Thanks, Steve. Kia ora koutou, everybody. Believe it or not, we've actually got some people in person here who are just getting their seats, for those of you online. Welcome everybody here. In particular, I think, and in no particular order, Ross Keenan, our former chair, and Winnie Sarma, former director, both still shareholders and supportive. Thanks very much. Look, it's nice to be able to address you all, and particularly nice to have people in the room, and it does feel as if, well, certainly the days of me reading anything about COVID are well and truly past. And the world is ahead of us, and hopefully we never go back there. We'll obviously today be hearing from our Chief Executive, Jason Cherrington, today on the year that was, the state of the business, and what we're seeing ahead of us.
We also have two directors standing for re-election, Simon and Laurissa, and so let us get underway. A few formalities. I note the notice of meeting was provided to shareholders and other stakeholders, and that the agenda is in order. Also note that our results were published with our annual report on 29 May this year and remain available on our website. I can confirm that there's a quorum. We actually only need five shareholders for a quorum, so I think we've pretty much got them around me. As of this moment, at the close of proxy voting, we had 25.8 million proxies, shares, proxies for 25.8 million shares being voted.
As the chair, I intend to vote all discretionary proxies we have in favor of the resolutions as set out in the notice of meeting. We will take questions at the end of the meeting. For those of you in the room, use the old hand up, and when we give you a nod, wait for us to get you a microphone so that the people online can hear. For those of you online, you can vote at any stage. Hit the button down the bottom and your order will be queued, and we will get to it. If you have any issues online, then the system will help you: 0800-
Good morning.
Good morning, 200 220. Let me get underway. I think that you know all of our directors, but starting on my left, Simon Hull, founder of AWF, and been sitting there a long time. Nice to have his smiley face around the table. Nick Simcock, who now chairs our rem and nominations committee, which has been combined. Laurissa Cooney, who steadfastly takes the Audit and Risk Committee and does a very diligent job there. Richard Stone, who's relatively new to the board, although he did stand last year and is really making a worthwhile contribution. He is a former founder of JacksonStone & Partners. I'd like to thank my directors, my fellow directors, not just for discharging their duties, but also for the passion, enthusiasm, and support for the business during the year.
Now, I think that we all find with the ever-increasing regulatory and compliance obligations, it takes a certain discipline to make sure that we do get back to thinking about the people and the business, rather than just ticking boxes, which we know we must do. As I've said before, we've got Simon Hull here. He's, he's making himself available for re-election, and we'll hear from him shortly. I'd also like to, to thank the team, Jason and his team, very much for the effort, resilience, and dedication throughout the past year. We obviously hear a lot about staff churn, and of course, we benefit from it with our clients. But it's reassuring to see the same faces in the room today, and in fact, the leadership team has once again remained intact.
We're really fortunate to have such a committed, enthusiastic, and diligent group of people throughout the business. Look, it certainly wasn't the year that we had planned, with earnings not at the level that we would have liked. It felt as if we had a clear year ahead of us with COVID behind, but as many businesses found, things did not revert to normality as quickly as we anticipated. On a much more positive note, though, it was very satisfying to bring Hobson Leavy into the group, and we're very much enjoying having Carrie, Steve, and their team as colleagues. They're certainly a great cultural fit, and they have a strong reputation with quality of their work, which is a great fit for us also. I'd like to thank our shareholders for their support during the year.
We appreciate the interest, ongoing interest and dialogue with the New Zealand Shareholders' Association, who we cooperate with and enjoy the engagement. Also with the governance team, with ACC Investments, who take us to task from time to time on some governance and compliance matters. There's one of our large shareholders who's also very proactive with us, with their views, and engage regularly, which we also appreciate. It's actually not easy being a small cap stock on the NZX. I mean, I mentioned the compliance costs. They are increasing, and at times it, it does make us wonder at the benefit. We've low liquidity and a lack of coverage from brokers, and it's an issue for us, and I'm certainly acutely aware of the currently low share price, which I heard mentioned in the room before.
Obviously, that affects our total shareholder return, notwithstanding continued dividend flow and expectation of growth of dividend. We do remain confident in the business, though, but it's perhaps time to think more about our capital, our capital base. Certainly, food for thought. Jason will give, obviously, give you a more fulsome and update and view of the business later in the meeting, but now we'll move to agenda item two. I note the consolidated financial statements for the year ended 31st of March, 2023. I also note with the published accounts, the payment of the final dividend of NZD 0.03 a share, bringing a total of NZD 0.095 a share for the year, fully imputed for tax. Now to agenda item three, and Jason, you're up. If I could get you to speak to the room. Thank you.
Great. Thanks, thanks, Simon, and good morning to everybody in the room and everybody online. I thought I'd start today by setting the scene at a more macro level and then touch on each of our business units with insight regarding FY2023 and their focus for their current year ahead. I guess with the reporting season in full swing across New Zealand, there have been some very clear common themes. Those themes around the current economic challenges, a year of two very differing halves, and strong views on business confidence leading up to the general election in October. Whether it be in the media, everyday conversations, or business forum events that I've attended most recently, net migration, wage costs, GDP, interest rates, inflation, all, and unemployment statistics, have all been topics, key topics in the discussion around the numbers to watch narrative.
However, there is still, clearly still demand that must be satisfied, and there's clearly still work to be done in New Zealand, regardless of what numbers occupy the media currently. Considering New Zealand's long-term need for talents, I guess the confidence we retain is born from the relevance our, of our current and developing service offerings in the market, our meaningful relationships, our significant tenure and enviable vantage point within the labor market that we hold as a group. As a business, Accordant finds focus from looking at the bigger picture across all of New Zealand. Regardless of economic ups and downs, what does New Zealand need now and tomorrow? Therefore, how do we continue to organize ourselves as a group to ensure we have the capability and the capacity to be able to deliver on that as required?
Like many of these market announcements made recently, we also experienced a year of two very different halves. Following on from a solid reported first six months at FY2023, we experienced a much faster than anticipated softening and market environment, most prominently felt in the final quarter of the year. In some parts of the business, that challenge eventuated by year-end in a less than optimal return on the cost deployed. Revenues did grow modestly by almost NZD 10 million across our white-collar segments, and when we add back abnormal and unexpected costs, which I'll talk to you later, then on a normalized basis, the year produced a flat earnings versus the prior year, and in spite of this softening.
Just for a volume context, we did place almost 10,000 people into work, enabled over 15,000 temporary and contract assignments to take place, and we helped many gain employment through our work collective initiatives. Now, the resulting net profit after tax was less than the prior year, as we know, and clearly disappointing after the start that we had. Of course, it wasn't the complete story of FY2023. Measurable progress has been made in many of our key streams of focus across the business in terms of strategic imperatives, and we concluded an acquisition that has already been so much more than just earnings accretive.
Our laser focus remains on our short, medium, and long-term goals, where we've realized greater efficiencies across many areas of the business, further developed our internal capability, held our position within key government procurement frameworks, and de-risked certain aspects on our blue-collar business. By that, I mean making informed choices around the type of work that we take on, ensuring our migrant workforce have certainty back to contractual obligations and are fully supported from a well-being perspective. That's something that we feel should be a given as a care of duty that we have as a business, but as recent media suggests, not all, all have the same ethos, regrettably. Weathering the storm was, of course, both physical and metaphorical last year and remains so this year to some degree.
With that as a somewhat long introduction, let's journey around each of the business units with a lens on FY23, and I'll update you on the year as we go. When I consider the consistency we've had in the executive recruitment space since acquiring JacksonStone & Partners, it's maybe unsurprising that the business didn't disappoint and again, delivered a record year of growth. Having previously held the mantle of our most recent acquisition, the tenure and expertise of the team, combined with long-standing trusted relationships, has led to this high, sustained performance. With strong revenue streams from both permanent and contractor staffing and an enviable track record partnering with the public sector, JacksonStone continues their important work regardless of the government of the day.
They've played an integral role in more than one of the country's transformative initiatives, the most recent being the Ministry of Education, where a partnership that exemplifies the value of working together with government entities achieves exceptional outcomes. In this transformative journey, JacksonStone & Partners took the lead in executing a best practice recruitment process for over 60 Tier three and Tier four managers within the ministry. Now, this was no small undertaking, or feat, given the magnitude of the organization, and I'm sure the sensitivity is inherent in such a substantial transformation. The Ministry of Education trusted us with a crucial responsibility, and JSP wholeheartedly rose to that challenge. Feedback post that project has been equally pleasing....
You'll also remember I highlighted last year the market opportunity within the Māori economy, now estimated to be in the value of NZD 70 billion, and we're seeing good traction with the number of fees charged in the channel, seeing an increase of over 50% in the second half of last year. It will continue to be an important part of our developing group strategy in this area, as we look to become the partner of choice who can bring a te ao Māori approach to identifying, selecting talent for organizations that are focused on delivering very specific outcomes. Building on our strategic acquisition intent to expand geographically and accelerate our private sector engagement capability, we were incredibly excited to welcome Carrie, Stephen, and the whole Hobson Leavy team into the Accordant family earlier this year.
Hobson Leavy, for those that don't know, is so well regarded in the executive search and selection space. In addition to their own team's positive reaction to the acquisition, both groups of clients were also very supportive of this next chapter in their journey. It's been thoroughly enjoyable for all of the team to get to understand their business and, for me personally, getting to understand their rich insights into the market as well. Opportunities there do exist to expand their offerings further, and I look forward to seeing those develop over this coming year. Now, whilst not immune to economic climate, both JacksonStone and Hobson Leavy demonstrate some resilience in comparison to broader areas of the market. They will certainly feel, I'm sure, some short-term pre-election softening, but remain confident of the year ahead.
As a generalist recruiter specializing in more entry-level roles and support service areas of the market, Madison felt the biggest impact in the second half of the year, and is somewhat a good barometer for what's happening generally within the marketplace. Whilst Madison's project delivery revenue exceeded our expectations in the first half of FY2023, it was the core business that felt the level of confidence drop during that pre-Christmas GDP contraction that we saw across the market. With an increased lens on costs for many, administrative and support roles were impacted the most, and businesses making do rather than backfilling roles. Developments in technology will, to some degree, have led to a noticeable drop in hiring intentions and the need for administrative and support staff. As such, Madison continues to shift their focus on support roles that are more future-proofed.
Despite the borders opening fully, New Zealand's white-collar temp market has not picked up to the pre-COVID levels, especially in the private sector. Whilst immigration statistics point to an increase in working holiday visa applications, we still haven't seen the impact with the temporary labor market pool that is usually visible by now. The thesis through all of this is, you know, people that were coming to this country, probably delayed 2- 3 years, probably came with more money, probably weren't eager to get straight back into the labor market and enjoy what New Zealand can offer first. We do expect that we'll start to see some of those numbers come back through, potentially post-election. For now, we stay close to that.
Broadening our client base remains a key focus, with key activity around the specialist channels of accounting, business transformation based on where the market currently is, and marketing communication, supported by new hires that we brought into the business to lead these areas with effective experience and proven historic delivery results. In our annual report, I referred to enhancing our offering within the IT channel, coming alongside our clients early on in their digital transformation plans and looking at ways in which we can better deliver holistic solutions into this space. Absolute IT is already well known for traditional IT staffing, and so to be able to leverage their strengths to offer solutions to some of the headaches that our clients feel, experienced across the whole of the tech sector, is, is for us a no-brainer.
Absolute IT's traditional channel continues to face the ongoing acute digital skill shortage, and New Zealand remains in fierce competition with the likes of Australia and others for the same. Whilst the easing in immigration has created some opportunity as a country, the retention of the talent is gonna have to be even greater, as we're simply not developing enough organic talent fast enough within the New Zealand market. The nervousness around job retention has seen candidate movement slow down. The great resignation is probably over, I would say, in this area, specifically of the market. Neither remove the significant growth that we still expect to see within the tech sector, and we must remain capable of delivery as the industry, government, and ourselves look for more permanent solutions to tech shortages at all levels.
Moving on to our blue-collar business, AWF, it continued on its recovery path last year, whilst had performed to initial expectations, they were impacted by one-off costs related to the Queen's Memorial and unexpected historical ACC claims. Immigration process improvement changes came too late last year to help last year's result for AWF. AWF, as you know, services much as all the towns, cities across Aotearoa. Over the course of the last two years, our regional branches, which are, of course, smaller by nature, have felt a greater impact when local economies and businesses went through those challenges related to the pandemic and its aftermath. Rebuilding our regional business is AWF's focus, or one part of their key focus, we're seeing some promising signs from that activity most recently.
Of course, the abnormal, abnormal weather events seen last year and this year do disrupt this area of the business more than most. Strategically, and with significant investment proposed to address New Zealand's current infrastructure deficit, we do remain committed to realizing the opportunities in this area without putting the business into a necessary risk associated with broader construction works that have exposed some of our competitors commercially. Inherent in our approach here remains strong commercial terms to mitigate risk wherever appropriate. I'm also pleased to say that The Work Collective, our social employment initiative, is going from strength to strength. The cause is winning the hearts and minds of our clients and our delivery teams internally, and it features in our bids more frequently now than ever before and continues to receive external recognition highlighted most recently with another industry award for excellence in social purpose at the RCSA.
We're also working more closely with government departments, tasked with helping reduce reliance on benefits at a root cause level. I continue to be inspired by the impact we can have on the group for business outcomes, as well as social outcomes in this space and through meaningful employment for all. Just expanding for a moment further on social responsibility and the broader ESG focus that we have within the business, over the next few months, you will start to hear more detail around Accordant response to environmental change and climate risk. It will describe how we're working towards a carbon reduction certification through the Toitū Envirocare program. Whilst the requirement to have audited green gas emissions is for periods reporting after October 2024, we've chosen to audit two periods earlier than required because this informs us on our journey.
We're assessing climate risk and opportunities, moves us forward with good formalized action plans. Our team are enjoying the learning process through this, and we're also pleased to point to evidence of already our reduction initiatives that we've had underway for some time now, such as hybrid vehicles, paperless systems, sensible travel policies, and our remote working technology. Towards the back end of FY2023, all our businesses have been on the All-of-Government Recruitment contracts, and they were reappointed once again to that panel. That process, which focused on reducing the number of suppliers to enable better relationships and outcomes, is promising for the sustained earnings from the government sector. We actively played our part in ensuring the framework worked commercially for all involved, alongside our industry association, and to good effect.
Whilst we can't be in denial about the current market conditions, we do have to keep challenging and indeed back ourselves to think outside of normal paradigm and adapt where necessary. Being a collection of former owner-founder businesses, this entrepreneurial spirit of punching above our weight, navigating and being agile is actually part of Accordant DNA. Whilst no business will call the current market ideal trading conditions, I can say that we use, continue to, and will do these conditions to spur us on positively and seek out the sweet spots to maximize returns as we should. The talent shortages remain in many areas. However, with lower business confidence, employers' propensity for hiring is somewhat more subdued. The general feeling is that this will change, all depends on what happens in October.
This translates to longer decision-making process. Our consultants are focusing more energy into guiding those processes, managing expectations and motivations of our clients to really help them through that journey, which is also complicated for them. Simon earlier mentioned resilience. For many of our new team members, it's a reality that they won't have experienced some of these challenges faced, both professionally and personally, challenges that are front and center in the media nearly every day. In part, the resilience comes from experienced leadership teams demonstrating how best to approach these challenges and leading from the front. Some will feel this is just a reset back to pre-COVID times and draw on that experience to help all navigate the now.
Building on that topic of support for our people, we have over the last year boosted all of our people initiatives, whilst being really clear on what success criteria looks like at all levels within the group. We're doing more in our own employee value proposition. We've launched group-wide learning and development initiatives for all team members, and we're fostering cross-business unit relationships for that symbiotic collaboration, as clients also reorganize and consolidate their own departments, especially the scale players. Like all businesses, we're responsibly focused on cost management, balancing this with the need to retain strong capability in support of our clients as the markets change. It also means continued development of our tools and data insights, two aspects that really set us apart as an NZ domiciled people solutions business.
Where we can increase efficiencies, we know this enables our people more time to do the impactful candidate and client-facing work that probably now matters the most. For example, the digitalization process that we've had in AWS, which have included a revamp of all of the onboarding process. I think of our first chatbot, Frankie, which has been instrumental in speeding up applicant processing times and providing factual, real-time insights as to where those applicants are coming from. Much has been said over the last couple of weeks around SEEK job application numbers rising, whereas we know from our own data insight that a large proportion is offshore and in many cases unable to work in New Zealand. We temper some of these indicators as our technology removes this component intelligently and swiftly.
We do start to see an increase, a meaningful increase, in applications, and we'll continue to focus on that. We're also concluding the digitalization of our health and safety toolbox process, building a technology solution that elevates the human interactions that are so critical in a positive safety culture. I'm a firm believer that AI, in all of its forms, is more likely to help create more oxygen for people to do the tasks that really matter, rather than replace those tasks. It was very apparent at our last Health and Safety Committee meeting that we're seeing safety outcomes that continue to be world-class and way above industry norms. This isn't easy work, but having everyone feeling accountable for ensuring our people, and particularly our field-based workers, get home safe every day, creates a culture we're all very, very proud of.
Fact remains, there is more work to be done in New Zealand. Think critical infrastructure projects. Think of business transformation using digital as an enabler. These needs aren't going to change. In fact, these are the very areas you now expect to see accelerate in the coming years. They are more likely more stalls than walls, per se. For now, as organizations look to reorganize themselves, that also represents an opportunity for us across all of the business units. In closing, I'd like to acknowledge my executive team, who, as Simon mentioned, have been journeying along each side of each other now for, for some time, being in more deliberates as they have been in banding together for shared wins of late. Together with my ERT and the broader scheme, we are navigating the economic environment with good heart.
Whilst it may feel like business as usual, for our business, we recognize the challenges in the market. All that really means for us now is, is putting pedal to the metal and going even faster, seeking those opportunities with real purpose, and that comes from our people, and we have a group of incredible people within the business. As I said earlier, the confidence we have in our group's relevance for New Zealand's progress is what drives us, and realizing sustainable earnings and ensuring a consistent dividend profile is what comes from that hard work. Thanks also to Simon and the board, who've been hugely supportive, engaged, and proactive in their approach. This makes a significant difference for the business, so thank you. Now back to Simon.
Very good. That was excellent. Thanks, Jason. Now we move to the resolutions, which are outlined in the notice of meeting. The shareholders joining remotely will be able to cast their vote using electronic voting card received when online registration's validated. To vote, you need to go to Get Voting Card within the meeting platform. You'll be asked to enter your shareholder or proxy number to validate, and then please mark your voting card in the way you wish to vote by clicking For, Against, or Abstain on the voting card. Once you've made your selection, please click Submit Vote. Again, refer to the virtual meeting online guide or use the special helpline if you need assistance.
For those of you in the room that haven't voted, Link here will collect the voting cards at the conclusion of the formal business, and voting will remain open for five minutes after the meeting. The results of the vote will be announced via NZX. Each of these resolutions set out in the notice of the meeting is to be considered as an ordinary resolution, and as such, must be approved by a simple majority of the voters cast by shareholders entitled to vote and voting on the resolution. The outcome of proxy votes will be displayed, for your information, on all the resolutions. To kick that off, to kick the resolutions off, I'll just ask Simon Bennett to address the meeting first.
Thank you, Simon. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I guess as the last remaining member of the board that, in 2005 floated this organization, that makes me now the resident fossil. Without being nostalgic, it's interesting that notwithstanding the ever challenging and changing world during the intervening period, our ambitions and aspirations really haven't changed. Our use of both organic opportunities, and where appropriate, synergetic and/or complementary acquisition continues. To that point, since I last offered myself, for re-election, we've added two great new members to the family of companies in the form of JacksonStone & Partners and Hobson Leavy. These are both recognized and acknowledged leaders in their fields, and we're delighted to have them join.
Jason and his leadership teams continue to avail the opportunities very well, while navigating the pitfalls and potholes which arise and have been mentioned, previously, and, and there have been potholes. Where some of our group could work remotely, relatively easily, without too much disruption, obviously, for our volume businesses, being kept at home was a real issue. Despite some notable exceptions where we helped businesses with their COVID responses, these were very challenging times for the team. We kept our internal and our field teams safe and, importantly, engaged. There've been well-publicized skill shortages and even the very slow-to-change COVID travel and immigration settings, which, while improving, are still yet to fully normalize.
As Jason indicated, travelers on their OE, OEs here are always an important part of our available field crew, especially in the regions, and of course, we're still waiting for the offshore skills refilling to ramp back up. As we now move towards an election, I hope and expect change and opportunity. There can be sometimes some small melees in the month or so running into the elections. Usually, within a few weeks, things are back to normal, and everyone's just getting on with it again, getting on with their plans. That's as long as Winston isn't in the frame and doesn't want to go fishing for a month while he decides who we're gonna dance with. Anyway, well, let's hope that doesn't happen.
I do hope that the next administration understands that you can't just mandate someone's value, and that for any wage increase to be both sustainable for the business, and therefore for its employees, this can only be done through gains in productivity, value, and output. We must see change which encourages and facilitates these gains, and I know our group will contribute well with our flexibility and agility that we offer to help many New Zealand businesses achieve going forward I chair the Accordant Health and Safety Committee very proudly, and I'd like to acknowledge our team. While we have two or three health and safety specialists in the company, most of that team is made up from our frontline staff across the companies. They bring frontline problems, frontline suggestions, and solutions. They do it with a passion, and a determination, and a currency that gets results.
As Jason said, I can pleasingly, pleasingly say we continue to see significant improvement in our outcomes across the group. In addition, in the last year, we have launched a bespoke health and safety system just into our white-collar businesses, which even better manages the challenges, dangers that they encounter. That program is now being introduced across all our white-collar operations. Thanks to that team. In conclusion, I guess, in anticipation for your support for my re-election, thank you for the support, and thank you for your support of Accordant Group.
Okay, thanks, Simon. Obviously, Simon, as per the NZX Listing Rules, is required to offer himself for re-election. Of the proxy votes received, 94.35% are in favor of this resolution. If anybody's got any questions regarding the motion, submit these online or save them for the end of the meeting when we will address all of the questions. Just vote, obviously, by selecting for, against, or abstain for the voting on the resolution card. Resolution two, Laurissa Cooney now puts herself up for re-election, and she'd like to address you now.
Thanks, Simon. tēnā koutou katoa. ko Laurissa Cooney toku ingoa. ko Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi toku iwi. Ngā mihi koutou i tēnei ata. Kia ora, I'm Laurissa Cooney, and my whakapapa or connections go back to the Whanganui River, but I currently reside in the sunny Bay of Plenty. Not that sunny today, though. It is a pleasure to be able to address our shareholders today, and I thank you for your time. It is an honor to be considered for re-election to the Accordant board and to have a few minutes to talk to you all. By way of background, I first joined the Accordant board in August 2020. I am also an independent director for other listed entities, Air New Zealand and Goodman Group.
I also provide governance leadership for several New Zealand environmental organizations: Aotearoa Circle, the Institute of Directors, Chapter Zero, and the Tourism Industry Transformation Plan for the Environment. I'm currently an active member of the Institute of Directors with charter member status and also a fellow of the Chartered Accountants of Australia and New Zealand Society. It is with this deep background that it supports me to be able to chair the audit committee and also contribute to the great skill set of our existing board. The Audit and Risk Committee provides assurance and assistance to the board and our CEO on the company's risk, control, and compliance framework, and its external financial reporting and accountability responsibilities.
In my time as the ARC Chair, the committee has critiqued and refreshed the policy suite and associated systems, and Accordant has continued to strengthen its risk management capabilities under the direction of ARC. We continue to position our business for growth while mitigating the risks and uncertainties that have featured over the years. As we've heard from our team, beside me, the JacksonStone and Hobson Leavy acquisitions have contributed very positively to the Accordant structure. I'm proud of Accordant, our CEO, Jason, and Chair, Simon, for their strong leadership, and our passionate staff, and my fellow board members for their commitment and contribution to Accordant. I'm committing to working on your behalf to achieve the best possible outcomes for the company and with my fellow directors.
With your support, I would like to continue in this role and continue to bring a financial risk and ESG perspective to this very special company. Thank you. Ngā mihi katoa.
Wonderful. Thanks, Larissa. Larissa was appointed to the board, as she said, on 1st of August 2020, and as per the NZX Listing Rules, is required to offer herself for re-election. Of the proxy votes received, 94.41% are in favor of the resolution. Again, we will address any questions on the motion at the end of the meeting. Same again, please vote by selecting for, against, or abstain for resolution on the voting card. With our board now in place for.. Well, we actually hadn't enough votes, so the, the board will be in place, but officially happen in a few minutes' time. It's appropriate to update you on the future plans, and we do expect to appoint a further director during the year....
we think it's prudent to ensure we have succession plan in place, particularly for Audit and Risk, where we have, don't have any other skill on the board in that regard. Following the sad departure of Wynnis Armour from our board last year, we feel like we want to move closer towards the diversity guidelines preferred by the NZX. Resolution three is to authorize the directors to fix the auditors' fees and expenses, and of the proxies received, 94.42% are in favor of this resolution. Again, vote by selecting for, against, or abstain for the resolution on the voting card. Agenda item five, the senior employee share incentive scheme. We have made no change to the scheme. We expect to establish another version in the same manner in October of this year.
The members of the scheme do like the scheme. Being our employees, they receive dividends on the way through. Of course, they would enjoy it more if we had a rising share price. Agenda item six, general business, is question time. Now we will give you the opportunity to ask questions, whether related to the presentations, particularly the, I guess, the in-depth one of Jason, financial statements or general management of the company. You can continue to provide questions online, and in person. We'll address questions already submitted. If we run short of time or unable to answer, we'll endeavor to respond to you after the meeting, so we would need your name in order to do so. Let's go. Where are we at? We've got some questions online, Sheraine?
We do have one question which was submitted prior to the meeting. That question is: Given the current low share price, is the company considering buying back its own shares?
Okay, I might answer that. Look, we, we are able to, I think I might be corrected here, but I think when we, notified that we would buy our shares, that remains open, but we're not in a buying window at the moment. Yeah, I think that we would have bought back shares in the last few weeks had we been able to, and I think it's something we'll be looking at, yes. Any questions from around the room? Mr Flowers.
Yeah.
We just wait till we give you the mic, if you don't mind.
I was very interested in your comments about being, the challenges of being a small company listed on the NZX and the lack of support from the broking community.
Mm
... and the costs involved. Really just a comment, I look forward to seeing where these discussions that you, related it, you thought that you would be taking with regard to this company. It's a very interesting thought.
Thanks.
Obviously, from what you've said, the last six months of the previous year were very difficult. I've been trying to glean from what's been said, how the first four months of this year have gone. There've been some generalities, but I wondered how, if you could make some comment on that. Thank you.
Nice to be able to go to the left sometimes.
Yeah, thanks, thanks for the question. I mean, you know, as I sort of said, I think towards the end of my address, you know, we can't be in denial around where the market currently is at. We continue to see AWF gaining good traction and managing costs well, and getting to a point currently of achieving what we would expect on that return to growth. Within our Madison and Absolute IT business, we continue to see the challenges around skill shortage and business confidence. Currently, and I believe it is only a currently, pausing. All roads don't lead to October this year, but it kind of feels within the business community that that is the main narrative.
I think certainty is everything, and as we get through to October, that certainty, regardless of, of the government of the day, will, will help everybody move on. A lot of the organizations that we talk to have strong plans for growth, continue, to choose us as a supplier of choice, and therefore, for us to ensure that we're there and helping them through that journey is phenomenally important. So, you know, there's been a lot of conversation in the market around costs and cost management, and, and what I feel we need to ensure we do is manage costs effectively, but do not reduce our capability for what I believe will be, you know, a more positive environment post-October. The opportunity within Hobson Leavy and JacksonStone remains. The demand has remained.
They continue to, to drive forwards, and I would suggest that, as businesses look to restructure, some of those senior appointments will become even more relevant over the coming months. Confidence levels remain high within those areas, but I think it's too early to say four months in as to, to what the, the, the end of the year will look like. We remain confident in our capability and the markets that we operate in currently.
Another question submitted, via paper. How have the weather events of the central North Island and the Digital Games Tax Offset in Australia affected the number of placements available in your allied workforce and Absolute IT business units? Use figures from FY2019, pre-pandemic, as comparators to enumerate your answer.
... I feel like I want to answer the one on the Digital Games Tax, but, oh, you can.
I'll do both. For those that, that, may not know, the gaming industry is growing at quite a phenomenal rates. In New Zealand, Australia, and actually globally, there's been a lot of criticism around the tax relief that movie studios get and why it's not relevant to the gaming studios. Even more so when you consider that a lot of the origination of idea and content has come most, most recently from gaming and turned into, to, into movies. What does that mean for New Zealand? There are a few organizations, RocketWerkz's probably being the biggest, who signaled earlier this year that they would like to see those tax benefits in New Zealand come to some fruition.
Australia got a steal on the march and did confirm that nationally across Australia, 30% was the tax benefit they would get as reduction, and in some states, 40%. What does that mean to talent? It does mean that a lot of those big organizations are now looking to Australia, and that will take senior talent away. I don't necessarily agree that it will take any of the developers away that we would see within Absolute IT, as an example. A lot of this stuff is done offshore as well, at the lower-level sort of development area. I don't see a significant impact to Absolute IT specifically, but it is an issue for New Zealand and the gaming industry that is growing, and it's grown quite quietly and quite phenomenally over a relatively short period of time.
Pressure is on for whichever government of the day gets in to resolve some of those issues. So far as the weather events for AWF, I mean, the reality for that region, if we compare to 2019, about 90% of the work that we were doing in that region was, you know, the horticulture and downstream sectors. A big percentage of the work that we're doing now in that region is cleanup operation and support of infrastructure. We haven't seen a decline in the placements that we have in that area. It's just different work that we're doing now compared to the work that we were doing in 2019, and that will continue, we imagine, for some period of time, but we've not lost placements or revenue from those areas.
Thanks, Jason. Okay, any more questions? Yes.
Firstly, I'm not worried about the share price, long-term view, so please don't panic. Over the last 3, 4 years, I saw there's a great reduction in the debt that you had, and you've borrowed, obviously, NZD 8.5 million for Hobson Leavy. What are the plans to keep reducing your debt?
It's, it's an easy question. look, I, I mean, I think the board's... It's, it's certainly on the board agenda, is, as to, you know, what the right level of debt is and, what the right level of dividend should be, and we do pay a lot of the free cash out in dividend. We've been able to acquire well in the past and, finance the acquisitions through debt and with some earn-out payments, it's, over time, we've been able to continue the dividend flow, but also pay down some debt. I mean, I guess that's what I was alluding to a little bit before when I spoke, that we were wanting to look at the capital structure, and, we have got a capital review going on within the board.
I can't tell you what the answer is or what the right number is, but I can tell you that certainly, we have a great relationship with ASB Bank, we feel as if, if I was to give you some guidelines, we feel as if when we make an acquisition, we can move our leverage ratio north of two towards three, and then over time it drops down below two towards one, and we think that that band is pretty much okay. I mean, it does link back to, you know, how, I mean, we don't...
I mean, if you work inside the business, you'd, you'd wonder why we always incessantly need to grow. The reality is, for a business of our size, like, we're not, you know, to your comments about the low-small cap business, I mean, I guess our aim is to, to be in the top 50. If we're in the top 50, then if we deserve to get some, some coverage, I think that that will be give a significant multiple lift to the share price. That's, that's our aim. We are growing so that we can, you know, once we get the, the cap right, the capitalization up, then we'll be in a, in a better space. We haven't, we haven't issued any shares for a long time.
Look, maybe, you know, maybe we should one day. Maybe we should have a decent raise on the back of an acquisition, or maybe, you know, there's other ways to break out of this paradigm that we're in. I guess that's what, that's what we're looking at, through the year. Yeah, certainly, that capital review is on our board table. Yes. One more, please.
Mr. Chairman, Alan Best. I wondered because the Immigration Department's looking very seriously at some terrible conditions of imported labor, whether AWF has run across any of the implications of this in New Zealand. It's a shameful state of affairs. I don't think any of us, and certainly not Accordant, would agree with it, but it may even present us with an opportunity to help. Could you comment, please?
I mean, I, I can probably do that. I mean, I mean, as, try not to be as critical of, of probably the government as I think Simon Hull was. Look, well, these have been extraordinary times, right? Throughout years that the government said, "We're not gonna let migrants in, we're not gonna let migrants in, we're not gonna let migrants in," and then one day they opened the door widely, and as far as we're aware, there has not been a, a significant audit regime of the people that, that, that brought migrants into the country. Look, that's a gap. I mean, again, as Jason said, we take this stuff seriously.
You know, in some ways, we maybe don't benefit as much at the front end because we are more conservative and make sure that we do get people well established, that we go above and beyond to make sure that this, that works, you know, well beyond what our legal requirement is. I mean, I think the opportunity will come when the audit regime comes through, and I think there are a lot of people who have brought migrants in that, that may be found wanting. We're committed to that space, and then we've got plans to, to continue our, our migrant inflow, but we just wanna be careful about it, make sure that they have good places to go to, that we can look after them well. You know, this is not a machine. These are people.
They, one by one, they get on a plane. One by one, they've got to get met and, and delivered somewhere and have housing and, and then be integrated into a decent workplace. We're just cautious. You know, I suppose that that did mean that we didn't get a, a significant boost to our P&L and AWF at the second half of last year because, A, it was slower before it actually opened up, but, B, we were more conservative, and, and rightfully so, I think. Okay. There it was. We will announce our result, our 6-month, before the end of October, as, as required, so that is probably the next time you will hear from us. Thanks very much for those of you that attended in person. It's nice to see some faces. I was a bit wobbly at the start.
I'm sort of thinking just online, but it's nice to have some humans to, to look to. So thanks for those of you that attended in person and for those of you that had to attend online. Thanks, Jason. Lots of your team are here. It's nice to see you and my fellow directors. I... Yeah, look, it's I really appreciate the engagement, and I think that we're pretty, rugby terms, we're a pretty tight team at the moment, so it's, it's a good place to be. Thanks very much, everybody.