On behalf of the board, the management, and the staff of Metro Glass, I'm very pleased to welcome you to the 2021 Annual Meeting. This year is our first year of a hybrid meeting. As well as the shareholders that are here in the room, we have a number of people connecting online and they are coming to us virtually. It's a real pleasure to actually welcome people face-to-face, because if you think about where we were a year ago, being able to hold a face-to-face meeting is now something a little more special than we thought it was in the past. For those of you in the room, just a couple of housekeeping points. In the case of an emergency, we need to evacuate the room. There are two fire exits.
I'm pointing to them now. The assembly area is out the front there on the grass, or you may get taken down onto the grass in front of the other stand. If we do need to evacuate, staff from the event center will be around to help us leave the building, please follow their direction. If you need the bathrooms at all, they're out to my left, up the stairs. They're on the right-hand side of the corridor. For those attendees online, welcome to you. Just as with our physical shareholders in the room, you will be able to vote and you will be able to ask questions. I'll provide you with instructions as we go through the meeting to make sure your questions and votes get through.
If you do encounter any issues with the connectivity, use the online portal guide. If that's no help to you, please ring the 0800 number, which is 0800-200-220. That's 0800-200-220. If you do have a question, I'd encourage you to send that through as soon as you can. This will give us some time to collate them, and we'll try and answer as many as we can. If we're unable to get through those questions during the meeting, though I expect we will, but if we don't or any of them require a more detailed response, our investor relations team will come back to you via your registered email address, and we'll also put the responses on our website for everybody to see.
Of course, for those in the room, we'll invite you to ask questions after the presentations and at each resolution as we go through. To the agenda for today. I'd like to shortly introduce my fellow board members to you again. I'll make a few remarks. I'll then hand over to Simon, who will talk in more detail about the performance of the company and what's going on at the moment. We'll then come to the three formal resolutions. Sorry. We'll take questions after Simon's presentation. We'll then come to the three formal resolutions, and we'll take questions for each of those. After the meeting, for those of you in the room, you're very welcome to join us for a morning tea and a discussion.
I would just note that my fellow directors and I hold a number of discretionary proxy votes. We intend to vote those all in favor of the resolutions as sent out in the notice of meeting. We've also received advanced postal votes. 54 million shares have already voted, about 29% of the issued capital of the company. We will put some of the information up on a slide later in the session. The company's financial statements for the 12 months to the 31st of March last, 2021, together with our auditor's report, as were set out in our annual report. That was released on the 21st of May. This is available on our website. We also have a few hard copies here today if you would like one.
I would now like to introduce you to my colleagues on the board. They're all sitting here to my left. We have Angela Bull, Mark Eglinton, Rhys Jones, and Graham Stuart. You can find some details of each of the directors' backgrounds and experience in the front of the annual report I just mentioned, and also on the company's website. As we announced in May, our 6th and Australian-based director, Russell Chenu, who joined the board before the company listed in 2014, retired in advance of this meeting. And on behalf of the board, I'd like to thank Russell for his service, his support, and dedication to Metro Glass over that extended period.
We're now in the process of looking for an additional director. That process is now underway, and we'll make an announcement in due course when we've concluded that process. We also have our Chief Executive, Simon Mander, here with us. He's joined by our Chief Financial Officer, Brent Mealings, and we have our Company Secretary, Andrew Paterson, with us this morning. We also have a number of senior managers from Metro Glass. They're all wearing a name badge. I encourage you to talk to them after the meeting over a cup of coffee. In addition to that, we have Troy Florence, who's from our auditors, PwC. He's our Audit Partner. We also have Toby Sharpe from Bell Gully, our legal advisers, here in the room this morning. Welcome to both of you guys.
I can confirm the notice meeting was sent out to shareholders and that we have a quorum here today, and therefore I declare the meeting open. I'd like to start my remarks by just acknowledging a few things, which I'm sure many of them are very obvious to everyone. Financial Year 2021 was a very challenging year for Metro Glass, for all businesses in New Zealand and Australia, and indeed globally. Metro Glass displayed some real resilience in the face of these significant pressures and the uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. If you recall, we began the FY 2021 financial year in Alert Level 4 in New Zealand. That means our operations in the country were all completely closed down, and they stayed that way until late April, when we moved into Level 3.
Our Australian operations were also affected by restrictions, and while these at the time were less severe than the ones in New Zealand, they were in place for considerably longer, and they continue to have an impact on us today. I'm sure you're all familiar with the news last night of a further shutdown in Victoria. Our whole team responded very quickly to the announcements of lockdown. We focused on the safety and the wellbeing of our people, on the wellbeing and satisfaction of our customers, on preserving our cash, and ensuring that our balance sheet had enough liquidity in it to cope with what we thought was going to be a very challenging time for the company, if you think back to April last year. While in New Zealand today, we're really fortunate to be operating in something like relative normality.
The very quickly developing situation in Australia just highlights how we must remain alert to sudden changes in Alert Levels. This is something that we focus on every day. As a consequence of the pandemic, there've been widespread disruptions to international shipping. Again, I imagine many people have heard about that, to congestion at New Zealand ports, and this has impacted all importers and exporters from New Zealand, including ourselves. We recognized this early, and since late last year, we've been working to increase our safety stocks of materials in the country and to best utilize our national processing and distribution footprint to limit the impact on our customers. We've been quite successful in doing that.
While the scale of these disruptions has provided some real short-term challenges to us and some real financial impacts, we have managed quite well, and we think our customers have not felt extreme disruption because of this. These challenges have brought associated increases in costs, and where appropriate, we have put in place price rises in New Zealand and Australia to cover those. Glass demand, despite all of this, glass demand remains strong in both countries, but the competitive challenges of satisfying our customers are complicated by these ongoing challenges of the supply chain and the pandemic. We expect this to be the environment we face for some considerable time going forward. When I reflect on the FY 2021 financial results, and while group profitability did decline, I believe the group's performance can be considered as solid given the circumstances we were facing.
This was achieved through the resilience of the people, staying connected to customers, and remaining focused on customer service and quality. The New Zealand market remains competitive, and the commissioning of additional processing capacity by a competitor in the North Island early last year means that the total national processing capacity in New Zealand remains well above demand, even at these heightened levels. Our customers do have a choice as to who they partner with, and we want to ensure that choosing Metro Glass is one of the easiest decisions they have to make. Our strategy to defend our market share or defend our market leading position while we recalibrate our sales mix in this competitive landscape is already delivering encouraging results.
We've had strong growth in our B2C segment, in our retrofit channel, and in other segments that have helped offset the competitive nature or the competition for share in the residential window segment. Again, we expect this competitive dynamic to continue into the future. To thrive in this sort of environment, we must focus on providing a compelling and differentiated value proposition. We must maintain strong relationships across our customer base and ensure that we are providing a broad range of high-quality products that are delivered consistently and installed according to specification everywhere in New Zealand every day. That's our goal. Simon will share a little more about this during his presentation to you. Now, as I mentioned, the demand for glass is strong and across all our market segments, and consenting activity grew through financial year 2021 and reached all-time highs earlier this year.
We believe that this will lead to continued strength in the residential construction market in New Zealand for some time to come, so the rest of this year and into next year. In Australia, we are a focused double glazing manufacturer. The market is fragmented and competitive, and in that situation, Australian Glass Group has continued to strengthen its value proposition, and we've delivered a significantly improved result in the financial year we're discussing today. After achieving a positive earnings before tax situation in the first half of last year, the AGG operations were negatively impacted late in the year by further COVID shutdowns, as we just talked about, and there was also a severe weather event in New South Wales, which was a large flood. You might remember it disrupted distribution in the state quite considerably.
Both of those events meant that we resulted in producing a modest loss in Australia instead of the break-even slight positive result we were hoping for. However, the growing use of double glazing in the southeast of Australia, the upcoming changes to the National Construction Codes continue to underpin our revenue growth. In FY 2021, AGG grew its double glazing sales in Australia by 9%, and this momentum is continuing into this financial year. We now believe that the business there is on a solid footing. It's got a positive long-term outlook. While COVID risks are absolutely evident in Australia, we are excited and interested by the growth opportunities we have ahead of us in Australia. If I just turn to our balance sheet for a moment. Despite COVID and the disruptions I mentioned, we generated a strong cash flow from operations. We had to focus our capital expenditure.
We had to manage costs very prudently. By doing that, we were able to strengthen the balance sheet by reducing debt by NZD 18.9 million, leaving us with a net debt at the end of the financial year of NZD 48 million. In October last year, the group refinanced its banking facilities. We extended our term from August 2021 out to October 2023, and the total facility was reduced from the NZD 120 million we had down to NZD 85 million. That included a NZD 10 million standby facility that we never actually drew upon, and that will wind off in October. This process of debt reduction over the last two to three years has allowed us to set a new, lower debt facility, which strikes the appropriate balance between minimizing our funding costs, but also providing us with financial flexibility if we need it.
At a much lower level than we had historically. The board remains focused on ensuring that the company is a successful glass processor and that it delivers value. While the current challenges in our marketplace and the pandemic response must dominate our attention, we now think we are in a position to seriously consider the future of the business. What should come next for Metro Glass? How do we take advantage of our growth opportunities in Australia? How will the overcapacity issues in New Zealand be resolved? How do we ensure that this company, our company, comes through this period in a market leadership position with a sustained financial performance?
In service of this, our goals are to maintain our leadership position in New Zealand by refining our mix of products and participation in segments to take advantage of the opportunities that we see in the increasingly competitive market in New Zealand. In Australia, to grow and improve the profitability of our Australian business and benefit from the significantly increasing demand for double glazing in the markets we participate in. All the while ensuring that our balance sheet is there to cope with any surprises that the markets throw at us, but also to give us some capacity to take advantage of those opportunities should they come our way. We've consistently communicated to you that reducing our leverage ratio, our debt to profit ratio, has been a big focus of ours over the past two years.
We've been aiming to get to a target of one and a half times. That's the ratio we've been looking for. Despite the disruptions of COVID-19, the success in reducing our debt means we are going to achieve that target sometime this year. Once we do that, it's the board's intention to resume dividend payments, and our intention is to declare a dividend alongside the FY 2022 half-year results, which we'll announce in November this year. Just in accordance with our policy, we expect to pay a fully imputed dividend of between 50% and 70% of our net profit after tax in broad terms. Earlier this year, the board provided an update on our approach to managing the capital of the business, and we've adopted what I would call a more balanced stance as we've reached this debt target ratio.
Looking forward, we will have more capital available to spend in the business to improve efficiency and effectiveness. We will make unit capacity investments within our existing factory footprint, both in New Zealand and Australia. The timing of these capital investments is now dictated by our ability to source, import, and install this equipment such that it doesn't impact on our production capability, and essentially is affected by the marketing, the national distribution importing disruptions that I mentioned earlier. In addition to our capital spend and funding the dividend I've just mentioned, we will have further funds to continue to reduce debt. We expect to continue to do this gradually in the coming years. We'll aim to get to the bottom of our target range of 1.5 or 1-2x debt leverage in the medium term.
To summarize, the threat of COVID and its complications are going to be with us for a long time. We're likely to see ongoing disruptions to the supply chain, both locally and globally. We'll see shuts in Australia as we are. We've experienced them in New Zealand as well. We expect to see that again. We'll continue to monitor that, and I think we've shown that we have a proven ability to respond quite quickly to these things and keep the business operating to some extent, if not at 100%. It's the board's view that the current positive market conditions are going to persist in both countries, and we will seek to take advantage of those opportunities to grow in Australia and maintain our position in New Zealand.
I'd like to close by just thanking my colleagues on the board, the employees of the company, our loyal customers, our hardworking suppliers, and of course, our shareholders for their continued commitment and support to the company through what's been an incredibly challenging year. I'll thank you now, and I'll now ask Simon to come and make his remarks, and after that, we'll take questions. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thanks, Peter. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today in Auckland, both in person and online. Throughout the financial year 2021, our operations in both countries were regularly impacted by fluctuating COVID-19 restrictions and international supply chain disruptions. Supply chain disruptions are continuing. As I'm sure you're aware, COVID-19 is still impacting Sydney and Melbourne. I'm immensely proud of our teams who continue to be resilient and adaptable to manage these disruptions, which have impacted both New Zealand and Australia. Importantly, under all circumstances, we've maintained a strong connection and service level to our customers. Today, all six of our glass processing plants across our network in New Zealand and Australia are open and operational, with our Sydney plant operating on a restricted basis under a strict set of safety protocols.
We're continuing to support our customers in New South Wales, supplementing supply from our Melbourne plant. As Peter noted, we've fully closed our New Zealand-based operations from late March to the end of April 2020. Pleasingly, from June 2020 onwards, activity in our retrofit and commercial glazing segments was strong. Our retrofit business grew 16% this year despite the lockdown, with significant increases in inquiry levels and record growth in our forward book. This helped to partially offset the Alert Level 4 lockdown and heightened competition in the residential segment. The Australian business turnaround progressed well, with stable operational performance and significantly improved EBIT. The business delivered a revenue growth of 1% year-on-year, despite the impacts of COVID-19, and has offset the exiting of the non-DGU market in New South Wales. AGG achieved positive results for the first three quarters of the financial year.
Victoria's snap lockdown in February and significant flooding in New South Wales in March negatively impacted momentum in the second half. Throughout, though out of our control, our Australian team and I were disappointed by how the year ended given the progress the business has made. As a group, we remain firmly focused on our customers and our people, making good progress with both. I'm particularly proud of progress made on our multi-year safety and wellbeing strategy, making steady progress through the year, implementing standards for controlling hazards effectively and improving early intervention processes. Our apprentice scheme is another highlight. We now have more than 80 apprentices enrolled, with 15 qualifying during the year. Over the last year, Metro Glass has received recognition and a number of awards. I'd like to share some of them with you today.
As part of the Skills Highway Champion Awards 2020, Metro Glass achieved a Highly Commended for our Brighter Minds program that aims to support emerging leaders to develop knowledge and skills while working towards a New Zealand certificate in business. During the year, we had 55 employees graduate from the program. We won the Best Financial Innovation Project Award at the 2021 CFO Awards for the implementation of our new ERP system, which went live in November 2020. In the recent Window & Glass Association New Zealand Awards, we won the Sustainability Award for the Turanga Library in Christchurch, which featured our high-performance, low-E double glazing, structurally glazed by our Metro Glass Christchurch team. Additionally, Metro Glass products were used by the winning entries in all three of the residential project categories.
I'll now provide you with a brief summary of the group's financial performance in the 2021 financial year. The group achieved a solid set of results for the year, despite operating in an increasingly competitive market while facing regular externally driven disruptions, which impacted on our ability to build sustained momentum. New Zealand revenue of NZD 179.8 million was down 12% versus the prior year, given the COVID-19 shutdown period, with an EBIT before significant items of NZD 19.4 million, down 27%. Australian Glass Group's revenue grew by 1% to AUD 52.5 million, with strong performance from all states in rebuilding the revenue to offset the exit of non-double glazing product sales in New South Wales. At an EBIT level, AGG were on track to deliver a modest profit for the year after a positive EBIT result for the first half.
However, the COVID-19 lockdown in Victoria and flooding in New South Wales had negative impacts late in the year. As a result, AGG delivered an EBIT loss of NZD 700,000 in FY 2021, which, while disappointing, was a significant improvement from a loss of NZD 3.6 million for the prior year. Group EBIT of NZD 17.9 million includes the New Zealand and Australian segmental results, as well as group costs of NZD 300,000. This result was at the top end of our guidance of NZD 16.5 million-NZD 18 million, which we had provided in February. We continued to strengthen our balance sheet with net debt declining by NZD 18.9 million year-on-year to NZD 48 million. This was supported by strong operating cash generation, the sale and leaseback of two-thirds of our vehicle fleet, and a reduction in capital expenditure.
In May 2021, we conducted the fifth of our six monthly customer surveys. These surveys provide us with vital feedback on our offering and our relationship with our customers, and importantly, on how we can improve. Overall, our ratings in New Zealand and Australia were largely consistent with previous surveys. It's been great to see the New Zealand business achieve its highest results in the last two surveys. Pleasingly, our Australian results also remain strong, despite prolonged operating challenges due to COVID-19 throughout the year. To the right of the slide, you'll see the word chart, which reflects the types of feedback we received in New Zealand. The size of the word reflects the frequency of use in customers' responses, green positively and red negatively. Basically, the larger the word, the more it is used. In our most recent survey, for every negative comment, there were multiple positive comments.
Our customers are complimentary of our people, relationships, customer service, account management, and project management. However, inconsistencies in service performance, predominantly around lead times in some regions, were also raised. We were aware of these issues as we experienced some equipment reliability challenges around the time of the survey. As with each of these surveys, we continue to work with our customers to address specific issues and general service levels and to develop ways to improve and generate value for our customers. I'd like now to update you on the first four months of trading in the 2022 financial year, being April to July 2021. While group revenue is significantly ahead of last year, any comparisons to Q1 FY 2021 has little relevance given the Alert Level 4 shutdown period in New Zealand last year.
The continued strength in residential consents in New Zealand and approvals in Australia are supporting a robust and stable level of construction activity. In New Zealand, Metro Glass's market share in the residential window segment has now stabilized following the entry and subsequent growth of a new competitor over the course of FY 2021. We expect the annualized impact to increase progressively through FY 2022. Despite the changing industry dynamics, Metro Glass remains the clear New Zealand market leader and has started this year well. We are continuing to reposition our sales mix where we see opportunities, winning new customers, and further strength in the retrofit segment.
Sales in Australia in the April to July period were ahead of last year, buoyed by strong market activity across each of our key regions. From the middle of July, AGG has been operating under escalating COVID-19 restrictions in New South Wales in particular. As I've mentioned, Victoria and Tasmania are fully operational. While our Sydney plant is operating on a restricted basis and is under a strict set of safety protocols. As we talked about, year-to-date revenue is higher in New Zealand given the COVID-19 shutdown early in FY 2021. However, these revenue gains have been offset to an extent by significant and widespread international shipping disruptions that have led to increased raw material and shipping costs.
The non-recurring nature of last year's government wage subsidy also has an impact. Where appropriate, we've introduced price increases in both New Zealand and Australia, which will partially offset these increased costs. We've remained focused on limiting the supply impact on our customers, and as part of this, we've been working hard to increase our safety stocks and to best utilize our national processing and distribution footprint. We believe that AGG is now on a solid footing and demonstrating sustained operational and financial performance.
To support this next stage of AGG's growth, second shifts are being progressively introduced in both New South Wales and Tasmanian factories. While this process creates some inefficiencies and increased labor costs in the short term as the new staff are recruited and trained, ultimately, this will enable AGG to grow with the market, which will be benefiting from the changes to the National Construction Code anticipated in 2022 and 2023. The tight labor market is adding to supply and capacity pressures in both New Zealand and Australian industries. Recruitment is becoming a real challenge and while wage inflation is being managed. Our outlook for FY 2022 is largely unchanged from our update in May.
We believe activity levels across both New Zealand and Australia will likely be sustained at current levels for the rest of the 2021 calendar year and well into 2022. The continued strength in residential building consents provides a positive signal of a strong pipeline of activity, though in New Zealand, industry capacities constraints will continue to dampen any rapid growth in the near term. The residential segment in New Zealand will continue to be competitive and dynamic, but we expect the customer churn being seen across the market to settle over the remainder of FY 2022. In Australia, we are confident that AGG has embedded the improvements achieved in FY 2021. The level of residential approvals in Australia improved significantly through FY 2021, which will provide some support through the 2022 financial year.
The group remains alert to COVID-19 risks and the significant disruptions in international shipping. Both are likely to continue for the foreseeable future. The group intends to invest more capital expenditure in FY 2022 vs. FY 2021, aimed at efficiency and unit capacity. We continue to take a prudent approach to managing operating costs. We will update shareholders further on the group's financial performance through our interim results announcement in November. Our focus remains firmly on building a resilient organization that provides excellent operational performance, maintains strong customer connections, and invests in and supports its people.
I'd like to reiterate our key goals, which are to defend our leadership position and refine our sales mix to take advantage of opportunities in an increasingly competitive New Zealand market, to grow and improve the profitability of our Australian business and benefit from the increasing demand for double glazing there, and ensure our balance sheet remains strong and sufficient to cope with future risks and opportunities. Now, before I hand back to Peter, I'd like to take the opportunity to thank all our shareholders, customers, suppliers, staff, and the board for their support over what has been a challenging year for everyone. Thank you.
Okay, ladies and gentlemen. This is the first opportunity to ask questions. Before I throw it open to the room, I'll just deal with a couple of questions we've already received. We received two questions in writing before the meeting, and we've received two online already. I'll deal with the two written ones here, and then I'm going to hand over to our Chief Financial Officer to answer the two that have come in while we've been holding the meeting. Question one was: What is the annual cost of being listed on the ASX, the Australian Securities Exchange? Given the small volumes of our shares that are traded there, are there any plans to delist from the ASX? In reply to that, we would say, look, our costs of listing on the ASX are relatively low.
Our annual listing fee and the related costs are approximately NZD 30,000 a year. As Metro is a Foreign Exempt Issuer, our listing costs are likely to remain at that sort of level. Essentially, we have to just comply with the New Zealand Stock Exchange rules in order to comply with the Australian ones. Given our low costs and our plan to grow our activities in Australia, we still think it's worthwhile staying listed, so we have no plans to delist at the moment. The second question was: What financial effect, in the 2021 year, did the lockdowns in Australia and the flooding event in New South Wales have on the financial year?
Simon mentioned in his address that we made approximately an AUD 700,000 loss in Australia, and essentially, all of that or most of that can be attributed to those lockdown events in Victoria and the flooding in New South Wales late in the year. That's a good approximation of the impact on our bottom line. We have had two questions online while the meeting's been going. I'll hand over to Andrew, and then so that you hear a different voice, Brent will answer them.
Sure. The first question from online was, "In prior AGMs, you provide an update on net debt. Can you advise the value of net debt at June 2021 or July 2021?
Yes, I remember we did disclose that this time last year. The reality is we're about the same. The reason for that is that, as Peter and both Simon mentioned, we've been investing in capital in the first months of this financial year, as well as increasing our stock holdings of glass, given the disruptions of the import issues that we're experiencing.
Okay. There was one more? Oh, several more. Okay. There you go.
The next question is: Given 2021's Q1 revenue is not a good comparison for New Zealand's 2022 Q1 revenue, how did that revenue compare to 2020's Q1 revenue?
Oh, can you answer that? There we go.
If I maybe just talk quickly to each of our key markets. Australia first. Australia, we are definitely seeing this continued increase in revenue in Australia relative to 2020, even though we had, if you remember, quite a significant transformation in our New South Wales business in particular. That revenue is on a good trajectory. In New Zealand, relative to 2020, the entry of the competition, particularly in the window segment area of our business, will mean that we'll be below on a comparative basis at a revenue level between Q1 2022 and Q1 2020.
The next question, I'll just keep going. Were the price increases prepared to restore the New Zealand margin levels to those achieved in 2020, given the margins fell in 2021? With the large cost pressures outlined, were the price increases early enough to recover all these cost pressures in the current financial year?
Keep going.
Okay. We've moved prices in New Zealand and Australia. We moved our prices in New Zealand market in July, and we've done that in August in Australia. Reality, I guess, for us in New Zealand is that we are in a very competitive market, and we are, like all of our other competitors and other businesses in New Zealand, under the same cost inflationary pressures as everybody has. We're intending to continue to evaluate our position as we go forward.
Next question. The 2021 results showed EBITDA of NZD 38 million and a 1.5x multiple. That gives scope for net debt to be NZD 57 million in dividends paid. Net debt was NZD 48 million. Could a dividend have been paid in March 2021 and still meet the 1.5 net debt target? Were there other factors in the decision not to pay a dividend?
Andrew, do you want to actually answer that one? You know the answer to that.
Sure. Yeah. I guess at year-end. Thanks, Daniel, for the question. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio was 1.7x , wasn't quite at our 1.5x target. The issues we faced right in the end of the year in Australia were one of the reasons that we didn't quite get there. We also had, I guess, some agreements with our banks as part of the refinancing process that had some restrictions around when and what dividends we paid. That was one of the considerations. Obviously, the board have other considerations. The decision was not to pay a dividend that March. Obviously, we've guided that we intend to do that alongside the interim results in November.
I think we would.
Sorry, I've just got to mention
Go ahead.
Just a technical point. We report on a post-IFRS 16 basis, which is the lease accounting change that happened last financial year, and we test our covenant ratio on the pre-IFRS EBITDA number. On the face of the P&L, you would come up with 1.5, but if you did do it on a post, sorry, pre-IFRS 16 basis, you would come up with 1.7, which is what Andrew just mentioned.
Thanks. Any further questions?
Yep. Just two more.
Two more. Okay.
Okay. Sorry, and thanks for the questions. The next question.
We'll give you a go shortly. I'm sorry.
What are the levels of glass wastage in production?
This is a question about glass wastage in production. It's very variable depending on the product mix. We have been doing our benchmarking against companies overseas, and where we sit there is sort of in the middle of similar businesses with the same type of mix as us. The other big part of the wastage of glass is as we cut. That's the yield of the raw sheet. That, again, we benchmark ourselves against internationally there, and we're sitting at a similar sort of level in that 15%-20%, depending on the mix of that yield of the cut and of the raw sheet. All of that, I've seen some commentary somewhere, people thinking that that waste glass goes to the landfill. I can assure you that it doesn't. Any waste glass from all of our factories is recycled. None of our glass goes into landfill.
Thanks. One final question that I have at the moment from Ben Renshaw. Thanks for the question. Will share repurchases play a role in your capital allocation process?
Would you answer that one? Share buybacks are definitely one of the tools that a board has when it has decisions to make around capital reallocation. We have thought about this over time, but at the moment, it is not part of our thinking. We've announced the dividend. We want to continue to reduce debt and then spend capital in the business. We don't have a plan to go into a share buyback program. If we ever did, it would be very well signaled and well bounded. At this stage, we do not have that plan. Okay.
That's everything online. Thanks.
Yeah. I was slightly caught off guard by the number of questions that came through online. Let's take an opportunity to take any questions from the people in the room. If you just put your hand up. Mike at the back there, I think, has got a microphone. There's one down here, Mike, if you come down to the front. If you could just say your name so that we get it onto the record because everything's being recorded, and we'd just like to know who asked what. Sir.
Hi, my name is Kaushik Patel. I'm the shareholder. There has been a comprehensive explanation to a lot of things. I have a few questions over here. I think you might have answered a few. It's a cause of concern when probably you said that the debt level from the last year's accounts to the current, which is four months on, are at the same level. Am I right?
Yes.
Similar level. The question over here is, you're mentioning about getting the debt ratio prior to paying dividends. All right. At the same time, you have a commentary over here which says that by end of sixth monthly result, we'll be probably paying dividends. This is what this intention is.
Yes.
Again, I want to know whether the business is still in the clutches of the bankers, because you did mention that the banks had put the restrictions. I am highly concerned whether the board is understanding the business aspect of it in this low interest regime. If you have done well, and if you have come out of the ratios which are desirable, then probably the bank should be on the line as well in terms of talking to them and saying that, "Oh, no, wait a minute. You're partners in business. You can't dictate stuff." Shareholders, we have heard a lot of terms like long-term. I think three, four years.
Yeah
Good enough. COVID, I can understand. There are a lot of areas where today the answers which have come are probably not assuring me, at least, that we are heading towards dividend.
Okay. Shall I have a go at that? I'm sure Brent will have a go as well. I can assure you we are heading towards dividend payment in the half year. Any restrictions or covenants that our banks put on over and above the normal tests that you would imagine in a debt facility have largely wound off. We don't need their permission to do anything from now on. Our increased debt position at the moment is a momentary thing, largely because we've decided to bring forward a little bit of capital spend. We've had to make some deposits on some large pieces of equipment. We would have been making that in a few months time anyway. We're mindful of the fact that it's taking a lot longer to get things here to fit in with our installation window. We've made that choice.
That's gone up a little bit. Similarly, we've increased our safety stocks because of the disruption to glass supply, and that's had a momentary blip as well. I can assure you, sir, that our banks are on board. They are not being unreasonable. If you think back to when we were renegotiating this, the world was a much, much more uncertain place back then. People wanted to make reasonable requests of companies as you refinance. The team negotiated quite well on that. Said, "Yep, we'll hold those for a short period," but then they come off and we go back to normal.
That's where we are now. You should rest comfortably that our intention is to pay a dividend, that our debt ratio and our debt level is solely in the hands of the company and the board. Our bankers are pretty happy with us, actually, I think, as to where we've got to. We don't mean to confuse you by, I guess, explaining where we're at. Hopefully that's enough to give you some assurance. Brent, do you want to add anything to that? No? Simon?
I think you've covered it.
Okay.
I mean
We are on track.
Yeah. Peter just mentioned about bringing capital forward as the shipping disruptions at the moment. We're allowing on capital equipment sort of six to eight weeks additional shipping time, because there's a finite window for us to install the equipment. We have to guarantee that that equipment will be here in time for basically the Christmas period. We've been ordering this equipment much, much earlier than we normally would've. That's that factor there. That's part of the reason why last year our capital spend was a bit lower, simply because we just said, "Look, we don't know whether we'd be able to, A, get the equipment here, and B, then are we going to be able to get technicians into the country to install it?" There was a lower level of capital spend last year.
Sorry, did you have a second question? Mike, we'll come to this gentleman. One more there and then we'll come to you, sir.
One thing I must say, I would like to congratulate Simon for coming into the company as a CEO, and there has been a progress, I can tell you that. As I said, the question is very clear in terms of, if you look at the building sector today in New Zealand, the companies listed on the stock exchange in the building sector. To name a few, Fletcher Building, Steel & Tube, they are all performing exceedingly well in the present circumstances.
We are seeing good growth numbers coming in and a bottom-line growth coming in as well. I think the board has to realize that in terms of logistic issues and costs going up, you should be able to recover the cost from the customer. That's very important because you're not chasing bad business. If you are doing any numbers, it has to add to the bottom line. I do expect that that should be in the consideration, and I hope so that happens.
Yep. We agree. Thank you for that. Mike, down here with the gentleman in the front.
I'm just asking about your retrofitting. I guess that means double glazing, the same thing, retrofitting, double glazing. Maybe you have teams of people operating all around New Zealand. I just wonder how long it takes for a team to get out and get the quote and get the job done, and are those people rewarded? It seems to me that's the backbone of the business and that those teams should be operating pretty well.
Yeah. Our retrofit business is sort of circa NZD 25 million a year and growing. What's an exact number for the last year, Brent Mealings, on retrofit segment? It's growing quite strongly. Yes, it is double glazing. We're retrofitting double glazing units into existing window frames in a house. The sales process of that is someone books, there's an inquiry or we follow up and a salesperson will go and visit the customer at their house. It's their house. We can provide an estimate on the spot to them. If that estimate is they say, "Yeah, I want to progress," we do what we call a final measure. That depends on when the customer says, "Yes, I'm interested in proceeding." We go and visit and do a final measure. It's typically the salesperson does that as well.
We provide them a quote on the spot. When that customer accepts that, depending on the location and the access and those sorts of things, at the moment, it's between four weeks and 12 weeks to do the installation program. That's done by a crew of between two and four people, and that can be done in, just depending on the size of the job, it can be a day or some large jobs might take four weeks where we do sort of like a hotel or something like that. Yeah. We've been doing a lot of work on standardizing how we do that across the company. I think we're doing it very well, which is one of the reasons why that part of the business is growing and we're seeing very good growing margins in that business as well, which is pleasing. Yeah.
Thank you. Is there Mike, down the back there?
Yes. Edmund Stranahan. I'm a shareholder in the company. Just a couple of short questions. I was just interested, you was talking about apprenticeships that you have. What sort of trades are those in?
We're primarily in the glass trade, so we have glass processing, so that's within the factories, and then the glazing, and that's on the installation side.
Fairly specialized apprenticeships.
Yes. Yeah. It's covered under the construction industry program.
Right.
We've got about, I think, 85, 86 at the moment, and we've got a half a dozen that are just going through the sign-up process. I've challenged the business to get to 100, and we've sort of been sitting around this level for a year or so now. Just because the people come out of their time as we bring new people in. We would like to expand that across to people in the engineering trades as well, but we're just sort of working through that. Yeah.
The other question that I had is, we've got about four months of the current year gone. How's both the revenue and EBIT looking compared to, say, the last year? Is it at that sort of level, or is it an improvement and perhaps getting back to the level of the previous year?
Look, just making a comparison to last financial year, you just really can't because New Zealand was shut for six weeks, basically, or five weeks. Then, we're just not able to really make it meaningful. It's best that we give you an update that on November at the half year, where we can show you a better comparison. Okay?
Yes. I was just thinking since we've still got the COVID restrictions, maybe not with the lockdown and so on, that's not quite as bad as last year, but it's certainly better than last year and worse than the year before. That's why I was looking for the comparisons. Are you sort of saying that you haven't got the figures pulled together yet for the 4 months?
Yeah. We've just got the July sales that we're still working through. It's just better that we do that at half year. Australia, the revenue is up. It's tracking well. The restrictions in Australia, late yesterday, I got a call from Steve in Australia saying, "Man, we've just gone into a week's shutdown and lockdown in Melbourne." It's incredibly fluid over there, but all our plants are operating. Sydney's a little bit reduced in capacity. Sales in Australia, we're very pleased with where they are and the demand is good and same in New Zealand.
Thank you.
Thanks for those questions. Mike down the front here. We've got one down here. Any other questions in the room? We'll get a mic to somebody in the back there. Sir.
Hi. Ross Morrell. I'm just curious, obviously, so New Zealand, we're maintaining in the supply chain and capacity pressures, but some of your language about Australia, there seems to be underneath it a lot of positivity there, but there was a word used, fragmented market. I'm just curious about, there seems to be a lot of potential there in your language. Could you clarify that, please? Where the growth is, especially in light of the word fragmented?
Yeah. Mike.
Look, in Australia, it's a very, very different market to New Zealand in that New Zealand, basically 95% plus of all residential uses double glazing. If you go into Australia, in New South Wales, it's a bit hard to get the exact number, but it's about 15% maybe a little bit. It's between 15 and 20, probably more to 15% of new builds use double glazing. If you go into Victoria, it's in that 50, 55, maybe up to 60. Tasmania is about 50. They're a long, long way behind in the adoption of double glazing there. That is changing, but there is a changing in the building codes coming next year, late next year.
It's actually implemented, and it rolls out across different zones around the eastern seaboard states. That will basically require people to use double glazing in their houses. That will have a massive growth in the demand for double glazing. That's why we're very positive about the Australian market. Because we are viewed in the Australian market as being the leading double glazing supplier, and AGG always has been viewed as that. Yeah, it is quite a fragmented market.
There's one other player in the Australian market that operates in three states that we operate. But there are a number of players in each of those states. We sort of have that ability across the whole of that eastern seaboard. We're quite well positioned there. Also we have, my view is, very strongly is that we have by far the best range of Low-E soft coat glass available to produce a range of double glazing products that suit different sort of applications, whether you're wanting to keep solar gain out, keep warmth in and all that sort of thing. It's quite a technical offering. Yeah.
The market's just more divided than it is in New Zealand. That was the point of fragmented, I think. Another question was the one at the back or one down here. Mike? Thanks. Sorry. Ma'am.
Jenny Miller, shareholder. When Simon joined the board, you said he came cheap relative to his predecessor. Thank you, Simon. I've had a look at the way the structure of the CEO pay is, and he's been paid out 100% or 99.5% of his short-term incentive bonus, and that is based on an EBIT. That has actually deteriorated, and I'm trying to think, well, if it's deteriorated from last year, what was the benchmark? I wonder if rather than, you're in the industry of glass, rather than being a bit colored, why don't they make the pay include those sorts of things rather than kid us shareholders on that it can drop from year to year, and you're still going to get 100% target?
I should answer that one. I apologize for calling you cheap. I don't remember. Every year, there are two incentives for senior executives, a short-term one and then a long-term one, and it's outlined in the annual report and on the website. I think your comments refer largely to the short-term one. Every year we set the business plan, which will have certain targets in terms of sales, costs, revenues. That is what we agree with the management team to say, "Deliver this, and your incentive is pegged to the delivery of that. Fail to deliver that, and you will get less and less to none.
Deliver more than that, and you will get a leverage bonus on the base. That's on the basis that the pot for all of us, all shareholders, has expanded sufficiently that it's reasonable to share a part of that with our executive team. You can get the effect of the STI set in year two or three years ago, will be based on different numbers than the ones that we're setting now. A person back then could have got 100% or 80% or 120%, and the same this year. It's an annually reset system.
We're very aware of where is the balance or fairness between the efforts that the management team put in in managing the company and the flow of wealth or increased value to shareholders. We're aware of the way this company has operated in the last wee while. That's why you get that effect. It's something we agreed way back when, and we check it every year. Simon?
Sorry, just to pick up on that. It is not the way that the incentive works. It is the fact that your decrease last year for EBIT, it has got worse, and yet you pay out 100% or 99.5% on the short term. My point is, why not just pay Mr. Mander the NZD 1 million rather than the NZD 353 and the NZD 600?
Okay.
Basically, you can't have an incentive where the things are tracking down and you pay up, basically.
I think I get your sentiment. I'm not sure we're talking the same numbers. The board's view is that having base pay and short-term incentives and long-term incentives in the package for our senior managers is a better way of remunerating than just paying a lump sum regardless of what happens year on year. That is the way we're set up at the moment. I know there are other people who go, "Those things don't work. We should just pay a lump sum. Pay a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. That's it." That's not how we are set up at the moment, though. Perhaps we can catch up.
Okay.
Have you got one more?
May I have one more question?
Yeah, sure.
Has something changed in the way you do your cash flow hedges? I see it's gone to a NZD 1.1 million loss opposed to a NZD 976 last year before profit.
Brent?
No, it hasn't changed. It's just a function of where the spot rate was at the end of the year relative to the previous year. You remember at the end of last year, the New Zealand dollar was quite a bit lower than where it was at the end of the last financial year. It hasn't changed, just a function of that.
Yeah. Any other questions before we perhaps move on to the resolutions? We do have opportunities for further questions during those. If something occurs to you during the rest of the meeting, please ask. Again, after the meeting, we'll be around as well, so we can answer questions then. Thanks, Simon. Right. I better check. Are there any more questions online?
We just have one final question that came through from Jack, which I think we might have kind of touched on, but was, "Can you please share some indicative financial figures for FY 2022? How much are the earnings impacted?" I guess as we've talked about, it's a little bit too early in the year at this stage. We've got a very dynamic environment, but the market conditions are very stable and robust generally. I think we've decided it's a bit early in the year to give out financial guidance for FY 2022.
Yeah. Our concern is that the environment could change so dramatically on us that whatever we said today would be out of date in six or seven hours as of example, Australia last night. We're trying to be prudent and cautious about forward-looking statements. Ladies and gentlemen, let's move on to the resolutions of the meeting, of which there are 3. There are opportunities for questions to be asked. For those of you in the room, all of you should have a voting card. It should have been given to you as you registered.
If you have not got one of these, please talk to Link Market Services, our registrar, and they'll give you one. Shareholders online are also able to cast their vote by, when you registered online and validated, you should have been able to get a get voting card, and you should have an online voting card. During the meeting, I'll ask you to mark those cards either for, against, or abstain for each resolution. If you're online, please don't forget to click submit vote when you're ready. In the room, please make sure that you get your cards to link at the end of the meeting. The three resolutions are ordinary resolutions. They're just passed by a majority of those that vote. Proxies have been appointed, and we've had advanced voting as well. I mentioned 54 million shares, approximately 29% of the company's stock has been voted.
My fellow directors and I intend to vote discretionary proxies in favor of the resolutions. Voting will remain open for about five minutes after the conclusion of the meeting, so you will still have time to get your votes in. We'll be taking a poll on all of these resolutions, and the results of those will be published on the NZX, ASX, and on our website as soon as they are to hand later today. The first resolution is concerning fixing the auditor's remuneration and seeks shareholder approval for the board to set the annual fees. PwC have been our auditors since the company listed approximately seven years ago. In accordance with the governance code, we've had a change of lead audit partner since the beginning of last year, and Troy is our partner at the moment.
I now propose that the board be authorized to fix the fees and expenses of PwC as the auditor for the ensuing year. Are there any questions regarding this motion? Okay. If there are no questions, could I please ask you to mark your cards or select for, against, or abstain for resolution number one? Okay. Moving on. The next two resolutions concern the election of directors. Under the NZX listing rules, directors must not hold office without re-election past the third annual meeting and following their appointment. Rhys Jones accordingly retires by rotation and offers himself for re-election. While only one of our directors meets that rule, Rhys, we prefer to have a relatively consistent number of directors stand for election every year, accordingly, I've voluntarily retired and offer myself for re-election this year.
I'm slightly out of sequence, but that doesn't really matter. We'll have two directors standing. It's the board's opinion that both Rhys and I are independent as defined by the Listing Rules. Unless there's been a last-minute change, the board supports the election of both directors. Resolution 2 concerns my re-election, and so I've asked Angela Bull to come up, who's the chair of our People and Culture Committee, and asked her to run this part of the meeting. Angela.
Thank you, Peter. Good morning, everyone. Resolution 2 concerns the election of Peter Griffiths as a director. The board recommends Peter to you as a Metro Performance Glass director. As Peter noted, we unanimously support his election. Peter's credentials are outlined in the annual report and in the notice of meeting. Peter, would you also like to briefly address the meeting?
I will say a couple things. You heard me speaking a fair bit this morning, and I'm sure that's given you an opportunity to form some sort of impression of me. I guess the question is, what do I bring to the Metro Board personally? I think when I reflect on that, I'm motivated by being part of participating in the challenges of running businesses in New Zealand. My experience as an executive and my broader experience in the governance space as a director, I think sort of give me a certain perspective.
I absolutely believe that a safe, respectful, and collegial culture around the board and inside the company leads to an efficient, profitable, customer-centric culture in the business. I think that's the thing that I personally try and bring to the company. I'm excited by being part of Metro, I would very much welcome the opportunity to continue to serve as a member of the board. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Peter. I now propose that Peter Griffiths be.
There's a question.
Yes. Sorry, I'm reading my run sheet. Yes, are there any questions then regarding the motion that I was about to say? Mike.
Hi, I'm Bruce Parkes. I'm the proxy holder to the New Zealand Shareholders Association. My question's a bit general, but it's asked now at your invitation. You mentioned another director being appointed, and going from the skill mix you have in your annual report, that person should be Australian-based, younger female with skills in B2B marketing. Can you comment on that, please?
Do you want to?
Yeah, sure. Yes, for the first time in the annual report, we published our view of the matrix of skills of what the directors have and what we think the company needs. We don't expect to be able to complete that matrix by appointing one or two different individuals. Our new director search is focused in Australia. We have a significant business there. Clearly, it's difficult for directors to travel back and forwards across the Tasman at the moment, so having an Australian-based director is very important. We're very mindful of diversity, both in terms of gender, but in terms of thought and background and experience, we're taking that into account as well. The process is underway, looking for someone to fill that role, and we're quite well down that path. Your speculation, well, we'll see how close we get.
Will the Australian director attract a higher remuneration as in some companies?
No. Same as everyone. Oh, one last question down the back.
My name's Trevor. I'm a shareholder. Just a question about the new equipment that's coming, that's been put on order. Just to satisfy me that you're the right guy for this job. That new equipment, in broad terms, what's it for?
Okay. There's a range of it. We've got things.
I mean, because it's quite a significant capital expenditure.
Yeah.
I'm just asking how much of that particular decision-making process you personally know about being the chairman of our board.
Well, I'm aware of pretty much all of it. I can give you examples of we're improving the work we do in our edge shop, which is the flat glass part of the business where we shape glass, edge it, drill holes in it, and so on. The equipment we're getting is aimed to improve our throughput per hour and our reliability of Oh, I'm sorry. Did you hear the original bit? Just an example. Some of the equipment we're getting is to improve our edge shop work, which is the flat glass processes that are not glass going to double glazing, typically. Balustrades, showers, splashbacks, things like that. The equipment we're getting is aimed to increase our throughput and accuracy of those processes so we can process more glass more quickly with less failures. We're spending money on those sorts of units.
We're also looking at things like increased furnaces in terms of their size and throughput and their energy efficiency, because more and more of the glass that we are selling is now required to be tempered or hardened, and you have to put that through a furnace. The size of the windows is getting larger, and we're starting to get to the point where the bits of glass we're trying to get through the furnaces are approaching the size capacity of those furnaces. We are looking to do that. The other thing we're looking to do is to have some redundancy in equipment, so that we don't just have one of something so that when that fails, our system stops.
We have multiple routes so that we can keep operating while one piece is down or being maintained, things like that. There's a whole range of items. There's also things like robotics, so machines to pick things up, turn them around, and put them on other flows so that we don't have people having to bend down and pick up tons and tons of glass a day as part of their normal job. Those are the sorts of things we're spending our capital on. Okay. Another one.
Jenny Miller, shareholder. We note on your annual accounts, page 70, the corporate governance, there's only moderate skills in strategic investment banking and B2B marketing. I'm wondering what all of the directors are doing to upskill, given we're talking about debts and ASX and NZX.
Okay. I think all of the directors have got experience in listed company governance. That's not what's really referred to there. It's more things like, were we to go for a capital raise or were we to do some more sophisticated financing, do we have the experience around the board? Now, a number of us have already been through that process. We've raised capital. We've done those sorts of things, but we don't have a merchant banker, if you like, somebody on the board with that sole experience. That's really what that line's about. Question is, do we want to fill it or not? I would say probably not because merchant bankers are hired guns. You can buy in that experience when you need it, and you don't necessarily have to have it taking up one of the few chairs around the table.
Sorry.
Try again. Try.
No, sorry, just to make it clear. If you think you can buy it in, why did it appear in the corporate governance section and have moderate? Is it really a skill that the directors actually need in reality?
I think when you look at the broad range of skills that a typical board should have in a capital market, you would have that line there. I don't know, maybe we're being a little modest in saying we've got moderate skills. We haven't got low skills, and we haven't got anyone who's kind of got that as a sort of an executive history. That's really why we're noting it. We're open to have that discussion. Part of the reason for producing that matrix is for you to observe those things and query them. Thank you for your question. Okay. I'm just mindful of time, so hopefully we can move on.
Andrew, are there any questions online? Thank you. With the motion that Peter Griffiths be elected as a director of the company, could I please ask you now to select on your voting papers either for, against, or abstain in the appropriate place. Thank you. I'll now hand back to you, Peter.
Thanks. Okay. We're onto our final Resolution 3, which is the election of Rhys. Rhys, if you could come up. The board recommends Rhys to you as a Metro Glass director and unanimously supports his election. Rhys' credentials are outlined in the annual report and the notice of meeting. Rhys, would you like to say a few words?
Yeah. Thanks, Peter.
Yeah.
Just briefly, as far as my background's concerned, first, a real privilege to be serving on the Metro board. It's been a challenging period in the last few years. My main skills historically have been I've worked across Australasia in manufacturing and building products and distribution businesses and B2B marketing effectively. The challenge in the last period has been putting the business into a position where it's rock solid and it can actually grow and develop further, and I think Simon and the team have done a very good job. As a board contributor in that process, I feel that we've made some real progress. The second phase is really we're at the starting point where we've got to really grow the business, and you've heard from the priorities that have been listed.
It's about facing up to a regulatory environment that's changing, which actually does provide a lot of opportunities. It also talks about really driving our customer satisfaction up to a new standard so we can really grow on merit and really succeed. You're seeing clear signs of that. More importantly, we've also got the opportunity to grow in Australia. At a practical level of growing a business in Australia, I've got a wide experience in growing industrial and building products-related businesses. My role on the board is really to contribute and add comments, advice, coaching, challenge, to the process of what strategic options we have, how do we address them, the speed at which we address them, and the focus to really grow and improve the business further. Any questions?
I'm very fine. I'm a shareholder. I'm very pleased to hear you talk about growth. I think the trouble with this company since it listed, whenever it's tried to grow, it's been a disaster. I look forward to growth, and let's face it, that's what the share market looks for. We've seen no growth at all, basically. Obviously, in New Zealand, there's overcapacity, which has been referred to by the directors. I'd like your views on do you think this company will just grow organically, or do you look forward to some merger or takeover of some substance?
The quick comment I'd make is that it's very difficult to grow if your base service isn't to the right standard. One of the key elements that had to be addressed was the culture and service standard of the business, and your investment in the equipment reliability and the like. I think that has been achieved. The business is now on a firm footing. Particularly Australia, that business was really struggling, AGG. Simon and the team have worked extremely hard to get [inaudible] right.
He's talked about that. He's had to completely rationalize a large range of customers and products to set it in a position. Its revenue is very similar to what it was a year ago, slightly higher, with a much reduced product range. Now it can really grow. I think organic growth is a big opportunity. In terms of merger acquisition, that's always available in the future. First of all, you've got to have a track record of organic growth and evidence that you're a very valuable and performing company.
There's one down at the back. Guys? Yeah. Simon.
Another testing question, sorry? Australia, we're talking about. We're hearing about growth with the retrofit in New Zealand. It's logical to have some commentary about the Australian market or potential. Is there a lot of competition? What's the update there?
Well, first of all, very specifically, there's regulatory environmental change in Australia, which is really encouraging double glazing. You've got the real opportunity to be an early mover in that environment and grow really quite strongly. Places like Central New South Wales and the like have really got quite harsh climates. Not that we'd think it from here, but they really are quite harsh, both in heat and cold. We've really got quite a significant opportunity. Again, Simon and the team are looking very hard at what to invest, how to invest, and get the absolute maximum productivity out. One of the key elements here is getting the operational performance to a standard we can grow and deliver to the client consistently. They're trying to do it in a measured, careful way, but I think the upside is pretty significant. Do you want to comment on that, Simon?
Yeah. David.
Yeah. I think Rhys, you're absolutely right. To grow in this, with the customer base that we have that are all manufacturing, you've got to be a very consistent, reliable, stable supplier, because if you're not, you end up destroying their business. That's the thing that we've been focusing on, certainly since I've been in the business, is let's make sure that we deliver excellent customer service consistently and we help our customers to grow. Australia was frankly performing very poorly. It is now being very consistently performing, and customers are choosing us because of our delivery performance. We're positioned very nicely there to grow. Likewise in New Zealand, I believe too.
Maybe one more? Oh.
Can I just qualify that? I was talking about the retrofit.
Sorry.
Here in New Zealand, the retrofit's growing, you were saying, to NZD 25 million a year, which is significant growth from the NZD 16 million previously. What I'm saying is moving that to Australia, the retrofit side of it, not just the double glazing units. We're talking about the retrofit side.
Yes. If I could just clarify.
If you can add NZD 25 million of sales in New Zealand
Yeah
I'm sure you can point to AUD 50 million in Australia.
Yeah.
It's a similar market.
In Australia, AGG, we only supply glass. We don't do any installation work at all in Australia. In New Zealand, we've got 225, roughly, people every day who are out there installing glass. In Australia, we just deliver it. It's very different. The installation side of the market in Australia is one that we'd prefer not to participate in. Having said that, we have a number of customers whose business is retrofit that we supply. Yeah.
We'll take one last question. Just Your muffins are getting cold.
Yeah. After hearing all the commentary, it looks like probably the company is seeking growth in Australia. New Zealand being at the back bench in terms of the competition which has come in. I'm just wondering, Australia is 10 x bigger, on average, 10x bigger market than country like New Zealand. What do you think there would be capital required to pursue those growth? Because here you are talking about reducing debt, paying dividend. I don't understand how you can grow in a market which is promising without capital. Would the board think about probably bringing in a deep pocket suitor?
Yeah.
Look, I'll have a crack at two elements. I think we don't want to get confused. I had a specific question about growth in Australia, so I was specifically answering that. We've got three factories in Australia. We want to absolutely optimize those. That business in total wasn't making money. It's basically a break even. It's got a big opportunity to improve further.
If it improves further, the value goes up significantly, gives us options as a company. That is not a capital-heavy structure. That is just what we've got today working well, adding more shifts, and getting more output. Your second question is, can you grow further in Australia, add capacity, add capital, then you clearly do that as a second step if you elected to do that. That's a strategic option you create if you do that first bit really well. That's what Simon and the team are trying to do. They're trying to get to that first stage. Do you want to comment on that, Simon?
I think you've got it.
Yeah. Okay. We get your point.
Okay.
Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, I'll draw the questioning to a close there. Thanks, Rhys.
Thank you.
I now propose that Rhys Jones be elected as a director of the company. If you could please select for, against, or abstain on your voting cards or vote online. While we are doing that, I think we're going to put up the summary of the voting that we've got to date. You can have a look at that. That's largely postal votes, I think. I don't think any of the activity that is going on today has been added to that total. If you've voted, if the Link folk who are at the back of the room, they've got the little blue satchels. If you could give them your voting cards once you're ready. We'll collect those before we close the meeting. If you've got a card that you'd like collected, just please indicate to one of the gentlemen and lady.
If you're online, please mark your votes and don't forget to click Submit Vote. Okay, as we just bring that to an end, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your time today, both in the room and online. We appreciate you coming, and we appreciate the questions that you've asked. We hope that the online experience has been okay. We'd be keen to get feedback on that. I'd like to thank everyone who submitted or asked questions. We do appreciate them, and it gives us an opportunity to give you another perspective on what's going on in the company. If we've got all the voting cards in, I'll now declare the meeting closed. Thank you for attending online, and thank you for coming this morning. I invite you to join us for a somewhat later morning tea and something warm to eat.
Thank you very much for your time this morning.