[Foreign language] , good afternoon everyone, and a warm welcome to the MOVE Logistics 2025 annual shareholders' meeting. I'm Julia Raue, the Chair of your Board. Can you all hear me okay? Fantastic. I'm getting a little bit of feedback up here, FYI. We appreciate you taking the time to attend today, either in person or online, and your continued support for MOVE Logistics Group Limited. On behalf of your Directors, our leadership team, and all of our team members, thank you. The notice of meeting, which includes the explanatory notes, has been circulated to all shareholders, and I intend to take it as read. I declare that a quorum is present, and as such, I'm pleased to declare that the meeting is open. The audited financial statements for the year ended 30 June 2025 were included in the annual report, which was released on 29 August.
You can always find information about the company, financial accounts, notice of meeting, releases, and so on, on our website in the investor section. Shareholders and proxies may ask questions and vote at today's meeting. For our online participants, you can vote and ask questions online. If you encounter any issues, please refer to the virtual meeting guide, or you can phone the helpline on 0800 200 220. You can send through questions at any time, so I encourage you to send them through as soon as you can. This will allow us to answer these questions at the appropriate time of the meeting. To ask a question, you will need to click Ask a Question within the online meeting platform, select the item of business, type in your question, and click Submit. We'll start the meeting today with presentations from myself and our MOVE CEO, Paul Millward.
There will be an opportunity for shareholder questions and discussion. We will then move to the business of the meeting, and there's just one resolution today, and voting will be by way of a poll. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions before it is put to the vote. Following the close of the meeting, those shareholders today are invited to join us for refreshments. We have received a formal apology from one of our founding shareholders, Jim Ramsey, and I just wanted to acknowledge that. At the front of the room with me are MOVE's Directors, Greg Whitham and Lachie Johnstone. While we believe that five directors is an appropriate number for this company in terms of the size and scale, the recruitment of additional directors has been paused while the business transformation is underway.
We are confident that your current directors have the skills and expertise to oversee the turnaround of MOVE and that the reduced size and cost savings will benefit the business and shareholders during this period. Also sitting up front with us is Paul Millward, MOVE's CEO, and Lee Banks, our CFO. A number of our senior executives are here in the room. Have a look and see what they look like. Could you please stand? I'm pleased to introduce Warwick Brown, who... Sorry, Mark. Warwick, who... Oh, there you go. Warwick Brown, who runs our specialist business, Marc Blackburn, GM of Warehousing, Geoff Vincent, GM of Freight and Fuel, Anthony Brown, GM of Oceans, and Steph Rickard, GM of People and Culture. Thanks, team. All our team are friendly and passionate about their areas of business, so please feel free to approach them after the meeting for a chat.
As a board, our primary focus over the last year has been on transforming and strengthening our business while navigating through some of the most difficult economic conditions since the pandemic in the early 1990s. All of your directors are very involved in the process and in supporting management as they execute on our plans. Speaking from personal experience, this has been one of the most time-intensive and demanding chapters of governance I have been part of. It's also been one of the most rewarding as we've landed on the outcomes that we committed to at our ASM in this room last year. Our leadership team are integral to the transformation of our business. We were very pleased to confirm Paul as MOVE's CEO earlier this year.
Paul came on board as interim CEO in September last year, and he has brought fresh energy and a strong commitment to delivering meaningful change. As part of his remit, he has strengthened the leadership team, and we were very pleased to welcome Geoff and Mark, as well as internal appointments to fill vacancies. We continue to closely monitor capital requirements and balance sheet flexibility to ensure transformation opportunities can be maximized. A new funding partnership was established in August last year, and in February this year, we extended our bank facility to August 2026. Whilst our overall results are still not where we want them to be, we are seeing positive momentum and traction starting to be made. We believe every single person in the MOVE team is a key driver of our success.
By looking after our customers and our business, they will in turn help deliver an improved financial performance. On behalf of the board, we would like to acknowledge and thank everyone in the MOVE team for their continued commitment to our customers through more challenging times and acknowledge all they have done for our business over this past year. In summary, while there is still more to do to realize full value, good progress has been made, and we've seen continued positive momentum into the first quarter of this financial year. Gross margin percentage is the highest it has been in the past two years, and quarterly normalized earnings are up more than 80% over the same period. We have a clear plan in place as we complete our transformation program and focus on stepping up and standing out.
The Accelerate transformation plan was launched this time last year and identified three main streams of activity: to recalibrate our business, drive profitable revenue growth, and ensure balance sheet resilience. The plan has been well executed by the team, and we are now a far stronger organization with most legacy issues resolved, and Paul Millward will talk in more detail about our progress shortly. We delivered on our financial targets for the year with normalized earnings before tax, improving significantly year on year, and positive net adjusted operating cash flow. While there is more work to do, good progress is being made, and we have a clear plan in place to continue this momentum. We are very clear about the work we still need to do to deliver the value and performance for our shareholders and what you expect from us.
Our goals can be summarized as follows: a strong team that delivers, delighting our customers, effective use of our assets alongside financial strength and value creation. Our four-year New Horizons roadmap sets out our pathway to FY 2028 as we reset and step up. Our focus is firmly on achieving our goals and becoming the preferred logistics provider in Aotearoa, New Zealand. With one year of the Accelerate transformation plan left to run, we are now moving from cost out to value creation as we continue to build on the strong foundational platform that has been established over the last year. I'll now hand over to Paul to talk more on the Accelerate transformation plan and our progress.
Thanks, Julia. How's that? It's great to see those shareholders joining us today, and I look forward to talking with you post the meeting today. I've been in the CEO role for just over one year, and there's been a huge amount of action in that time. Whilst it's good to see that progress has been made, we obviously have a lot more to deliver, and I'm very focused to ensure that that happens. I do want to acknowledge everyone across MOVE, including my leadership team, many of whom are here today, for their significant work to ensure that we do deliver. It's their efforts and passion alongside a disciplined plan that will ensure we realize our commitment to returning to positive normalized EBT in FY 2026. Now, one of MOVE's biggest strengths is its size, scope, and breadth.
We transport, warehouse, and deliver goods across New Zealand, and we also offer services such as fuel delivery, specialized lifting and transport, and our Trans-Tasman shipping service. We have a strong brand and market position, and at the center of it all are our customers and a team that's passionate, experienced, and ready to deliver. Our national network reaches deep into key centers and the regions of New Zealand. We're continuing to refine our footprint, ensuring that we're where our customers need us while still making the best use of our funds. In August, we moved to a new modern facility in Dunedin, which has great connections to major roadways and Port Chalmers just down the road. It includes a high stud warehouse, has a large enclosed canopy for all weather operations, and a dedicated space for container devanning.
This new depot offers a total solution for customers with short and long-term storage, 3PL warehousing, along with freight container and full truckload services. The transition for customers went really well, and it's great to see a full and busy depot. Getting our footprint right for our demand and revenue base is critical for our warehousing business. We've recently exited several underutilized warehouses, one very large site in Auckland, which changed over on October 1, and one in Christchurch where we have consolidated the majority of revenue into an existing site. We're also about to downsize our warehouse in Nelson to ensure that we align our cost base to demand, which will take effect from December. These actions will have a significant financial benefit in FY 2026, particularly from Q2 onwards.
With the retirement of the only rail-enabled ferry in 2025, inter-island capacity will be significantly reduced until new vessels arrive in 2029. Our South Island hubs are really well positioned to support customers during this period to help them reduce supply chain risk. Looking back at last year in more detail, a significant amount of effort has been put into the transformation of MOVE over the past year. We've been moving at a real pace to right-size our organization for the conditions, while still retaining the ability to win commercially and be flexible for customers. We've strengthened our organization with a refreshed leadership team, divested surplus or aged assets, and right-sized our networks. Operationally, we've retained key customers, reduced costs by approximately NZD 27 million, and delivered a turnaround in the freight and fuel business.
There is one year of the Accelerate transformation plan left to run, and now our focus moves from taking cost out to value creation. The trading environment in FY 2025 was absolutely a hindrance to our progress. Ongoing economic headwinds, low business and consumer confidence, and cost of living pressures all weighed on demand against the backdrop of several years of recession in New Zealand. The 0.9% GDP decline in the June quarter was indicative of the economy that we've been operating, which is affecting most businesses and sectors. Lower demand leads to increased competitor activity and aggressive and unsustainable pricing by some market participants. Activity was further affected by the disruption to the entire ferry service, as well as several extreme weather events. Whilst New Zealand's long-awaited recovery seems to keep stretching out and stretching out, we can see from our partners that sentiment is starting to lift slightly.
We are strategically working on expanding the diversity of our customer base, which means that we reduce concentration risk and provide greater balance and resilience through the different economic cycles. We are confident that the level of transformation, both in cost, culture, and capability, will mean that we are positioned well when the economy has recovered, but we are not waiting for what we can't control. In the face of economic headwinds, our results in FY 2025 demonstrate the positive momentum of the transformation program. We retained revenue despite low demand in a highly competitive market. Earnings improved significantly, up 61% year-on- year, and the fourth quarter of FY 2025 was our strongest in two years, which is a great sign. Three of MOVE's four businesses delivered significantly improved normalized earnings year on year. We also lifted gross margin thanks to the broad cost out and efficiency program.
Gross margin percentages increased by 4.1 percentage points, and in absolute dollars, we were up 13.4%, a material step change. This slide helps to highlight our quarterly progress over the last two years to the end of June and the positive momentum we've seen under the Accelerate transformation plan. Looking now at our individual business units, a highlight for FY 2025 was the turnaround in MOVE's freight and fuel business, which delivered increased revenue and improving gross margins despite a tough market. The division's normalized earning loss improved by 90% year -on- year, moving to a positive result in quarter four and again in quarter one this year. We've restructured our freight and warehouse divisions last year, and we've moved the fuel service into freight. Our fuel business continues to perform strongly, underpinned by a long-term partnership with Z Energy. Warehousing has been a challenge. There are limited barriers to entry.
Anyone can open up a shed and offer storage. However, not everyone can deliver quality 3PL solutions with access to a national network and an integrated offer like MOVE. We did see a significant expansion of industry capacity during and post-COVID, and as customers have returned to just-in-time models, this has turned into an oversupply, and aggressive pricing tactics have been used, and storage costs are now below pre-COVID levels. A reset of the business is underway, and our priority has been customer relationships, service excellence, getting our cost base right, and winning new business, with positive results starting to be seen. We have retained key customers, as well as new business ones which have just commenced recently.
Alongside better productivity results and ensuring our property footprint is suitable for our revenue base, we now have a level of momentum, but we do need to win more business, which the team is very focused on. Specialists, this is a great business, very project focused, particularly infrastructure projects, roading, energy, plus we move all sorts of large and wonderful items. It had a good year in FY 2025, despite a large number of projects being deferred into the second half of FY 2026. Energy generation projects, wind farms, and the like are picking up, and our specialist business is considered an expert in this area. We're also doing more work in the Pacific Islands, where they have limited resources for specialized haulage. A healthy pipeline of workers in place for the next two years, and the business has had a good start to FY 2026. Last but not least, our international business.
It was a softer year for freight forwarding, particularly in Australia. Our Trans-Tasman shipping service is going well. We moved to a time charter model and a new vessel in September last year. We've recently renewed contracts with our three foundational customers who utilize most of the capacity, and incremental business development has gone well, and I'm very happy with the financial outcomes after quarter one. How are things looking for us in FY 2026? Our four-year New Horizons roadmap sets out our pathway to FY 2028. We're very clear about the work we still need to do to deliver the value and performance that our shareholders expect from us. A very clear and simple plan is in place. It now comes down to execution. Our transformation is not just about systems and structure.
It's also about mindset, and we've been working very hard to further embed positive behaviors and build a high-performance culture, whilst ensuring our people feel empowered and supported. Simply, strong culture drives strong results, and this will remain a key focus for us. Our priorities in FY 2026 are firstly to continue building value in our freight business, which is our largest business unit. In warehousing, we need to instigate a step change in the business. Workers are already underway on this, and we're seeing good momentum with customer retention and new business ones. Auckland capacity and customer mix is improving coming into summer, and we are focused on filling capacity in the South Island. Productivity initiatives are underway, and we will see the benefit of the site exits this year.
We will continue to invest in our people and capabilities, including technology to enable data-driven business decisions and the right systems to win in market for our customers. At the heart of it are our customers in delivering excellent customer service, solutions, and value. The economy does remain challenging, with soft consumer and business spending affecting all of those in the freight and logistics sectors. Manufacturing hasn't returned to expansion mode. Unemployment and inflation are still creating headwinds. Net immigration remains near its lows, and OCR cuts will take some time to feed through and to reduce mortgage payments and increase business investment. There are some small positive signs, however. There has been a small increase in retail sales over the past two quarters, and the primary industry and export markets continue to prop up the economy.
Demand for freight and logistics services will increase as in-customers once again start spending and large projects come back online. We are focused on what we can control: costs, customer service excellence, and running a tight ship. Looking at quarter one FY 2026 results, all of MOVE Logistics' s businesses, excluding warehouses, delivered improvements as planned. Group revenue was down slightly on the same period last year, which we take as a positive in the current economy, and we remain very focused on driving revenue and winning new business. The benefits of the cost out and efficiency program over the last year are now embedded, and we're seeing that in improved gross margins, with quarterly gross margin percentage the highest in the last two years. Operating costs have been reduced by approximately NZD 3 million compared to the same quarter last year.
This is on the back of the NZD 27 million cost out achieved in FY 2025. Our normalized earnings loss has also continued to improve and is up 82% from two years ago, which gives us confidence that we are on the right track and that our plan is working. While the timing and speed of an economic recovery remains uncertain, MOVE Logistics is positioned well with the right size business providing broad and relevant propositions, underpinned by a lower cost base, our national network, a great team, and some really strong partnerships. We are now starting to move from cost out to value creation. Freight and fuel specialists and international are all expected to continue their positive trajectory, tough word, with warehouse stabilizing and starting to improve.
The focus on gross margin has created a strong foundation with the full benefits of the cost out program to be realized in the current year. Our focus on customer service is also delivering results. The feedback that we're receiving from customers and the confidence shown through new business and retentions highlight the quality, capability, and commitment of our people. We're very focused on winning new business, and the sales pipeline is encouraging. A lift in market activity and customer demand, combined with improvements from the transformation plan, will enable earnings growth. We've got the right plan and the right people who care firstly about our business but also about our customers, and we remain on track to positive normalized EBT in FY 2026. Thanks for listening, and I look forward to talking with you post.
Thanks, Paul. Before we move to the discussion, I'd like to reiterate the key themes of today's presentation. We have a clear roadmap in place as we move from reset to step up and stand out. MOVE is a fantastic business with a lot to be proud of: a strong brand, great assets, and an expert and professional team who deliver every day for our customers. Our company is seen as a very credible alternative to other large providers in the market. Our performance, culture, partnership approach, and focus on delivering end-to-end solutions is seen as valuable and is why we have a number of marquee scale customers. Execution of our plan is critical to our success, and everyone at MOVE, from the board down, is committed to being the best we can be and realizing MOVE's potential.
Thank you to our customers, our business partners, and our shareholders for your support. Sorry, we are getting a little bit of feedback here, so apologies if it's impacting anyone. I would now like to invite shareholder questions in relation to the annual report or today's presentation. We will answer questions about the resolution as it is put to shareholders in the next section. For online shareholders, if you'd like to ask a question, click on the Ask a Question box either at the top or bottom of the web page. I'll start with questions in the room. Yes. Actually, when you ask a question, if you wouldn't mind just stating your name and present nice and loudly. Thank you.
Hi, Mark Blackburn, shareholder.
Hi, Mark.
Just on the warehousing exits, just looking at the balance sheet, it doesn't appear you own much property, so I'm assuming those are leased properties and they'll appear in right-of-use asset reductions.
That's correct. It's absolutely right. Thank you. Up the front.
Thank you. [Foreign language] , Riki Manarangi, [Foreign language]. I'm here on behalf of the Shareholders Association.
[Foreign language] .
I've got a few questions to go through on behalf of them.
Sure.
The first question is, will MOVE explicitly disclose whether it makes any political donations?
I did actually speak to all of these today. Apologies. We don't. We have a policy where we don't make any political donations. It's not possible for management to do that, so no, we don't.
Okay, thanks. Thank you.
Okay.
Yes, there will be some questions that might pop up, but it's not.
No, sorry. That's absolutely fine.
Thank you.
Actually, just on that, we didn't specifically disclose in an annual report, but we will do moving forward.
Perfect.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. When will MOVE disclose a formal long-term transition roadmap that details the pathway to achieving its 2030 emissions targets?
Lee, have you got a response to that?
Hello everyone. Welcome. We just submitted at the end of October our CID report, which obviously we're getting our full scope 3 emissions audited, and it is showing the trend that we are on track to a 2050 net zero and the 2030 targets. Obviously, a transition within this industry has implications and is quite tough in the sense that there's infrastructure within New Zealand, but it's something that we're focused on putting into our plan and that we have trialed examples of electric trucks.
Thank you. Given the climate scenario analysis has identified material risks, how is this analysis being used to shape a concrete long-term transition strategy beyond near-term initiatives?
I would say in this area we're relatively focused on the short to medium term, and simply the biggest tangible thing where we can make an impact is doing a better job of filling our trucks and being very focused on utilization. That's a metric that we manage daily, and even just this week we've increased our target on that. It's a very operational thing, but something that can make a real difference.
Thank you, Paul. Will MOVE fully disclose the CEO's LTI grant as a percentage of base salary and clarify if this is an annual award?
Yes, we will.
Perfect. Short and sweet. Is there the intention for MOVE to adopt the NZX remuneration reporting template to ensure consistent and fulsome disclosure of all incentive measures and targets? You would have spoken to Oliver about that, probably.
I did speak to Oliver, yeah, and look, we did get feedback from both Shareholders Association and ACC on our remuneration disclosure, and we are going to have a look at that and look at how feasible it is for us, but there's no reason why we wouldn't follow best practice, so yes, very open to that.
Perfect. Why does the CEO's LTI vest based solely on tenure, and will you add performance conditions like TSR to align with shareholder interests?
I think we might take that offline if that's okay. I haven't got the details in front of me, but we will follow the disclosure, so that will all be evident.
Thank you, Julia. Will MOVE begin disclosing its gender pay gap and the CEO to median employee remuneration ratio?
Yeah, on the pay gap piece, we are keen to do that where we've got the data. We need to really have a look at whether or not we've got the full data suite to be able to do that appropriately, but that's our intention. I'm not sure when, but yeah, it's a big piece of work that we need to do. Sorry, this feedback's quite severe. Sorry, what was the second part of your question?
No, you've answered that.
Thank you.
Will MOVE provide explicit disclosure of the CEO's differences, terms, and notice periods?
I think we'll just have a look at our disclosures around remuneration and terms and conditions in full and have a look at what we haven't disclosed and make that more obvious. We're certainly not obfuscating, so let me just make that statement. That's not our intention, so we're very open to that.
[Foreign language] .
[Foreign language]. Thank you. Over here. Thank you.
Thank you. Malcolm Wade, shareholder.
Hi, Malcolm. How are you?
Good, thank you, Julia. Not too bad.
No, I can see you limping. I see Malcolm a lot at Malcolm's part of many companies that I'm part of, so it's great to see you, Malcolm. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm just interested to know how you see the MOVE listing on the Australian share market in terms of what it costs versus what value it adds. It's obviously not a big turnover item.
We debate this quite a bit, Malcolm, particularly given we went through a significant cost-out exercise. The majority of the cost to list on the ASX is done when you list, so that money's done. We've got a couple of big Australian investors, two of whom are in the room today, representing, and we think it's beneficial for us to remain on the ASX at the moment. It's on our list of things to continue to review. The cost is largely sunk, so it's not a big cost to us ongoing.
Thanks for that. Now, the other thing I did raise last year at the meeting was getting five-year comparative figures on revenues and all the usual financial things and EPS, and the CFO indicated that he thought it was a good idea, but I noticed it hasn't eventuated in this year's annual results, so I thought I'd raise it again.
Thank you.
Happy to talk about it afterwards.
Okay, great. Let's do that. Thanks, Malcolm. Have you got a question, sir? Yeah, sure. Thank you.
Richard Myers.
Hi, Richard.
My question's about the ship that was purchased. Is it still fit for purpose? Since it was a few years ago now, since it was taken in. The move into specialist areas with heavy machinery and fuel, I would have thought that we have to, in general freight, that has to be at the core business of a transport firm, and we have to, where most of the profit will come from and should come from. Those two areas.
We did have a ship that we purchased some years ago, and we sold it last year. We've now leased a ship. It absolutely is fit for purpose. Anthony, where are you? Fit for purpose? Yes. That's leased, and we just renewed the lease with the back-to-back customers that we've got. As Paul mentioned earlier, that initiative is going incredibly well. Paul, have you got anything to add on the ship?
No, I think you've covered it.
Okay, great. Our specialist is a really important piece of our business. As you would have seen on some of the photos on our slides, it enables us to branch out beyond just standard freight. We do a lot of wind farm work, a lot of electrical work in the electrical sector, but I don't know if you've got anything to add on the specialist, Paul.
Yeah, no, Specialist had a really good year last year. From memory, I'm trying to remember what the EBT was, was NZD 2.8 million last year. That was the best year in about four years. Unfortunately, we had a couple of projects deferred because it was actually what we were hoping to actually have that business deliver NZD 3 million+ EBT for the year. If I look at the pipeline and especially what's going on in oil and gas and wind and some of the partnerships that Warwick and the team have with Siemens and the likes, we're really well positioned. It's definitely a great business and we're lucky to have it.
Warwick is here and he's a couple of people behind you, and I'm sure he'd welcome a conversation over refreshments around his business area if you've got any more questions. Thank you. Thanks, Rach. Over here. Thanks.
I've had a couple of my questions answered already, but I'd just like to say well done to the management and the board. I think we were all here last year sitting on the edge of our seats a little bit, and I think we're feeling a little bit more comfortable this year. You're not denying there's plenty more to do, but thank you very much, everybody, for definitely an improved effort and more power to you all both for the future.
Thank you so much, David. That's really kind of you, and I'm sure the team appreciate that because there's been significant effort going into this year. Thank you. Over here. Thank you.
This is the first time I've attended this AGM, this company's AGM. I've got only two parameters to analyze. First is the company's market cap is NZD 25 million, and the company made a loss of NZD 15 million last year. If a similar loss happens next time, we will wipe out overall all the shareholder fund. Why are the two investors who are in the room invested in such a situation when the company, because everybody invests for making money? I would like to know the investors' perspective and how did you convince the investors to invest? Aren't you worried that because last, just a few days before, we were here for the Metro Performance Glass and the company had similar things, loss is almost closer to market cap. What will happen?
My worry is, okay, you may be doing nice, but if you make another NZD 10 million, NZD 15 million loss, it will go like Metro Performance Glass when you will have to raise the capital.
Yeah, we've got disclosures in the market that indicate that we're not going to have that loss this year. I'm not sure what else I can really tell you in terms of we've got indications in terms of our expected performance, which we've covered. We knew we would lose money last year, but it's significantly less than we lost the year before. This year we're looking at returning positive EBT, but I don't know if you've got anything to add, Paul, on that.
I think, you know, FY 2024, a NZD 48 million loss of which NZD 21 million was impairments or write-downs. There was a trading loss of NZD 27 million. What we said we'd do in FY 2025 is improve that number significantly, which we did. It still wasn't where we wanted it to be. The economy was still pretty tough. Hopefully you can see in the numbers that quarter by quarter we're getting better and we're shrinking that. Our commitment is to return to a positive normalized EBT in this year.
We're on track for that. Otherwise, if we lost it, we'd have to tell you. We are on track for that.
Okay, my follow-up question on that idea, because I'm still not getting that clear view about why this company is thinking positive, because we went to Fletcher Building AGM and Fletcher is a big company, and they were not as optimistic about New Zealand economy as New Zealand government was suggesting about infrastructure and growth. I just went through the IMF report. IMF is also suggesting a positive growth for New Zealand economy, the latest IMF forecast for the Asia-Pacific region. Is there anything that you would like to tell us, what do you see on the ground which is positive, something that you see, positive qualitative thing that we don't see in the news or somewhere?
I think, you know, there's the top line of your P&L in terms of revenue, and that's still being tough, but we're also doing a lot of work to improve the quality of our revenue. We run from an operational perspective, we run various processes around pipelines, targeting how we get our sales team to convert opportunities. From the middle of your P&L in terms of the costs, a lot of the costs that we took out last year were done through the year, so you get the full benefit of that. If you consider in FY 2025, we took out NZD 27 million of OpEx. That's the impact in those 12 months, but some of those OpEx savings continue to give. There's a lot that says we're going on the right track.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. Any other questions in the room? We did invite shareholders to submit questions to the company prior to the meeting, and we did have one question from Stephen Van der Linden asking if we used owner drivers in our business, and yes, we do. They're a big part of our freight business, and we also use them to a small degree in our specialist business, and it means that we can flex our cost base to meet demand. I can't see any more questions. Jackie, do we have any online questions?
We have one online question from Paul Grant, who says, what quarter do you hope to be positive?
By the fourth quarter? I mean, all of the market statements that we've made have been by the end of the year, so that's what we will commit to at this point. Yep, sure. Follow-up question on the floor.
I was just giving the floor the opportunity, but it'd be interesting to know a little bit of a discussion on the innovation, some of the artificial intelligence, what role it plays in the company. Didn't hear it being asked, so I thought I'd ask.
Yeah, we're working on our technology roadmap at the moment. To be honest, we've deliberately not heavily invested in technology over the last year because we've been purposely focused on taking cost out, but it is something that we do want to focus on. We've got some immediate customer requests that we want to meet first from a technology perspective, which will just help further our customer experience. We're focused on that right now, and our technology roadmap we're working on at the moment, and the board's expecting to see a more developed opportunity in that space around February. It's not prevalent right now.
Cool. Thank you. I asked Mark from Freightways the same question this morning.
Thank you.
Cool.
What was his response? Sorry, I'll have a look myself. All right, no more questions. Thank you. We'll move on to the resolution, the business of the meeting. Only shareholders, proxy holders, or corporate representatives of a shareholder may vote on today's resolution. Voting will be by way of poll. Please cast your vote under the vote tab on the meeting platform or complete your voting form. Once you've completed your selection, please click submit vote on the bottom of the card to lodge your vote. If you have any difficulties, please contact the helpline number displayed in the top right of your screen if you're online. There's just one resolution before the meeting today. This was notified in the notice of meeting, and explanatory notes have been provided. The resolution is to authorize the directors to fix the fees and expenses of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the company's auditor.
Are there any questions? Yes.
Hi, Patricia.
Do you put that sort of thing out to tender, or do you just forward it?
We have some quite strict rules around our auditors and transition, etc. Currently, we're transitioning partners. Is that the correct word, John? Thank you. We're staying with PricewaterhouseCoopers, but we are bringing on a different audit partner from PricewaterhouseCoopers. The Risk and Audit Committee will continue to have a look at when it's appropriate for us to consider whether or not we go to market.
Thank you.
There's quite a bit of overhead, as I'm sure you're aware, with changing auditors. At a time where you're going through a cost out, particularly when they know you quite well, there can be pros and cons around some of those decisions, obviously. Any other questions on the floor, on the auditors? Anything online? No. Thank you. If you could please complete your voting now, voting forms will be collected by the team. Thank you, everyone. That concludes the business of the meeting. Voting is now closed. The results of voting will be posted to the NZX and our company website as soon as practicable. Is there any other business that shareholders would like to raise? Nothing online. Jackie, thank you. I will call the meeting closed. Again, I want to acknowledge you all as our shareholders and thank you for your continued support and investment in our company.
I hope, like us, you felt a huge sense of pride watching that video. For those of you here today, I invite you to join management and directors for afternoon tea outside. [Foreign language] . Thank you.