to introduce the board of Webjet Group Limited, who are in attendance, from John Boris, Ellen Comerford, Katrina Barry, and Shelley Beasley on my right-hand side.
Also in attendance, we have Anshu Raguvanshi, our Company Secretary, Layton Shannos, our CFO, who's in the front row, Melanie Keith, Head of Legal, who I can't see in the crowd, but I'm sure she's here. Yeah, thank you. And if I get this wrong, I apologize, Vanessa Baghdasraf, who is from our share registry, Automic. The virtual component of this meeting is being held by Automic's 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. To ask a question, press on the Q&A icon. This will open a new screen. At the bottom of that screen, there is a section for you to type your question. Please start your question by typing your shareholder SRN or HIN. This will allow the moderator to identify you as a shareholder.
If you would like to ask your question verbally, type your SRN or HIN and then type "I'd like to speak." Once you've finished typing, please hit enter on your keyboard to send. Please note that while you can submit questions from now on, I will not address them until the relevant time in the meeting. To ensure a smooth running of the meeting, we ask that you clearly include the resolution number from the notice of meeting to which your question relates. I'd also ask you to keep questions short and to the point, and certainly that is the case for the questions in relation to specific resolutions. As many shareholders as possible should have a chance to ask a question, I'd also like shareholders to limit their questions to three only, please.
I'll also first take questions from those in the room and then move to our online shareholders. Please also note that your questions may be moderated, or if we receive multiple questions on one topic, we will amalgamate them together. Due to time constraints, we may run out of time to answer all questions. If this happens, we will respond as soon as reasonably practicable by email or by posting answers on ASX. All questions should be addressed to me as Chair. I will either deal with the questions personally or ask someone who is better placed to respond. We will do our best to answer any relevant question raised. When we reach the formal business of the meeting, voting on all resolutions will be conducted by poll. Shareholders attending virtually and wishing to vote on the resolution being put to the meeting can do so through Automic's Investor Portal.
If you are not already logged in to the Investor Portal, instructions on how to do so can be found in the notice of meeting. A summary of these instructions should also be on the screen. 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 a poll on each resolution as per your proxy instructions. If you're having any problem registering your shareholding with Automic, please call a support number, which again should be on the screen. To allow shareholders time to log in, I'll now declare the poll open. Online voting is now open and will remain open until I declare it closed, which will be at the end of the formal business.
Your votes must have been submitted prior to the portal being closed for them to count. Now, the agenda for today's meeting will be very straightforward. I'll make a short Chairman's address. This will be followed by a presentation from our company's CEO and Managing Director, Katrina Barry, after which we'll proceed to the formal matters to be considered at today's AGM. I'll now briefly recap on the 2025 financial year. It's approaching a year since the demerger of the company from Webjet Limited in September 2024. The rationale for establishing the company as a separate entity was to create an independent and simplified B2C online travel business with the freedom to pursue strategic priorities and a growth agenda. It was also to invigorate the B2C business units by providing them with a capital structure and financial resources necessary to better exploit their unique characteristics.
To say that it has been a busy and a challenging year is an understatement, but it's been a year in which the rationale for the demerger has certainly, in the board's opinion, been confirmed. Despite the backdrop of a difficult travel environment, with domestic travel particularly impacted by cost of living pressures and the collapse of Rex, the company was able to deliver an FY 2025 EBITDA result commensurate with the prior year. For the group, FY 2025 bookings were down slightly, 1% down on FY 2024. TTV was $1.5 billion, down 6%. Revenue was $139.7 million, down 3%, but underlying EBITDA was marginally up 1% to $39.4 million. More importantly, the demerger facilitated the creation of a management team focused solely on the B2C business units.
Under leadership of our Group CEO and Managing Director, Katrina Barry, and with the encouragement of the board, the management team has worked hard to develop and begin implementation in the company's FY 2030 strategic plan. The goal, as we've announced to the market, is to double TTV by FY 2030. This will be through a series of strategies designed to expand our total addressable markets and to capture a greater share of the travel wallet. The strategy recognizes that the environment in which our B2C businesses have previously operated has changed materially in many ways over the years. If the company is to deliver significant growth by FY 2030, it must broaden its addressable markets. The focus is now firmly directed towards the identified new growth avenues and opportunities.
Coinciding with driving revenue growth is the need to invest in technology, particularly in AI-driven solutions, to improve services, increase margins, and reduce costs. It will take time to build momentum in the key strategic initiatives. It will require investment in marketing, people, processes, and technology. However, given reasonable economic conditions, the board and management are confident of and excited about achieving the growth needed to deliver on our strategic intents. Recently, we were excited to announce the acquisition of Locomote, a digital-led business travel platform. It will allow us to launch Webjet Business Travel up to three years earlier and at a lower cost than building an in-house solution. This move, which we have been evaluating since late 2024, accelerates one of our four core FY 2030 initiatives, strengthening our technology and AI capabilities, and it positions us to capture a greater share of the business travel market.
On capital management, with the immediate cash resources available to the company, capital management is an issue frequently raised with the company. Subject to the need to take appropriate account of the company's circumstances, which includes maintaining sufficient cash resources to guard against any repeat of the COVID scenario and maintaining an appropriate balance sheet flexibility to invest in future growth initiatives, the board is committed to a prudent return of surplus cash. In pursuit of that commitment, the board has announced its intention to undertake an on-market share buyback program of up to $25 million and an intention to pay special dividends above the company's targeted payout ratio of 40% - 60% of underlying net profit after tax. In deciding on the above, the board actively considered a range of capital management initiatives and the likely timelines for execution of those initiatives.
The two key factors in the board's decisions were the company's issued capital balance of $26.9 million and the desire to maximize the benefit to shareholders of any return by fully utilizing the distribution of franking credits as they become available to the company. The announced share buyback program of up to $25 million was sized with reference to the fact that any buyback or capital return in excess of the company's issued capital balance would incur a company-level franking debit and could, subject to size and timing of the buyback program or return, result in a potential franking deficit tax liability. Hence, the board determined any share buyback programs sized above $26.9 million would be likely to be an inefficient way of returning capital to shareholders.
The share buyback program was also preferred to other mechanisms because it obviates the need for a tax ruling and the time involved in obtaining such a ruling. The announced buyback program will be conducted in the ordinary course of trading over the next 12 months. The exact amount and timing of the buyback will be dependent on market conditions, volumes, and other relevant factors. The company has also the right to suspend without notice or terminate the buyback program at any time. In respect of dividends, it is the company's present intention to declare an interim dividend for FY 2026 in November 2025. As the company should have franking credits available, at least some of them available at that time, it is anticipated the dividend will be fully franked. Thereafter, the board's intention is to maximize the distribution of franking credits to shareholders through the payment of dividends. Governance.
I'm delighted by the performance of the company's management team under the guidance of Katrina Barry as CEO and Managing Director and Layton Shannos as our Chief Financial Officer. Both the continuing members and the new additions to the executive team within the company's B2C businesses have enthusiastically embraced the new strategy. In the annual report, I signaled the intention to add one or two new directors in coming months to expand the board's skills and expertise. In that context, the appointment to the board of John Boris has added significantly to the skill set, knowledge, and industry experience of the board and placed it on a better footing to address the existing challenges of the B2C businesses and support the Managing Director's plans to build those businesses. The current intent is to add a further new director within the next three to six months.
I'd also like to acknowledge the contribution of the company and for many years prior to that as a member of the Webjet board limited of our recently retired director, Brad Holman. Sustainability. We recognize sustainability is important to our stakeholders. We are continuing to deliver sustainability reporting under the new company structure, building on the work done prior to the demerger. We're also starting on preparation of a new mandatory climate-related financial reporting. In closing, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the entire Webjet Group executive team for their efforts in steering the company through the first 11 months post the demerger. Establishing themselves as a new team, setting the standards within the company, and starting delivery on the growth strategy to FY 2030 has not been an easy task.
I'd also like to thank my fellow directors for their hard work supporting the team and all Webjet Group staff for their enthusiasm and energy as we embark on an exciting new chapter. Thank you also to all shareholders for your support. While it will take some time to deliver on the key strategic initiatives announced earlier this year, the Board and management team have high conviction on the ultimate success of the strategy to drive real growth. Thank you. With that, I will now move to introduce Katrina, who will provide her presentation to all shareholders on the company results for FY 2030 and outlook. Thanks, Katrina.
Thanks, Don. Hello, everybody. Great to see you this afternoon. Thanks for your time, especially to those joining online. Firstly, I'll recap our full year FY 2025 results from when we presented them in May. We were very pleased to deliver a solid result for the year, in line with what we stated would be our FY 2024. This is despite a very challenging customer environment. We think this is a very good outcome in this market. I really think it reflects the dedication of our team and our ability to stay focused while navigating significant change. The key numbers are up here for you on the slides and hopefully on screen for you. EBITDA of $39.4 million for FY 2025, cash at balance as of 31st of March, $118 million. On a divisional basis, Webjet OTA delivered $51.6 million EBITDA.
Our cars and motorhome business, just to remind everybody, formerly called GoSee, consists of our consumer and affiliate brands, Airport Rentals and Motorhome Republic, the second and third of our marketplaces. They reported an EBITDA of $1.6 million. Proud to say that was up from [200] from the first half. That's really due to the hard work by that team down there and the restructuring we drove down that business last year. On to the next slide, please, Malcolm. Thank you. You've got the key metrics here. I think despite the headwinds, I was really pleased with where the bookings and TTV landed. As you can see there, for FY 2025, bookings were 1.5 million across the group. TTV was $1.5 billion. Revenue was $139.7 million. Underlying EBITDA was $39.4 million. As you can see, they're really holding up those margins. Let's jump in now to the respective businesses.
Next page, please. Let's have a look at the core results for the OTA standalone business on page 11. Here you can see for OTA, 1.3 million bookings for the year. That flows through to a slightly lower TTV compared to FY 2024 at $1.3 billion. I think the key takeaway to pay attention to here for OTA is our revenue optimization initiatives. It's that real focus on international bookings and selling those higher margin products and the ancillary products. What we call our would-you-like-fries-with-that strategy, adding on to our flights. This is helping offset the subdued domestic booking environment. That delivered for us revenue of $119.9 million there, and EBITDA of $51.6 million. Really strong margins there. Moving on now to page 12, I think this really gives you the best visuals to say you can see how our progress is going. The first key thing there is international flights.
This is a stated target focus for us. As capacity has come into the market for international, this has provided good downward price pressure, opposite to domestic. We've been focused on capturing that. With our Webjet, our new Webjet member program delivering really attractive member offers, that's driven strong engagement and strong sales. Taking an industry leadership role, we're one of the very first to lead out with NDC, with international airlines and domestic. This has given us a competitive edge with offering often differentiated content and a pricing advantage. Obviously, there's our own AI-driven technology, Trip Ninja. This is applied across all our multi-stop searches now. We've only really just begun utilizing that to our full advantage. The next piece in the middle of the chart you can see there is air and non-air ancillaries are really helping diversify our revenue streams.
This is critical given the concentration of our business. When I say air, I mean selling the bundle of rides plus the bag and the seat. Non-air is capturing the full travel wallet, so adding on the hotel, the car, the insurance. You can see here we're really diversifying our business and mitigating the risk of our historically only one revenue stream, which would come from selling airline tickets and airline commission. In FY 2025 alone, you know we launched paid seats for up to 18 airlines. That was up from the zero airlines that we offered that for in FY 2024. I'll update later on the incredible progress made by the team in the last three months only. Non-air ancillary revenue now makes up 34% of our total revenues. We expect that to continue to grow as we focus on our FY 2030 strategic plan.
All of this results in our higher revenue per booking, up an impressive percentage of 7% over FY 2024. Yes, the market is soft, and it was for FY 2025. The lift reflects, I think, our focus on optimizing revenue and the higher margin products to try to capture the whole of the travel wallet. Moving on now to the next slide, and we'll jump straight to 14. Let's look at the key figures for our cars and motorhomes business, which, as I said, consists of those two marketplaces, Airport Rentals and Motorhome Republic. The key figures here, 278,000 bookings, $191 million in terms of TTV. Revenue is in line with TTV at $19.5 million. You can see there's some stable margins there. I mentioned earlier, the key focus is after the restructuring, simplification, and automation for our New Zealand-based businesses, being Airport Rentals and Motorhome Republic.
We're pleased to see that starting to come through. This is a huge gain for the business. Next slide, please. Here you can see in terms of what's going on with cars and motorhome. As I said, we took this deep dive and we really identified the key opportunities to streamline and automate. That's only possible to take cost out when you do that well. We've also enhanced our leadership there with both a new CEO, GM, and CFO. This business is in a really good place now. The focus for this business now is on achieving, I guess, top-line growth, continuing on their simplification automation journey and their AI plan. Really focusing on top-line growth is what we're looking at for this business unit this year. You can see there the other key achievements, obviously brand refresh. We did that late last year for their business.
G rowth of the affiliate and supply networks. What always surprises my shareholders when I explain it is that over 50% of the revenue for both Airport Rentals and Motorhome Republic comes from affiliates. That's where we use scale to our advantage and we white label our product. We had 25 new affiliates onboarded for FY 2025. Of course, there was plenty of product enhancements as there always is. If that's the two sort of core units, I'll turn now to our FY 2030 strategic plan, which from the picture you can see hopefully goes off like a rocket. Just to remind everyone, we really did some deep, deep hard work at the end of calendar year 2024. Sorry, calendar year 2024. We brought that together and took that to market in March this year. We also recapped it in May.
Really all I think we're focused on here is there is a huge addressable market here, $103 billion at 2024 count of TTV in this market across travel products, if you will, for just Australia and New Zealand. That market is huge. If you believe, Aussies and Kiwis are continuing to travel. That is continuing to grow. The rigorous review we took on that, we took the opportunity to be very clear-eyed and objective and understand what is the market opportunity for us. It remains highly compelling. We're very well positioned to capture it. It is a bold new chapter for Webjet Group. As shareholders, you have every right to feel extremely excited about it. With this large TAM, we now have our plan, and that is a robust plan to deliver TTV to double it in five years.
The key thing here to remember is our TTV of $1.5 billion is really only driven from one category, and that's flights, and domestic at that, given 80% of our bookings are domestic. We've really been focused on realizing the opportunity that the demerger has brought us, and that's to take an excellent business that delivers really well and give it the investment that it deserves. We've got a dedicated team now, a dedicated board, and a singular mission. That robust plan is setting the stage for us to really take this business, I think we're cracking on quite a few years now, but take it on to the very next level. How we summarize that and how we're focused as a team, next slide, please, is our strategy on a page.
I've mentioned a couple of times now, we're going to keep coming back to this because this is how we measure success. We have a very clear vision and a very clear mission. As part of that, four clear priorities. You've seen this a few times now, shareholders, so hopefully you've got it penned up on your wall as well. The key things about this is this is an imminently sensible strategy. Nothing here is crazy. This is what is required to take this business to the next level and to deliver significant long-term value. Next page, please. If I was to summarize that strategy down, though, there's four things that are going to really drive value. That's expanding our share of international flights.
We have been the domain of domestic, and given where tech has gone, where AI is going, we think there's a real strong right for us to win in this space and to take a greater share of that. Doing those complex international flights that Aussies and Kiwis love so much is now possible with AI and the tech that we've embedded into our platform. Expanding our international flights, expanding our hotels and packages, really capturing that full travel wallet, a tailored business travel offering, I'll come back to that. Of course, underpinning all of this is the strength around brand, making sure we are fresh, contemporary, and relevant, and obviously, loyalty. We see that as the glue that brings us together and creates a competitive moat for us over the long period. Next slide, please. Really excited. We were thrilled to announce our acquisition of Locomote recently.
As Don said, we've been looking at this for a long time. This is actually the first opportunity I've had to talk about this on a broader stage. I'll just take a moment here to walk through the strategic rationale and why we've been thinking about this and how we've landed on this. You can see there on the slide, the Australian business travel market is substantial. That is a strong known. The TTV of $22 billion in 2024 and a healthy CAGR of 6% projected. This really is a significant addressable market. We have a clear right to play in this space. We don't have to win it, but we have a clear right to play. Now, why? Because we already do this. We serve business travelers, although in an unstructured way. Here's the rub.
We tend to lose them as their needs become more complex or their finance teams become more demanding. As part of our strategic review, we really did create quite an in-depth analysis of our business travelers to understand who are they, why are they booking with Webjet, what do they need, what are we not delivering, why do we lose them. The results were very clear. Many business travelers choose Webjet, not because we market to them and not because we're designed to help them solve their business travel needs, but because of the strength of our existing proposition. Not because of the way Webjet is, but because we are digitally led, because we're really cost-effective, super transparent, and we've got a brand that you can trust. We've got a hole in that bucket, and we're going to fill that hole with the smartest, most sensible way possible.
If you turn to the fundamentals of TMC land or business travel, you know this has historically been very high-touch, very expensive, very manual, and very people-led. We think there's some structural problems in that world. That is because today's small businesses, medium businesses, and even big ones, they want transparency and they want immediacy. They certainly don't want to talk to anyone. That is why we see the future of business travel as tech business. Now, businesses, particularly SMEs who contribute 65% of that total business travel spend, have told us that they want an online-led solution that meets their needs without the high costs, the rigid contracts, and it's got to be tailored for Australia and New Zealand. We had a really long and detailed way to look at how do we, what's the smartest way to fill that hole?
The team got very bored when I talk about the four Bs. Do we build it, buy it, borrow it, or do we bot it? This is why Locomote makes so much strategic sense for us. You can see there the key strategic benefits on the right-hand side of the page. I'm going to keep that simple. For us, this is faster, cheaper, better, and smarter. Faster, we get a digital business OTA now, and we get it for cheaper than it would have been to build it in-house. We get to avoid a couple of years behind the market and the risk of the development execution risk. Better, this sector is going online. Locomote is purpose-built around this, and it's been purposely rebuilt around this for the last two years.
This is a more transparent and cost-effective model, and clearly it's meeting the needs of their customers because they've seen significant TTV growth since their reset two years ago from a very low base to the $70 million of TTV that it is today. Lastly, it's smarter. We've got a few people who are very strong in business travel and the business, but now we have 30. That allows us to avoid distraction of the rest of our team. We really want our tech teams focused on that air and ancillaries engine. By bolting this onto ourselves, we get the benefit of the synergies, we get the benefit of the optimization, but we also allow focus. The foundation is now in place. If you want any more information, please see our press release from earlier in the month.
We now have a very clear path to scale this opportunity and unlock a high margin and high growth revenue stream for Webjet shareholders. In addition, it mitigates risk. It really diversifies our revenue and opens up a new TAM. Next page, please. I think the next thing that the team are pretty excited about is we are soon to reveal our new look and feel and marketing for the OTA brand. As a reminder for shareholders, we undertook significant brand research for over 3,500 Australians. We got the detail of the last three trips. Where did they buy? How did they buy? How long did they think about buying? How did they pay for that? Who did they buy it off? How many providers did they buy that off?
We have a significantly detailed and robust insight set that led us to drive the refresh of our brand and also our marketing. We know that a huge portion of our bookings are driven by brand, the brand that we've built across the last 27, 28 years. We know that it's time to refresh that and to invest in that. We want to be fresh and contemporary and relevant. It's coming soon. All right, next page, please. OK, let's look ahead. We'll go straight on to slide 23. Firstly, we only met and spoke to shareholders just three months ago. I'm really pleased with the progress that's been made and kick-off to this financial year. As you can see from the slide, there's been a lot of achievement. I'll take this opportunity to acknowledge our incredible team who worked extremely hard for shareholders and our customers.
I'll let you read it at your leisure, but I did always want to just pull out a few highlights for you. We've made some really key appointments and a key talent to come onto the team. Our inaugural CMO has been onboarded. As I mentioned before, we've replaced the leadership and the CFO in New Zealand. That business is in a much stronger place. The restructuring benefits for Motorhome Republic and Airport Rentals are really now starting to flow through. We've made significant strides ahead on our loyalty strategy. With our new CRM tech that goes live soon, both of these two will play together to really create that competitive moat that we're looking for around capturing those repeat bookings and bringing our customers back. We're continuing to focus on capturing more of that travel wallet, as I said, driving our revenue per booking.
Paid seats is a great example of that. We had zero airlines that we offered that opportunity for. When you're booking your bundle of rides, can you add on the seat about where I sit? We had zero for that in FY 2024. We did 12 across FY 2025. Like all these things, we get smarter. In the last three months, we've added 12 airlines. That's really pleasing to see. That grows our capture of that full travel wallet. We're rewarded handsomely for that by the airlines. We're also advancing our AI roadmap. We already use AI across a lot of the business and have done for a while. Operations, admin, marketing, and that's really to drive efficiency. Also, Trip Ninja, that's our airline pricing engine, how we'd be smarter with that. I will call out our recent press announcement of our partnerships with Microsoft and AWS that have been solidified.
We're really sort of working strongly with them. That's really in order to bring further AI smarts into the business. That's all part of our roadmap. With AWS, we're working on a sort of an internal agent bot that streamlines for our team the flight changes and the cancellation of fare access rules, really driving efficiency. Itinerary planning obviously is a great use case for AI. We're working with Microsoft on our own AI travel planner for customers. It'll also be accessible via other generative AI marketplaces to make sure that we get further reach there. More importantly for us, it's about generating that automatic e-commerce. That's where our focus is. We're partnering with externals on these pieces to bring us global intelligence here. As a business, very focused on it, but also hugely excited. That's the great progress being made.
Turning to what are we looking like for FY 2026, we are expecting the FY 2026 EBITDA to be broadly in line with FY 2025 as we are telegraphed in March and May. This is subject to no further deterioration in the marketing conditions, no more wobblies from Trump, and it also excludes the impact as we bring on board Locomote and drive those optimizations and the synergies. We expect it to be broadly in line with. It's no surprise to anyone that domestic bookings are challenged. Obviously, air is challenged, and of course, that correlates for us into cars and hotel and insurance. I think it's been very widely telegraphed this week by the industry. We are not immune. Significant geopolitical tensions have marked this year. Volatility in the U.S. and our domestic macroeconomic conditions are tough.
Also, of course, there's a concentration of supply, and we saw that in some results earlier this morning. All of these factors have meant that domestic trading is a bit softer. It's really worth keeping this in context. These conditions are cyclical and are short-term in nature, and we've responded appropriately to them. We've got levers that we can pull. This is a transition year, and this is a year about laying the foundations for us around our strategy. We hold a positive outlook for the medium term. Just looking at some of the specific figures there and giving a bit of context, specifically for OTA, international flight bookings are pleasingly 7% up year on year. There are a few years now of year on year, so we're pleased with that growth, and that is consistent with our absolute focus on that market. Domestic is down.
A key point to note here, we have consistently talked about how we over-indexed with Rex as an airline, given their entire focus on leisure and how that would loop in our figures for a year. You can see that August month to date is only 3% down, so you can see that is finally starting to come out of our figures. That is exactly as we thought it would, and we're starting to see it right itself there. For cars and motorhomes, bookings are down 7%. TTV is slightly less. Average booking value is up, and that's helping offset the soft market. Our bookings performance is exactly in line with our expectations at this point. EBITDA, we've telegraphed before, is weighted to the second half, and we expect to see further improvement in that as the cost of living pressures abate in the second half of this year.
This will be further supported with our strategic initiatives as we plan them, and certainly the brand refresh and the increased marketing investment. Onto the next page, I'll just wrap with two comments. Firstly, a big thank you to all of our shareholders and, of course, to my team. Secondly, reiterating, I think, your last point, Don. We have very high conviction in our strategy and our growth plan. We are doing the right things to drive long-term shareholder value, and my focus and my team remain firmly on executing on what is a very sensible strategy to deliver value for our customers and, of course, for our shareholders. Thank you all. Thank you online. Back to you, Don.
Thanks, Katrina. We now move to the formal part of the business as set out in the notice of meeting. The notice of annual general meeting was sent to all registered members on 30 July and is to be taken as read. Voting on all resolutions will be conducted by a poll. For the purposes of the poll, I appoint Vanessa Baghdasraf of Automic, the company's share registry, who have examined and prepared the summaries of the proxy forms received to act as returning officer and to conduct the poll. Those shareholders in attendance that are entitled to vote on the poll are all shareholder representatives and attorneys or shareholders or proxy holders who hold yellow voting cards. If you're 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 of those thereof, please raise your hand now and a member of our share registry team will assist you. At the appropriate time, I'll ask that you mark your vote for the resolution on the yellow voting card. If you are a shareholder and wish to cast all of your votes for a resolution, please place a mark in either the for, against, or abstain box next to that resolution. If you wish to split your votes, please write the number or portion of votes you wish to cast in the corresponding for, against, or 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 your voting card. If the summary of 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, or abstain boxes. If your summary of votes does not have any discretionary votes, you do not need to mark your voting card and simply need to hand it to the returning officer at the end of the resolutions. After all resolutions have been read and voted upon, please place it in one of the ballot boxes, which will be circulated towards the end of the meeting. Proxies have been inspected and all those validly lodged have been accepted.
All undirected proxies or open votes that have nominated the Chair of the meeting as their proxy will be voted in favor of each resolution set out in the notice of meeting. I'll now move to the financial statements and the reports. The first item of business is to receive the company's annual report for the year ended 31 March 2025. The financial report and the reports of the directors and auditors are now laid before the meeting. There will be no vote on this item, and it is for discussion only. The company's auditor for the financial year 2025-2026, [Annika de Thooijt], if I've got the rank correct, of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, is present to take questions relevant to the conduct of the audit and the preparation and the content of the independent auditor's report.
Are there any questions or comments from people in the room or online on the financial report or the conduct of the audit or on the Chair address, the Group CEO presentation, or any questions on the business in general? Sir.
Thank you, Chair. My name is Daniel Weiss, representing Portfolio Services Proprietary Limited, with 5% of the issued capital. On any objective assessment, the company has excess capital. We therefore sought the return of that capital to shareholders, leaving sufficient funds for the company to execute on running and fixing the current businesses without the temptation to engage in distracting M&A activity. Chair, may I ask, what is the hurdle rate for acquisitions, and how does buying a loss-making business at a premium possibly meet this? This is one of the reasons why we have been urging a disciplined $100 million capital return and not M&A distractions. We're concerned that buying TTV at a premium is not a strategy and seems to be financial engineering and potentially value destruction. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for your question. There are several parts to the question and therefore several parts to the answer. If I don't cover all parts, please remind me. We don't have any specific hurdle. Obviously, we have a range of things that we look at. Quite clearly from the Locomote transaction, there are a number of elements of that transaction which Katrina has explained are attractive to us and reasons why we actually undertook that transaction. I don't think I want to comment any further about that because we've clearly been covered. In terms of capital management generally, we've made our views clear on that. We've announced what we intend to do. I don't think you really need to make any further comment. Yes, sir.
Thank you. Henry Stevens from the Australian Shareholders' Association.
I remember you well from past meetings.
Yes, thank you, Don. In February 2025, the ACC imposed a penalty of $9 million on the company for issues relating to the company's booking confirmations process and the historical disclosure of fees. This penalty fee is equal to almost 80% of Webjet 's profit before tax. I'm wondering how an issue like this failed to be identified by the board's risk committee and why no proper procedures were put in place to mitigate the risks to the company.
All right. The answer to that is reasonably simple. There were several different elements to the ACCC claim. One of them related to social media, where we failed to include certain disclaimers and fee disclosures in the social media posts. That was a complete oversight on the part of the persons involved in it. It should have happened. It didn't happen. We clearly had an issue in that context. There were three other elements to the claim. I think, you know, arguably, we had reasonable basis for defending the actions. They relate to historic matters. I think in many ways, the simplest solution was to, in fact, negotiate an outcome and move on. That's exactly what we did. We clearly had an issue with the social media posts, a very minor issue in the context of the business. It should have happened. It didn't.
I think, you know, really not much further to say in relation to that particular matter other than it was a negotiated outcome, which takes the issue off the table, deals with it, and moves on. Most of the other issues raised by the ACCC, we had already addressed. We've certainly made various changes to the way in which we disclose things and the way in which we present our images on the screen to address any concerns that they had.
What is the status of the $9 million?
It's been paid.
It's been paid, has it?
Correct. Yes, it's been. There was a court-approved settlement in end of July, and the sum has been paid.
OK, thanks. One last question. Who is behind the BGH takeover proposal? What was their strategy for the company? What did your financial advisors value the company at? Because you rejected the $0.80.
I suspect there's someone from BGH sitting in the room. I think certain elements of that as to what's behind their strategy, ask them. That's not a matter for me to comment on. They put one proposal to us in a non-binding indicative offer in May. We rejected it. The basis upon which we rejected is clearly stated in our announcement to the ASX on about the 15th or 16th of May, if I've got the date correct. There's been no further proposal received from them. Do we speak to them as a shareholder? Yes.
Anyone else wish to ask questions? Sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon. Andrew Burnes, CEO of Hellow orld Travel. We hold 17% of the stock in the company. I just wanted to ask about Locomote. I think it's fairly well known across the industry that Locomote was acquired by the current vendors for what we understand to be a dollar. They purchased it off Travelport. I'm intrigued as to how the valuation to arrive at $17 million was undertaken and when you think you might actually get a positive return on that.
That's right. I think the simplest explanation for it is that the $1 transaction with Travelport, yes, that did occur. The business is substantially different. Technology is far further advanced than it was then. The business is in a far better position now than it ever was. There are other factors, as has been explained by Katrina in her presentations, to why we bought it. It enables us to enter that market three years quicker.
It is a set of circumstances where if we had built the software necessary to provide the technical platform to be able to do what that business is now capable of doing, it was going to take us a two to three-year period with no certainty that we were going to get to the result that we needed to get to and added costs, which was at least similar to what we paid to acquire it. Acquiring it gives us a three-year head start. Anyone else wish to ask a question? Anything online current?
Yep. We do have a couple of questions from Stephen Main. I'll go with the first one. Whose idea was it to slip the old 100 signatures requirement for external board candidates into your constitution at Rule 10.10 when demerged by the much larger Webjet Group in October 2024? Which law firm advised in the demerger, and will the Chair undertake to look into this issue and move to normalize our constitution with an amendment at next year's AGM, which removes this unreasonable barrier to entry for candidates who wish to challenge for a position on the board?
I have absolutely no idea that the first part of the question as to how that originated. Yes, I'll have a look at it. Whether it will be changed will be a matter of discussion at board level at some appropriate stage within the near future.
Thank you. Second question is a bit long. We'll try doing it in two parts. Part one is the annual report states that as of May 1st, our only substantial shareholders were Mitsubishi UFJ with 10.46%, ME Financial with 7.1%, Perpetual with 6.32%, CBA with 5%, and KKR Entity Comet with 5%. They've all since ceased being substantial shareholders besides ME Financial, which has moved to 9.3%. Since then, rival Hellow orld has emerged with 17%, and the Dream World, Movie World, Sea World coalition has a combined 15%. Why is this happening? What are the implications? Do you know if ME Financial is associated with any other party?
Quite frankly, go and ask the shareholders. It's a matter for them as to whether they wish to or don't wish to hold their shares in the company. I've got no other comment to make in relation to it.
Part two is also, will you undertake to publish an updated top 20 beneficial owners list to the ASX so that the 37,161 retail shareholders can have a better understanding of the comings and goings at the top of the register, particularly as to whether the former substantial holders have just sold down or completely sold out? Many other listed companies publish updated top 20s as share registers change in order to have a fully informed market.
The simple answer to that is, every substantial shareholder that changes by more than 1% up or down must lodge a notice. If they go below 5%, they lodge a final notice. If the shareholder or the person wishes to track the substantial shareholding notices lodged with ASX, they'll have their answer. Is it sensible for us to publish a top 20 from time to time? Yes, and we'll have a look at doing so.
Great. Thank you. That's all online.
In that case, I shall move on with the rest of the meeting. Now to proceed to the resolutions set out in the notice of meeting. The first resolution is to seek shareholder approval to adopt the remuneration report for the year ended 31 March 2025, as set out in the notice of meeting. I will now take questions in relation to this resolution from those in attendance or online. Are there any questions on? Yes, Daniel.
Thank you, Chair. I have a question about the proposed remuneration framework changes. Can the board explain why they removed the relative total shareholder return metric, which is the gold standard for aligning executive pay with shareholder returns, and replaced it with a TTV metric, which incentivized potentially growth at any cost? Relevantly, the Locomote acquisition demonstrates this concern, paying $17 million for a loss-making business, which looks like it's purely boosting TTV at this stage. How does paying executives for such outcomes align with shareholder interests? Furthermore, just why underlying EPS, which is inherently manipulable, shouldn't shareholders expect actual performance measured by statutory EPS rather than management's adjusted version?
The first one is TTV as against TSR. I accept the point made, TSR is a perfectly acceptable and frequently used benchmark. TTV is less common, but it is also used, and there are other travel companies who do use that same benchmark. The very reason we, and we've used TSR in the past, in fact, the previous year. We may well use it in the future. The key to it for this year for us is it aligns far more closely with our strategic plan, which is to grow our TTV. We believe there's at least a reasonable balance between TTV and earnings by having an EPS benchmark as well. They're both equally weighted.
There is also discretion within the arrangements to adjust things if, in fact, there's some action taken which moves TTV in a way which is not the most sensible, practical, bearing in mind the strategic objectives of the company. We're more than comfortable with TTV EPS for this year. Will it be the same next year? That remains to be decided. We will clearly, at some point in time in the future, go back to a total shareholder return benchmark because it is, I think, probably the most practical benchmark to use within the context of most companies. On the second part in relation to Locomote, Locomote was done for very strategic reasons. It is not about straight-out TTV growth. There are far greater reasons. It is absolutely central to one of the planks of our strategic plan, which is to enter into the corporate travel market in a way.
This enables us to do it much quicker without the same level of risk as if we had built the software ourselves. It's not a straight growth -for- growth's sake issue. Does that answer your question? Are there any other parts I haven't answered? Underlying is reasonably straightforward. In the sense, it's very commonly used. It eliminates all sorts of odd things like, you know, for instance, in this case, the ACCC fine will be below the line. It's a much more sensible thing to do because it takes extraordinary items out. From our point of view, it's a more sensible thing. It's more straightforward. It's easy to actually reflect the actual performance of the company. Anyone else with questions on the REM report? Yes, sir. Henry.
Yes, the ASA just wants to say that we support what the previous person said. We're very strongly in favor of TSR. I'm hoping that this TTV will only be in place for one year, and you'll revert back to TSR in the following year. That's all I wanted to say.
There's no guarantee that that will happen, but we will at least have a look at it.
Anyone else with any questions? Anyone online? Questions on?
Yes, we do have another question from Stephen Main as well. Two parts. First part is the director fee cap at Webjet before the demerger was $1.5 million. Why have we come up with a constitution starting with a $2 million director fee cap when our market cap is only $345 million? That's part one.
Very simple reason for that is that it means that we'll probably never have to change the cap in any way, shape, or form by coming back to the shareholder for a formal approval. I don't think there's any suggestion from any shareholder that any of the fees paid to our directors, which are assessed on an annual basis, including by use through external advisors, are unreasonable.
Second part is also, thank you for disclosing the proxies earlier to the ASX. On this remuneration report item, there were 22.7 million directed proxies or 10.73% against, but there are 64.3 million open proxies, presumably sitting in the room today, which could trigger a remuneration strike from the floor in the poll. Which of the strategic corporate players are sitting in the room with open proxies? What does the Chair believe their game plan is?
Let me hazard a real guess at who they might be. I have absolute certainty about who they are. If they wish to hold their proxies as discretionary and vote on the day, good luck to them. I hope they do vote for the resolution. I have no idea how they intend to vote. I'll make no further comment about it.
Thank you. On that basis, there being no further questions, I'll now direct you to the slide displaying, which outlines the proxies received in respect of this resolution. It presumably notes the open undirected proxies. Yes, it does. I also draw your attention to the voting exclusion statement for this resolution detailed in the notice of meeting. I'll move on to resolution two, the election of Ellen Comerford as a Non-Executive Director. The next item of business is for that election. I will now hand over to Ellen to say a few words in support of her election.
Thanks, Don. Actually, it's Ellie. I was christened Ellen, but I get that when I'm in trouble with my parents. I don't think Don's ever called me Ellen before either, but it is my legal name.
It's in my sheet.
Ellie Comerford, I'm sitting here today seeking your endorsement for the election to the board of Webjet Group as an Independent Non-Executive director, having taken on that role since the demerger date on the 1st of October 2024, 11 months ago. I've been chair of the audit and risk committee since the 22nd of October 2024. A bit of background on me, more than is written in the NOM, I've been in the workforce for now approximately four decades, probably more. I bring and leverage to the board 25 years of C-suite experience across a range of roles and a range of functions that cover strategy, transformation, e-commerce, product, finance, capital markets, and operations, all largely in financial services companies, banking, and insurance, and associated services. Mostly, all of it has been in Australia, but a lot of those roles really had global aspects and global experiences.
From all of those executive roles, which I've now completed, I have a demonstrated track record in terms of achieving purpose-led strategic growth and transformation, underpinned by importantly adaptive and strong, diverse, and inclusive cultures, supported by foundational governance frameworks. I have a priority focus on meeting shareholder expectations. I've been a Non-Executive Director continuously since 2016 in regulated environments. I have and do chair board audit and risk committees for several companies. Over the years, I've gained both executive and non-executive, so both sides of the table, experience in a range of restructures, IPOs, mergers, demergers, transformations, of the like, IPOs as well. Since 2022, I have been in governance roles for digital branded platform businesses, I think, which is really pertinent to Webjet. I'm the chair of Lendi Group, which is the leading digital retail mortgage broker in Australia. They merged with Aussie Home Loans, a well-known brand.
I chair the audit and risk committee for Airtasker which is a service, a digital services platform that's in Australia and global. While I don't have direct travel experience, I don't have experience in the travel sector, I am able to leverage the experiences in those businesses across into Webjet. I'd also add that I'm an avid traveler, and as a user of the Webjet platform, I feel I bring a voice of customer to the board. Working with my fellow board members, and welcome, John, and the management team over the last 11 months has been a very rewarding experience. It's been incredibly busy. The Webjet brand is most definitely something that I believe is an asset that we are asked to leverage. I'm very encouraged by the depth of the customer base, and I'm really excited about the opportunity and rewards that can be brought to bear by executing on our strategic vision.
Lastly, I strongly believe and support management. I take the role of NED and governance and everything that comes with that very, very seriously. It requires a high level of diligence, continuous effort. It isn't set and forget, and we have, it's even in between meetings, and we have many meetings. A lot of interaction, a lot of application, a lot of surveillance to achieve good governance. I've got a really strong work ethic, and over the last 11 months, I've worked extremely hard and, if elected, will continue to work hard to make sure I'm dedicating the time required for this role. The opportunity to serve as a NED for the Webjet Group, it does really play to my passion. I love bringing my experience and hard work to actually helping companies that have a strategic transformation proposition in order to deliver superior performance, superior value creation for shareholders.
I appreciate your consideration of my nomination today. Thank you.
Thanks, Ellie. I would just like to add that before I ask for questions, that Ellie has done an absolutely fantastic job as the Head of our Board Audit and Risk Committee, both in starting a new company from scratch, or that we had a couple of months before the demerger took place, has been a real challenge. There have been huge amounts of work involved in putting systems, compliance arrangements, et cetera, into place, and Ellie has done an unbelievably good job as the Head of that committee. Thank you. It is truly appreciated. Are there any questions in relation to that? Yes, sir.
Ellie, could you give us a couple of examples of where you've made a major transformation in some of your previous roles that you've played? The second question is, what changes have you brought to the company, to their Risk and Audit Committee to take into account that we don't get fined again from the ACCC? What changes have you made in response to that $9 million penalty?
Thanks for the question. I'll take the second one first, if that's all right, because it's topical and is something that I live and breathe daily. Did I know about the situation when I did my due diligence for Webjet Group? I did, but I didn't shy away from that role. Under, I believe, the guidance of the board that met with me as Chair, we've put rigorous frameworks in place. We've reviewed and updated our risk management framework. We have a compliance framework. We've got an up-to-date ACL compliance policy. We're deep diving to make sure that those controls are not only working, but they're effective across the board.
We have a simple sort of a group from management across the board who are making sure that we've got a very rigorous program that we're ticking off, not only because we actually have court orders that we want to comply with, because that's important, but actually because it's the right thing to do for this business to continue to build the foundation so that we can achieve the five-year vision. I would say that people here know that I beat that drum, and I would say that in our meetings, we dive deep to make sure that there's nothing that we can leave unturned. It's taken a while to do that, to make sure that out of the starting gate that we just assemble everything, because we've had to, as John said, coming out from and being demerged.
I feel that sitting here today, that we're in a very good space in terms of being able to do that and also having the matter settled in terms of what that program of work is going to be. On the first one, you better cut me off because I was told to keep it short, but I mainly worked in banking to start with for the first 20 years. I had the privilege and the opportunity, and it ended up being a privilege to actually run the task force in Australia for the merger of Citi and Travelers. It's a long time ago, guys, but there were six businesses in Australia that were all sort of separate vertically under that so-called merger.
It was bringing that together and transforming it, cross-leveraging and looking for that ubiquitous word cross-sell, but it required not just front office and not just looking at revenue line. It actually required looking right through mid-office, back-office in terms of bringing those synergies together. That was a five-year experience. I joined a company then, it's First American Financial. It's listed on my CV. Through that, not only transformed and turned around a very small regulated specialized insurance company and reporting to APRA very regularly at that time, but not only did that, I went on to be the COO for their international operations, first based in Australia, then based in California. That required we were in 17 different jurisdictions, and that was the only part of the business during the GFC for that company, the international side that actually continued to make profit.
It required bringing together in the same sort of thing, transforming it. I then joined Genworth, which is now called Heliar, and that business, if you can believe it, at that time was successful, well-penetrated, great market share, but they were still doing faxes and retyping faxes in the year 2011. That transformation required a complete overhaul of not only systems, but data and everything that went with that, and actually a persuasiveness in dealing with partners to get them to cooperate so that we could drive the efficiencies, which I did. We took that business to IPO in 2014. I think that's enough, actually.
Thanks. Are there any other questions from the floor in relation to Ellie's election? No? Online?
Sure do. Another question from Stephen Main. It's great that Ellie's up for election today, but why didn't Chair Don Clarke put himself up for election as well to seek the earliest possible mandate after the controversial decision by the old Webjet Board to put him up to chair this company, even though he already served on the Webjet Board since 2008? Did this demerger partly happen because Don didn't want to be tenure limited out of the Webjet Board? Will Don undertake to put himself up for election at next year's AGM?
I'll make two comments about that. One, my election last time was not controversial. It was supported by 98%- 99% of the shareholder vote. Every proxy advisor supported it. There's really nothing else to say in relation to that. To suggest that the demerger only happened because I didn't want to face election, I didn't realize I had that much influence on anything. Thank you for the question.
Thank you.
Any other online questions? All right. In that case, there've been no further questions. I direct you to the slide which outlines the proxies received in respect of this resolution. Moving on to resolution three. The next item of business is the election of a director, Mr. John Boris. I will now hand over to John to say a few words in support of his election.
Thank you.
Make sure I've got John right this time.
You can call me Ellie, actually. That's what I go by. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm excited to be here. My name is John Boris, and I'm honored to be seeking your support for the election of Independent Non-Executive Director of the Webjet Group. I'm going to give a little bit of a whistle-stop tour as to who I am. With over 25 years of global experience in executive roles, I have a proven track record of profitable growth, building market-leading brands, creating great corporate cultures, and driving shareholder value. My career spans across multiple industries, but really my deep focus is on travel and hospitality and e-commerce and marketplaces. Those are areas that I'm deeply knowledgeable and also incredibly passionate about. I've had the privilege of spending over half my career in travel, and once you get travel in your bones, it's hard to get it out.
I love it. I've held prominent executive positions at great companies. Most recently, I was Senior Vice President and Chief Growth Officer of TripAdvisor, which is the world's leading travel guidance platform, over 300 million MAUs. It was there that I oversaw our global marketing, sales, and data analytics teams and helped drive over about $1.5 billion of revenue for the company. They're publicly traded on the NASDAQ. Prior to that, I was CEO and board member of If Only, which is an experience marketplace based out of the U.S., where we specialized in creating unique kind of once-in-a-lifetime experiences. That was a phenomenal journey there. I came in as CEO and helped transform that company from a consumer-oriented brand to diversifying its revenue streams to include B2B. That led to record revenue and EBITDA growth, which ultimately culminated with MasterCard acquiring the company in 2019.
I've also spent time as EVP and Managing Director of Lonely Planet, where I oversaw Lonely Planet Americas, just down the road here, managed that P&L, oversaw our global corporate sales division and mobile product development. During this time, I'm thrilled to say that we evolved into the number one leading travel publisher in the world, and that was really fueled by the growth in the U.S., which went from the number three, number four player for the better part of several decades to number one. Additionally, I've held executive roles at other public and privately held companies, primarily U.S.-based, in the e-commerce and marketplace space, Shutterfly, where I was CMO. I helped grow that company fourfold to $2 billion over a five-year span. That was publicly traded. It was since acquired by Apollo Global Management. I had held other roles at 1-800-Flowers and FreshDirect.
I currently serve as the Executive Chairman for Cranky Health, one of Australia's leading health and nutrition companies. I'm also an independent board member for Feastables Inc., which is the fastest growing chocolate company in the world, founded by Jimmy Donaldson, also known as Mr. Beast. I'm currently an acting president of Big Red Group, which owns and operates leading consumer and B2B experience marketplaces and platforms in Australia and New Zealand. Having spent much of my career in travel, I've long admired Webjet from afar, from a global perspective, saying, who is this company? I really have admired it. The reasons I've been drawn to it are it has an incredibly strong brand, a loyal customer base, and consistent performance. The opportunity to serve as an Independent Non-Executive Director for Webjet is an incredibly exciting opportunity for me as it really perfectly aligns my experience and my passions.
When you get that perfect alchemy, it really is exciting. The company's vision to become the first choice for Australasians to book travel is commendable. I firmly believe that with Webjet's robust foundations, including its category-leading brand, strong product-market fit, consistent historical performance, dedicated team, coupled with the company's five-year strategic plan, we can unlock tremendous value for all of its stakeholders. Lastly, after getting to know the management team and my fellow board members, I'm even more convinced of the tremendous potential that lies ahead for Webjet. I'm eager to contribute to its continued success and, most importantly, excited about the value we can drive for shareholders. I deeply appreciate your trust and support, and I look forward to hopefully working together. Thank you.
Thanks, John. In relation to John, when we went out to identify one or two new directors for this board, we went out with a very specific brief to our executive search company, all about digital expertise, about marketing, about e-commerce, about transformation. I am absolutely delighted that we've actually been able to identify someone of John's ilk with his experience and background. I think he'll be a huge asset to this board and bring skills which, despite the fact that we are, I think, a very capable and competent board, we needed more skills in the areas in which he's brought. I think that it will be a great asset. I'm delighted to be able to ask if there are any questions in relation to John's appointment. Yes, Henry.
Very simple question. You've got such a broad and very good accent. I'm not sure if you reside in Australia or do you live in the United States?
I reside in Australia, in Sydney, married to an Aussie, four kids who are duals. I'm sucked in. I'm here for a long time.
Thank you. Are there any other questions from the floor? No, in that case, any questions from online?
Yes, we do have one, also from Stephen Main. John Boris didn't have to round up signatures from 100 shareholders to get himself onto this board. Will John undertake to investigate removal of clause 10.10 from our Constitution, which was slipped into our Constitution through the demerger process, even though no such provision existed in the old Webjet Constitution? These sorts of board entrenchment provisions, which impose barriers to entry for challenging candidates, should not be supported. When other companies like Lendlease and Toll Holdings have attempted to introduce these sorts of provisions in the past, they have been voted down by shareholders.
Thank you for your comment. I'd made comment about it previously. I don't intend to make any further response in relation to that. Are there any other questions? In that case, we'll move on. If there have been no further questions, I'll direct you to the slide displayed, which outlines the proxies received in respect of this resolution. I will now move on to resolution four, the appointment of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu as the auditor of the company. The resolution should be displayed, which it is. I'll now take any questions from the floor or online in relation to that particular resolution. Are there any? Yes, Henry.
Do you believe there should be disclosure in the annual report how long both the audit organizations [audio distortion].
The date of the last competitive audit tender, I'm unable to find this information in the annual report or the corporate governance report. Can you please undertake to make sure this information is clearly disclosed in the annual report next year? I can answer that at least in part, in the sense that we're a brand new company. We've only been in existence since July last year. This is the first time. Our audit partner has only been in place since July last year, basically. Was there a tender process that went through? We'd go through that process at that time. The answer is yes. Will we do that again at some stage in the future? Yes. Are we conscious of our audit fees and audit arrangements every year? Yes. I'm not sure that you need any other answer than that.
When you put that statement in the annual report next year, actually, you're not going to publish them.
We're happy to do whatever we need to do, but I'm not quite sure what you actually want us to publish apart from the fact that Deloitte's our auditors, the fees are published. Obviously, if we make a decision to go out to re-tender, that will be a decision made by the board, which won't be published until we make some decision about what we intend to do. Are there any other questions? No, in that case, again, the proxy voting in relation to that particular resolution is displayed on the screen. I'll move on to resolution five. The next item of business is approval of the grant of rights to the Group CEO and Managing Director, Ms. Katrina Barry, under a long-term incentive plan. I'll now take questions in relation to that and from the floor first. Yes, Daniel.
Thank you, Chair. Why are shareholders being asked to approve an LTI that allows executives to be paid even when shareholders lose money? Just query where the TSR gate is and where's the protection for shareholders, because awarding bonuses for TTV growth potentially creates a conflict with shareholder interests.
I think I've answered that question already as to why we did that. Any other questions? Any other questions online? Excellent. I'll now display the proxy votes in relation to that resolution and move on to resolution six, approval of leaving benefits. The next item of business is approval of leaving benefits. Again, I'll take any questions in relation to that. Yes, Daniel.
Chair, the question is, why should shareholders pre-approve three years of discretionary termination benefits with no meaningful caps or automatic forfeiture for underperformance? Isn't it far better governance for such payments to be approved on a case-by-case basis? If management fails to perform, why should their exit be cushioned by pre-approved generous payments funded by shareholders? What specific circumstances justify this unlimited discretion that couldn't be handled through case-by-case shareholder approval?
Several parts to that, I think. The first part, the general response is that it's far easier to do it on a three-year basis than an annual basis, firstly. Secondly, I would expect this will only apply in the case of one or two people in the short term. I don't expect it to apply in the future. One of them, in case in point, is the termination arrangements, which have been fully publicized and disclosed in relation to Katrina Barry and her 12-month termination arrangement, which applies until 1st of October next year. That is fully disclosed and has been in the demerger booklet and subsequently. I don't believe it will apply to other. There might be one other executive.
There are some unusual aspects in the sense of because of the demerger and other retention arrangements that might apply in the case of certain senior management people if they left the company over the next 12-month period. That's that. They are the only cases in which I would expect this to have any relevance to or any need for us to come back and consider what might happen under that particular provision of the Corporations Code, which restricts payment of termination benefits. I think you made the comment about an unlimited sort of payout in the context of someone leaving. That is a complete assumption because that's not what's going to happen. Most of these arrangements are specifically contractually agreed arrangements, which the company obviously must comply with its contractual obligations.
As I said, it will only apply to two or three people at most over the next short period of time. Thereafter, all of the LTIs and STI arrangements are not action or not, yeah, action as a result of termination. That termination will not automatically result in payment of benefits under those arrangements. Are there any other questions? Yes.
I must admit I was quite perplexed why you've got this resolution up. I thought that surely under Australian employment law, all of the benefits that you want to pay employees, you already have that right. Why are you coming here to ask our permission? Secondly.
Do you want me to answer that part first?
Oh, no, just give me the question.
The answer to that is really simple. It's a section of the Corporations Act, which actually prevents you from making payments in excess of the limit set out in the Act itself. In this case, it's effectively a 12-month cap. In the case of the way it works, if I use Katrina's situation, it's a 12-month average of the last three years. Because we hadn't been in existence for three years, it could actually end with Katrina's payment, which has all been fully disclosed, being legitimately marginally over that cap.
Okay. The other two people, you said two or three.
Yeah.
The other two people, are they directors or who are they?
They're all members of the management team.
Right. Okay. Thank you.
They're not directors. Directors don't get termination benefits. Any other questions? Anything online?
Nope.
In case I have the, again, we'll move on. The proxy votes in relation to that are on display. Now we can move to resolutions 7, 8, 9, and 10, which all relate to the non-executive director share plan. Item seven is the approval of the issue of shares under that plan, the non-executive director share plan to Ellie Comerford. Do we have any questions in relation to that? No? Excellent. Are there any online questions?
Not yet. Not yet.
Okay. I'll move on. If there are no further questions, I'll direct you to the slide displayed, which outlines the proxies received in respect of this resolution. I'll move on to resolution eight, which despite the fact it relates to myself, I feel reasonably comfortable given I'm sacrificing fees to buy shares. I think that's fairly okay. The next business item is the approval of issue of shares to myself under the non-executive director share plan. Are there any questions in relation to that resolution from those present? No? Anything online? Excellent. There being no further questions, I'll now direct you to the slide displayed, which outlines the proxies received in respect of that resolution. Resolution nine is the approval of issue of shares to Shelley Beasley under the non-executive director share plan. Again, are there any questions from the floor in relation to that resolution? Anything online?
Nope.
Okay. Again, the proxies lodged in respect of that resolution are on the screen. Moving on to resolution ten. The approval of issue of shares to John Boris under the non-executive director share plan. Are there any questions from the floor in relation to that particular resolution? No? Anything online? No. In that case, again, there'd be no further questions. I'll direct you to the slide displayed, which outlines the proxies received in respect of that resolution. Finally, thank you all for your patience. That concludes the resolutions to be voted on today. As noted, we are conducting a poll on all resolutions, and I note the poll is already open. Can all shareholders voting online please now ensure that they have submitted their votes? I'll allow another minute or so until the poll is closed.
If you have any questions in relation to the submission of online votes, please send them through to the Q&A function now. For those shareholders attending physically, I now invite Vanessa Baghdasraf to collect your voting cards. Have all persons done so? N eed to launch things.
Great.
Is that on over? Yeah. I'll give them 30 seconds. Has everyone had the opportunity to launch their voting card? Is there anyone outstanding? No. In that case, I will now declare the poll closed. Tommy will process the poll, and the results will be announced to the ASX once they are available. That concludes the formal part of the business. I'd like to thank all shareholders for their attendance and declare the meeting closed. Thank you, everyone. Appreciate your attendance. Thank you.