Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Kia ora. Good afternoon. My name is Claudia Batten. I am the Chair of Serko. I'm pleased to see so many shareholders join us today, and I am delighted to be here in person. As you will have seen from the video, at Serko, we believe in the power of being face to face, and for the first time in 3 years, we are able to welcome many of you in person. Of course, we also welcome those shareholders joining online. Some housekeeping matters before we start. 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 Link Market Services registration desk, where their representatives are 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, which are here. You can see I've been on a plane too much lately. Follow the instructions of the venue staff. Toilet facilities are located in the reception area outside the room. Turn right as you exit the room and follow the signs. 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 on 0800-200-220. We will be using some slides during the meeting.
For those of you online, you will be able to see these and follow along. They will also be made available on Serko's investor website. It is my pleasure to introduce my fellow directors, Jan Dawson, Independent Director and standing for election today. Clyde McConaghy, Independent Director, standing for re-election today. Darrin Grafton, Executive Director, CEO, and Co-founder, standing for re-election today. Bob Shaw, Executive Director, Co-founder, and Strategy Officer. I would also like to welcome the members of Serko's management and staff in attendance today. I think they're in various parts of the room. Finally, I'd like to welcome our external auditors, Deloitte, and our lawyers, Flacks & Wong, and also the team from our share registrar, Link Market Services. They will help conduct the voting on the formal business later in the meeting and also act as scrutineer. Now for the formalities of the meeting.
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. I would encourage you to do so as early as possible, as this will allow us to answer these questions at the appropriate time in the meeting. The company secretary has confirmed to me that the notice of meeting has been sent to shareholders and other persons entitled to receive it. I confirm that the requirement for a quorum for this meeting of 3 shareholders has 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 begin by giving you an overview of the company's performance for the FY22 financial year and the trading performance and strategy for the current financial year. There will be an opportunity to ask questions after our addresses. We will then attend to the formal business of the meeting. Voting on all resolutions will be conducted by way of poll. 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. The first 6 months of this year have seen a dramatic increase in business travel. Alongside this recovery, we are also seeing an evolution. We continue to predict that overall volumes will return to pre-pandemic levels over time. Business travel does not look and will not look and feel the same.
People will travel for work at different frequencies, for different reasons, and for different lengths of time than before. Importantly, in this recovery, we see new opportunities for how technology and Serko can continue to shape the future of business travel. In this context, our strategic priorities remain the right ones. We are building Serko to be a global force, connecting business travelers everywhere with the content, information, and services they need at every stage of their journey. Our proven record in Australasia, our partnership with Booking.com, and our emerging presence in North America underpin our global ambition. We are well advanced in building a business with the right settings to support this. In unmanaged travel, our aim is to establish significant market share working with Booking.com. We are very pleased with the progress under this partnership, and Darrin will provide more detail on this.
The heart of our success in managed travel are our strong relationships with travel management companies, many of which are long-standing. In Australia and New Zealand, we are focused on extending our market leadership, working closely with our TMC partners. In North America, we have laid solid groundwork, and we are confident about the traction we have and the sizable opportunity that exists. Our focus remains firmly on execution and building a globally competitive business. We continue to make planned investments and pursue opportunities to build a global scaled business underpinned by appropriate risk management and cost discipline. Our FY22 revenue improved on FY21, while continuing to reflect the impact of the pandemic, investments made ahead of recovery, and investments in the Booking.com partnership. Serko remains well-funded.
For the 4 months to the end of July, average cash burn is within our expected range at NZD 3.6 million as we continue to invest in our technology. At the end of July, cash and cash equivalents were NZD 110.1 million. We are aware that additional metrics would be helpful for shareholders to better understand our progress. This needs to be balanced with the reality that many of our markets are new and in uneven recovery cycles. Accordingly, we will provide additional metrics as soon as practicable. Disruption and change are both challenges to the business and a natural part of growing a global business, and they are also fuel for innovation and opportunity. Serko was launched in 2007, immediately prior to the global financial crisis.
We emerged stronger from the GFC, and we now have our heads down, building for the future alongside our partners. The core challenges we are responding to, alongside many other businesses, are attracting and retaining the people we need, salary inflation, and changing demands in the travel market. The team at Serko has anticipated these trends and are executing on plans to respond to them. Serko has an M&A strategy in place, and we will continue to assess opportunities that would enable us to accelerate our strategy. We have previously updated the market on a specific acquisition under consideration. This progress has not materially progressed and is not a current focus for Serko. Serko believes that technology can play an important role in reducing the impact of travel on the environment.
We have identified a number of product opportunities arising from climate change, and in 2021, we launched Mission Zero on our Zeno booking platform. This allows customers to actively reduce the environmental impact of their travel activity, taking into account the seat class and aircraft type, making it easy to identify and select more sustainable booking choices. It also allows customers to offset certain carbon emissions when booking travel. We are preparing for climate change reporting and have compiled our first carbon emissions inventory, which is being externally assurance reviewed. In addition, we are preparing to meet upcoming mandatory climate change reporting standards. We also believe in the power of supporting the communities in which we live and operate. We actively provide opportunities for our people to support and volunteer in their communities as well as supporting the communities.
These efforts are a core part of our strategy to attract and retain talent. A vital part of scaling our operations is ensuring we have the right governance structure in place. Jan Dawson commenced as a new director at the end of last year's ASM, and the search for a further independent director is continuing. We've refreshed the responsibilities of all independent directors who have each rotated into a new role within the past 12 months. This has delivered fresh perspectives across all aspects of governance while retaining critical knowledge within the board. Clyde McConaghy moved from Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee and is now Chair of the People, Remuneration, and Culture Committee. Jan Dawson is the new Chair of Audit and Risk, and both Clyde and Jan bring valuable and relevant expertise to these important governance roles.
I greatly appreciate the commitment and energy they both bring to the business. The board is also introducing a technology committee this calendar year. This advisory committee will draw on global expertise to support our growth and scale objectives. It will build on existing capabilities and oversee strategic decisions and investments. I'm personally very excited about the value of this committee and what it will add at this stage of Serko's growth. I'll now hand to Darrin for further updates, and we'll rejoin you after that for some brief comments on Outlook.
Thank you, Claudia. Good afternoon, everyone. Travel's back, and I think that's 1 of the most exciting things. I'm delighted to have members of the executive team here today. Can I ask you please to stand up so people can see who you are? Thank you. As Claudia noted, we are now in a business travel evolution and reimagining how we will travel both now and in the future. Across the globe, people are trying to figure out how do we make travel work for them while adjusting to supply challenges at the end, as this industry comes back from COVID. Month to month, the recovery globally is neither predictable nor linear but is heading in a positive direction.
People who are traveling for leisure are taking account of their personal health and safety, the impact of potential disruptions during travel if they fall sick, and travel providers canceling or changing their bookings, as well as the cost of travel insurance coverage as well. People who travel for work are also taking these factors into account but are also asking themselves, "What's in it for me?" This is leading to new approaches to business travel, which in some cases is extending travel, adding an additional room nights to incorporate some leisure aspects to their actual business trip. We call this bleisure, which is the blending of business and leisure, and where they're put together into a single trip. Emerging trends like these actually started before COVID but are becoming more obvious as we return to travel.
There have also been people employed that have never met their manager or their team face-to-face. Remote working also provides an opportunity for new forms of business travel to occur, where employees meet up for a visit to the head office for an extended period to meet their teams and managers and emerge and immerse in this, the company culture. We're confident that business travel will return to the pre-pandemic levels over time. However, we believe in a different baseline for how the travel industry will measure and think about those volumes. I've just returned from the GBTA convention, the world's largest business travel convention. The energy in the global travel industry has never been more exciting. GBTA brought together 4,500 delegates and more than 1,000 buyers in San Diego, reconnecting, reimagining, and recreating the future of business travel.
I'll share more of this when we get into the North America section. The 2022 financial year was another year affected by the impacts of COVID and lockdowns. Revenue grew by 44% to NZD 17.9 million, but was partially offset by government grant revenue down 77% to NZD 1 million. Revenue growth was driven by a partial business travel recovery in Australasia over the previous financial year, a strong contribution from Booking.com for Business, and a modest increase in revenue from the North American markets. These gains were diluted, of course, by the lockdowns and travel restrictions in New Zealand, throughout the Q3 and Q4 of our financial year. EBITDAF losses increased 26% to NZD 28.1 million from NZD 22.3 million in the same period a year ago.
This increase reflects planned investment in operating expenses as we scaled up for global growth. Net losses after tax increased 22% to NZD 36 million from NZD 29.4 million. The 2 areas of our strategic priorities I'll focus on today are Booking.com for Business, including our conversion and North America. We have a strong partnership with Booking.com, and our teams worked incredibly closely together. Since May, as the restrictions on travel have further eased, we've actually met 3 times face to face, which has been fantastic. The path to where we are today with Booking.com started off differently before COVID. Our intention in 2019 was to roll out country by country, building out the content and user experience for each market as we went.
In July 2020, 4 months into the pandemic, Booking.com and Serko decided to take on a large-scale global migration program, and these were for the customers in a select group from the previous Booking.com for Business customer base. From March to October 2021, we migrated over 300,000 companies that were registered on the Booking.com for Business. To date, there is a total of almost 500,000 companies registered on the platform. We now have 2 priorities. Our first is to grow revenue by focusing on customer conversion. Our second is, as conversion grows, to use the marketing investment to increase the number of registered companies. From April to June of this year, we worked closely with Booking.com to run experiment-led development and user experience tests to improve the customer conversion.
As part of this, we carried out testing to determine whether a user experience at the hotel shop phase led to an increased conversion if it was more aligned to the Booking.com experience and understand how they also handle these leisure aspects of purchasing. This testing was actually completed in July and delivered a significant increase in conversion. For the remainder of the year, we are therefore focusing our Booking.com for Business development teams on building a hotel shop experience for Booking.com for their business customers to better reflect the aspects of Booking.com user experience. We will then use this experience to iterate, more and more business features over the coming years. While the development work is occurring, a transitional solution is using elements of the Booking.com environment for most Booking.com for Business customers when they make a hotel-only booking.
We have the connected trip bookings and a portion of the Booking.com for Business customers, which continues to use the full original Zeno experience. The successful experimentation and testing process and implementation of the transitional solutions and commencement of development work has taken place in a rapid timeframe, reflecting the strong and agile partnership in place between Booking.com and the Serko teams. I thank these teams for their commitment and focus in carrying out this important work. The focus on experimentation and the insights that this can give us when deciding where we apply our capital will be a foundation for how we maximize the growth on the Booking.com for Business platform. This approach enables us to follow the success Booking.com have had in their leisure business and gives us more certainty around the impacts of our investment. The returns we can expect from these developments.
We'll report Booking.com for Business measurements as part of our half-year and full-year reporting, but we are going well. In the context of the pandemic, the Australia and New Zealand business has performed exceptionally well. Not only have we retained the majority of our customers through the pandemic, we have also grown our market share. Since the start of this financial year, our travel management partners have collectively won key large market accounts in the Australian market off our competitors through selling Zeno. In Australia, we've seen total bookings using Serko technology rise from 78% in March 2019 to 101% in June 2022. Note, however, that June 2022 had 2 more business days than 2019, and on a per business day basis, it was just over 90% of 2019.
Australasian volumes to the end of July reflected the recovery underway as companies set new budgets and travel plans. As indicated in our full year, we've released new features, including sustainability choices and to improve duty of care. We're pleased with the recovery in our home markets and the new customer wins that our partners are making. We attribute this success to our investment during the last 2 years of COVID, which is a reflection of our strategy and support from the market. We remain focused on increasing our market share, our average revenue per booking as the return to travel continues. North America has been top of mind over the last few weeks.
As I spent time at the GBTA convention, while GBTA is a global event, there is a heavy focus on North America, and many of our partners were out in force and more enthusiastic than ever. I wanna show you some highlights of that event. It's been a great 2 days so far. Booth has been busy the entire time. We clearly are still top of mind with people, and I think this is gonna be the year that they're gonna make some changes.
First impressions were incredibly solid. Loved the ease of use, loved the picture taking, the quality of that. The biggest thing to us is automation. How do we take a picture, and then that creates the expense report with as little manual touches as possible? This fits the bill. I happen to take it to my CFO, see if we can't get it implemented as quickly as possible. My team will love it.
The user experience is a huge improvement over what's currently available, so I think that's really the big selling point. I'm really hopeful for the functionality that's coming down the line too.
Every time I come by, it's got a lot of energy. It's been really cool. The concierge thing is really neat too.
Oh, it's been phenomenal. It's absolutely the accounts that we've actually seen today and yesterday has been incredible. It's like some of the best-functioning travel company.
The functionality and usability of Zeno platform versus our competitors were the highlights and the feedback we received. I was delighted with our growing brand recognition and the comments on the strength of our implementation and delivery. During the GBTA convention, Kim Hamer, the travel manager for Visa, was named 2022 Travel Manager of the Year by Business Travel News. Her choice of Serko and Zeno was specifically cited in her recognition. This is the second time in the past 4 years that a Serko customer has won the award at GBTA in the United States. It shows that our investment in Zeno can make a difference in 1 of the largest travel markets in the world. Our strategy in North America is built around 3 pillars. Mega travel management companies who are the largest 3 travel management companies in the world.
Mid-market travel management companies, which are the next tier down, and direct to corporate, like the Fortune 500 companies. Overall, we have laid strong foundations in North America, and we're now in a grow and scale phase. In May, we announced we were appointed as globally preferred partner for CWT, 1 of the mega travel management companies. This is a critical cornerstone for North America and gives us tremendous access to the market. We also announced that Visa had selected Zeno as a corporate booking tool and is live via CWT, and is transacting across North and South America and the Asia Pacific region. North America, of course, is a large market that takes time to develop, and we've been impacted for over 2 years by the constraints of travel due to COVID.
We are now benefiting from the investment we made during this time in both our brand and product development work. However, we want to highlight that it will take time for us to gain material revenue as we scale up now to meet the demand and our partners onboard those customers through this return to travel. We remain confident in our pipeline of opportunities in a sizable market, and expect to close further partnerships and large-market customers during this financial year. Firstly, to Serko's employees, thank you. Thank you for your ongoing commitment, hard work, and results. The world continues to surprise us, but you continue to be focused and dedicated, and a pleasure to work with. In the past few months, there has been a slight improvement in the availability of technology skills. However, the employment market remains challenging.
Our time to hire has improved following our decision to insource recruitment for a greater number of roles. We're also focused on internal advancement opportunities to increase retention as well as enhancing our graduate and recruitment and internship programs. Beyond competitive salaries, we are also continuously reviewing the total benefits we offer, as well as the employee experience, including onboarding and engagement events such as our hackathon. While the market remains challenging, I'm confident that the emphasis we placed on attraction and retention during the pandemic, including an always-on approach to talent attraction and recruitment, has meant we have not been at a standing start at a time when we are focused on investing for growth. To my management team, thank you for constantly going over and above. It is greatly valued by myself and the board. To all of the directors, in particular, thanks to Claudia.
Thank you for your guidance and your support during another significant year for Serko. To our partners, clients, and consumers, thank you for trusting us with your travel. We love what we do. We love helping you travel to be together. Finally, to our shareholders, your commitment is really appreciated. We work tirelessly to deliver on our goals and have every intention of exceeding your expectations. Most importantly, thank you for your questions and feedback. It is really great to see a lot of you in person, and to those online and in the broader Serko family, thank you. I'll now hand back to Claudia.
Thanks, Darrin. In conclusion, we remain confident in the direction of business travel and Serko's role in the recovery and beyond. As signaled, we are increasing our rate of investment into our products and markets to support future growth. We are able to do so due to our confidence in the opportunities in front of us and our strong cash position. We remain committed both to prudent cash management and investment for growth. We reaffirm the guidance provided in May and expect revenue for the year to 31 March 2023 to approximately double from the prior year. Our guidance remains subject to ongoing risks, including geopolitical uncertainty, the potential resurgence of COVID, and other matters. Thank you to my fellow directors. Thank you to Darrin and his management team and the broader Serko family. The commitment by the team to execution is substantial.
I also thank you, our shareholders, for your continued support. To echo Darrin, we greatly appreciate your support during a volatile period for the travel industry and for the technology market. We are laser-focused on what we can control, which is our execution. 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 to any questions from shareholders online.
There will also be an opportunity to ask questions on each of the proposed resolutions during the formal business session. Beginning with questions from our shareholders in the room. Do you wanna come?
Thanks. I'm Bruce from Shareholders Association. You talk about the challenges of attracting and retaining staff.
In this inflationary salary expectations climate, are the costs something you can pass on or you have to just absorb them?
Um-
Do you wanna answer that?
Yeah, I can answer that. It's definitely something as we review our contracts that we can pass on. A lot of the stuff how we make money is when hotel rates also go up, we're making a commission on that. Our natural revenue when we're dealing with some of those revenue streams is also going up proportionally as well. That's kind of balanced out with that. We also balance our hiring between multiple markets like New Zealand, the U.S., and China to balance actually that cost base out as well.
Are there any other questions in the room? We'll now give shareholders online an opportunity to ask questions. Are there any questions online?
Yes. We have received a question from a shareholder online. That question is: What are the 3 mega travel companies you work with?
Darrin, I think that's.
The 3 megas are CWT, BCD, and American Express GBT are the 3 megas in there. We work with 2 of them currently, which is American Express GBT down in the Australasia region and CWT today.
Are there any other questions online?
There are no further questions online.
Thanks, Nick.
Sorry, there is 1 question that was received earlier. A pre-submitted shareholder question. The share price is at a one-year all-time low. What is the forecast?
Go and buy some shares.
There we go. Asked and answered. Well, we've talked about guidance today, so I think that's an appropriate amount of information for this moment. I don't know if you'd add anything.
Just that we're focused on the things that we can control, which is how we execute at Serko and, hopefully, that's what we do well, I think so.
We're busy is the answer.
Yeah.
We're focused.
We have received 1 more question.
Okay
from a shareholder online, that question is: Does the company consider share buybacks or share buyback scheme?
We shouldn't know the answer to that. Do we? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think we're open to that, but not currently. I'll take that as no further questions online. Thank you. I appreciate the support from the floor through the questions. As there are no further questions, we'll move to the formal business to be addressed at the meeting. You may ask questions on each matter being put to shareholders today. The resolutions that we'll be voting on will be displayed on screen. Shareholders joining us in person today, you will 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 was validated. To vote, you will need to click Get Voting Card within the online meeting platform.
You'll be asked to enter your shareholder or proxy number to validate that. 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 5 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 ordinary resolutions, and as such, must be approved by a simple majority of the votes cast by shareholders entitled to vote in voting on the resolution.
Proxies have been appointed for the purposes of this meeting in respect of approximately 79.6 million shares, representing approximately 66.1% of the total number of shares on issue. The results of the proxies will be displayed following voting. Now, moving to the resolutions. Resolution one, the re-election of Darrin Grafton as Executive Director. Resolution 1 relates to the re-election of Darrin Grafton. The board recommends Darrin to you as an Executive Director and unanimously supports his re-election. I'll now invite Darrin to briefly address the meeting on his proposed re-election.
Okay. Over the last 2 years, our world has changed. We not only faced COVID, but now war in Europe and now inflation. At Serko, we had a choice of how we guided and led this company, and we chose to build and drive a high performance team that could take on the opportunities to build both a platform for the return to travel while establishing a strong capital base that would allow us to execute on our opportunities ahead. This was our strategy. As you have heard today, we are now firmly on this journey, and we know what work we need to do to win. Leadership is about the belief in your team's ability to listen, learn, adapt through change and execute. They are guided by a CEO that directs the journey while the world around us may not seem so certain at times.
I stay laser focused on where we need to be and on what we can control.
I ask for your support as a director of Serko, not only as 1 of the largest shareholders, but as the person whose voice on the board is the balance of both the opportunities ahead for Serko, along with the years of managing the risks and governance needed. I champion diversity, governance, and ethics, and the responsibility needed to drive a leading company across the listed markets. As we take Serko to the next stage of its growth journey out of COVID, I'm excited by our prospects, and to see us become the company we aspire to be on the world stage. I thank you for your support to date, your belief in team Serko, and what we're about to do. For me, it's simply about executing and winning, because we are Serko.
I now propose that Darrin Grafton 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 from shareholders joining online.
If there are no questions on this matter from shareholders joining online, if you could now please select either for, against, or abstain for Resolution 1 on your voting card. Okay. Resolution 2, re-election of Clyde McConaghy as independent director. Resolution 2 relates to the re-election of Clyde McConaghy. The board recommends Clyde to you as an independent non-executive director, and unanimously supports his re-election. I'll now invite Clyde to briefly address the meeting on his proposed re-election.
Thank you. Good afternoon. You've heard my name. I'll just outline today 5 areas that I think I can contribute, which relate to shareholders, specifically my energy and enthusiasm. You'd like me to get a bit closer to the microphone. Right. See, we're adaptable here. The results, my knowledge, and indeed the knowledge of my co-directors, and in some ways, most importantly, opportunity. Just briefly, the shareholders. I mean, I am here at your behest. It's as pure and simple as that, to represent your interests and your investments. I'm here to contribute to the setting of strategy, to the allocation of resources, and for best practice governance, which having been a director all over the world, I think Serko fits that bill. Secondly, my enthusiasm and energy and commitment and availability for Serko has not dimmed since being here for the IPO.
I've attended a lot of board meetings at a lot of businesses all over the world, and it is not any less today than it was 7 or 8 years ago when we started. I would hope my co-directors would actually agree with that as well. Perhaps why they've supported my reelection. Thank you. I've also invested a 6-figure sum in 2020 in shares in Serko and have never sold a share. So I remain, shall we say, aligned to your interests. Briefly, I won't talk about results in the way that Darrin and Claudia have.
Suffice to say, in the year that we've had and the financial year that we're referring to, we've had finished the year with a record-sized team, our tech team, a record-sized cash holding for future investments, and indeed, record share price, but I'm acutely aware, as we all are, of where that share price is now. Fourthly, my knowledge and expertise. I've been on public company boards and tech companies on the London Stock Exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange, the New Zealand Exchange, and a director in about half a dozen other countries. I'm well aware and well experienced in the challenges that we have faced and will continue to face. I was in Asia when it was the Asia financial crisis.
I was in London when it was the tech wreck, followed by the tech boom, followed by the tech wreck, followed by the tech boom. I've been around the block a few times, and I bring that experience and offer that experience and expertise to you. Finally, opportunity. Serko's future now lies in the international markets. There's just no doubt about that. Our relationship with Booking.com, the investments in our team in North America, and increasingly complex relationships with multinational companies. I'd probably suggest that, in fact, there are large areas of my expertise and experience that have not yet actually been used by Serko because we've been predominantly ANZ-focused. My career, I've lived in Germany, China, the U.K., and worked all over the world.
I'd like to think that experience will now be, in fact, of new value to Serko over the next 3 years. Thank you for your support, and I hope to be able to serve you for the next 3 years. Thanks.
I now propose that Clyde McConaghy be re-elected as a non-executive director of the company. Are there any questions concerning the motion from shareholders in the room? There's 1 question at the back.
Where are you actually based these days?
I live in Sydney, so I travel always to Auckland. I've been here now, what, 50 or so times, and I, obviously not for the last 2 years when it's been illegal to travel, but prior to that, probably about 50.
It's also been very supportive to have you in Sydney when we were locked down, I will add, with our team over there. Oh, Clyde just said that he is based in Sydney, but he travels whenever possible over to New Zealand to attend board meetings. I was just adding that it also was very useful in the last 2 years where we were not able to get to Sydney, that he was there for our team. Are there any other questions in the room? Are there any questions online?
There are no questions on this matter from shareholders online.
Thank you. Please now select either for, against, or abstain from Resolution 2 on the voting card. I'll now move to Resolution 3, which is election of Jan Dawson as Independent Director. Resolution 3 relates to the election of Jan Dawson. The board recommends Jan to you as an Independent Non-executive Director and unanimously supports her election. I'll now invite Jan to briefly address the meeting on her proposed election.
Thanks, Claudia, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to be in person at an ASM for the first time in 3 years for any company. I'm here today to ask your support for my election as a director of your company. I was appointed as a director by the board after the ASM last year, hence the reason for me standing before you today to seek your election. After the last 12 months, I've been spending my time getting to grips with the intricacies and the specifics of Serko as a company in an industry that has been ravaged by global lockdowns over the past 3 years. As Claudia says, I've been chairing the Audit and Risk Committee, and I also sit on the People, Remuneration, and Culture Committee.
The skills that I bring to Serko are primarily from my career of 30 years with KPMG as a risk and assurance partner, in Canada and then back in New Zealand. For the last 6 years of my career with KPMG, I was the chief executive and chair of the New Zealand practice. Since 2011, I've been a full-time professional director on New Zealand and Australian companies across a wide range of industries. The 1 that's probably particularly relevant to Serko's business is the position as deputy chair of Air New Zealand, which I stepped down from last October after being asked to extend for a year to cover helping Air New Zealand to navigate the COVID response.
To also lead the capital restructuring that was required and the capital float that was required to ensure that the company was well-positioned to succeed after COVID stopped having the global impact that it had. In terms of the personal aspects that I bring to the board, I'm very diligent. Years of being an auditor has taught me to be very structured in my approach to business. I think that I'm very good at identifying and managing risks. My experience in governance for the past 11 years has given me a deep understanding of the responsibilities of us as directors to you as shareholders in delivering success with the companies on which we sit. I do believe my skills are quite complementary to my fellow directors.
I do not profess to be an entrepreneur, an IT expert, but I do question and inquire to ask the questions that maybe might be taken for granted. I can ask the silly questions as the new kid on the block, and maybe in some cases, raise issues that we should consider. I do ask for your support. I undertake to continue to be committed, engaged, and enthusiastic about the company, its business, and its future success. Thank you. I'll take these questions.
We'll see. I now propose that Jan Dawson be elected as a non-executive director of the company. Are there any questions concerning the motion from shareholders in the room? Yes, Bruce.
Thank you. Jan, you're a very experienced director in high demand. What attracted you to join the Serko board?
Probably my career as an audit partner, funnily enough. I like variety, and certainly Serko has a different nature to the likes of a Meridian Energy or a Westpac New Zealand, and it excited me. The business that they run, the services that they provide, and quite frankly, connecting people, I think is really important. It was different.
Thank you.
That was actually part of the attraction.
Are there any other questions in the room? Are there any questions online?
There are no questions on this matter from shareholders joining online.
Thanks, Jan. Please now select either for, against, or abstain for resolution 3 on the voting card. Bless you. Resolution 4: fixing the fees and expenses of the auditor. Resolution 4 relates to the fees and expenses of Serko's auditors. The proposed resolution is to authorize the directors to fix the auditor's 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 2022 are set out in the 2022 annual report. I now propose, as an ordinary resolution, that the directors are authorized to fix the fees and expenses of Deloitte as an auditor for Serko Limited. Are there any questions concerning the motion from shareholders in the room? Nick, are there any questions online?
There are no questions on this matter from shareholders online.
Thank you. Please now select either for, against, or abstain for resolution 4 on the voting card. Shareholders joining online, you can now submit your vote. Voting will be open until 5 minutes after the conclusion of the meeting. For shareholders present with us in the room, Link will now move through the room to collect your voting cards. That's a fun one. Cool. 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're now showing on the screen above. Great. I'd 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 continue to provide questions online, and we will also address questions that have already been submitted online. If we run short of time and we're unable to answer your question today, we'll endeavor to respond to you after the meeting, and of course, you're welcome to join us for afternoon tea and ask us questions there. Are there any questions from shareholders in the room? 1 here.
Jim Fairmont and shareholder. I guess I could have asked the question before, but how many languages is Booking in Serko and how many languages are you in the world? Do-
Great
Do you have Japanese and Chinese?
Yes. At the moment, there's 9 languages.
Mm-hmm
I believe that we've rolled out in.
Yeah.
We're progressively looking at more and more languages as well.
Yeah.
A second question, are you making any donations to any institution in New Zealand, computer or mathematics department about computing technology?
We donate all of the previous laptops that we do to The Salvation Army to enable them to distribute them out to people as well. Like, we've got a community day coming up in September where all the staff are going to work for community organizations as well.
We have that robotics team.
Yeah. We do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So if you-
Are you giving money to any university department?
We've done.
technology department?
Yeah. We sponsored also a team of robotics people to help them further what they were doing on the world stage as well. Yes, we do select parts of those investments strategically to help.
In New Zealand?
Yes, in New Zealand.
Yeah
...specifically.
Okay.
That's great. Well, we've got a follow on from this. Everyone's interested in robotics. Here we go.
I was just interested, how many people you got watching it online, and also how many companies in New Zealand are using your system?
Ooh, that's a great-
Like the Flight Centre and
Great question.
...the House of Travel, and how many, of the-
Yeah.
bigger ones?
Around between 70 and 80% market share is what we actually sit across both of the markets across Australia and New Zealand, so we're quite a large market share.
about 70%-80% of New Zealand businesses will be using our software.
the reason we give the
Flight Centre.
Yeah, Flight Centre use us, so their products that they call Savi or CTGo, it's our technology. Orbit Online by Orbit, which is part of the House of Travel Group, they use us today, and a lot of the other independents and stuff like that. Yes, we're quite well used by a lot of the market in there. That's been our home base. You know, we've progressively taken more and more market share, and we've done that during COVID as well.
Great. Are there any other questions in the room?
How many people are watching online?
Oh, yes. I thought you asked that. Yeah. How many people are watching online, Nick?
We have 76 people watching online.
Wow.
Thank you.
You're welcome. We have a great question that has come in online.
We have received a question from a shareholder online, and that question is: Who is the company's major competitor?
Everyone sit back and relax.
Yeah, no. Our major competitor is a company called SAP, and they have a product called Concur. That has been the major global dominant player that came out of the U.S. market. We've been able to win against them down under. That's why we have such large market share down here. That's our opportunity.
Nicely said.
Yeah.
Very nicely said. We could go on about the competitive space, but we won't 'cause we appreciate there's afternoon tea to have. We're happy to chat about that over a cup of tea.
We have 1 more question.
1 more.
from a shareholder online.
Okay.
That question is: Do you have an estimate of when you will be cash flow positive?
Yes. All right. Do you wanna talk to that? This is Susan, our CFO.
Hi, yeah. We have, as we read, and we put it up on the screen, a fairly sizable cash base. We're, you know, I think we're running NZD 3.6 million a month cash burn. If you kind of trend that forward, it would say we need to have got ourselves to cash flow breakeven sometime in FY 2025. Certainly our goal is to keep our future within our hands. That is our focus. In the meantime, in the shorter term, we are still increasing our level of investment. Obviously, we're still growing revenue, but the goal is to have that revenue growth outpace the costs by FY 2025.
Are there any other questions online?
There are no further questions from shareholders joining online.
Okay, that's great, and we'll take 1 more. Yeah.
My name is Wally Smalll. Just a question on following up on that. I see we are burning quite a lot of cash, and last year we burned a lot more than, you know, NZD 3.6 million a month. By my calculations, what you said was probably right. What sort of defensive mechanism have you got in place if it doesn't, you know. At that rate, we are going to strike a wall somewhere along the line. What sort of mechanism is or what sort of, you know, way will you attack that.
I think that's a great question. It's really something we look at monthly in our board meetings.
Oh, okay.
I mean, I think there are a number of, you know, opportunities for us, and there are a number of opportunities for attack. Our work is to make sure we're advancing on many more fronts than we're being attacked.
Yeah.
It's very much something we look at monthly.
Yeah.
Really scenario out all of the opportunities, how we're spending our money, what the biggest opportunities are for us to make money and also save money is the cost discipline piece that we talked about today.
Because it is a common problem out there with tech companies like yours or in IT, and it may be in different areas where they're striking the same thing. That certainly affects your share price.
Yeah, a huge amount of that is about prudent governance, which is where this
Yeah. I understand, yeah.
Board is strong.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it would be good to get some form of guidance 'cause I think that'll have an effect on your. If you can. I don't quite know exactly. You need to get your innovative, creative juices really going so that you can give something to the market, I think.
Yeah. I don't know that Darrin needs any more permission to get his innovative juices flowing.
Well, I know that, but.
No, it's an extremely good question. It's something where it's very much front of mind to us.
Yeah
Literally managing it month to month.
Yeah.
I think we've got a really, really strong plan in place.
Yeah.
We're very pleased with the plan. We're pleased with what we're doing against it.
Yeah.
We just have to keep our eyes wide open and our foot on the accelerator.
Yeah. I think 1 of the things you can take over the last time, you know, since we've been a publicly listed company, is our cash discipline. You know, we've raised capital in a lot of cases before people actually thought we needed it because we always model in risks and how we do it. Our investments are directly related to our contracts or where we have line of sight to revenue, and we balance that on a monthly basis to check, are we in line with those trends that we're going through, too. From month to month, that's how we're assessing it. That discipline is why we have the public board, why we do what we do, and it's a key focus of how we've always governed this business in there.
We can pull back when we need to and pull forward. We call it our dial. We can either dial forward because the opportunities are going faster, or we can see that and we need to get ahead of that investment, or we can dial back, and that's how we've always run the business as well.
Yeah.
It's that discipline.
Does Booking.com have any shareholding in Serko?
Yes.
Yes.
They do?
It does.
Yes, it does.
Is it meaningful?
It's just under 5%.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. I think this enthusiasm and conversation is proof of why we need to travel and be together in person. I think we're just affirming the direction of travel for us as a business. It's been great to hear the energy of the questions in the room. I think we had 1 question online last year, so this was great. We've got no more online. Are there any more questions in the room? 1 more, and then we might move on.
Do you think SAP are offering a much better product than you, or are you up with them? You think the product is equal to them?
Yeah. I would say, from the feedback that we receive that, I always say is that ours is better, of course. I think we do things differently. We come from travel at a different approach. The reason Kim won Travel Manager of the Year was, and they talked about our technology, was the way we do it differently. How we work with the new shopping algorithms and the way that people can actually purchase travel and how we innovate. I think that's 1 of the things that's been our strength. We've waited to get into the U.S. market. We've been building it now, and then that's the exciting part.
People get caught up and do have to take that level of customer base, but America is 1 of the largest travel markets in the world, and we only have to pick our niche to be successful as well.
Have you got another market after America?
Yeah.
Where you're looking at.
Like Europe with Booking.com today and other markets.
All right. Well, I'll take that as all the questions for the moment. But again, please come and ask them all over a cup of tea after this. Thank you for your online attendance at Serko's annual meeting. Please keep safe no matter where you are in the world. I now declare the meeting closed. The results of the meeting will be released on the NZX and the ASX later today. Thank you all.