Good afternoon. My name is Claudia Batten, and I'm the Chair of Serko. I'm pleased to see so many shareholders joining us today in person, and I also welcome those shareholders joining us online. I'll start with some important points. For those shareholders and proxy holders who are attending the meeting in person and who are entitled to vote, you should have received a voting card when you registered upon arrival at the meeting. If you have not received a voting card, please go to the MUFG registration desk, where their representatives will be able to assist you. Please turn your mobile phones to silent. If there is an emergency and we need to leave the venue, please do so through the marked exits and follow the instructions of the venue staff. Toilet facilities are on this floor down the corridor.
Those online will be able to vote and ask questions during the meeting. I'll provide you with further instructions as we progress. If you encounter any issues, please refer to the online portal guide, or you can phone the helpline 0800 200 220. We will be using some slides during the meeting. For those of you online, you'll be able to see these and follow along. They will also be made available on Serko's investor website. It's my pleasure to introduce my fellow directors here today: Sean Gourley, Independent Director; Darrin Grafton, Executive Director, CEO and Co-founder; Clyde McConaghy, Independent Director and Chair of the People Remuneration and Culture Committee; and Bob Shaw, Executive Director, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-founder. Unfortunately, Jan Dawson is unable to be here today and gives her apologies.
I would also like to welcome the members of Serko's management and staff who are here in attendance today. And finally, I'd like to welcome our external auditors, Deloitte, our lawyers, Flacks & Wong, and also the team from our share registrar, MUFG. They will help conduct the voting on the formal business later in the meeting and also act as scrutineer. For those of you online, you can send through your questions at any time through the online portal by using the Ask a Question button, and I would also encourage you to do so as early as possible, as this will allow us to answer those questions at the appropriate time in the meeting. The General Counsel has confirmed to me that the notice of meeting has been sent to shareholders and other persons entitled to receive it on the 28th of May, 2024.
I confirm that the requirements for a quorum for this meeting of three shareholders have been met, and I declare the meeting open. The items of business for this meeting and the resolutions to be considered by shareholders are contained in the notice of meeting. Darrin and I will provide an overview of Serko's performance for the year ended 31 March 2024 and the progress and priorities for the current financial year. There will then be an opportunity to ask questions. We will then attend to the formal business of the meeting. Voting on all resolutions will be conducted by way of poll, as required by the NZX listing rules. Shareholders attending virtually will be able to cast their vote using the electronic voting card received when online registration is validated. Please refer to the online portal guide or use the helpline specified.
At last year's meeting, I set out Serko's three areas of focus and how we would deliver on these. Next slide. Winning in our chosen markets, achieving global scale and operational efficiency, and building a globally competitive business. Serko's strong performance in the 2024 financial year was the result of the team's single-minded focus on building a globally competitive business at scale. This has been a multi-year focus, exemplified by a commitment to ruthless prioritization from a dedicated and committed team. The team has been focused on the right things, and the board is very pleased with the progress and results overall. Today, Darrin and I will cover the progress we've made, and we will talk to the next focus areas for the business. Last Monday, on the 24th of June, Serko celebrated 10 years since its listing on the NZX.
As you might expect, this has led to a brief moment of reflection on Serko's evolution across this period. Underpinning Serko's progress to date is a deliberate and sustained shift in how we operate. As a result, Serko has advanced its global opportunity and has the executional capability to capture that opportunity. This has not happened by chance. It has been the outcome of many years of focused, disciplined work by past and present members of the board, the management team, and all those who have worked at Serko. In recent years, a core step change for the company has been the scaling up of the executive team. This includes Rachel Sampson and Shane Sampson. Sorry, I'm trying to look at them and speak. Not helpful.
Rachel Sampson and Shane Sampson joining as our Chief People Officer and Chief Financial Officer in 2021, and in FY24, Joydip Das and Liz Fraser joined in the new roles of Chief Product Officer and Chief Revenue Officer. Strengthening the leadership team has been a logical step for us and in line with what is needed from high-growth companies at this stage of their development. Our executive team now has extensive experience working in large or growing multinational businesses, including in the U.S., alongside bringing deep and highly relevant domain expertise to the company. This enhanced leadership and the increasing capability right across Serko in areas such as data, product, and technology has been a critical part of our achievements in recent times. This includes the renewed Booking.com for Business partnership, strengthened market leadership in Australasia, our revenue growth, and increased operational leverage.
We also continue to evolve the board. I was delighted that Sean Gourley joined as a non-executive director from February this year. Sean is an example of the caliber Serko is now attracting. Sean has a broad and impressive background, including founding two Silicon Valley startups with a focus on data and AI. He's already making a substantial contribution to Serko, including with his expertise in scaling up companies. I will provide additional comments later in the meeting as part of the resolution to elect Sean. Serko's progress is worth acknowledging, but there is much more potential yet to be realized. We have built strong foundations with our current strategy, which covers FY23 to FY25, and we're now turning our minds to our plans beyond FY25.
We look forward to sharing the details of this work with you at an Investor Day, which we plan to hold in the final quarter of the calendar year. As a result of our focus on both sustainable and efficient revenue growth, we're in a strong financial position. Underlying average monthly cash burn reduced to NZD 600,000 for the FY24 year at 78% improvement. We've been focused on reaching a cash flow positive position, and we are on track to achieve this for the FY25 year. This will be another major milestone for Serko. With NZD 80.6 million cash on hand as at 31 March 2024 and no debt, Serko is well capitalized and well positioned to consider organic and inorganic investments where these would advance strategic objectives. There are five key areas of board focus for FY25. The first is being a data-led business.
Serko has laid the groundwork to be a data-led company, bringing greater data expertise into the organization and onto the board. The board is now focused on supporting Serko to use our improved data capability to better inform product ideation, development, forecasting, and drive increased precision and execution. This will result in improved commercial outcomes for the business, for customers, and ultimately in returns to shareholders. Talent and leadership. As we scale the business, ensuring that the right systems and disciplines are in place at all levels of the business is a critical focus. The board is consequently placing a greater emphasis on succession planning, performance management, and ways of working to support talent growth and attract high performers into the business. Capital management.
We have increased our focus on technology disciplines with guidance from an Independent Technology Advisory Committee and with a focus on technology capability at a board level. It is critical that the company makes intelligent investments into technology, supporting modernization and innovation at the appropriate pace to ensure that Serko is fit for the future. We will speak in more detail to this at our Investor Day to increase investor understanding of our capital management plans, particularly as they relate to our technology investment. Continued uplift in environmental, social, and governance practices. We are committed as a board to take the right actions to support all of our stakeholders, the communities that we operate within, our incredible team, our customers, our investor base, and the environment. Serko has progressed at sustainability practices over the past years as set up comprehensively in our ESG report and the climate-related disclosures.
We've reset our values to ensure that the work we do across environmental governance and social practices are aligned to the business. We are very focused on a continued uplift in investor communications, with the Investor Day being a core component of this for FY25. Growth at scale. Everything we do at Serko is driving to deliver growth at a global scale. Supporting our continued success in the Australasian market and with Booking.com for Business are key foundations for Serko's continued growth and success. We have laid foundations in North America, and we're looking closely at how we increase our success in this market. This remains a critical market for us to win in. Stable growth with responsible investment underpins all decisions we make to ensure the business aligns its ambition with strong business fundamentals.
Thank you, and I'll now hand over to Darrin and return after that to cover the outlook.
Thanks, Claudia. And to all of you, all the non-executive directors, I greatly value your guidance and robustness and diversity of your thinking and experience. I also want to thank the executive team and all the people at Serko for everything you do for our customers and company. And I'm pleased to have members of the team here today, and I'd like to point out a few people to get you to put your hand up or stand. Joydip Das is our Chief Product Officer. Liz Fraser, Chief Revenue Officer. Rachel Sampson, Chief People Officer. Simon Young, Acting Chief Technology Officer. We've got Shane Sampson, Chief Financial Officer, and Charlie Novacek, Chief Operating Officer, and Jason Hawthorne, our General Counsel. Most of all, welcome to you. Our shareholders, this is your company, and we welcome your engagement.
As Claudia mentioned, we have just celebrated 10 years since our listing on the NZX. Ten years ago, we dared to dream big. When Serko was founded, we envisaged a world where business travel was not just a necessity, but a connected and enjoyable experience. There have been big wins, and we have been tested in ways we could never have imagined. But even in the most challenging of times, we have never lost sight of our strategy and vision and the need to innovate. The foundations we have built over the past 10 years mean we're well positioned for the future. Many of you have been with us since the beginning, but no matter when you decided to invest in Serko, we're truly grateful to all our shareholders, both present and past. Your trust and support have been really the bedrock of our success, and thank you very much.
Before I talk about Serko's progress, I want to comment briefly on business travel. Serko has always had a keen eye on the future. We've always sought to anticipate and build for tomorrow. Overall, the business travel market outlook remains strong. The Global Business Travel Association forecasts business travel spending to increase to $1.8 trillion by 2027. Now, more than ever, business travelers and the organizations they work for want travel that is frictionless, efficient, and compliant. And technology help meets all of these needs. Business travel helps bring people together for meetings, conferences, inductions, negotiations, but we all know how the trip to and from destination can be positively and negatively shape our entire time away. If a flight is canceled, do we contact or who do we contact to rebook it? Our work, the airline, the online travel agent?
What if the delay means we need to change the hotel arrangements? What parts of our trip, like taxis and restaurants, and how do we really easily access details to make changes in one place instead of scrambling through emails, apps, and PDFs? The question we continually ask ourselves is, how can a trip be effortless and more connected for both the traveler and the organization? Serko is well positioned to keep solving these complex challenges for our partners, clients, and business travelers. We will continue to invest in new technologies such as AI to help not only generate efficiencies in how we build our technology, but in the way our customers will experience travel. Our position on AI is that it's not the goal, but it is an increasingly important enabler, often behind the scenes.
Our platform, Zeno, has used elements of narrow AI and machine learning since 2017 when we first introduced personalized recommendations in our search results. We've also explored potential uses of AI, including Ask Zeno, our AI chat service based on the Microsoft Cognitive Services engines, and more recently, last year, we showcased Zena, which was built with UneeQ's digital human and ChatGPT AI technologies. At Serko, we've never been afraid of taking on big challenges, sometimes by choice and sometimes by circumstance, but we've always been tenacious in how we tackle these challenges and always focused on winning. In FY24, we saw this tenacity rewarded with material progress on our priorities and, in turn, strong financial outcomes. This took place in often complex and uncertain external environments.
We have continued to realize the growth opportunity, our renewed partnership with Booking.com for a further five years, as we announced on the 30th of April, as the major milestone, providing a strong foundation for future global growth and scale. We've already commenced the plans in place for the next phase of growth under the partnership, and I'll provide more detail on these later in the presentation. We've also seen new growth in Australasia and have strengthened our market position. As Claudia mentioned, we have had a real focus on transforming how Serko operates. There is a stronger leadership team in place with extensive international experience. We have a more scalable operating model in place and continue to improve this. Turning to our high-level financial results for FY24, total income was NZD 71.2 million, and that's up 48% on FY23.
There were small percentage increases in operating expenses and total spend, reflecting the work in earlier periods in forming a more scaled cost base. Total spend was NZD 83.9 million, with total spend continuing to significantly decrease as a percentage of total income. Increased operational leverage has delivered significant improvements in both our net loss after tax and our EBITDA. We've built a strong foundation with our current strategy, which covers FY2023 to 2025, and we're now turning our minds to beyond FY2025. We anticipate sharing this work as part of that Investor Day, Claudia referenced. We shared some of our business highlights in our annual report, and just to restate some of the key ones. Using experimentation, we saw an impact of NZD 4.3 million of annualized net revenue following successful product experimentation. During the year, we completed 150 experiments, and I'll give some practical examples of this shortly.
We're pleased with the increase in employee engagement, which has risen from 72% to 78%. Two of the key metrics determining that employee engagement score were 84% of employees were proud to work at Serko, and 81% would recommend Serko as a great place to work. We've also put in place new ways of working across our product design and technology teams. This has been part of enabling a high-performance team set up to deliver on our goals, including growth at scale. We expanded our international leadership capability with new appointments, including across both product, revenue, and, of course, data. Completed room nights under the Booking.com for Business partnership increased 65%, and we were delighted to announce the extension of the partnership, as I mentioned earlier, for a further 5 years in April.
During the year, we supported a number of feature releases for Booking.com for Business, including those 150 experiments. Now the foundation is built. The priority for the next 12 months is to expand the feature set to service the needs of the wider target market and to increase the activation and usage of registered companies. Jonathan Starkings, our head of unmanaged travel, is stepping down and moving back to the U.K. after five years of helping Serko grow our unmanaged travel business. Jonathan has had a tremendous impact, including his guidance through COVID and through to our recent renewal. From myself and the entire Serko team, I want to thank Jonathan for the amazing work he's done and wish Jonathan really the very best for the future. We're now excited to welcome David Holyoke, who has joined us as our new head of unmanaged travel.
David was the founding general manager of Airbnb for Work and most recently was the head of commercial strategy at Airbnb. At Serko, David is responsible for driving market growth and product innovation, as well as spearheading our efforts to expand our offering in the SME travel market. During the year, we supported a number of feature releases, as I mentioned on Booking.com for Business, including those 150 experiments. Improved delivery increased usability and enhanced the performance of the platform in both acquiring and converting customers, driving repeat bookings. Since our last update at FY 2024 results in May, Booking.com for Business has released a significantly enhanced dashboard, which Serko developed. This new dashboard enables Serko to drive new strategic partners to the platform and build out a wider Booking.com for Business ecosystem, bringing a wider offering to businesses that want to go further faster.
This is part of Booking's focus on increasing the attraction and value of the platform to small and medium businesses. As you'll see in this short video, the enhanced dashboard allows businesses to view and manage upcoming team bookings and see where members of their teams are. This was developed using the experimentation approach I have referenced.
Now you can quickly access important business travel tools and insights with the improved Booking.com for Business dashboard. Search for stays, flights, and rental cars while easily viewing team bookings. Get full visibility of travel spend by time period and travel type with the spend tracker. The Traveler Map helps you see where the team is worldwide, so you can keep up with trip details and help employees when they need it. With the Traxo feature, you can see bookings made outside of Booking.com for Business, including trains and rideshares. Traxo also integrates with apps like Expensify to reduce manual data entry and streamline travel expense management. Explore these features now and take your business further, faster.
As previously noted, we'll be continuing both our experimentation and feature delivery through FY25 and expect this to assist and directly drive revenue growth. FY24 was a big year, and three months into FY25, I can assure you we're all head down and focused on achieving our goals for FY25 and beyond. Thank you again for your support, and I'll now hand back to Claudia.
Thanks, Darrin. Serko affirms the guidance provided in its FY24 results announced on 28 May 2024. Serko anticipates demand for business travel in its key markets will remain strong. Serko expects new unmanaged customer acquisition and activation initiatives to drive increased volumes in total income during the FY25 year weighted to the second half. Serko also anticipates growth at FY24 levels in its Australasian business. For the FY25 year, Serko continues to anticipate total income in the range of NZD 85 million-NZD 92 million. Serko continues to expect that it will be cash flow positive for FY25. With NZD 80.6 million in cash on hand at 31 March 2024 and no debt, Serko is well positioned to consider organic and inorganic investments where these would advance strategic objectives.
Risks to the achievement of Serko's FY25 goals include the timing of delivery of initiatives and the timing and scale of subsequent benefits, currency and ARPCRN movements, and geopolitical and macroeconomic factors. Thank you to the entire Serko team led by Darrin and the executive team for the significant progress that Serko has made. Thank you to my fellow directors for your support and experience and energy, and thank you to all our shareholders. We are very grateful for your support. I would now like to give shareholders and proxy holders both here in person and online today the opportunity to ask questions of the board, management, or the auditors. Shareholders online can continue to provide questions through the portal, and we will also address questions from the room.
When I call for questions, can shareholders present in the room please wait until a microphone is provided to you and clearly state your name before asking the question? I'll take questions from those present first before moving on to questions from shareholders online. I ask that in the interest of fairness to all shareholders attending this meeting, that anyone wishing to speak should be concise as possible and considerate to other shareholders wishing to ask questions. There will also be opportunities to ask questions on each of the proposed resolutions during the formal business session. So, beginning with any questions from shareholders in the room. Hi.
Tim Famelton, shareholder. Can I just ask about your tech team?
Yes.
Are they operating here in Auckland?
Yes.
You're getting good people? People are resigning, but is their team expanding and they're keeping up with all the.
All the right stuff.
Technology in the world?
Absolutely. We're really proud of our technology team. It's largely based in Auckland. We have some offshore capability, but it's predominantly based here in Auckland. We've got a tremendous group of skills, and Simon stepped in to lead that team. And yeah, really thrilled. We actually have very low turnover, so we're retaining our great staff, and they're working harder than ever.
Can I ask you too, how much of your company is with Booking.com? What's the other part of the business?
Sure. In terms of the split out, so we've got two parts to the business. So we've got the Booking.com for Business piece of the business, which we call unmanaged travel. And then we've got the TMC side of the business, which we call managed travel. It's very much split between the two. A lot of the technology we do can actually be deployed to both of our customer bases, but we largely break the company up that way. We've also got a small team who support our expense management work as well. So there's some focus on that as well. I'll look to other questions from shareholders in the room, and if not, I'll go online. Great. Are there any questions online?
Yes, we have a few questions online. The first question is from Barry Lindsay. Given that some 95% of Serko's revenues are earned in foreign currencies, I assume that the company is a major beneficiary of New Zealand dollar weakness and therefore a loser if the New Zealand dollar enjoys strength. Does Serko play around with currency hedging strategies?
Yes, we do.
Well, we don't play around.
We play around, but we have a hedging policy.
We have a hedging policy. We don't play around, but we're definitely conscious of our spread, our currency spread, and we make the appropriate adjustments in hedging strategies.
Yes.
Next question from Bruce Fellows. Would the chair please give an honest reason for changing the meeting at short notice, thereby incurring non-refundable costs when attending from provinces, flights, accommodation, and transport, bringing people together? Thank you. Also happy to answer that question for you if you'd like, Claudia.
I'm very happy to answer it. We actually moved our annual reporting date given the Booking.com contract renewal. We thought it was appropriate to move our annual reporting date, and as a consequence, we needed to move the ASM date, and we didn't realize that in time. So we apologize for that. Very happy for you to reach out if there are expenses that you have incurred. We don't want our shareholders incurring unnecessary expenses, obviously.
Final question online, Mr. James Peterson. The ESG report states that the environmental targets are a function of greenhouse gas emissions relative to total income, total CO2e per dollar million of total income. The report also acknowledges that this target is not validated by the Science Based Targets initiative, ICT sector guidance. Notably, if the emissions remain stable but total profit rises, the metric appears lower, even though the company has not reduced its climate impact. Will the company consider moving to a proper SBTi guidance to show true commitment to sustainability?
That's a great question with a lot of detail in it. So what I will do is, after this meeting, I'll look into it and send a direct answer as appropriate. But in terms of the science-based target, it's just we are on a maturity evolution with our reporting, and we will look at that as something that we can do next year and following years, for sure.
One more question has just come in. Are you sure you will make a profit in 2025?
I'm just looking for Shane to look me in the eye and say yes.
We haven't given guidance on profitability. Our focus, we talk about our revenues and talked about our expenditure, and our focus has been on getting to cash flow. There's quite a few accounting things that sit between cash flow and profitability. So we have said that we will be cash flow positive this year.
That's what we have a CFO for. Thank you, Shane. So I'll take it that there are no further questions online.
That's right.
Thank you for those questions. As there are no further questions, we'll move now to the formal business to be addressed at this meeting. You can ask questions on each matter being put to shareholders today. The resolutions that we'll be voting on are displayed on the screen. To give you an overview of the voting procedures before we commence voting, shareholders joining us in person today. You'll have been given your shareholder voting card. Shareholders joining online will be able to cast their vote using the electronic voting card received when online registration is validated. To vote, you'll need to click Get Voting Card within the online meeting platform. You'll be asked to enter your shareholder number or your proxy number to validate. Please then mark your voting card in the way you wish to vote by clicking For, Against, or Abstain on the voting card.
Once you've made your selection, please click Submit Vote on the bottom of the card to lodge your vote. Please refer to the virtual meeting online portal guide or use the helpline specified if you require assistance. Voting will remain open until five minutes after the conclusion of the meeting. Results of the vote will be announced via the exchanges. Each of the resolutions set out in the notice of meeting are to be considered as an ordinary resolution and, as such, must be approved by a simple majority of the votes cast by shareholders entitled to vote and voting on the resolution. Proxies have been appointed for the purpose of this meeting in respect of approximately 81.9 million shares, representing approximately 70.1% of the total number of shares on issue. The results of the proxies will be displayed following voting. So Resolution One, the election of Dr.
Sean Gourley as a non-executive director of Serko Limited. So Resolution One relates to the election of Dr. Sean Gourley as non-executive director. The board recommends Sean to you as an independent non-executive director and unanimously supports his election. Sean was appointed by the board earlier this year. Sean has an impressive experience as a business and technology leader, including establishing and growing two groundbreaking Silicon Valley technology businesses. He has been a force in the commercialization of scaled data and AI solutions for more than a decade, with a focus on the U.S. He's already proving a valuable asset for Serko as we continue to drive international growth. I'll now invite Sean to briefly address the meeting on his proposed election.
Thank you, Claudia. Hello, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here today as the newest member of the Serko Board of Directors. Whilst I've only been with the team for a few months, I'm more excited now about the company and its prospects than I was when I started. By way of introduction for me, I'm originally from Christchurch, where I studied at the University of Canterbury and did a degree in physics before moving to the University of Oxford, where I went to complete my PhD in physics as a Rhodes Scholar. Upon graduating from Oxford, I moved to San Francisco and built my first company, Quid, a big data visualization platform which we sold in 2019. After Quid, I started my second company, Primer AI.
At Primer, we built cutting-edge artificial intelligence for the United States Department of Defense and the United States intelligence agencies and our Five Eyes partners. At Primer, I was the founder, CEO, and chairman of the board. For 8 years, I built that company before recently stepping down. I've spent the last 15 years building data and AI companies in Silicon Valley. I've raised over $600 million in capital for those companies from some of the most prominent venture capitalists in the world. I've experienced firsthand how to build and scale technology, teams, and revenue in one of the most difficult markets on the planet. This has given me a unique set of insights and ones that I've been able to put to use now outside of the valley.
Most recently, I was able to do that as a member of the board of directors at Anadarko, a Fortune 500 energy company based out of Houston. As directors, we helped guide the company to success through a volatile geopolitical landscape and were successful in selling the company for $57 billion, which was the largest U.S. acquisition of the decade. It's been a privilege to serve as an independent director at Serko and work alongside Claudia, Jan, and Clyde. I'm particularly excited about the growth of artificial intelligence and, in particular, how it will change the travel industry. Artificial intelligence has the ability to automate complex tasks that are traditionally done by very high-paid people.
For business travel, this means that it will soon be possible for everyone to have their own artificial intelligence operating as their virtual personal assistant looking after every aspect of their trip. I think Serko is very well positioned to take advantage of this trend, and I'm looking forward to working with the board and the team at Serko to help build the next great New Zealand technology company. Thank you.
Thank you, Sean. Thank you, Sean. I now propose that Sean Gourley be elected as a non-executive director of the company. Are there any questions concerning the motion from shareholders in the room? Are there any questions online?
There is one question. This question's from Barry Lunsay. The New Zealand Shareholders' Association, or NZSA, favors directors owning shares in the companies on whose boards they sit. We know shareholding exists. The NZSA's policy is to ask why not. Dr. Gourley joined the board in February this year. Does Dr. Gourley plan to become a Serko shareholder and join his fellow directors?
We are in the process of putting either a fixed trading plan or some other system in place to purchase shares. So that will change, and we will have a board of directors who own shares as a result of that. Thank you for that question.
There are no further questions.
Thank you. Please now select either For, Against, or Abstain for Resolution One on the voting card. It's Resolution Two. Resolution Two relates to the re-election of Robert Shaw, who we know of as Bob. The board recommends Bob to you as an executive director and unanimously supports his re-election. Bob is a co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Serko. He's been involved in transforming the travel industry since 1987, collaborating with world-leading airlines, travel agencies, and global distribution systems. In addition to his roles at Serko, he's held a number of directorships in senior management positions, including Gullivers Travel Group and Interactive Technologies. I'll now invite Bob to briefly address the meeting on his proposed re-election.
Thank you, Claudia. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to be re-elected as a director of Serko. With 37 years of experience in the travel technology industry, I've had the privilege of witnessing and contributing to significant transformations in travel distribution and industry disruption. My career has been dedicated to understanding the evolving needs of the sector and implementing forward-thinking strategies to navigate these changes successfully. In addition, my commitment to embracing technological advancements has positioned Serko as a leader and continues to enhance our competitive edge. It remains the fire that drives me. I would also like to take a moment to highlight the extraordinary dedication and countless hours our non-executive directors invest into Serko. The unwavering commitment and diligence in supporting our endeavors, particularly in light of Serko's rigorous pursuit of innovation and the rapid pace of digital evolution, are truly commendable.
I'm honored to seek your support for my re-election and look forward to continuing our journey together. Thanks, Bob.
I now propose that Robert Shaw be re-elected as an executive director of the company. Are there any questions concerning the motion from shareholders in the room? Are there any questions online?
There are no questions on this matter online.
Thank you. So now please select either For, Against, or Abstain for Resolution Two on the voting card. Resolution Three relates to the maximum aggregate fees payable to all non-executive directors. I will make some brief comments and then hand to Clyde as the chair of the People, Remuneration, and Culture Committee to cover the process in detail. From time to time, the board reviews the non-executive director fees and total fee pool to ensure that they are appropriate to attract and retain strong director talent and enable fit-for-purpose governance of the business. As detailed in the notice of meeting, Serko's current director fee pool was set in August 2021, and since then, Serko has appointed a fourth non-executive director. Serko's business has increased in complexity and size, becoming larger and more international, with total income increasing from NZD 18.9 million in FY22 to NZD 71.2 million in FY24.
The Consumer Price Index has increased 72% and 15.1% in New Zealand and Australia, respectively, over the FY22 to FY24 period. I will now hand over to Clyde.
Good afternoon. This year, I conducted a review of non-executive director remuneration. EY Australia was chosen from a range of different opportunities and advisors for the preparation of an independent report to benchmark Serko's non-executive fees against comparator organizations in Australia and New Zealand. The EY report, or an abridged version of it, was provided to shareholders alongside the notice of meeting. At the moment, the non-executive director remuneration pool is 600,000 NZD per annum. Based on the independent report, the suggested ranges for the board pool is to be AUD 650,000 per annum, an effective increase of about 112,000 NZD. I might add that the non-executive director fees have always been paid in Australian dollars, so it's an alignment. The proposed increase sits below the aligned range of between AUD 711,000 and AUD 825,000.
If approved by shareholders, the board intends to update its fee policy by increasing the chair fee and other non-executive director fees as detailed in the notice of meeting and indeed on screen. This will result in the overall chair fee increase of AUD 22,000 per annum. This remains below the market-aligned fee range detailed by the EY Australia report. However, the board considers it appropriate to reduce the gap between the current chair fee and the market-aligned fee range to reflect the responsibilities and the workload of this role. It is worth noting that all fee increases are below the CPI increases in both Australia and New Zealand for the FY2022 to FY2024 period. So I now propose that the maximum aggregate amount of remuneration paid by Serko Limited to its non-executive directors be increased to AUD 650,000 per annum.
The full text of the resolution is set out on the screen.
Thank you, Clyde. Are there any questions concerning the motion? There are no questions on this matter. Are there any questions online?
There are no online questions on this matter.
Thank you. So now please select either For, Against, or Abstain for Resolution Three on the voting card. Resolution Four relates to the fees and expenses of Serko's auditors. The proposed resolution is to authorize the directors to fix the auditors' fees and expenses for the current year. In accordance with the Companies Act, Deloitte has been automatically reappointed as the company's auditor. Details of the statutory audit fees paid to Deloitte for the financial year ended 31 March 2024 are set out in the 2024 annual report. I now propose that the directors are authorized to fix the fees and expenses of Deloitte as auditor for the 2025 financial year. Are there any questions concerning the motion from shareholders in the room? Are there any questions from shareholders online?
There are no online questions on this matter.
Thank you. Please now select either For, Against, or Abstain for Resolution Four on the voting card. Shareholders joining online, you can now submit your vote. Voting will be open until five minutes after the conclusion of this meeting. For shareholders present with us in the room, MUFG will now move through the room to collect your voting cards. That completes - oh, hang on. Lucky last. That completes voting on the resolutions. At this time, I'd like to advise the outcome of proxy votes that were lodged in respect of each of the resolutions. I will not read the proxy results for each resolution, but they are showing up on the screen now. I would now like to give shareholders a final opportunity to ask questions, whether related to the presentations, the financial statements, or the management of the company.
You can also continue to provide questions online, and we will also address questions already submitted online. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room?
You've got NZD 80 million cash, which is pretty good. I just wondered, have you had any approaches from companies, or have you approached any other companies about due diligence and thinking about buying other companies, or other companies approaching wanting to join?
Sure. Yeah, it's something that we're always looking at, actually, and certainly with cash on the balance, that's a good thing for us to be looking at. So yes, we're always looking for that.
I'm not too sure what sort of direction you can go. You're in the hospitality business. You can't really go to another—you have to be in the travel business.
Anything we looked at would definitely be something to deliver a strategic opportunity for us off our existing base, for sure. Yeah.
So have you done due diligence?
We are always looking at opportunities. I wouldn't disclose any due diligence that we're doing for obvious reasons, but yeah, we are familiar, and it's certainly something that we'll always look at. Are there any other questions in the room? Are there any questions online?
There are no further questions online.
Excellent. So thank you for your attendance at Serko's annual meeting, both in person and online. And now to declare the meeting closed. The results of the meeting will be released on the NZX and ASX as soon as possible. Thank you.