Kia ora, everyone, and welcome to EROAD's annual shareholder meeting for 2025. Thank you so much for those people who have braved the atrocious weather in Auckland to come out and join us today. I'm Susan Paterson, Chair of the EROAD Board, and I'm pleased to be with you today, along with our other shareholders who are both in person and virtually, hosted by our platform providers, Computershare. For those attending online, I encourage you to submit any questions at any point using the Q&A tab on the screen. We'll address as many as we can during the Q&A session at the end of today's meeting. If we are unable to respond during the meeting, you will receive a written reply afterwards. When asking a question in the room, please use the microphone and introduce yourself by name.
Any media that are present, you're welcome, but just a reminder, this is a meeting for shareholders. Any of the other directors, or myself, or management will be happy to talk to you after the meeting. Voting on all resolutions will be conducted by way of a poll. I now declare voting on all items of business open. If you're eligible to vote, you can do so at any time using the vote tab in the meeting platform. You're able to change your vote later in the meeting until I declare the meeting closed. For those in the room, if you have a voting paper, or if you don't have a voting paper, rather, please indicate now, and Computershare will bring a voting paper to you. The voting papers will be collected at the end of all the resolutions by one of the Computershare team.
Computershare will also act as the scrutineers, and we will announce the results of the voting to the NZX and ASX later this afternoon. Firstly, I'd like to introduce my board: Sarah Grifford, who chairs our People and Culture Committee; David Green, who chairs our Finance, Risk, and Audit Committee; Barry Einsig, who chairs our Technology Committee; Cameron Kinloch; and John Scott. From EROAD's executive team, we have Co-CEOs David Kenneson and Mark Heine, and Rebecca Lineham, who was our interim CFO leading up to the results for 2025 reporting. Mark is unfortunately joining virtually today as he is currently recovering from COVID. We felt we'd best leave him at home, but you're looking much better, Mark. Welcome.
Thank you, Susan. Sorry I'm here today. Impressive.
Today's agenda begins with an address from me, followed by an executive update from Mark and David. We'll then move to the formal business of the meeting with four resolutions for today. Finally, an opportunity for shareholder questions before we close the meeting. FY 2025 has been a defining year for EROAD, a year that confirms the company is gaining momentum following a significant turnaround. The executive address will speak to the performance in more detail, but I'd be remiss not to pause here and acknowledge the scale of what EROAD has achieved. It has been a genuine turnaround, the result of sustained discipline, sharp focus, and refusal to waver from our long-term strategy. Since announcing the strategy in FY 2023, each year EROAD has grown stronger, delivering improved results and real operational momentum.
Investors are starting to see consistency and clarity they've been looking for, and that confidence is well earned. Change on the scale is never easy. It demands resilience across the organization and a willingness to hold the course when things get difficult. The board is particularly proud of the culture being shaped through this period, one that values discipline, innovation, and teamwork in equal measure. Co-CEOs Mark and David have led with conviction through each chapter of this transformation. Under their leadership, EROAD has emerged more confident and capable, and a clearer sense of purpose. The board commends them and the entire EROAD team for what has been a standout year. The FY 2025 results demonstrate the strength of that leadership and the depth of capability within the business. EROAD returned to profit, hit the top end of our guidance, and our performance expectations with NZD 16 million in free cash flow.
These results reaffirm the effectiveness of our strategy and the scalability of our platform, as well as the financial discipline now embedded across the business. Notably, all of this was achieved against a background of ongoing economic caution and uncertainty. Across the industry, excuse me, fleet operators have faced inflationary pressures, constrained capital budgets, and slower decision cycles. Despite these headwinds, EROAD has continued to grow its enterprise footprint, scale its platform, and improve its earnings quality. To put our performance in context, while the total distance travelled by heavy vehicles in New Zealand declined by 6% in FY 2024 and was flat in FY 2025, distance captured through the EROAD platform bucked that trend, and we had a 4% increase. We now capture 56% of all the heavy vehicle road user charge kilometres in New Zealand. That's a clear indicator of the customer value and market leadership.
Further evidence of EROAD's operating position and us operating from a position of financial strength, commercial discipline, and increasing customer relevance. It's important to note that this performance has not come at the expense of sustainability or long-term value creation. In fact, quite the opposite. Our commercial strategy deliberately aligned with measurable sustainability outcomes as our products help customers reduce fuel usage, lower emissions, and meet evolving regulatory expectations. For instance, our AI-enabled dash cams and fatigue detection tools help improve driver awareness and behaviour, and features like tailgating alerts and distraction monitoring contribute to safer, smoother driving, which in turn lowers fuel consumption. Our cold chain monitoring solution helps protect temperature-sensitive freight. That cuts down costly spoilage and waste. EROAD continues to enable accurate tracking of off-road mileage, unlocking rebates, and encouraging more efficient use of our roading networks.
Across the board, our solutions help our customers optimize operations, comply with environmental standards, and reduce their emissions footprints in real and quantifiable ways. We also continued to reduce our own footprint on the environment this year. That included lowering our reliance on air freight, improving hardware recovery rates, so more recycling of old hardware, and taking steps to reduce the intensity of emissions in our own operations. International and domestic travel remained elevated, and that is a requirement of operating in four locations around the world and the traveling that we need to do to engage with customers and our people. We are exploring more sustainable models going forward, and we certainly use Teams and video conferencing where we can. EROAD's climate-related disclosures report will be released at the end of July, and we do encourage you to read that.
From a governance perspective, FY 2025 saw the appointment of John Scott to the board as an independent director. John is a technology leader with decades of experience in global product development, commercial strategy, and digital transformation. He's held executive leadership roles across high-growth companies, including as CEO of Invenco and at Navico, both of which successfully scaled on the global stage. John brings with him deep expertise in product innovation, go-to-market execution, and strategic leadership. His product-led lens on innovation, growth, and governance makes him a really valuable addition to our EROAD board, and he has joined our technology committee, and we're very pleased to formally welcome him to the shareholder meeting today. I'd also like to very much acknowledge the retirement of Selwyn Pellett. Selwyn was the founder of Coretex, and he has been a really valued member of our board since the merger between EROAD and Coretex.
He brought really deep commercial insight and a very entrepreneurial perspective to the business, so we wish Selwyn all the best going forward and thank him for just years of service and his contribution to EROAD. This year, the financial year, marked the 10 years since EROAD, the 10th year since we were actually listed on the NZX. That milestone is actually a meaningful one. Over the decade, our company has matured through expansion and acquisition and the executive and board renewal, and we've all done that proudly headquartered here in Aotearoa. The support of New Zealand's capital markets has enabled that journey, funding innovation, fuelling expansion, and giving our people the opportunity to build a global business and make a global impact.
It's also laid the foundation for us to have a secondary listing on the ASX, and that broadens our access to Australian investors and strengthens our Trans Tasman profile. Together, these markets play an important part in our future, enabling long-term engagement. They support access to capital and allow our team to focus on delivering value. In late May, Constellation Software, previously our largest shareholder, exited its entire 12% shareholding. Importantly, this has allowed several Australian institutions to enter our register, and that improves the trading and the liquidity and removes a share price overhang that we had with a large strategic stake. We thank Constellation Software for their support it provided during its tenure with us. Looking ahead, we're confident in the company's ability to continue building on the foundation it has established.
We have set baseline guidance of NZD 250 million in revenue and NZD 188 million in ARR for FY 2026, with a free cash flow margin of 8%-10%. That is normalized for the 4G hardware upgrade program. The board notes that upside to these figures exists contingent really on the timing of major enterprise deals, and as we are aware, there is caution in these current economic markets. The executive team remains focused on strategic execution and delivering performance that compounds over time, and the board is committed to supporting all our EROADers in achieving that mission. As a board, we are very clear. We are building a company that delivers sustainable, profitable growth over the long term. That means continuing to strengthen the link between investment and return and maintaining cost discipline and empowering the executive to drive performance while safeguarding our core values.
Thank you, shareholders, for your support and continued dedication to EROAD, and thank you to all our EROADers for their resilience and belief in what EROAD is building. I'll now hand over to David first and then Mark for their addresses. Thank you.
Thank you, Susan. I will talk to EROAD's financial results for FY 2025, our free cash flow position, and EROAD's evolution and future growth journey. I will then hand it to Mark to speak to significant ROI our customers are achieving from our solutions as well as providing guidance for FY 2026. I'm absolutely thrilled to stand here before you today to share the story of EROAD's exceptional momentum. FY 2025 set a new bar for execution and focus. We didn't just meet our guidance. We hit the very top of range in a year that tested every business in every sector. More importantly, we made real progress towards our long-term ambitions, sharpening the quality and resilience of our earnings. We returned to profitability. We generated NZD 16 million in free cash flow and strengthened our operating model across every major function of the business. Revenue grew almost 7% to NZD 194.4 million.
Annual recurring revenue rose over 6% to just over NZD 175 million, and normalised EBIT landed close to NZD 10 million. We turned the corner, returning to profit and proving the power of our disciplined execution. This achievement isn't just about the numbers. It's about demonstrating that our strategy is working, that EROAD can deliver growth, profitability, and capital efficiency, not just one, but all three of those all at once. We also made an important change to how we report ARR. We've now restated it to reflect contracted lease hardware and SaaS subscriptions while excluding amortized hardware purchases. It's a cleaner, more accurate view of the recurring base that's more aligned with our model. It's high-quality, predictable revenue and the clearest measure of our long-term performance. That NZD 16 million of free cash flow is the outcome of deliberate, disciplined choices.
We acted strategically, drawing down on inventory built for our enterprise rollouts and our 4G upgrade. This freed up working capital, allowing us to drive efficiency and focus resources on our highest value priorities. We also continued to transition to annual invoicing for new and renewing customers, which supports working capital improvements. This shift to annual invoicing is already paying off. In FY 2026, we will expand this winning formula to our ANZ base. Our eyes are fixed on further gains. Normalized for the temporary impact of the 4G program, free cash flow climbed to NZD 23.6 million. With the 4G program nearly finished and our scalable model firing, we are poised to accelerate cash generation even further. None of this happened by accident. It is the result of EROAD's relentless evolution.
EROAD's journey has been one of evolution from a single product RUC compliance company into a platform partner for some of the world's most complex fleets. In the beginning, our business and our product were tightly focused. We built our reputation on trust, precision, and regulatory leadership, foundations that continue to serve us well today. Our growth created the opportunity as we launched additional products and expanded into Australia and North America, shifting from a compliance to a broader fleet management solution. The real turning point came with the Cortex merger as we grew our footprint and fundamentally changed the shape of our business. We focused on new verticals to EROAD, being cold chain and construction. We brought in deeper product capability, and we began this shift from fleet products to platform thinking. Over the last few years, we've transformed idealism into execution.
We narrowed our focus, reset our cost base, and unified our offerings into an enterprise-grade platform. Today, EROAD's compliance, safety, and performance is all brought together in one powerful connected solution. Today, we're operating from a position of strength with a healthy balance sheet, strong free cash flow, and more than half of our ARR now coming from customers who spend over NZD 100,000 a year with us. More importantly, we're now equipped with the right model, the right team, and the right product architecture to scale. We are ready to scale. We have the model. We have the team. We have the technology. Now we execute faster, we think bigger, and we deliver smarter. Looking ahead, our strategy is focused on three things: embedded intelligence through AI and automation, co-developing scalable high-impact solutions with our customers, and extending our platform value through the right partnerships.
That's the path we're on, and we're ready to accelerate. What does the next chapter look like? First, embedded intelligence. Data is our superpower, and now AI is magnifying its impact. We're evolving from AI-powered features to an AI-powered foundation. From Clarity Dashcam to driver analytics and route optimization, our platforms turn data into real, actionable intelligence. This approach delivers immediate customer benefit in safety, compliance, and fleet performance, and positions us to drive significant ROI at enterprise scale. Second, customer-led innovation. When customers face real challenges, EROAD is a partner that listens and delivers. Our most game-changing solutions come from working side by side with the world's top fleets, solving tough operational problems and scaling the results across industries.
Through our professional services team and structured pilot programs, we're solving real operational challenges in partnership with our enterprise customers and delivering solutions designed to scale across sectors, regions, and customer types. Third is our partner ecosystem. We don't try to build everything. We partner with the best. Strategic alliances with Microsoft, Thermo King, and Geotab let us extend the platform value quickly, staying focused on our core strengths while bringing more to customers. It's about speed, depth, and real impact. Each of these reflects our maturation and how we think about what we build, how we create value, how we go to market, and how we scale with our customers. Together, these priorities give us a clear roadmap to continue growing both revenue and relevance while staying true to what makes EROAD valuable in the first place. Now, I would like to turn it over to my Co-CEO, Mark Heine.
Mark?
Thank you very much. I am certain that our continuing investment in terms of preparedness is available, and EROAD is delivering. Let's start with cold chain, a segment under pressure from fuel costs, compliance demands, and equipment reliability. In a recent customer pilot, our integrated cold chain suite, we.
Saves a 17% reduction in operating spend, over a 65% reduction in pre-cool time, and more than a 60% improvement in food safety and quality assurance compliance, as well as a 50% reduction in critical fault codes. These are not numbers. They are proof. Proof that our solution drives real savings for our customers. For this pilot, the customer is tracking to a 5% annualized return on investment from EROAD, and that is just the beginning. This kind of operational return is exactly what enterprise fleets are consolidating tools and investing in scalable platforms. There is EROC, another of our compelling ROI stories in our portfolio and a foundational piece of our business. In 2025 alone, EROAD processed NZD 927 million in road user charges for New Zealand customers and delivered NZD 81 million in customer savings.
These savings are broken down as, first, over NZD 29 million in off-road rebates, second, NZD 25 million in distant corrections, and finally, nearly NZD 27 million in administrative savings. When you add these up, these benefits represent over 78% of our New Zealand revenue for FY 20225 alone, and an average customer rebate ROI of around 29% from using our solution. That means faster cash in hand, fewer mechanical inspections, and less manual processing, all backed by accurate, auditable data. These are not just incremental improvements. They are leaps in efficiency and value, creating real, repeatable wins for our customers. We are also helping to shape what's next. We've recently completed a proof of concept with the New Zealand government, demonstrating how connected vehicle data can be ingested directly into our platform, with potential applications for road pricing, network optimisation, and safety.
This is next-level ROI: faster, smarter, better for our customers, for the road network, and for the country. The ROI we're delivering is strong, it's repeatable, and scalable. Our regulatory-led approach creates natural entry points, often beginning with a specific compliance requirement, such as EROC, ELD, or cold chain monitoring under the US Food Safety Modernisation Act. These are low-friction, high-value starting points that allow us to land quickly, demonstrate impact fast, and build trust with fleet operators who have critical needs. Once that trust is in place, the relationship grows. Customers expand through their fleet growth, increased utilization, and the adoption of complementary modules such as our driver comms, inspect, geofence alerts, or fatigue monitoring. Indeed, one enterprise customer increased the annual recurring revenue with us by more than 5x in three years. It is not luck.
It is a compounding effect of a model built to deliver and expand. Our model is simple. First, we start with a regulatory need. We then prove its ROI. With that, we typically expand through the platform. It is a strategy that delivers strong account-level economics and deeper customer engagement. In fact, we see significantly higher retention and predictability for multi-product customers, which further strengthens our revenue quality and our forward visibility. This approach is a core driver behind our annualized recurring revenue growth. A key reason we see more enterprise fleets choose EROAD is a long-term platform partner. We're building not just recurring revenue, but also recurring trust. That's the foundation of a resilient, growing business. As we enter into FY 2026, we maintain our clear focus on complex fleet operations, disciplined growth, and commitment to delivering value through innovation.
At EROAD, we have an incredibly strong revenue base. This begins with the high-value quality subscription annualised recurring revenue. Our low churn, combined with supplying critical technology to the transport sector, gives us confidence in the annualised recurring revenue we earn from our customers. We also remain committed to the medium-term annualised recurring revenue compound annual growth rate of between 11% -1 3%. For full-year FY 2026 guidance, we provided baseline targets, which we aim to exceed. For annualised recurring revenue, which is our preferred metric, we forecast a minimum of NZD 188 million of subscription revenue this financial year. As to total revenue, we're targeting a minimum of NZD 205 million with upside growth. Our total revenue will reflect the completion of ongoing rollouts, expansion of our solution to our existing customers, and the conversion of large enterprise customers that are in our pipeline. Finally is our free cash flow margin.
We continue to ensure EROAD focuses on sustainable, profitable growth. To this end, we expect a normalised free cash flow margin to be between 8%-10% revenue for this financial year. Turning to the outlook for each of our regions. In North America, our focus is to continue to build on our pipeline while converting existing opportunities into completed deals. In New Zealand, we see increased opportunity to leverage brand recognition to capture new enterprise accounts and add value for our existing customers. The proposed government mandate for electronic road user charges presents a compelling medium to long-term growth opportunity, underpinned by the New Zealand government's commitment to implement EROC for all by 2027. EROAD is involved in supporting the New Zealand government on this journey already.
Finally, we are building on momentum gained in Australia, continuing to leverage our experience with trans-Tasman customers and launching an expanded product suite. We see Australia as a real growth market and will continue to invest and explore opportunities here. On behalf of everyone at EROAD, we thank you, our shareholders, for your continued support. Over the last three years, EROAD has laid a much stronger financial foundation that is now driving EROAD on a path to more sustainable and profitable growth. We would also like to thank our growing customer base for the opportunity to support their businesses through EROAD. Thank you. I'll now hand back to our Chair, Susan Paterson.
Thank you, David and Mark, for your addresses and for the significant progress that we have actually made this year. It's really encouraging to see the consistency in performance and the momentum building as we go forward into FY 2026. We'll now move to the formal business of today's meeting. There are four resolutions before us, and I confirm that all have the unanimous support of the board. Voting will be conducted by poll, comprising proxies lodged in advance of the meeting, and votes lodged via the Computershare platform today. If I'm appointed as a proxy to vote and not directed on how to vote, I will vote all those votes in favor of the resolutions. Those attending online can now vote via Computershare. Please click for, against, or abstain. Those attending in person can vote by marking your voting forms.
Andrew Mather, Erica Simmons, and Phil Hawkins from Computershare are on hand to collect these forms after the resolutions are complete. I will now take each resolution in turn. As the first resolution is for my appointment, I will hand over to Sarah Griffith to speak to this.
Thank you. The first resolution is for the re-election of Susan Paterson, who is retiring by rotation in accordance with the NZX Listing Rule 2.7.1. Susan is eligible and offers herself for re-election. The board unanimously supports her re-election. I will now ask Susan to address the meeting.
Good afternoon, everybody. I thought I'd just tell you a little bit about myself and why I would love your support to stay on the board of EROAD. I'm a Kiwi. I've actually been involved in governance since 1996, which I know is a little scary when you consider we're now 2025. I went to Otago University, and then I went on to London Business School and did an MBA at London Business School. From there, even though it was actually in the 1980s, I realised that information technology was going to be important. When I left London Business School, I went strategy consulting for a Boston-based company looking at the strategic use of IT. While the company was based in Boston, I worked out of the London office across Europe and the USA.
I came back to New Zealand and worked in business in various turnarounds before I went on secondment to the government to establish the electricity market in the early 1990s. Following that, I pursued primarily a governance career and have always worked across the government doing a number of things for the government. I've chaired Airways, which is air traffic control. I was on the board of Transpower for eight and a half years, and I'm currently on the Reserve Bank board. I've always done listed companies, which have a different dynamic and are very interesting, things like Goodman Property, Arvida, and obviously I chair EROAD and Steel and Tube. I work on a number of private companies, so Lodestone Energy, which is developing solar power. I chair a 300-person consultancy, IT consultancy company called Theta.
I'm really proud of what we've achieved at EROAD, and it's been fantastic to be part of the journey of where we've got to today, including acquisitions and then turning around to a position of growth and profitability and building a fantastic board and executive team. I think I bring to the business a lot of relationships both across industry and across government from my time working in New Zealand, and I would be really excited to continue to be on the board and be part of the continued growth and success in delivering all the fantastic things that EROAD actually delivers both for New Zealand and for our customers and the planet. Thank you.
Thank you, Susan. Is there any discussion on this resolution? There appears to be no further discussion. Back to Susan.
Thank you, Sarah. The second resolution is for the re-election of Sarah Griffith, who is also retiring by rotation in accordance with NZX Listing Rule 2.7.1. Sarah is eligible and offers herself for re-election. The board unanimously supports her re-election. I now ask Sarah to address you.
Hello. My name is Sarah, and it's been a privilege to serve on the EROAD board for the last three years. It's been an exciting time to be part of this journey, executing on our strategy, delivering free cash flow, and setting up the business for a strong future of responsible growth. I bring 25 years of being an operator, leading, growing, and scaling technology companies in the US, Europe, Asia, but also here in New Zealand and Australia. I've sold and deployed advanced AI supply chain solutions to enterprises for decades, seeing what digital transformation is required to yield the optimal results. As the enterprise is such an important part of EROAD's future, I look forward to the next phase of this journey.
With my experience in international business, I really enjoy bridging the gap between different cultures for our customers we serve, our employees, and delivering real value for our shareholders. I look forward to being part of the team for the next phase of this journey and look forward to your support. Thank you.
Thank you, Sarah. Is there any discussion on this resolution? There appears to be no further discussion. The third resolution is for the election of John Scott. John was appointed to the board on the 1st of March 2025, and he holds office until this meeting. He offers himself for election and, as shareholders have heard earlier in this meeting, brings a wealth of experience in product innovation and global technology leadership. The board fully endorses his election and I'll now ask John to address the meeting.
Hi guys. So I'm John Scott. I'll try and live up to the hype. I'm an Auckland-born engineer. I did my schooling here, went overseas, pretty much lived in every country in the world over the last 30 years. Wasn't particularly good at engineering, so went into product management and then went into kind of wider management, CMO, CRO, CEO, so I've sort of collected the C-suite range of roles. Came back to New Zealand after September 11, and I sort of worked in companies like Navman, Navico, and Invenco. If you've kind of driven here, bought petrol, or been on a boat, I've probably made one of the devices that you're using to get here. More by coincidence than any particular design, I've sort of specialised in taking New Zealand companies global.
It gets easier and easier as the world gets smaller and smaller, and the techs are in our favor. Most of the companies I've joined have been in the NZD 10 million-NZD 20 million range. This one's a little bit bigger. All of them at this point are multi-billion. They've all gone into private or public companies, so you sort of lose sight of them, but certainly Navico and Invenco are sort of multi-billion dollar enterprise value companies now. Why I'm here is I think this one's got all the potential to do the same thing. Everything I see about it is in my wheelhouse. Lots and lots of ex-colleagues from over the last 20 years are here, so it's good to join the family.
I hope I can offer the CEOs and the board a different perspective and maybe some of the things I've seen before, but we're about to go on the greatest transformation in history in the tech space. The next three years is going to be an AI ride, and anyone who tells you they know what's going on doesn't, so I'm not going to pretend to, but I want to be on that ride, and that's why I'm here. Appreciate your support and thanks for having me.
Thank you, John. Are there any questions of John before we put the resolution to the meeting?
There's a question for John. Could you please share your views on what additional steps EROAD needs to take to maximise its potential?
Check. I've been here four months, so this is going to be a disclaimer. Okay, what's going to happen over the next five years is I think people understand SaaS companies have a multiple. I think everyone realizes that SaaS companies are going to come under huge pressure, and everyone understands that data as a service is going to be the replacement for it. We're in a really unique position that we haven't turned ourselves into a SaaS company. We're a hardware company transitioning, and I think we're in a good place to go from a hardware company transitioning into a data company. That's the play. I think anyone who's SaaS-enabled or who's deeply embedded in SaaS has got a real problem because there's going to be a lot of pressure. We're in that perfect place where we're not overcommitted. We can be flexible.
There'll obviously be money from SaaS, but the data as a service is going to be the leading trend. We're perfectly placed. We have products that make data, and we understand the data. Yeah, I feel like we're in a good place. The reality is strategy is only half the play, right? Execution's the other part. As long as you've got good execution, sometimes the strategy actually doesn't matter. I think culture eats strategy for breakfast. One of the things that I like about here is there's a good bunch of people trying to do good things. There's the bundle. I mean, that's my four months in kind of answer.
Thank you, John. Appreciate that. I think, as you'll see, all our shareholders, that there is an exciting future ahead. There's a lot of opportunities, and it's bringing in people into the company and onto the board that have deep insights into the future and what that can bring for us. The fourth and final resolution is to authorise the board to fix the fees and expenses of KPMG as EROAD's auditor. KPMG has automatically been reappointed as auditor under the Companies Act, and this resolution allows us to set their remuneration for the year ahead. Is there any discussion on this resolution?
There's a question online. The investor, the shareholder asks, if we vote this down, what happens? Do the previous authorizations apply, or do the auditors work for free? Finally, when will the next tenure for the external audit come due for an auditor?
Thank you very much. Now, that's an interesting question as to if you don't authorise any fees for an auditor. I'm sure as shareholders that you would all understand there's an enormous amount of value in us having a really good and robust audit and making sure that the financial information that we give to you is sound and is accurate. I would strongly support this resolution. David, I just wondered if you've got anything else to add or if you have been in the situation where the resolution has declined to set the fees of the auditor.
No, I have nothing to add, and I haven't been in that situation. We clearly, as a board, we want an auditor. I think on behalf of shareholders, we do, and we would be looking to appoint a new auditor as quickly as we could.
Just on the point of do we put the external audit out for tender, we certainly keep a good eye on the market and what other options with regards to audits. If there was any question of us not working well with the auditor or having any issues with their performance, we would certainly do that. We do consider every year as to whether we do reappoint the auditor or look at the market and say, should we put the audit out for tender? At this stage, we are very comfortable with working with KPMG as our auditors.
Susan, could I just add that we do have rotation within the audit partners within KPMG, and Matt Diprose, who's current lead for our audit, has been in that role for, I suspect, slightly less than a year, Matt. Just at the beginning of that cycle.
Thank you, Jason.
There's one more question from a shareholder. When was KPMG first appointed as the audit firm?
I think you have been our auditor certainly since listing on the NZX 10 years ago. We have had KPMG with us along our journey. We do have an auditor independence policy with regards to how much other work KPMG can do for us. We have a couple of areas where KPMG do support us. One, we need to have all the electronic RUC that goes to the government to have that audited to make sure that those numbers are correct. On the other area that KPMG assists us, it is with international tax advice, and they do have years and years of experience of understanding our earnings across the globe and how we can best comply with all our tax obligations and optimize the tax that we pay.
Those are two areas that we do use KPMG for, but we look at that very hard and make sure that the amount that we pay KPMG for any other services does not go above the amount allowed in our audit independence policy. We also, of course, are extremely careful that KPMG never audit any work of their own that they have done. Matt, is there anything else you would like to add with regards to the audit? Okay. Thank you. Is there anything else from anybody else? I will put that resolution to the market. There appears to be no more discussion with regards... Oh, sorry, one more.
Sorry. Follow-up question. Given that KPMG has been there since the listing, does that place greater requirement on the board to consider an audit tender process sooner rather than later?
As I say, we would look at that every year with regards to the quality of the audit we're getting and the availability of other auditors in the market. Thank you. If that does finish up the discussions, then that concludes the resolutions to be presented. Voting on all resolutions will be open for a few moments. If you haven't already cast your vote, please do so now using the vote tab in the online platform. If you've previously voted and would like to change your vote, you can do that up until the voting is closed. The votes will then be counted under scrutiny of Computershare, who will now begin collecting the papers from the room. I think having paused to ensure all the questions have been received, Computershare will just collect these votes for us.
Please, if you're online, cast your vote now as I'm going to close the voting very shortly. Thank you, everybody. The voting is now closed. The results of today's voting will be released to the NZX and the ASX after this meeting, and we'll now move to questions and answers. Please, if anybody has any questions, we'd be delighted to answer those for you. Jason.
Question. Can you tell us more about the Manila office and how do you see that progressing in the future?
Thanks, Jason. I might pass that. David, for you to pick up.
Sure. Appreciate the question. Manila is our newest office. We're extremely excited about it. Just a year ago, it was a strategic idea of ours. We've been executing flawlessly on it. In the next couple of months, we'll have over 100 e-writers there. What's really exciting about the Manila office is it's really been a force multiplier for us from engineering and innovation, and we'll continue to do so. We're really optimizing our capital due to the favorable wages in the region. From a customer support perspective, it allows us to have a bit of follow-the-sun support, if you will, providing better support. Those two things together, we're really excited about it, bringing the Philippine office into the fold of EROAD, and we think it's going to pay off dividends in years to come.
Mark, you might like to just talk a little to the calibre of the talent that we're managing to attract in the Philippines.
Absolutely. Susan, I returned back from the Philippines last week. That may have been my source of COVID, unfortunately. Be that as it may, the calibre of the team we're building in Manila is exceptional. We are attracting leaders into the business from companies such as Amazon Web Services, Meta, Accenture, and the like. We've got a very, very strong customer service support team that David mentioned as well. Also, around the engineering talent we're bringing on as well. I was delighted last week when I was there to see the level of engineers we're able to attract at good speed. It can be quite difficult to attract engineers at times. What we found is we're attracting high-quality engineers and able to have them come on board EROAD really quickly. That speaks a lot to our approach in Manila.
We were quite deliberate around opening up our own office as opposed to using a third-party outsourced partner because we want to make sure we preserve the culture of EROAD and make sure that we drive the right dynamism in the team. We definitely see that with our Manila office. That is a great start for us.
Thank you, Mark. Jason.
Yeah. A shareholder online is asking, will the Chair undertake a board discussion and consult with major shareholders to put up a remuneration report resolution for an advisory vote at next year's AGM?
If you look at the ASX policies that they have over there with regards to putting up the remuneration for voting, we operate primarily Australia is our secondary listing, and we operate primarily as an NZX and under the NZX rules here. The NZX and Shareholders Association in New Zealand has asked us to consult on executive remuneration. And both myself, John, and Sarah did a governance roadshow across all our major shareholders prior to the AGM to consult them on our governance frameworks and our chief executive remuneration and how we disclose exactly what that is, what the targets are, and how each of the executives has performed on that. At the moment, we're aiming to reach best practice as advised by the Shareholders Association and under the NZX listing rules.
That is our practice and policies going forward, but we will continue those governance roadshows and continue to be very transparent on how the CEO's remuneration is made up and the targets they have to achieve in order to be paid for any of their short-term or indeed long-term bonuses.
Thanks. Another question from shareholders. What possibility is there to align reporting dates for the annual report and the sustainability report?
You're onto it. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Next year, we do plan to put both of these reports out at the same time. The requirement is for us to get this prepared, the sustainability report, by the 31st of July, and we'll definitely meet that deadline. Going forward, we would like to get them both done and delivered to you on a simultaneous date.
Thanks. There's two questions about the dual CEO structure that I'm going to ask as a two-part. One, could you remind me how this approach will power the growth of the company? The second part of it is, why aren't both co-CEOs executive directors? It's unusual to have no executive directors. Have the co-CEOs spoken to other companies with joint CEO models to understand the division of labour?
When we took on the co-CEO model, it was very much around looking at the skill sets of our current CEO, but also looking at the skill sets for the future and geographically how the company was spread across the globe. With a very strong presence in North America and looking at some real skills in sales and marketing and customer focus, David came on and joined as a co-CEO. What we believe strongly at EROAD is that the CEO job is a really big job for any one individual. Therefore, if we can have two individuals sharing the load for that job, then everything does not have to filter up to the top and have one person as a roadblock to going faster. We believe by having the executive teams reporting into two CEOs, we can actually make decisions quicker and go faster.
Between the CEOs, they have a very detailed understanding of how they'll work together and a very clear division of accountabilities. Having said that, they are both on identical remuneration packages and their KPIs are identical. One can't say, "I deliver this KPI," and the other deliver that KPI. They've both got to deliver the same KPIs, and they do work incredibly closely together, supporting each other, just making EROAD go faster by not having to have everything filter up to one key person at the top. I meet every second week with both the CEOs together in a fortnightly meeting just to talk about any issues that might be facing the business, give any guidance that they need. I can tell you the model is working very well, and the co-CEOs are working incredibly well together.
Sarah, is there anything else as Head of People and Culture you'd like to add to that?
Yes, I think Susan gave a great answer. I think the only thing I'll add is the board maintains focus on delivering value for shareholders. I think Mark and David did a wonderful job this year delivering that value. When you put two high-performing individuals together, it allows us to deliver twice as fast on some of those key initiatives that drive that value. That's the only thing I would add.
Thanks, Sarah. Anything else, Jason, from shareholders?
Yes. Another question is, given the revenue growth guidance, the moderate growth guidance in revenue, should EROAD be considered a growth company? Does the company have the right balance between growth expansion and financial discipline? Does the improved free cash flow support potential greater investment in growth in the future?
David, shall I let you pick that up first?
Sure. In short, yes, yes, and yes. Absolutely, our story is one of growth. I think it's evidenced by the growth we've seen across all three regions this year and really what we're signalling going forward. We've made sure that we grew in a disciplined manner to make sure that we generated free cash flow. I think we overshot a lot of expectations in this area. We're certainly now looking at that free cash flow, and soon with the 3G to 4G upgrade, which will be behind us in the next year, we're looking at different areas where that cash can generate more shareholder value through innovation. In the last year, we brought a number of products and innovations to market, whether it was our Clarity Edge Dashcam or our strategic partnership with Geotab. There's a number of things that we're bringing to market.
We're certainly looking for more on the road ahead. Maybe I'll turn it over to Mark to make a comment.
Thanks, David. In terms of growth, I mean, if you look at this year, we grew by around 7% in what was, more broadly, particularly for our customers, quite a challenging time in all three markets that we're in. Notwithstanding challenging time for fleet operators, we are still able to grow. We've certainly indicated to everyone we're looking to grow between 11% - 13% in the near term. As we've sort of mentioned in David and Susan's speeches, there's some challenges in North America at the moment, which we've been a bit conservative on to see how they're going to go through. Hopeful, as the markets pick up in all three markets, we do believe that 11%-13% growth rate is certainly attainable. In terms of investing in free cash flow, we certainly see real-term opportunities by doing so.
We will be disciplined when we do so. We do see that we can get continued growth from investing into our R&D and sales and marketing engines, which are both really building right now. We are really impressed by the teams that we have in place leading both those parts of business.
Thanks. Thanks, Mark.
Another question from shareholders on growth. Given your business model requires cash to be spent upfront for hardware, what is the maximum growth rate that can be achieved without reducing your NZD 24 million of free cash flow generated this year to zero?
David, why don't you take that one?
I'll talk about more from a growth strategy perspective, and then we could probably talk maybe about more of the math behind it. If you look at our growth, there's a number of things we're bringing to market that aren't requiring an upfront investment in hardware. One of them is our CoreTemp AI solution for cold chain, which doesn't require the purchase of hardware. We also have relationships with the OEMs that I mentioned in my earlier speak about, for example, Thermo King. We can actually get data directly from the Thermo King OEM refrigerant into our solution without having to put any hardware into a cold chain trailer. We're also looking at growth from professional services and co-innovation. It's another area where we're growing revenue, and it's actually funded through co-innovation with our customers.
I talked about moving to annualized billing, which has put us in a much more favorable cash flow position by the cash coming in upfront and not really trailing an investment in hardware. There will always be an investment in hardware as we continue to grow and service customers who do not have connected vehicles or more modernized vehicles. We do not see that as a major headwind to significant growth. Mark? Anything to add?
Apart from the fact that, as you mentioned, we've got so many different types of solutions we present to market now, whether it's non-connected, sorry, whether it's non-hardware but connected solutions around cold chain, whether it's camera, whether it's an EROAD wear solution. It's kind of hard to sort of say there's a certain growth rate where you'd hit an ability we couldn't fund it. We are really confident, one, around our balance sheet to fund our growth. Two, the free cash flow generation we're making, and that also helps build our growth. Yes, I don't really have much more to add than that, David.
Thanks, Mark. I think that does just show how we have pivoted and we're really making the most of selling an enormous lot of services without that same high upfront hardware cost in every aspect of the business. Jason, anything else?
Yeah, there's a follow-up question from Oliver at the NZSA. He says, "Good to hear about all the growth initiatives. Are they reflected in the FY 2026 outlook or longer-term forecast, or is that an implicit upgrade?
I think upfront, this year, we do have a number of investments in enhancing both the platform and the product for EROAD. As you'll be aware, there's also quite a long life cycle as far as the sales cycle. A lot of our large enterprise customers might either have other competitors' products in them. It takes a while till either their contracts expire or a while for us to convince them and do pilots and have them move across to our platform. That upfront investment does mean that it's quite a long cycle. In FY 2026, while we've put up modest growth targets, we are certainly aiming for higher growth targets, but we are doing a lot of investment in the platform and in our products and innovation.
Another one from Oliver as a follow-up on this. I'm going to move on to some of the other shareholders. From a sales perspective, what assurance can shareholders have around the capability the company has to drive sales growth? What percentage of revenue for EROAD is spent on R&D? How is that likely to evolve in the future?
You better take the growth one, David.
Yeah, I'll take the growth one. If you look across our just amazing customer base, there is white space in over 95% of our existing customers. And by white space, we mean that we have other solutions to sell into them. That white space is growing and growing with more and more innovative solutions we're bringing to market. We are extremely excited about our ability to quickly continue to sell and grow top-line revenue within our existing customer base as we work on the longer sales cycles that Susan was mentioning as breaking into new customers. Maybe Mark, I'll turn it over to you to answer about the R&D spend.
Sure. Oliver, you would have seen our story for the last two years. We spent about 18% each year of our revenue on R&D. There has been a lot of discipline around that to make sure we get the right return on that. As we look to see new opportunities, new growth going forward, we will continue to look at what is the prudent and appropriate amount to spend on R&D. We do look at other tech companies within AMZ and elsewhere to see what they spend. Historically, EROAD is probably on quite a low side of the proportion of revenue we spend on R&D. It is not just about a target. It is actually about the return. We are going to keep looking at ways we can grow the business and grow the top line. As R&D enables that, we will look into opportunities.
If we don't see the opportunities, we won't spend the R&D dollars on it.
Thank you.
A question for Sarah. From your vantage point of the U.S. tech industry, where do you think EROAD sits on the technology curve in its own segment versus competitors like Samsara? What can EROAD do to accelerate its growth in the U.S.?
That's a great question. I think the one great thing about the U.S. is that it's really, really big. There are a lot of places that we can work to grow. If you look at one of our current strategies right now, Samsara is incredibly big in the small SMB space. Actually, they very much struggle in the enterprise space where it gets complex. ROC is inherently complex. Reefer is inherently complex. EROAD is really good at enterprise and complex. Our big growth engine in the U.S. is going to basically be to outperform Samsara in a space that they simply can't handle from that perspective. I think if you look at our technology, there's a strong fit there. Everything can be bigger, better, faster, stronger. That is what our technology team is constantly working to deliver.
Thanks.
Thanks, Jason.
I have three more questions from shareholders. One is a follow-up on the upfront billing. How far in advance is the upfront billing received? Does it apply to both new and existing customers?
David.
Yeah, sure. Last year, our focus was on existing customers at the enterprise side and a few new enterprise customers. It worked out to be about 17% of our overall revenue, but it was just a few handful of customers. This year, we've rolled it out as customers came up for renewal in AMZ. Now, the aperture has opened up. It's several thousand of customers. It's, by and large, being well received. We're continuing to do that. Of course, with certain customers, we will always explore some level of flexibility. Just moving to annual billing, it's a 92.7% reduction in the number of invoices a year. Not only does it give us a better cash position, it also helps reduce the G&A on our side as well as the expense overhead on our customer side. It's being well received.
Thanks, David.
Thanks, David. Does the company have a strategy to mitigate a 5G transition, such as could that be paid for by customers rather than shareholders?
Sorry, I just missed the middle part of that.
In terms of the technology, as technology progresses, is there going to be a concern about technical obsolescence with a transition to 5G? Could that cost be incurred by customers rather than shareholders if that were the case?
Mark, why don't I let you jump in on that? We've just gone through that, obviously, with the swap out of 3G to 4G.
Indeed. Globally, the world's been upgrading from 2G to 3G to 4G. In terms of 5G, I think the important thing to note is 4G technology is called 4G long-term evolution. In the work we've done with our telco partners and also in hardware side, we believe that the 4G modems and our solution should be upgradable to the 5G network without having to do an additional hardware swap. That's our understanding and expectation on this. I do also want to note that over time, technology evolves generally. We will be looking at what sort of new generation technology we put to market anyway for our customers and making sure they get great value out of it. We do not anticipate the same sort of challenges we've had with 2G to 3G switch-out that we would with 4G moving to 5G.
Thank you. We do have our Chief Technology Officer, Dwayne O'Brien, on the back left over there. If you'd like to follow up with detailed tech questions afterwards, an enormous amount of that R&D investment is going into both the platform but setting us up to have the right architecture going forward. Jason.
Final question. If I haven't gotten through any questions, we'll address them. We'll come back to you, shareholders, and address them one-on-one. The final question is, significant takeover activity currently on the ASX. Given EROAD's excellent performance and the exit of a major shareholder, do you think EROAD has become more attractive to acquirers? For instance, WiseTech on the ASX is on the acquisition trail. Is there any history between EROAD and WiseTech?
Not that I'm aware. Obviously, as we deliver better, people will find us attractive. We are also partnering with other companies because we believe that we have a great growth story ourselves. We believe that our shareholders are, we had a really solid group of shareholders, a growing group of Australian institutional shareholders with deep pockets. I think if we're delivering a good strategy, we will have them supporting us as we grow our ecosystem and grow our partnerships going forward. Are there any more questions from the room? Oh, there is one at the back there. Thank you.
Yes, following on from the growth items that have risen, many years ago, EROAD was involved in a number of trials, particularly in the USA. Outside the three current markets, are there any other governments that perhaps EROAD might be considering taking part in by way of various trials?
Sure. Mark, I'll let you take over that because we have done a bit of a pivot, but then we keep getting inquiries from places like Australia. Mark, handing back to you.
Indeed, we do, Susan. I mean, our philosophy right now is the growth opportunity in New Zealand and Australia and the US is substantial. We are not necessarily looking at other jurisdictions right now. You may have heard that the Australian Treasurer, even last week, mentioned that road user charges is certainly on his agenda over the next three years and working closely with state governments. EROAD is in a privileged position that we have worked with state governments in Australia in the past around the art of the possible road user charging. We are going to be following that really, really closely. We also see some signs in North America that there is continued attraction around road user charges modeled in the market too. Our focus is on those markets.
Based on the growth that we can see there already, our understanding and our relationship with people in that market and the risk of necessarily going to other markets. Right now, we're not looking elsewhere outside of ANZ and North America given those opportunities.
Barry, I wonder if you'd like to just talk briefly as Head of our Technology Committee but extremely involved in the transport industry across North America as to what developments you're perhaps seeing.
Yeah, I think where we are at right now globally is we've all used fuel tax as a consumption tax for road maintenance and operations and even upgrades. The reality is that, in the U.S., 11% of all vehicles today are electric vehicles. As you look at that trend line continue to go up, there will be no fuel tax being consumed by those. In most cases, those are the first entities that states, counties, cities are looking to put some level of taxation back onto because it's only fair. They need to pay their fair share for the road usage. I think you'll see that globally as that becomes more of the trend. I think you'll see the automobile manufacturers look to serve their customers by being able to enable those technologies to their existing infrastructure.
That is where our partnerships, like what David was talking about earlier with the automobile manufacturers, the OEMs, the trucking companies, will become absolutely essential because we will be a platform play at that point.
Thank you, Barry. Now we've got another one online. Jason, go ahead.
Sorry, the last one online. The NZSA notes that there has been really good disclosure on how the board views the skills required to govern EROAD. Given the evolution of EROAD over the last 18 months and the potential for growth, how might those capabilities evolve over the next few years?
Thank you. Certainly, we have re-looked at our board skills matrix. We continue to do that through the nominations committee every year. That is something that will evolve. As you can see, with bringing John onto the board subject to shareholder votes today, we will continue to look at what are the skill sets we need and make sure that we have those skill sets around the table. It does start off by reviewing that skills matrix every year. Some of the skills that might have been needed in the past are not so necessary going forward. We will keep refreshing the board as you will see we have done over the past sort of three to four years to make sure that we have the skills that we need on the board. A continual process. Thank you, Jason. Thank you, everybody, for joining us today.
The weather has improved, but that means that you can stay. Please join us for refreshments. To everybody that's joined online, thank you very much for joining us. It's been fantastic that you've been able to dial in and be part of our annual shareholder meeting. Please stay for refreshments. You have the board. You have a lot of the management team. We have some product demonstrations over there. Please go and ask how the things work and see actually the value that we're delivering to our customers. Please stay and join us for refreshments. Thank you very much for coming today. Bye-bye.