Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Neville Mitchell, the Chair of Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Board. Welcome to the 2026 Annual Shareholders Meeting. A warm welcome to all of you here in person at our East Tamaki campus and those online. A few housekeeping items. Bathrooms are located outside this meeting room to my left. In the event of a fire alarm, please follow the Fisher & Paykel team, who are wearing lanyards, to the assembly area in the car park ahead of me. On the information conveyed to me, I declare that a quorum of shareholders is present and the meeting has been duly convened. I would firstly like to introduce those joining us on stage today. We have our Managing Director and CEO, Lewis Gradon; our directors, Anna Curzon, Sir Michael Daniell, Lisa McIntyre, Graham McLean, and Cather Simpson; and our Future Director, Margie Apa.
Mark Cross is not well enough to be with us today in person, the flu has taken him down, but is joining us virtually. The minutes of the last annual shareholders meeting have been approved by the directors and are available for inspection at the back of the room. The Notice of Meeting has been circulated to all shareholders, and I intend to take it as read. First on the agenda is the Chair's address, in which I will provide some comments on the company's progress on behalf of the board. Following that, our Managing Director and CEO, Lewis Gradon, will provide an update on your performance in the last financial year and in the year to date and on our opportunities looking forward. After addressing any questions on the financial statements, we'll move to the formal resolutions. I'll now move to the Chair's address.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a privilege to address you again as Chair of your board. In my address today, I will share the board's perspective on the company's progress and long-term priorities. Lewis will then provide more detail on our financial and operational performance. Fisher & Paykel Healthcare is guided by a unifying purpose: improving care and outcomes of patients. One measure of that success is the number of patients who benefit from our products and therapies. Last year, this number was approximately 24 million people worldwide. It was another strong year financially. For the 2026 financial year, operating revenue increased to NZD 2.3 billion, net profit after tax increased to NZD 468 million, and the board approved dividends of NZD 0.52 a share. These outcomes reflect the strength of a business that has been built over decades across products, therapies, geographies, and markets.
In this industry, long-term value is created by continuing to improve products, expand clinical understanding, and identify new ways to support patients and clinicians. Our shareholders will be familiar with our strong commitment to research and development. In the 2026 financial year, the company invested over NZD 235 million in R&D, and over the last five years, approximately NZD 1.5 billion. All of that practically here in New Zealand. This level of investment is critical to sustaining innovation, expanding our clinical impact, and ensuring a strong pipeline of future products. Product innovation requires talented people, specialized equipment, and spaces for collaboration, development, and testing. Here at East Tamaki campus, you will see that work has progressed on our fifth building. The new facility will provide additional space for product development, manufacturing, and warehousing, and is on track to open around the middle of 2027.
As a board, we remain disciplined in our approach to major capital investments. You will recall that we have purchased land to develop a second New Zealand campus in Karaka, and we continue to see this as an attractive location. We also see opportunities for growth beyond New Zealand. As directors, spending time in the regions where we operate is an important part of our oversight responsibility. Last year, the board visited our operations in China. We gained a deeper understanding of one of the world's fastest-growing healthcare markets and engaged directly with key people over there. Over the next year, we will be looking to expand our manufacturing footprint in China to complement our ongoing investment here in New Zealand, as well as Mexico and other regions. As the company continues to grow, maintaining our culture globally becomes increasingly important.
The people of Fisher & Paykel Healthcare care deeply about patients as well as their coworkers. They have a relentless desire to improve, value original thinking, approach their work with humility, and work together for the greater good. We believe the culture remains one of the company's greatest strengths and an important contributor to long-term performance. Your board recognizes this and continues to monitor our progress. I would now like to cover a few other matters that have received attention from the board this year. First, the topic of sustainable procurement and addressing modern slavery risks. This year, New Zealand introduced a modern slavery bill into Parliament that will create a regulatory framework requiring large organizations to identify, address, and report on modern slavery risks within their operations and supply chains.
We believe companies have a responsibility to understand the conditions under which their products are made and sourced, and we have robust processes in place to guide procurement decisions. As part of our belief in doing the right thing, we work with our suppliers to raise awareness about modern slavery risks and support them to address this issue. We already report under the Australian, British, and Canadian legislation on this matter. Second, an update on the composition of the board. Last year, we farewelled Pip Greenwood, and Anna Curzon was appointed to the board in February. Anna has brought a wealth of knowledge in the technology and financial services industry to the board. She is up for election today and will speak to you later in the agenda, and I would urge you to support that resolution when it comes up.
We continue to support the Future Directors program, and we are fortunate to have Margie Apa as our future director for this term. You may already be familiar with Margie, as she is the former CEO of Health New Zealand. Third, ahead of the vote today, I would like to say a few words on non-executive director remuneration. As shareholders would expect, attracting and retaining high-caliber directors is important for effective governance. The board periodically reviews non-executive director remuneration with the assistance of external advisors to ensure it remains appropriate for the responsibilities involved and competitive with comparable organizations. This year, we have recommended changes to the director remuneration, and these are outlined in Explanatory Note 3 of the Notice of Meeting.
In closing, I would like to return to a theme I discussed last year, namely long-term thinking. We are operating in a world that is increasingly complex. Fisher & Paykel Healthcare operates in over 120 different countries, so world events are very important to us. Supply chains remain exposed to disruption. Healthcare systems are under pressure. Geopolitics, trade policies, and tariffs have continued to be important considerations. We do not underestimate these challenges. They require careful oversight and steady decision-making. We have continued to follow these issues closely and have met with experts in New Zealand and overseas to navigate them. In this regard, we would like to acknowledge MFAT, the New Zealand MFAT, and the advice that they provide us, which has been very valuable.
We cannot control external events, but we can maintain our long-term view. This guides our decisions. The company's success does not rest on a single year's performance. It rests on a consistent strategy, innovative products, a strong culture, and trust earned over many years. Those are the foundations the board is focused on protecting and strengthening. On behalf of the board, thank you to all of our people, our customers, our suppliers, and you, the shareholders, for your continued support. I would now invite Lewis to say a few words.
Thank you, Neville. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome. I want to say that we really, really do appreciate the attendance that we get at these meetings, so thank you very much for coming along. I am going to cover off some financial and operational highlights for FY 2026, then I will move on to our guidance for the first half and full-year of FY 2027. First of all, I do want to recognize the efforts of our 8,000 people. They are across 55 countries. Our customers, our suppliers, and especially our clinical partners. I am going to open with a video that I hope gives you some insight into how our people think about our clinical partners and about those patients that we jointly serve.
[Presentation]
Thanks, guys. Look, as Neville said, that was 24 million patients treated with our products last year, and I want to thank everyone that's contributed to that effort. Now, we'll just have a quick look at the financial results from our 2026 financial year. We generated NZD 2.3 billion in revenue. In constant currency terms, constant currency is where we take out all of the foreign currency effects, so you can see kind of the underlying growth without currency distorting it. In constant currency terms, that's a 12% growth. In particular, we've called out hospital hard. We're at 27% as strong across all regions and giving us great momentum for our FY 2027 coming forward. During FY 2026, we dealt with some costs due to trade policies and world events.
But momentum from those thousands and thousands of continuous improvement projects helped us cope with the tariff costs and with the freight and raw material cost increases we've seen during the year due to the Middle East conflict. We're able to generate an improvement of 122 basis points in gross margin, also constant currency, to a gross margin of 63.7%. Net profit after tax of NZD 468.5 million, up 28% in constant currency terms. Great result. Now, I want to put those numbers in the context of the 10-year trends. In the 10-year trend, if you look at revenue on the left-hand side, you can pretty clearly see COVID starting to kick in in FY 2020. It was right at the end of our FY 2020, and then the COVID effect in FY 2021 and FY 2022.
Probably in revenue, you'd say we're back on our pre-COVID track probably for the last three or four years. When we go over to the net profit after tax data, again, you can see the COVID effect on FY 2020. You can see the effect on 2021 and 2022, but that's an unsustainable workload for our people and our equipment generating that kind of result. During FY 2021 and FY 2022 , we're putting in the extra infrastructure, the extra equipment, the extra people to cope with those COVID volumes. You can see the impact on our net profit after tax in FY 2023 and FY 2024 there. It looks like over the last two years, we're back on that momentum to take our gross margin back to where we'd like to be, 65% target.
Our net profit after tax, back to where we would like to be as well. I just want to touch on dividends very, very quickly. As Neville said, we increased our second-half dividend by 38% to NZD 0.52 per share for the year, and that is up 22% on last year. That is a payout ratio of 65% of our FY 2026 net profit after tax, and we think that is roughly more or less the sustainable rate for us in terms of payout ratio.
If you look over the last 10 years, you can see we have been very consistent with our dividend payout, and we have been very consistently growing our dividend payout. In fact, that is a 12% compound annual growth rate over the 10 years. For investors, it is a relatively unusual combination, where you have a growth company with steady and increasing dividend payouts for you to consider.
Before I move on to outlook, I just want to talk to the comments that we included. We manufacture in New Zealand, Mexico, and now China. In our FY 2026 , we had U.S. tariffs applied to some of our hospital products that go from New Zealand to the United States. During the year, the mechanism under which those tariffs were applied and the rates changed, and one of those mechanisms was overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States. We are getting a refund for those tariffs that we paid. We are getting the refund in FY 2027 for some of the tariffs that we paid in FY 2026. We called that out, and in our press release last week, that is the NZD 23 million tax refund that we called out.
Just to be clear, we continue to pay tariffs in the U.S. on some of our hospital products sourced from New Zealand, but it is a different mechanism. There is also a U.S. federal agency currently investigating the impact that medical supplies might have on national security in the U.S., so, t hose tariff rates might change during the year. Also, the Middle East conflict impacts our freight and material costs during this year as well. You might be inclined to think of these as unusually difficult times. I think for us, as a global manufacturer with raw materials coming from all over the world to three different manufacturing sites, a global supply chain to customers in 120 countries, we always have something every year that is causing a disturbance or causing our costs to go up.
This is, I think for us, so far, almost like business as usual. There is cost in, and that is certainly how we are thinking of it. The way we deal with cost in, is just those continuous improvement projects over and over and over, and efficiencies across the whole business. Over the longer term, of course, just to remind you of our thinking there, over the longer term, we can adjust our global manufacturing footprint to reduce the overall supply chain risk as we grow. Now, on to the first half outlook. We gave guidance for the first half of revenue guidance of approximately NZD 1.24 billion and net profit after tax of approximately NZD 280 million. At the top line, at the revenue line, that equates to 14% growth in revenue.
If you take out the impact of the tariffs that are in that net profit after tax guidance, that's a 24% NPAT growth, not counting the tariff refund. Moving on to the full-year. A fter that predicted strong start, we increased our full-year guidance a wee bit up to operating revenue in the range of about NZD 2.47 billion-NZD 2.57 billion, and net profit after tax in the range of approximately NZD 525 million-NZD 565 million. I'll just make one thing I hope really, really clear. In that guidance, we've assumed that the tariffs stay where they are, and the increased raw materials and freight costs from Middle East conflict stay where they are. That's an assumption, so we can derive the numbers. It's not a forecast that that's what's going to occur. Just want to make that clear.
Even with those costs in, we're still anticipating increasing our gross margin for the full-year. The momentum of R&D projects that started 10 and 20 years ago, trusted customer relationships that span decades, continuous improvements by the thousands year after year, supplier partnerships that we've had for decades, that's the momentum that's generated the result we've seen for FY 2026. We also continue to build momentum for the future. If you look over the last five years, if you look at our people and research and development, that's increased 42% to nearly 1,000 people. If we look at patents in the United States over the five years, that's doubled to 768 patents in the United States. We call out one country there so that you can see that those are distinct inventions. It's not just a couple of patents in lots and lots of countries.
Our global patent portfolio granted patents is over 4,500. Anyway, if you put together the increase in R&D people, the granted patents doubling over the five years, we think that's a really good pointer that we continue to build momentum in that pipeline for products and therapies that are going to be unique to Fisher & Paykel Healthcare and generate improvements in care and outcomes. Now, if we have a look at sales. Salespeople increasing by 27% over the five years to over 1,500. Clinical practice guidelines for nasal high flow, that's increased from five to 12 clinical practice guidelines around the world, for use of nasal high flow. That increase takes account of 3,200 cumulative published studies over the five years to generate more clinical practice guidelines.
When you put that together, we think that tells us we've got momentum continuing to grow to help us change clinical practice. The next one there, if you look at anesthesia, so the number of professional bodies around the world that have a guideline in anesthesia for nasal high flow, over the five years, that's gone from 10 professional bodies to 25. W e think that points to momentum to change clinical practice. It's building over multiple therapies, and that points to it's something that can persist for a very long time yet. Cumulative hospital hardware sales of over NZD 880 million for the five years. That tells us that we do have momentum in that installed base, and that clinical practice is indeed changing.
And if we look at gross margin, I touched on this a few slides ago, but if you look at gross margin, you can see the COVID impact there in FY 2022 and FY 2023, really. Y ou can see the momentum of those continuous improvements, moving gross margin back to where we'd like it to be. F inally, for me, if we look at our history as a listed company, we've gone from generating a bit less than NZD 200 million in revenue in 2001 to NZD 2.3 billion this year. T his is not common growth, and it's not something we take for granted. F or us now, it's a matter of continuing to build on that momentum, and momentum's not about the financial performance in one year.
It's not about a single problem, a single obstacle, a single issue in one year. It's about continuing to make progress. Main thing is that's not me, is it? Okay. M omentum, it's about continuing to make progress in how we improve care and outcomes for patients. That's the big one for us. H ow we can remain as that trusted clinical partner, whatever challenges arrive for us or for our customers. I n closing, I want to acknowledge the people of Fisher & Paykel Healthcare for their commitment to stepping up to those challenges, and, of course, I also want to thank our clinical partners, our customers, our suppliers, and you, our shareholders, for your support and belief in this approach. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Lewis. Item number three on the agenda is to receive and consider the financial statements and auditors' report for the year ended March 31st, 2026. This is an opportunity to ask any questions specifically on the financial statements, the auditors' report, or the company's 2026 annual report. We have Indy Sena, lead partner from PwC, here to answer any questions you may have specifically on those items. Please note that there will be an opportunity for general questions at the end of the meeting. Would anyone in the room wishing to ask a question specifically on these items, please raise your hand and a microphone will be passed to you. We will then turn to our online audience. We ask that you please state your name before asking any question. No questions? Any questions online?
There are no questions online.
As there are no further questions, I will move on to the next item. The fourth item on the agenda is the consideration of the formal resolutions. There are seven resolutions, and each is an ordinary resolution. This means that they are required to be passed by a simple majority, more than 50%, of the votes of shareholders who are entitled to vote on the resolutions and do vote. Shareholders in the room would have received a voting card on arrival. If you did not and wish to vote, please visit the registration desk at the back, and the team will assist you. Shareholders online can vote using the electronic voting card received when online registration is validated. To vote, please click Get a Voting Card at the top of your webpage or below the video. You will be asked to enter your shareholder number or proxy number.
You can then vote by clicking For, Against, or Abstain for each resolution. Remember to click Submit Vote on the bottom of the card once you have finished voting. Further information is available in the MUFG Pension & Market Services online portal guide, and you can also call their helpline on 0800-200-220 for assistance. After voting on the resolutions, we will be happy to take any general questions about your company and its operations. Those online can submit questions at any time by using the online question function.
We now move to consideration of the resolutions. Resolution 1 relates to the election of Anna Curzon. It is a requirement that a director appointed by the board must not hold office without election past the next annual meeting following that director's appointment. Anna joined our board in February this year, and I will now ask Anna to say a few words.
T hank you, Neville, and good afternoon, everyone. Gosh, it is a privilege to stand here before you today seeking your support for election to the board of Fisher & Paykel Healthcare. Since joining the board earlier this year, I have had the opportunity to gain a much deeper appreciation of this remarkable company. As a member of the People and Remuneration Committee, I have seen firsthand the quality of the people, the strength of the culture, and the long-term mindset that underpins this company's success. It has reinforced my belief that exceptional care and outcomes for patients starts with exceptional people. A few months ago, I had the privilege of visiting Middlemore Hospital. Seeing Fisher & Paykel Healthcare's products being used in neonatal and in intensive care really brought home for me the real-world impact that this company has on families, on patients, and the communities around them.
My career has really centered on helping organizations grow through innovation and technology. I spent seven years on Xero's global leadership team, and the majority of that time was as chief global product officer, helping to scale one of New Zealand's most successful companies internationally. For more than five years, and across successive New Zealand governments, I have also served on the APEC Business Advisory Council by appointment of the Prime Minister. I currently chair the Regional Economic Integration Working Group, working with business and government leaders from right across the Asia-Pacific to strengthen trade, innovation, and economic growth.
I believe these experiences, together with my governance background, will enable me to really contribute to Fisher & Paykel Healthcare's continued success as it pursues its long-term strategy and global growth ambitions. It would be a privilege to continue serving alongside my fellow directors, supporting management, and helping to create enduring value for our patients, our partners, our people, and of course you, our shareholders. I respectfully ask for your support. Thank you. Over to you, Neville. Thank you.
Thank you, Anna. I now move as an ordinary resolution that Anna Curzon be elected as a director of the company. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room? Are there any questions online?
There are no questions online.
There appears to be no further discussion. Please now record your vote on this resolution. Thank you. The second resolution is to authorize the directors to fix the fees and expenses of PwC as the company auditor. Under the Companies Act, PwC is automatically reappointed as the auditor of the company. Just as a reminder, Indy Sena is with us today and can answer any of your specific questions. I now move as an ordinary resolution that the directors be authorized to fix the fees and expenses of PwC as the company's auditor. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room? Are there any questions online?
Yes. There's a question online from Grant Diggle, who's the proxy for the New Zealand Shareholders' Association. The question or the comment is, "The audit was last tendered in 2016. Would the board consider re-tendering the audit now 10 years has passed?"
Look, it's a very topical question, so I'll answer it with a little bit of philosophy. Our position as a board is to be very insistent on audit quality. O ur focus is on making sure that we have a very high-quality audit. To that point, we have our own internal processes that we have a look at, largely under the direction of Mark Cross, who's the audit committee chair, and Lyndal, who's the CFO. We're satisfied on that front. We also look at the internal processes at PwC and their external reviews, and we also have a look at what the FMA's had to say on that. I think we're perfectly content at this point that we are receiving a quality audit. The other aspect of that, of course, is independence.
Again, we're satisfied on that independence front and have very little cost going through to PwC that's not audit-related. A t this stage, we're not considering an audit tender, but we're mindful of the position in the market at the moment.
Yeah. The next question online comes from Stephen Mayne, and the question is along similar lines. "PwC has been our long-term auditor. When did we last tender the audit, and when are we next planning to tender the audit?"
I think I've answered that, so we can refer back to that audit.
There are no further questions online.
All right. I'd ask that you please now record your vote on this resolution. Thank you. The second, where are we? Directors' remuneration. Resolution 3 relates to non-executive director fees. Each year, the board reviews non-executive director fees to ensure that they remain appropriate and aligned with the responsibilities of the role. As part of this process, the board undertakes an independent market benchmarking review every three years. In March this year, we engaged Mercer, an independent remuneration consultant, to assess our director fees against comparable organizations and provide an independent, objective view on their ongoing appropriateness. Mercer looked at NZX and ASX companies of a similar size and scale. Mercer recommended an increase to director fees to place them at approximately the 50th percentile of the combined comparator group and the 75th percentile for the New Zealand comparator group.
Mercer also proposed an increase to the total fee pool available for the payment of director fees to provide a headroom of approximately 15%. The board has considered the experience and responsibility of the directors, the size and complexity of the company, and the level of governance and time commitment required by the directors relative to the advice received from Mercer. As a result of the benchmarking process and the board's consultation with a number of shareholders, the board proposes an increase in the total annual pool available for remunerating non-executive directors.
We also have Lizzy Cullen , Principal at Mercer, available on Zoom to answer any questions about the Mercer review, which was included in the papers. I now move as an ordinary resolution that the maximum aggregate annual remuneration payable to non-executive directors be increased by NZD 350,000 to NZD 1,750,000 to NZD 2,100,000. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room? Are there any questions online?
Yeah. First question is from Leslie Stevens and asks, "When the next directors' remuneration change is considered, would the benchmarking organization also consider and disclose the change in dividend per share and the change in value per share over the same period?"
Yes, happy to include that. Just by way of reference, and of course, that's all public information anyway, if you want to go back and have a look at it. T he three-year dividend growth is approximately 28.4%, and the three-year price movement is approximately 40%. O F course, the share price today is ahead of where it was at March 31st. T hat might be useful to the question.
The next question comes from Stephen Mayne, and the question is, "Given that we've got five remuneration resolutions on the agenda, why not go the next step and offer shareholders an Australian-style, non-binding vote on the remuneration? Could Sydney-based chair Neville Mitchell, who has dealt with dozens of rem report votes during his career, comment on whether he's had any board or major shareholder discussions about this issue? If Xero and Fletcher Building voluntarily put up rem reports for the vote, why don't we?"
H e is quite right. I have dealt with this over many years. We are a New Zealand company, and we comply with New Zealand regulations. In fact, we go a little bit further than what New Zealand regulations go, and we include all of Lewis's details. We already provide all the remuneration of directors as well. We are not going to go to the Australian-style remuneration report. We are going to stick with what we have got here in New Zealand, and I think that is perfectly adequate.
I would also add that I did a very extensive consultation round before we issued our Notice of Meeting to have a look at what shareholders thought about this matter, along with other things. We did not receive any support for an Australian-style remuneration report. They were perfectly satisfied with what we have got. Based on that feedback, based on the fact that we are a New Zealand company, we are happy to remain with the present arrangements.
There are no further questions online.
As there are no further discussion, please now record your vote on this resolution. Thank you. The fourth resolution is to approve the issue of discretionary long-term variable remuneration instruments to Lewis Gradon, Managing Director and Chief Executive of the company. As explained in the Notice of Meeting, approval is being sought to issue Performance Share Rights and/or options up to the total value of NZD 1,463,635 to Mr. Gradon. Prior to the grant, Mr. Gradon will be entitled to choose the proportion of PSRs and options to make up the total value to be issued to him. The value of each PSR and option will be determined by an independent valuation to be completed following the meeting. The key terms under which the PSRs and/or options will be issued are set out in Explanatory Note 4 of the Notice of M eeting.
The board believes that the issue of PSRs and options to executive management provides appropriate alignment of the interests of those employees with the interests of shareholders over the long term. I now move the ordinary resolution that the grant of discretionary long-term variable remuneration instruments to Lewis Gradon, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, be approved. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room? Any questions online?
There are no questions online.
Please now record your vote on this resolution, and I thank you. Resolutions 5, 6, and 7 relate to the company's long-term variable remuneration in North America. in 2025, the board reviewed the company's long-term variable remuneration arrangements. Following that review, updated Performance Share Rights options and employee share right plans were introduced for the company's employees. Included for selected high-performing employees in North America. A summary of the key terms of each plan is provided in Explanatory Note 5 of the Notice of Meeting. Under United States law, these plans require shareholder approval. I now move as an ordinary resolution that Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Corporation Limited 2025 Performance Share Rights Plan, North America be approved. Are there any questions in the room? Any questions online?
Yes, there is a question from Stephen Mayne. "Why aren't you disclosing the proxy votes? Did any of the proxy advisors recommend a vote against any of today's remuneration items, including this proposed performance rights grant? And has there any material proxy protest vote against? That was the wording verbatim. If so, what were the issues of concern?"
The issue of when you disclose the proxies has been an ongoing one, and our decision here has been that we disclose it at the conclusion of the meeting. Just like in a general election, you do not know what the vote is before you vote, so we are taking the same approach here. I think it helps stimulate the conversation along the way, if you do not know how the voting is going. You are quite entitled to ask questions along the way.
M oving to the second part of it, just to be clear, we will be putting up the proxy numbers, but that will be at the conclusion of the voting, and then you can see how others have voted. In terms of the proxies, yes, we have all the proxies opine on our resolutions, and ISS voted against the non-executive director remuneration. They felt that we already were adequately paid. I think we have already moved past that agenda item, but happy to display it afterwards. As a consequence of ISS, you will see that there was votes against the non-executive director fee increase.
There are no further questions online.
All right. Resolution 6. I now move as an ordinary resolution that the Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Corporation Limited 2025 share option plan, North America be approved. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room? Any questions online?
There are no questions online.
All right. Please could you now vote on Resolution 6? I now move on to Resolution 7, and I move as an ordinary resolution that the Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Corporation Limited employee share rights plan, North America be approved. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room? Any questions online?
There are no questions online.
There appears to be no further discussion, so please now record your vote on this resolution. Thank you. That now concludes the voting today, t hank you for your participation. MUFG will collect your voting cards from those in the room. For those online, please ensure that you have now submitted your electronic votes. MUFG will count the votes as scrutineer, and the results will then be announced to the NZX and ASX. We will now display the proxy results that we had as of Monday's voting deadline. The final results of voting, including yours lodged today, will be announced to the NZX and the ASX as soon as they are available this afternoon. Just take a moment to collect votes.
All right, I think that completes the voting. There is now an opportunity to ask any general questions about matters relating to the company. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room? Gentleman over there?
Good afternoon, my name is John Windsor. I just have one question, and my apologies if this has been covered in previous documentation released by the company. Globally, in the business that the company is in, firstly, it is actually two questions. What is the company's market share, and who are the two biggest competitors globally?
Look, we do not normally disclose market shares and so on, but I might throw that over to Lewis just to have a general discussion about the global market, perhaps.
Yeah, that is a hard question to be specific on for our business. We talked about it. If you take the hospital business, it is based on changing clinical practice. We do not really have a direct competitor that we go with head-to-head. What we are doing is, we are taking an existing practice. Patients currently might be being treated like this, and if you use our therapies, treat them like that with Fisher & Paykel Healthcare therapies, you will get a better outcome. It does not really sit in your question as it is structured. It is a little bit different.
In that business, we tend to think of competitors as companies that are coming up behind us, maybe with technology that relates to our expired patents. When we go to home care, there are two components to our home care business. First of all, respiratory support in the home, very much the same situation that I just described with hospital. The other component of our home care business is OSA, obstructive sleep apnea. We do not really disclose market share that much, but the largest competitor there would be an Australian-American company called ResMed.
Thank you, John. Any other questions? Was there a question in the front?
Hello. Norman Jacker. I have a question around the recent uptake in weight loss medication. I suppose it is twofold. One is, do we see any sort of downside risk in terms of demand for our products in the medium term, then in the long term as the drugs become more prevalent and we sort of see obesity rates starting to drop worldwide?
I might just have a few overarching, then I might hand over again to Lewis, who is dealing with this every day. At this point, we are not seeing any impact on our numbers to date. In fact, there has been some quite interesting studies that have been put out by others in the industry which show that stronger compliance can actually lead to greater use of our devices. A t this point, we are not seeing any impact. I guess the other point that is important in this is the size of the market that we are going after is so huge that even if it does take off some of the edges, there is still an enormous market left for us, which has got many, many years to go. Lewis, I do not know if you have got anything further to add on this matter.
That is a complete description of our thinking on the topic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good.
This is not really a question, sir. It is Dr. Peter Tillman. I am a retired family doctor, and I would like to thank you all up there on our behalf for the wonderful jobs you have all done. I see that lady there, and I only wish we had had one of those gadgets when I was working up in Wellsford when I first came here. Thank you, sir. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen on the board, for all you are doing, and keep up the good work because being retired, I definitely need that dividend.
Thank you very much, sir, and yes, of course, we will do our very best. Thank you.
Can I say thank you very much for the sentiment, and that is a driver for most of the 8,000 people at Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, exactly what you have said. Thank you.
Yeah , thank you. Any further questions? There's a couple here.
Pam Nash. I noticed that the entire board, with the exception of Lewis, are non-executive directors. Lewis is not a young man. I'm older, of course.
Come on.
It concerns me, or I'm asking a question of the board, have you not considered some of your excellent staff to introduce them as you do with the non-executive directors to arrive at the board by that sort of means? I think it's important.
All right. L ook, I think it's a good point, and we can consider it in future. Perhaps I might just ask some of them to stand up. We've got a number of senior executives who are here today, and I know they'd be very happy to talk with you after the meeting. H ave a number of our senior executives here and at the back as well, please do engage with them because they are here.
Why aren't they on board?
Y eah?
These people attend every board meeting.
These are executives and they are not board members. I t is interesting you mention this because they do attend all our board meetings. A lthough they are not board members and do not vote as a board member, they do attend. Everybody who stood up there attends our board meetings, including Justin Callahan, who is overseas, but he attended this morning's meeting, for example, by Teams, and very much part of that discussion because I concur with you. I think it is very important that we have interactions with senior management and not just with the Managing Director, excellent though he is. It is an important part of the culture here, and we have maintained that, I think. T hank you. Yeah, that one there?
Hi, my name is Jagat Dave. My question is, I went to the annual report, and I did not see any mention of artificial intelligence. For example, Anthropic is claiming that they are more business-focused, so maybe they are trying to have some medical discoveries. My question to the board is: Is it possible for some company in the world to create a patent with the help of an LLM which can make us second in the competition? Is it a possibility that somebody can find a patent which can actually defeat all the healthcare companies in the world?
We do not foresee that at this stage, but it is an interesting question which leads into perhaps our use on AI, which I think is probably a broader question, but it goes to the basis of what you are talking. At Fisher & Paykel, we have tried to deploy artificial intelligence very widely through the company and encouraged its use throughout the company, and we monitor that and how it is being used, and it has to be in a safe environment. W e think it is helping with efficiency and productivity, but we are not seeing it coming through in terms of NZD savings at this stage. I t is certainly a hugely useful tool, and we are into it and deploying it wherever we can. Lewis, I do not know if you have got specifics or anecdotes to add around that?
No, but t o your question, I think we have all the tools and all the motivation and maybe more of the innovation and culture than any competitors might have.
All right. Any other questions in the room? There's one at the back.
Don Howarth, shareholder. [audio distortion] It doesn't seem to be turned on. [audio distortion]
Hello. Don Howarth, shareholder. I'm a retired logistics and procurement manager, been retired about 16 years, and I was delighted to hear you commend your company's response to the logistical and supply route challenges of the last year or so. I follow those supply routes very carefully because I've got a spread of shareholding amongst about 20 New Zealand companies, and I see you people and Scales Corporation as two leading companies that have adapted so brilliantly. The impact of tariffs on your business has been minimal, and your trajectory for growth and profit improvement is quite exceptional, I think. W ell done to all of your working staff, not just the board, but the executive team and the working people at the coal face for overcoming those challenges and doing so well with them. Well done.
Look, thank you. You're quite right. Supply chains has been a major issue, and Andy Niccol, who's sitting right behind you, really spends a lot of time on optimizing this and how we work because it's hell of a complex, as you appreciate. 120 different countries, manufacturing in Mexico, manufacturing here, and getting that all in the right place is an enormous exercise. Do tackle Andy afterwards if you want to go through some of the specifics because I absolutely agree it's been an impressive performance and in a very complicated environment. Okay, a nybody else? Anyone on the line?
Yes, we have four questions online. The first question was received after Resolution 1, which was the reappointment of Anna Curzon, but we will ask the question now. From Stephen Mayne. "Given that Anna hails from Xero, which does put up its remuneration report for the vote each year, would she support Fisher & Paykel Healthcare doing the same, especially considering we are dual-listed in Australia, where remuneration report voting is mandatory?"
Look, I will talk for the whole board because we have discussed this, and the board's decision is we are sticking with the New Zealand regulations and expanding it where we think necessary and useful, and we are not going to adopt Australian regulations.
The next question comes from Oscar Raymond Tollefson. This is on slave reporting requirements. "I believe the U.S. is looking or has already to introduce additional tariffs on companies sourcing materials from countries assessed as using slave labor. I understand one of those countries is China. Assuming my understanding is correct, where are products manufactured in China planned to be sold? Are there any other risks with manufacturing in China?"
Look, there are risks with manufacturing in China, and we are very conscious of those. This is not a major development that we are doing in China. This is very much step by step by step. I N terms of the modern slavery regulations and so on, we have been over this for decades because we have had to report both under Australian and U.K. legislation and more recently Canadian.
N ow, as we outlined, we are going to be reporting under New Zealand legislation law. W e have had processes in place for the last decade or more to follow through on this and try and make sure that we are not having any slave labor in our supply chains. We audit our suppliers. We do all the things that are necessary on that process, and I am very satisfied that we comply with all the legislation and with the intent of the legislation in that regard.
Yeah, and just the next part of that. "Where are products manufactured in China planned to be sold?"
Largely in China at this point, yeah.
Thank you. Next question comes from Gordon. "What percentage of dividends of shares are shareholders reinvesting back into the stock exchange yearly?"
Look, I couldn't answer that. I don't know.
Yeah.
These are individual investors who can reinvest their shares where they like. We pay out about 65%, as Lewis explained, of our profits to shareholders, and then it's up to them how they go about things. Lewis?
We can't see what you're doing with it.
T hat's right. It's not our business.
The last online question comes from David Horton. "How well protected is Fisher & Paykel Healthcare against an AI stealing the designs and selling a product based on our IP?"
Yeah. Look, it's an area that the board has spent a lot of time, and we've had a number of presentations because obviously management's been all over this. I think on the basis of all of that, I think we're well-protected. You can never say never, but I think we've done everything that we think is possible on the cyberattack side and on the AI protection, and I'm satisfied with our position at this point.
There are no further questions online.
Okay. All right. Look, that concludes the formalities, everybody. Thank you for coming today. I do invite everybody to stay and share some refreshments. For those online, we appreciate your attendance and participation. I speak on behalf of the board and the wider company when I say that we value your backing and your continued trust in the long-term success of this business. Thank you to you all.