Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for joining. My name is Koos Bekker, Chair of the Board of Naspers. We value your participation, indeed, so many loyal shareholders in so many countries. Thank you for the time you devote to us. Our board members also join us, all of them, from India, China, Brazil, various countries in Europe, South Africa, the U.S., and the U.K. Next to me, our Company Secretary, Lynelle Bagwandeen, will do a quick roll call of all directors.
Thank you, Koos. So the following directors are with us in person or online, and they are Hendrik du Toit, Craig Enenstein, Steve Pacak, Debra Meyer, Rachel Jafta, Roberto Oliveira de Lima, Manisha Girotra, Cobus Stofberg, Angelien Kemna, Nolo Letele, Sharmistha Dubey, Mark Sorour, Ying Xu, as well as Fabrício Bloisi, our CEO, Basil Sgourdos, our CFO, and of course, David Tudor, our group legal counsel.
So keeping good order together with Lynelle is Sandy Earl. She's from JSE Investor Services, our transfer secretaries. They're also the scrutineers who will count your votes. We're going to try to keep the meeting as efficient as possible, so the structure is approximately as follows: I'll say a quick opening word before handing over to chairs of various key committees. They're our two executive directors, Fabrício and Basil. We pre-recorded these introductions in case we have a technical problem. Now, it seems that a quorum of shareholders is present or represented here, and I can consequently declare the meeting properly constituted. Lynelle, will you please explain how the voting process works and how the Q&A sessions will be run?
Thank you. So, as Koos mentioned, we'll have a Q&A session for shareholders. We will deal first with written questions and then open up the session for verbal questions. We request that you submit your written questions any time from now until the Q&A session begins. You may also vote on all agenda items at any time during the meeting, but before voting closes. After putting all the items to the meeting, we will have a short pause for the voting to be completed. Voting is open for the duration of the meeting. After putting the resolutions to the meeting, there will be a further opportunity to complete the voting. We will now play the pre-recorded items.
Ladies and gentlemen, folks, dames en here. It's a pleasure to have you at our annual general meeting. You know, today, our industry is evolving on several axes simultaneously. You have tech breakthroughs that keep coming, something like artificial intelligence. Then the needs and wants of society are changing, which of course, in response, cause new regulations. Apart from that, trade rules and politics fluctuate in a pattern that's hard to predict. Now, most of these are outside our control, so it's a complete waste of oxygen to complain. Our job is rather to adjust to these changes faster than any competitor, so that we can prosper when they decline, and the purpose is to create value for all our stakeholders. That includes shareholders, the societies where we operate, and our staff. This year, we've reached a milestone, which I dare say, many of you have longed for.
That's the moment when our total basket of non-Tencent assets have reached profitability, and hope to remain so, note to management. To reflect this profitability, the boards recommend that we should now increase our dividend substantially. Later today, you'll have a chance to vote on this. We also aim to continue our open-ended share repurchase program. The idea remains to reduce the discount at which we trade compared to our net asset value. We welcome Fabrício Bloisi as our new CEO. You know, he's an innovator with extensive experience in building world-class tech companies in growth markets. I believe Fabrício has made a good start, and he may well turn out to be a superb leader for Prosus and Naspers. But no doubt, you'll judge for yourself. On behalf of the board, I reiterate our thanks to Bob van Dijk for his years of service.
I also wish to thank Ervin Tu for his truly excellent stewardship as Interim CEO. In his new role as President and Chief Investment Officer, Ervin will work closely with Fabrício to develop our ecosystem. Allow me to say just a few words about Media24 in South Africa. At present, they have to navigate the tough transition from print to digital media, and they've now reached a point where certain print titles simply have to close. That is truly painful for some older readers, even like myself. I still prefer the feel of real paper under my fingertips. But also for employees working there, even for some of our retirees, who labored all their lives to create or to sustain these very titles. But to be clear, the majority of print media companies worldwide will not transition. They'll simply go out of business.
Like a century ago, when most enterprises making horse-drawn wagons did not start making automobiles suddenly, they simply died.... We hope to survive in a digital era and even to prosper. Media24 already operates the two biggest electronic news sites in South Africa, but now we have to prepare to take on more than local competitors, also those global digital King Kongs of X and Google and Instagram and TikTok. It's a tough challenge. We wish Ishmet and his team well. On behalf of the board, may I extend our deepest thanks to our people. That's the true lifeblood of this business. In a highly competitive industry, your enthusiasm propel us forward. I also wish to thank our shareholders for your continued trust and support. We value that very sincerely indeed. May I now hand over to Debra Meyer, who'll review our sustainability.
Thank you, Koos. As we make progress on our sustainability journey, we know that for every milestone we reach, new ones appear on the horizon. Worldwide, shareholders, regulators, and other stakeholders now expect more substance and transparency on how companies meaningfully and measurably embed sustainability into their business practices. We remain committed to discovering and scaling digital services and technologies that help address shared global challenges through our diverse portfolio. We have set verified science-based targets, charting the course of our business to support more responsible consumption and greener business models. These are critical for whole economies to move towards a resource-efficient and low-carbon growth path. It is our intention to harness the power of technology to create solutions for challenges like climate action and social inclusion. For example, digital financial services stretch to the most remote regions to help people previously underserved by traditional financial institutions.
Our EdTech platforms are enabling an increasingly diverse group to access online learning anytime, anywhere, without the environmental footprint of a physical learning institution. Similarly, grocery delivery and e-tail platforms are combining convenience with a lower carbon footprint. Our best-in-class food delivery businesses are creating livelihood opportunities in countries with high youth unemployment. At the same time, they are focused on curbing the environmental impact of delivery services through sustainable packaging initiatives and zero-emission vehicles. Our classifieds businesses are driving the transition to a circular economy. This means moving from linear, take, make, waste, to circular, reduce, reuse, recycle. OLX has calculated how reusing consumer products like smartphones, TVs, laptops, and cars equals substantial resource savings. Looking at just the vehicle and electronics categories, OLX sold over 9.3 million second-hand items in the past year.
This helped conserve more than 2.5 million tons of materials and over 400 million cubic meters of water, while preventing 3 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions. You can read more in OLX's annual impact report. We continue to monitor regional developments and their potential impact on the group. Despite broad jurisdictional differences in reporting requirements, we are committed to climate action and a transparent sustainability approach. To illustrate, we are on track to achieve our verified science-based corporate target of reducing Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions to zero by 2028. More importantly, science-based targets are driving a multiyear engagement program with our portfolio companies to set their own science-based reduction targets by 2030. As chairperson of the Sustainability and Ethics Committees, I see our role as maintaining oversight on the group's long-term sustainability ambitions, broken down into clear short-term goals.
Each year, we report on progress to our stakeholders. As mentioned in our annual report, our journey towards European compliance has begun. As always, we welcome your feedback on our sustainability performance, including how well we look after our people, the role we play in society, and the impact of our businesses on the planet. Ultimately, we are all united by our shared values and shared purpose, which is to improve everyday life for billions of people through technology. Over to you, Fabrício.
Hello, partners. It's my honor to address you today as the new CEO of the group. My position is new, however, I'm working with Prosus and Naspers for more than 10 years, actually almost 15 years, and during all this time, I had a big admiration about the history of the group and how it changed so much, and it adapted to so much. Naspers and Prosus started as a print company, but evolved into a TV network, evolved to a mobile company, evolved to a social network business, and today it's an e-commerce business. I'm certain that with all the assets we have, all the amazing companies that now I know very well, we will keep thriving and creating new opportunities. We are in times of deep change. The whole world is changing, and the companies that can innovate, adapt, and keep the discipline will unlock significant value.
So I'm very excited by the opportunity to lead Naspers and Prosus into a future of much more change and delivering a lot of results because we have this potential. Said that, I have to tell you, we also navigated through difficult times. Our performance over the recent year has not been good. At the same time, I'm optimistic about the future. However, I recognize that we need to perform differently and better to deliver all our potential. I believe that the results we are showing today marks a turnaround point from which we can deliver real and sustainable progress. First, we beat our targets for consolidated profitability in our e-commerce business. Our profit trajectory has improved meaningfully by $450 million. It's a good growth in profitability, but at the same time, our growth rates were substantially better than all our peers.
A second thing, we created $32 billion to date through our buyback program. Our open-ended program will continue while the discount remains elevated. We've greatly simplified our operations, eliminating the cross-holding between Naspers and Prosus, and I know you asked for that a lot. Our planet had its hottest June ever. I am the father of four daughters, and I really believe that the best companies are going to not only deliver results, and growth, and innovation, but have a big impact on society, and Prosus is doing a lot for that. We have a big project of electrification of our fleet that can have a big contribution to a zero-carbon future, and also, we are investing a lot in education through technology to impact many communities all around the world, and I think the impact of Prosus on society is only going to increase.
Although we have recorded robust growth in several sectors, there are areas where we did not meet our expectations. Specifically, and it's important to say that we recognize that our internal rate of return from our portfolio and the level of our conglomerate discount is bad. Only by facing these brutal facts, we can make the informed decisions and the difficult decisions about our future and implement them to make the change and to get the results that we need. We listen to your concerns, we understand them, and we will do all of that. That said, it's important also to tell you, we are not going to satisfy everyone. We have different shareholders with different time horizons and different strategies that require different things, many times opposing things. I'm sure we'll create a lot of value for Prosus by renewing a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.
We will do that by making the Prosus ecosystem our competitive advantage, capitalizing our management model, sharing our best practices, cross-selling through our group, having a lean approach, meaning first investing small, learning, and then scale, and have a lot of speed and agility on a really innovative way of managing our business. We believe with all of that, we will create an AI-first world that will change the whole society over the next years. With all of that, we will empower our 30,000 employees to think big, to act boldly, creating an environment where innovation can really flourish. We have intensified our focus in leading the transformation to an AI-first world, focusing on our e-commerce sectors, where we see significant growth opportunities.
At the same time, we will continue to enhance our robust corporate governance practice, ensuring transparency and building trust with all our shareholders. This commitment is fundamental to our long-term success, a responsibility I take very seriously. We understand that we can only grow our business if we do so responsibly and in a way that benefits the broader society. I believe the best companies of the future will lead in terms of social impact, and we will do that. I'm optimistic about our future. Our goal is to become a global technology leader with a clear focus on innovation, driving economic growth, and creating value to all our shareholders. Together, we will continue to drive innovation in an AI-first world, creating much shareholder value and making a positive impact to the world.
So, thank you for your trust, and before I hand over, I'd like to thank you, first, Basil. Basil spent 29 years really creating who Prosus is today. Basil leave us as CFO in November, so hope you can spend a deserved quality good time with your family. So thank you, partners. Thank you, Basil, and talk to you soon.
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, shareholders. Thank you for your investment in Prosus and Naspers, and for the opportunity for me to share our financial progress for the year ending thirty-one March 2024. The 2024 financial year was a transformative one, in which we proved that growth and profitability can coexist. This is reflected in our strong growth as we continue to outpace our peers. Group revenue grew 17% year over year to $6.4 billion. The growth I reference is organic growth, so adjusted for the impact of currency and M&A. The 17% organic growth was a 2% acceleration in the growth over the previous year, and 10% higher than the listed peers of the verticals in which we operate and benchmark against.
The acceleration of growth year over year, and a significant outperformance versus the listed peers during a time when the world is seeing a slowdown in growth, points to the resilience and further future potential for continued profitable growth in each of our businesses. E-commerce consolidated trading profit improved by a sizable $437 million to $24 million profit in the financial year ended 2024, driven by growth, scale, and cost reductions. We achieved an important milestone this financial year, our first ever consolidated e-commerce profitability. We did so six months ahead of our commitment to you. The team's focus is on delivering continued good, profitable growth improvements, with the ambition now also to deliver total consolidated profitability in the financial year ending 31 March 2025.
We continue to look for long-term growth opportunities, and external investment was $571 million for the year. This is meaningfully below the $6.3 billion peak of 2022, as we maintain discipline in a challenging investment landscape. Substantial additional value was created through the open-ended share repurchase program. Since its inception in June of 2022, this program has reduced the free float share count by 18% and generated $32 billion of value for our shareholders. The progress in financial performance, the open-ended share repurchase, and disciplined approach towards new opportunities reduced the combined holding company discount of Naspers and Prosus by 21 percentage points. This translates to a 9.4% accretion in the net asset value per share.
Folks, our balance sheet remains strong and liquid, with cash of $14.6 billion and debt of $15.4 billion. Internally, we see opportunities for businesses to expand and scale their ecosystems and to harness the significant opportunity of artificial intelligence. A strong balance sheet creates flexibility to explore opportunities with the potential to sustain the group's profitable growth over the long term and to deliver a good return for shareholders. We will incorporate past experience. We've strengthened our teams and our processes, and we will keep the bar high on returns when considering new opportunities. Artificial intelligence creates new opportunities for the world, and in the years to come, many new businesses that will be large and very successful will be built. Throughout our companies and through acquisitions, we endeavor to participate in the significant value creation that's going to occur.
I wish to share five final highlights with you. We restructured by eliminating the cross-holding structure. The simplification was a significant achievement in a complex backdrop. iFood reinforced its status as a leading global food delivery service. The core restaurant delivery part of the iFood business delivered growth and a trading profit margin of 24%. The classified segment, particularly OLX Europe, recorded strong organic growth of 27% and a sharp increase in profitability, improving its trading profit margin by 13% to a significant margin for 2024 of 24%. PayU is growing its core payment service provider business with increased revenue and profitability, notwithstanding the significant regulatory change that's happening in India. The sale of PayU GPO is underway, and we expect to conclude this transaction in the second half of the current financial year.
EdTech is navigating through tough macroeconomic conditions and the integration of generative AI tools into its products and services. Significant work is happening and focused on improving the financial performance of the EdTech businesses. Our strategic priorities are designed for growth and sustainable success. We are building a future that values innovation, profitable growth, strategic investment, and responsive capital allocation, ensuring we remain at the forefront of industry developments and continue to deliver shareholder value. Shareholders, this is my last annual general meeting as your Chief Financial Officer and Financial Director. My decision to step down has been a difficult one for me. I make it for my family, whom I love and care for dearly. It's time to pay forward my family's unwavering support and love over the past thirty years, so that I can live my passion for this group.
Thank you for the opportunity to be your CFO. It has meant a great deal to me. And thank you, Fabrício, for your message. It means the world to me. I will now hand over to Craig.
Good afternoon. We have made several changes to our remuneration structure to better align with our strategic goals and shareholder interests in response to feedback from our shareholders and the investment community during our annual remuneration roadshow. We have done our best to incorporate your recommendations and made further disclosure and adjustments to the remuneration design of both the CEO and CFO. We have published our detailed response. I wish to highlight some of these changes to you. First, we have enhanced disclosure of our performance metrics for long-term incentive schemes. And second, we've introduced new performance stock units, or PSUs, directly linked to total shareholder return, to ensure our executives are motivated to drive sustainable long-term value. The PSUs will vest only if the performance conditions are achieved.
As we welcome Fabrício to his new role, his remuneration package has been designed to reflect his responsibilities and the ambitious goals we have set. Fabrício will receive a competitive base salary of $750,000. Short-term incentives are linked to key financial and operational targets, ensuring immediate contributions to our core metrics. Following further engagement, we supplemented his STI target to include: improve the holding company discount over the 12 months of fiscal 2025. The same applies to the CFO. As mentioned, we place significant emphasis on long-term incentives, including PSUs and share appreciation rights, or SARs. These are closely aligned with shareholder returns and the demonstrable growth of our e-commerce businesses. Perhaps most notably, the Moonshot Award offers Fabrício $100 million in shares if he doubles our market capitalization to $168 billion within four years.
This is also a testament to our confidence in his leadership. To better explain the mechanics of how the Moonshot will be calculated, we have provided additional detail on how the market cap will be determined to account for corporate actions, spin-offs, and acquisitions, to ensure that shareholder value creation is the key objective, emphasizing the alignment of Fabrício's compensation with the ambitious growth and performance targets set by the company. We have emphasized that this arrangement is not designed to disincentivize the share buyback. This is all part of our ongoing work to ensure our remuneration practices support our strategic objectives and maintain market competitiveness. The Remuneration Committee has, and will continue, to engage extensively with stakeholders to refine these frameworks. We thank you for your continued feedback, which has been invaluable in helping us shape a remuneration policy that is robust, fair, and aligned with best practices.
In closing, the adjustments we have made to our remuneration policies are designed to better motivate and reward our exceptional talent. We are confident that these changes, particularly the innovative approach to Fabrício's compensation, will support us in our drive to achieve our long-term objectives. Thank you for your continued trust and support.
We now move on to the more formal side of the meeting. We have received some questions through the Q&A function in today's meeting. If you'd like to address the meeting directly, we remind you to use the Raise Your Hand icon, and once you've been identified, please unmute your microphone, and you will be able to address the meeting. If you're unable to address the meeting, you can always use the investor relations website, whose contact details are on our website. These details are being shown on the screen now. We will start by addressing the written questions. We will deal with each question one by one, and the chair will allocate the best person to answer the question. We start with two questions that we've received from Mhlulisizwe Ncube from the ESG Insight. So I'm going to read out the first question.
It relates to director elections, and it states as follows: "The report acknowledges ongoing challenges in achieving gender and racial equity at the board level. Despite the efforts made, the board remains male-dominated. Can you elaborate on the specific measures and timelines Naspers is implementing to accelerate progress towards a more diverse and inclusive board that truly reflects the broader society?
Rachel Jafta is our Chair of the Nominations Committee. Rachel, that seems directed at you.
Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, and thank you very much for that question. The board values diversity. We regularly assess the composition of the board in terms of diversity, also broadly in terms of expertise, geographies, and the needs of the business. Over the last five years, our new board member appointments have been women, where the criteria was specifically so specified in the recruitment brief. That brings the number of women on the board to six out of the 14 non-executive directors, and we will shortly have an opportunity to revisit again when we have members of the board retiring, and the nominations committee with the board will pay attention to diversity and inclusion when we start that process of appointing new board members. Thank you, Chair.
I think in terms of diversity, we are probably one of the more balanced boards on the stock exchanges where we operate. Second one?
The next question's also from Mhlulisizwe, and it also relates to the re-election of directors. And he says: "Several independent non-executive directors have served on the board for over nine years, raising concerns over their continued independence. Given that long tenure can potentially affect the objectivity and fresh perspectives on the board, how does Naspers intend to address this, and what is the board's strategy for refreshing its composition to ensure ongoing independence and diversity of thought?
Rachel, you can take that, too.
Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much for that question. The Nominations Committee and the Board regularly assesses the independence of the board members in terms of independence of mind, judgment, and conduct demonstrated in committee and board meetings. We believe that there is value to be had in a combination of deep knowledge of the group and fresh eyes, so to speak. So, when we have an opportunity with directors retiring, we would have an opportunity to bring in fresh blood to balance, to bring the balance up to more newer directors compared to the directors with longevity on the board. Thank you, Chair.
You have another one?
Yes, another question from Mhlulisizwe Ncube, and this relates to succession planning for key executive positions. Given the recent changes in the CEO and upcoming retirement of the CFO, there are concerns regarding succession planning. There's a request for the board to provide more clarity on the steps being taken to ensure a smooth transition to maintain operational stability during this critical period, especially in light of the strategic challenges and opportunities the company faces.
Craig Enenstein is head of our Remuneration Committee. Craig?
Thank you for the question. Thank you, Chair. There's really two pieces embedded in the question. The first is on how we think about succession, and the second is, at this time, how do we think about the transition? I'll talk about the first of the two. In terms of succession, every year, as part of our mandate, the Remuneration Committee performs a comprehensive review of all the senior roles in the organization and looks at which persons within the organization are prepared or in the process of becoming prepared to succeed into those roles, for whatever reason. We also think about outside persons that might be archetypes that would be appropriate for such succession.
We take that work and that information and use it to constructively work on proactive initiatives around training the individuals inside the organization to be ready to move up into various roles over time, either on interim or permanent basis. As an example, if you look at the CEO change that just occurred, while we made a global search, I was responsible for overseeing that team, and the committee for that effort. We ended up believing that we actually had that talent internally, as a good example. We believe also in the finance role, we have a deep bench, and we'll look at that accordingly. So long story short, it's an active and consistent effort for us to think about and look at succession and ensure that we have the right focus on the development of our talent so that we're constantly ready for evolution and change.
As far as the succession work itself and the preparedness for a smooth and optimistic transition, I'm gonna actually turn that over to the chair and let him speak briefly as to how that's going and what we're doing to make that successful.
I'm sure we'll have a lot more questions, so let's pause that and return to it later again. I'm sure we'll get more verbal questions.
Another written question, also from Mhlulisizwe Ncube, on the remuneration policy and implementation. He states: "The remuneration policy and implementation report reveal concerns about the low threshold for PSU vesting and the lack of performance conditions for share appreciation rights. How does the board plan to address these shortcomings to better align executive compensation with shareholder interests, particularly given the high quantum of remuneration in light of the company's mixed financial performance?
Craig, you can continue.
Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the question. Embedded in the question, we'll talk about a few components. There's a topic around the performance share units or PSUs. There's also a topic around the SARs. Let me go back a little bit in history. If you go back just a few years ago, there were no performance units in the compensation mix in any way. Thanks to some amazing interaction with many of the shareholders, I've had the opportunity to work with some of our outside advisors and study some of the best-in-class comps for our business, and these are really the global leading players in e-commerce, the largest and most competitive companies.
The reason we study that particular market is because we're ultimately pursuing a talent pool that is from those kinds of businesses, people who have choices to work at those companies or at companies like ours. As we made the market, for example, for the CEO, as I mentioned a moment ago, we made a global marketplace, and many of the companies that we see in our index are companies where I had the opportunity to speak with some of the most senior talent. So that is the pool from which we actually recruit, and that is the pool against which we compete to retain and incentivize our own talent. As far as the PSU, thanks to some great shareholder input, as well as our own research and consideration, we've made some really significant changes in the performance share units in this year.
And I think some of them will speak to your question. Some of the changes that were made in this year is we migrated the PSU construct to speak instead to total shareholder return. That's the same way you get paid when you invest in our shares, is based on the output and outcomes and the share price, and of course, the dividends associated with the shares. We tied that specifically to the performance share unit so that the CEO is aligned one-to-one with your outcomes. Additionally, we built a mechanism so that no payment is made for any negative performance. So even if we have the best performing company against our peer index, if our performance is negative, there's no payment made. That's a pretty high alignment, we believe. There's a question embedded in there as to the threshold.
The threshold has been elevated from what previously in the PSU was a 25% threshold relative to our peer set, to now 30% for the bottom end of the payout. Some may believe: Why is it so low? Why is it only 30%? There's a few components to that question. The first is we set up an index when we designed the index originally to be the toughest competitors and the most relevant competitors that we could find. We've spent time working that index, making sure that it's accurate and thoughtful and that it's difficult and stretchy. We think it's tougher than any of the published indices that we could have picked as alternatives. So the first portion of the answer is, we're picking ourselves up against the most difficult group of competitors that we believe can be designed.
Performing even in the 30th percentile relative to that tough group, we think is a tough accomplishment. That said, however, at that low end of the range, the payout is only 50%. At the peer median, the payout is 100%, and at the 75th percentile, the payout is 200%. The objective is to say, if you can perform up with the best, you're going to get a great payout because you've accomplished something very difficult that should be very, very well suited for the shareholders' benefit. On the SARs, as the second portion of the question, the SARs don't pay out unless value is created in the e-commerce portion of the portfolio, the so-called controllable or non-Tencent portion of our asset base.
So only with positive performance in that portion of the valuation is payout opportune for the CEO and the CFO, and that is how the SARs work. I appreciate that that is not the same as a PSU, and I'm happy to engage more deeply in discussing that topic. But what I will share with you is the feedback that I had from many shareholders over the last cycle of conversations that I had, was that they preferred for us not to necessarily replicate the old PSU that worked with the e-commerce portfolio. So we made some changes there, and again, we evaluate this every time we're making these allocations. Thank you.
Thanks, Greg. That's very lucid. Do you have another question?
Yes. This is so far the last written question we have, also from Mhlulisizwe. It relates to Scope 3 emissions and supply chain accountability. The statement and question: While the company's report highlights the expansion of Scope 3 emissions disclosures, particularly in material categories, there's a concern about the limited assurance on these disclosures. How does Naspers plan to ensure full transparency and accountability within its supply chain, especially regarding Scope 3 emissions, to meet its net zero targets?
Thank you. Debra Meyer is the Chair of our ESG committee and cares deeply about these things. Debra, what do you say?
Thank you for the question. As you rightly observe, we have expanded our reporting from three environmental indicators on Scope 1 and 2 from previous years to now also include material Scope 3 categories across all our subsidiaries. In total, we presented 18 sustainable indicators for assurance this year. Now, one path to progress could have been to retain the smaller number of KPIs and go for reasonable assurance. We see more value in expanding our environmental disclosures to Scope 3 for the first step, and then for the first step, we'll go for limited assurance. In this coming year, we will be further expanding our indicators, but we start with limited assurance and will eventually or subsequently move to reasonable assurance, so that we can provide granular insight into our environmental performance.
This would also imply that we will seek limited assurance initially, and then move subsequently to reasonable assurance. It is our ambition to build the reporting maturity so that we can report on reasonable assurance. In our environmental impact report, we provide further detail on our approach to supplier sustainability and all other material categories of our Scope 3 footprint.
Thanks, Debra. So Debra pushes us from one side, but our CEO, Fabrício, is passionate about these things. Do you wanna talk about iFood and what they do, for instance, with the drivers?
Hello, everyone. Nice to meet you all. I'm Fabrício, the new CEO. Good to talk to you for the first time with all our partners. Koos asking me a little about iFood down, in terms of sustainability. I think iFood has a big impact in Brazil, investing a lot in terms of reducing of emissions through the delivery. So we are doing fast, going through electrification. Also, we are working a lot with packaging and reducing a lot the packaging impact. But I think more important than talk about iFood, is that I'm really passionate about the idea that the best companies in the world has to have a strong societal impact. We have to believe that our objective is to deliver growth, reduce the discount, profitability, and a positive impact in the society.
I'm even more excited, not only to keep working on iFood, that I think has a good history of sustainability impact, but also amplifying our my work to have impact where, in all the areas where Prosus works today. It's very good to see how Prosus has impact, not only in Brazil, but also in South Africa, in Eastern Europe, in India, and I'm quite excited to work closer with Debra, to make sure that we will be one of the best companies in terms of impact, and I'm sure we can do that with our global position, and also using technology to get there.
Thank you, Fabrício. That's the end of our submitted written questions, right?
Correct. So Chair, we're gonna move on to verbal questions now.
Yes. Go ahead.
I'm just gonna remind shareholders who wish to ask their verbal questions to use the raise-hand icon, which they've done. We've got three hands raised. We're going to invite people who have done that to unmute their microphone, to please identify themselves, and then ask their question. As mentioned, we'll take it question by question, and our chair will allocate to the best person to answer, and we request your patience in dealing with any anticipated lag, so with the first raised hand from Maria Claudia Orozco, if you could unmute your microphone and ask your question.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes, I think we hear you well.
Great. Thanks for taking my question. I'm Maria Orozco from the Shareholder Association for Research and Education that advises institutional investors in Canada. We are concerned about Mr. Bloisi's appointment and his impact on our company. Under his leadership at iFood, faced significant labor rights risk. It was criticized by the Brazilian president for refusing to engage with the government workers and its peers on legislation that seek to improve workers' protection. Also, iFood received global media attention for using third-party firms to create fake social media profiles and undermining careers, campaigns for decent working conditions, and this resulted in the company signing a conduct adjustment agreement with the Brazilian government, and these practices certainly raise concerns of reputational, operational, and regulatory risk, so my question to you is: given Mr.
Bloisi's mismanagement of labor risk at iFood, what extraordinary measures and oversight will the board implement to ensure that fundamental labor rights are upheld across our company and its global platform company portfolio? Thank you.
Okay. I think a useful starting point is just to restate the facts. I think there's an implication there that you would not agree with. What do you say, Fabrício?
Hello, Maria, how are you? First thing, you said about the government was very unhappy with iFood engagement, and that we refused to engage in discussing worker conditions. That's not true. Obviously, we talked a lot about the government, but iFood is one of the most active companies. We were leading the efforts to increase rights for the gig workers in Brazil. We were one of the most active companies doing that. I participate personally in the Presidential Council to discuss how we can create new policies. iFood is widely recognized as a company that has a big social impact in Brazil in many areas, from education. I heard that you work with education in the education area. We are very active on that, through environment, and also to give better condition to the workers.
Specifically, what you're talking about, there was a proposal from the government to one resolution that iFood was against this resolution, and we try to propose something that we believe is better. Actually, I, I'm 100% certain it is better, and we keep working together with the government to get there. So I don't think there is a big backlash on the government saying that iFood is a problem. I think the opposite. We have a very good relationship, and we work very close with the government to get to good proposals on how to treat better. I'll give you one step more.
I was two years before the current government be elected one of the CEOs in Brazil that raised their hand to say we should create new social security mechanisms for a society that create jobs through technology, and we propose that to the Brazilian government even before the government asks for that. So I think we have a nice history trying to push for rights and new ways to regulate gig work. And you said second about a social media as problem. I think we were accused of you said fake social media content, and there was some investigation on that. We agreed on this investigation, and I don't think again that by far iFood does not recognized it as a company that is misleading, nor the government nor our customers.
Go ahead, Lynelle.
Yes. So we have another raised hand. It's from Asief Mohamed. So, Asief, if you could unmute your microphone and ask your question. Thank you.
Hi. Hi, good afternoon, everybody, thank you for the opportunity. Firstly, I should thank, you know, Basil Sgourdos, for his contribution in that journey with Koos Bekker and the board. You've added a lot of value to shareholders over many, many years. So thank you for that, and all the best on your journey going forward. Fabrício, I look forward to the day in four or five years' time when you're gonna each earn your $100 million Moonshot Award, because I can assure you that we hold between ZAR 4 billion and ZAR 5 billion in Naspers and Prosus shares on behalf of our clients, who are retirement fund members or workers saving for retirement.
So all the best to that, and we look forward to that day. The question I did ask yesterday, and I sent it via investor relations to Prosus. Unfortunately, it wasn't asked, but nevertheless, it's essentially the same question to the current board and the board yesterday. It was raising questions yesterday, and it was raising questions today. It's about, you know, the independence of board members, and the tenure, and it was raised earlier on. So I just need to make the point again, and it has been answered, so I don't want you necessarily to answer it again.
But I need to make the point, you know, has the, if you might call it the independence of the board, because of the long tenure, the question is on it, has it not impaired the remuneration committee members, if you might call it awards of remuneration? If you look at for specifically Bob van Dijk, over the nine years, he owned close to ZAR 1.5 billion, and the outcome wasn't great, you know, if you look at that. And what will you as Koos, you know, and the board do to make sure that this doesn't happen in future?
As I said, we'll be exceptionally happy if Fabrício gets the $100 million, but I do need to make the point about independence and tenure of the board. Thanks very much.
Asief, thanks very much. We know you well, and you've been a loyal supporter over many years. Thank you indeed for that. So just a quick response, and Craig, our head of the Remuneration Committee, can comment, but if I may add a chirp. There is a balance. If someone is new to a company, you might bring fresh perspectives, but you also lack history, and if you're new to an industry, even more so. The biggest risk we face is a commercial risk, that you misjudge something. So experience of the industry, sometimes experience of the company and why it did certain things in the past, help you to better understand a problem and be a better board director. So we want to keep that. There's no correlation that I'm aware of, of board members being too long on a board and boards or companies performing poorly.
So that's the one thing. On the other hand, there is a value in bringing in new people, especially if your tech changes, like our tech is changing by artificial intelligence, sudden development, right? So we'll want to capture experience there. Also, geographically, we go into a new country. We went into India a few years ago. Then you need to reflect that geographical experience. So there are a lot of things playing into it, but I think we've had one of the best boards I'm aware of, and part of that expertise is a certain understanding of where things come from, which mistakes we made collectively in the past, let's not make it again. Augmented with new blood when it comes to new geographies, technologies, whatever. Craig, would you agree, or do you think it's rubbish?
Thank you, Chair, and thanks for the question. I fundamentally agree. Let me take the ideas presented and break them into a couple pieces. I'll start with independence, 'cause that's embedded in the question, and then we can speak a little bit about the new compensatory architecture as a second point.
... which is also in the conversation topic. From an independence perspective, I'll speak for myself. I think our chair of nominations has already spoken on the topic broadly, but I'll speak for myself. The first is, I own a very nominal amount of shares in the organization, so I'm not incentivized by being paid in shares. I, I don't live or die by the way that the shares move. My job is to perform my fiduciary role independently. I don't come out of the group. The compensation I make from the group is not the most material portion of the economic well-being for myself or my family. I wasn't friends with Bob van Dijk, and while I like the guy, I'm not friends with Fabrício, and my role is to serve you. I say that in all candor.
I take that very seriously, and I'm also fairly fresh in this role, and what's happened during my tenure in this role is an enormous amount of engagement with shareholders. I listen. I've taken on those ideas, concepts like the PSUs, concepts like the incorporation of TSR. Many of the concepts that are in our architecture today are influenced by you, the shareholders, and that's a consequence of this engagement in my fiduciary and open-minded capacity. With that, as a little bit of backdrop, as we moved into the ideas around the architecture here, one of the most important things we can always do is take lessons, both internal lessons from what's worked and what's not worked, as well as lessons from the market itself, and we've tried to do both in this design.
Fabrício is in no way, shape, or form Bob, and while I appreciate that the past can always be an instigator as to questions for the future, and deservedly so, we have a lot of very material differences in the circumstantial dynamics. Fabrício comes from a startup type of organization. He's an entrepreneur. He's built material personal wealth, operating a business that's created massive value for our shareholders, and that changes, in many ways, the way we think about one coming across into this new role, and the incentive architecture is extraordinarily risk-correlated. The biggest payout, the moonshot, which you've already noted, is in, I take from your comments, quite aligned with your well-being, and, and that's our aspiration, is a highly risky opportunity.
The payment is zero if it's not achieved, and we've made sure to build a lot of safeguards into the way that we'll calculate it, and I'm happy to speak about that in any detail today or otherwise, and we've published a document on the topic to ensure that the motivation is truly aligned with shareholder value creation, both at the aggregate and per share level. That, as an example, is a great case in point, where we've taken lessons learned inside and out and applied them to make sure that the payouts have alignment. The same is true in the other two material forms of LTI. And so if the organization does not win, Fabrício does not win, and getting to know him a bit through the process of recruiting, I will tell you, that's what he wants, too.
Craig, thank you very much. I just want to pay homage to Craig. It was a year demanding of his time. So if you think this is a tough year, next year will be easier because you need to exit the CEO, which in these, these days is not an easy issue, and the consequences that follow, you can't control. Certain things vest and so on, and you have to explain it. You have to recruit a new CEO, and I remind all of us that we started with a list of 60 people worldwide, honed down to 11 interviews, personal and so on, selection, and then negotiating a package. And when you deal with an entrepreneur, his choice is not to take the job as a teller at the bank.
His alternative is to run his own company, and consequently, it's a delicate negotiation, and there must be enough in it for him to assume such a demanding role. And Craig led us through that whole process in, I think, the most difficult year we will face for quite a while on that score. So thank you very much for your time. We have another question?
Yes, we do. We have a raised hand from Dr. Aroub. So, I'm going to invite the raised hand to please unmute your microphone and ask your question.
Sorry, I just wanted to say, my hand was actually lowered. I thought I've actually lowered it before. My question has been answered.
Thank you, Doctor.
Thank you.
Much appreciated. Lynelle, do we have another question?
Yes, we do. We have a raised hand from Maria, who asked a question previously. So Maria, please unmute your microphone and ask your further question.
Thank you so much. I appreciate Fabrício's remarks, answer to my question, but I feel that it wasn't fully addressed, and also, he's referencing a meeting and engaging with the government, when in fact, according to very reliable information that we have, that has not happened with the workers, so in order for being tripartite negotiations that can be meaningful and that can lead to legislation for better workers' protections, we need to have workers also part in those type of meetings, so my question really is for Fabrício to explain me a little bit more how he plans to address this type of labor risk, not only in Brazil, but also now that he's taking over as a CEO of Prosus and Naspers in the broader portfolio.
... So to narrow it down, is it specifically, you have specifically in mind drivers of delivery vehicles in Brazil? That's the core group, right?
Yes.
Okay, Fabrício, so what do you say?
Hello, Maria. You're talking about better protections for workers. This is, I think, very important for companies like iFood and Prosus. What I used to say in Brazil a lot is that we have a world that is changing very fast. Today, millions of people get their work, their compensation, because specifically iFood, millions of people. We have around one million people doing delivery per year, three hundred thousand per month, and almost two million people working per month in the ecosystem that iFood created. This is a new ecosystem that requires us to think creatively how we are going to keep the better protections for workers, but at the same time, to use the technology to create these opportunities.
We cannot only say we are going just to keep doing what, how, the same way we did in the past, but we have to think how we can use the technology, the new demands, to create more and better jobs using technology. As I told you first, we spent a lot of time in iFood saying we have to make sure that the legislation in Brazil enables Brazil to lead in creating more and better jobs, not only more, but better jobs, but without killing the opportunities that this technology advance create. We proposed many ideas, and we are working on that with the government. As I told you, we are very close to the government in trying to find ways that we will make Brazil lead on this new world.
I think not only in iFood, but in the world, this is a responsibility for Prosus. Prosus has not only iFood, but also Delivery Hero, and Swiggy, and many other companies around the world, where we have to think with our social responsibility hat on how we are going to keep creating good jobs using technology. A few areas, for sure, more social rights we should ensure for this new category of work. For sure, more education opportunities. This is something we believe is critical, that we use technology to get there. For sure, minimum wage structures or proposals we should develop. I think iFood is trying to push that aggressively in Brazil. I think we are trying to lead that in Brazil, and I think with Prosus, we have this responsibility to keep having that in our agenda.
As I told in the beginning, I personally believe that I think Craig said I started a company. I had many business before. I see coming to Prosus as an opportunity to do more globally, and I think in the social impact, it's an area that is very important to me. So I hope, and I'm sure we will keep this discussion in the future, and hope I will have many good results to show you all partners.
So, Maria, you can monitor what happens this year, and at this meeting next year, you can report back whether you like what you see or not.
Okay.
Do we have more questions?
So, Chair, I've checked. We have no further written questions, and there are no further raised hands. So we can now confirm that the Q&A process of the meeting is over, and we will now move to placing the specific agenda items into the meeting so we can finalize the voting process. All shareholders have had the opportunity to consider the resolutions put to the committee and meeting today, and the explanations were provided in the notice of meeting, so we're not gonna repeat them now. We are simply going to summarize the headings, which will be displayed on your screen, and move through the various resolutions. We start with ordinary resolution number one. We move to ordinary resolution number two.
We move to ordinary resolution number three, and then ordinary resolution four point one through to four point five, followed by ordinary resolution five point one through to five point four, followed by ordinary resolution six, ordinary resolution seven, ordinary resolution eight, ordinary resolution 10... Sorry, apologies, nine, followed by ordinary resolution number 10, and ordinary resolution number 11. We now move to the special resolutions, starting with special resolutions one point one to one point six, followed by one point seven through to one point 13, followed by special resolution number two, special resolution number three, special resolution number four, special resolution number five, and finally, special resolution number six. I would like to remind shareholders who have not voted yet to please click on the voting link and cast your votes now, and we will leave the voting open for a minute.
So if you have not voted, please do so now. So Chair, I can confirm voting is now closed.
It'll take us a minute to finalize the voting results, to count it all. So while we do so, we'll show you a short video to provide you a brief overview of the global business. After that, the technical team will show you the results on the screen right here.
Chair, I can confirm that all agenda items have been passed with the required majority, and the details are now being displayed. We will publish the full details on the stock exchange, news services, and Business Wire. So back to you.
Thank you, Lynelle. I conclude that all the agenda items put to this meeting have been passed. As a consequence, the business on our agenda, all of them have now been dealt with, and I declare the meeting closed. Thank you very much for your attendance and your time, and for people in the room for coming so far to be here with us. We really appreciate it. Have a good day.
Thank you. Bye-bye.