AGM 2021

Aug 18, 2021

Press Release

Kia ora and good afternoon. My name is Claudia Batten and I am the Chair of Serco. Today, we are very pleased to welcome you to Serco's 2021 Annual Meeting, which is being held as a wholly virtual meeting now due to Auckland being put into Level 4 lockdown last night. We thank shareholders who are wishing to attend in person for their understanding and instead for joining us online. While inevitable, it is concerning to now have the delta variant in the community within New Zealand and we'll be monitoring the situation closely. I can see online that we have a strong attendance and I'm pleased to see so many shareholders joining us today. You will be able to vote and ask questions online 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 800-200-220. We will be using some slides during the meeting. You'll be able to see these and follow along and they will also be made available on Serco's investor website. It is my pleasure to introduce my fellow directors, Simon Baudelway, Independent Director, who is retiring today Clyde McGonaghy, Independent Director Darren Grafton, Executive Director, CEO and Co Founder and Bob Shaw, Executive Director, Chief Strategy Officer and Co Founder. Bob is standing for reelection today. I would also like to welcome the members of Serco's management and staff in attendance. Finally, I'd like to welcome our external auditors independent auditors, Deloitte and our lawyers, Flax and 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 a scrutineer. Now for the formalities of the meeting. You can send through your questions at any time through the online portal by using the Ask a Question button, and I would encourage you to do so as early as possible as this will allow us to answer these questions at the appropriate time of the meeting. From a notice of meeting standpoint, the company has confirmed to me that the notice of meeting has been sent out 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. Darren and I will begin by providing an overview of the company's performance for the FY 2021 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 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. Good afternoon again. A year ago, I officiated over this meeting in my capacity as interim from my home in the United States. At the time, my biggest concern was whether my Los Angeles Wi Fi would hold up for the meeting. A year later, I'm still concerned about the Wi Fi connection. I was looking forward to seeing you all live today, but once again, we are adapting our plans. And I might add, doing it with a smile. This year, we're all beaming in from Australia, our Sydney based Director, Clyde, and also Executive Director, Bob, who is also presently in Sydney and of course the rest of the Board from New Zealand. This is an emblem of the shifting sands we've had to navigate over the past year. I took over Serco's chair acting in Interim capacity in April 2020. The 18 months since have been among the most challenging in the company's history. In a year where our industry has been shaken to its core, we have been forced to confront questions that we had previously only considered out of academic curiosity. None of this has dimmed my excitement about Serco's potential and my confidence of its future. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, we have seen strong interest in Circo's product globally as resellers, corporates as airlines look for smarter, more automated ways to book business travel. Circle is on a mission to connect the world's business travelers with the universe of travel content, providing them with the information and services they need at every stage of the journey to create a connected trip. Throughout the past year, the Board and management have tested, evolved and strengthened our strategy. This work will continue as the global travel market continues to change shape through the various stages of recovery. Through our Zeno platform, business travelers can book airlines, trains, rental cars, airport transfers and more through a single interface. Employers can efficiently manage their budgets and have assurance from a system that delivers on their responsibilities to their staff. Even before the pandemic, we knew that our solutions answered a pressing need for businesses globally. However, what is possibly less appreciated is that the pandemic has delivered Circo the opportunity to refine and stretch our strategy based on the new realities of business travel. Darren will talk more on this shortly. First, I want to walk you through the 2021 financial year and then discuss the outlook for the remainder of the financial year and beyond. From the 2021 financial year, we know both what an immensely challenging year looks like, but also that the Serco team has an immense ability to rise to a challenge. Our options were to retrench and wait out the storm or to lean into our development path and strive to get ahead of the eventual market recovery. Based on our assessment of current and changing market needs, we chose to steer into the storm. We were continually encouraged by this decision with key market partners, including our partner Booking dotcom, searching for solutions as their businesses changed. This has included a major and deliberate increase in investment in our platform. Staff numbers, principally where engineers have grown from 233 at the start of the year to 287 at the end of the financial year. We continue to grow the organization to meet the demand. At the end of July 2021, the team had grown to 314 people. Total income for the year to the end of March was down 37% to 16,900,000 as recurring revenues fell 53% and bookings on our platform fell 63%. We conservatively reduced the extent to which we capitalize costs to reflect the uncertain environment in which we continue to operate and actively managed our cash burn within the guidance range of between $2,000,000 $4,000,000 average monthly burn. Our 2021 results reflect a constant and deliberate balancing of investment and prudent cash management, an approach that navigates the often competing imperatives of investing for opportunity while managing for uncertainty. We believe that Serco is well positioned to not only recover to previous volume levels, but to materially increase world where domestic and international travel is largely unimpeded. Our stated plan continues to become a global player. This is underpinned by a well established Australasian business and we are building a comparable reputation across our international markets. Retraction in global travel markets has forced significant change upon our TMC partners. They're now operating with fewer people and this is creating opportunities for automation and technology solutions such as Zeno. Corporations, while are increasingly focused on the costs and administration of their travel and expense budgets, and in the face of COVID-nineteen, are much more focused on traveler well-being and their duty of care obligations. We've established a strong for growth in North America and are well positioned to grow into the recovery in that market. Darren will provide more detail on this shortly. Our partnership with Booking.com offers the potential for a major step up in transaction volume. We have invested to transition Booking.com's customers Onto our platform. We are now well positioned as the migration enters its final stages and travel gradually resumes. These collective opportunities were the basis of our well supported capital raise of $65,000,000 in new equity. This raise provided the resources and capacity to execute on our strategic priorities and position the company for growth when business travel normalizes. Thanks to the capital raise and careful cash management, we ended the year with a cash balance of $80,000,000 and at the end of July, it stood at 68.6 $1,000,000 That said, our operating environment has become a lot more complex. We used to think of currency fluctuations as one of our bigger macroeconomic considerations. Today, we need to consider things like vaccination rates, vaccine efficacy and the characteristics of new virus variants. New Zealand domestic travel bookings have remained very strong, to date exceeding pre COVID levels. However, we will be closely watching what happens in New Zealand given the community case announced yesterday. Australian domestic travel has continued to fluctuate due to the intermittent tightening of the interstate travel restrictions. Our strategy for growth and importantly, our capital management plans must account for disruptions of the type we have seen here at home and continue to see in our new markets. As I mentioned earlier, we have carefully managed our cash reserves to within the guidance range of between CAD2 1,000,000 to $4,000,000 The higher end of the cash burn range allows for CIRCO to continue prudently investing into growth opportunities amid market disruption. As markets reopen, higher revenue will result in lower cash burn. We are following the same approach in this financial year. In the Q1 of this financial year, we averaged $2,600,000 cash burn per month and we have a clear framework to guide investment through the next 12 months. We are building to a future where Serco is a considerably larger company. It is this thinking that's driving the governance at Serco. Our current governance priorities are, firstly, driving to be a more responsible organization through of ESG practices and disciplines into our strategy and our organization. Today, through Zeno, our customers can, among other things, select flights and hotels that have enhanced cleaning protocols to address the risks of coronavirus and soon we'll be able to monitor and offset the carbon emissions of their travel. We are also looking for ways in which our own business can continue to reduce its carbon footprint. Secondly, we're continuing to strive towards best practice remuneration and diversity policies. During the year, Circle undertook a full review of our remuneration strategy, implementing changes to better connect performance and reward. We also reviewed our approach to inclusion and diversity, adopting more ambitious measurable objectives which target, among other things, achieving greater diversity within Serco's Board and management by March 2023 of forty-forty-twenty and targeting broader diversity of thought and representation more broadly. And finally, managing Board to deliver the skills that our rapidly evolving organization needs. As you will see from the resolutions that we are putting forward to you today, We're seeking to recruit a 4th Independent Director to support the business as it scales. We expect this appointment to be internationally based and have significant experience in scaling businesses globally. Meanwhile, directly after this meeting, we welcome Jan Dawson to the Board. Jan is currently Chair of Westpac New Zealand, Deputy Chair of Air New Zealand and also an Independent Director of AIG New Zealand and Meridian Energy. We are delighted she's agreed to join the company. She will become the Chair of Serco's Audit and Risk Committee and brings to the company a passion for building great companies and the deep governance and financial market expertise necessary for Serco to achieve its global aspirations. She also offers us continuity replacing Simon Baudouet who steps aside at the conclusion of this meeting after nearly 8 years as an independent director including nearly 7 years as Chairman of the Board. It's an understatement to say that we are sorry to see Simon go. He's provided a benchmark for excellent governance. He's been pivotal in helping Serco grow into a standard for the New Zealand technology industry and a company with global potential. He's also been a great personal mentor. So Simon, on behalf of shareholders, thanks doesn't seem enough, But thanks. And on behalf of directors and the whole team at Circo, thanks again for your support, your guidance, your high standards and your good looks. Wait, how did that get in there? I mean, did you get the final edits on this? I think that meant to say real good humor for our recovery, particularly in Australia, but also in global travel and we are investing to position the company for that recovery. It's an understatement to say that the extent and pace of that recovery is uncertain. Our expansion into new markets will continue with a weather eye on trading conditions And keeping our cash burn within our guidance range, we continue to be unable to forecast for the FY 2022 year with any certainty at this time. As we complete the booking.comforbusinessmigration and European businesses return from their summer holidays, we expect transactions to increase on this platform, resulting in material revenue over the second half of the year. We will continue to update the market on key metrics and trends as we conclude the migration. Before finishing, I want to thank my fellow directors for the support and guidance over what has been an immensely challenging year. I also want to offer my thanks to Darren, his team and the broader Serco family. At the Infants Dinner this year, the country's Premier Finance Awards, Darren was recognized for outstanding leadership. It was a fitting recognition for the way he and his team have built a culture that in the face of immense challenge, navigated the crisis and delivered, while maintaining the excitement and enthusiasm for our shared purpose. Team Serco, your commitment to the company was and is pivotal to us achieving the global future we are pursuing. We have a strong and committed team. On behalf of shareholders and the Board, I thank you. I'll now pass over to Darren. Thanks, Claudia, and welcome, everyone. The pandemic has added new complexities to business travel. And through these complexities, we are seeing the opportunities emerging that will help Circo Scale. 20 years ago, business travel was a simple exercise of walking onto a plane. Then in 2000 and 1, the world changed. The World Trade Centers fell and we grew accustomed to traveling with less liquid and taking off our shoes, jackets and belts. Now 20 years on, the world has changed again. We face travel with masks, vaccination passports, carbon offsets. We also want our trains, planes and automobiles to come with the assurance that they are deep cleansed and virus free. We want travel costs to be controlled to know that our companies can mitigate their impact on the environment and that our employees are also safe. COVID has brought to the forefront the need for technology, a system that allows businesses to manage their employees' travel but marries that with the modern shopping and consumer experience we have all come to expect. This is Serco and this is Zeno. We didn't know it at the time, but business travel used to be simple. We had the freedom and confidence to hop on a plane or train anytime we needed to. And then the world changed. A global pandemic fundamentally altered the travel landscape almost overnight. We faced a new reality of travel restrictions, cancellations and disruption. And health and safety became the most important priority. Business travel is more complex than ever. Face masks, COVID tests, vaccine passports and hygiene measures are all part of the new normal. And as the world reopens and corporate travel returns, there's a new focus on cost management and environmental ability that has added even more complexity to travel decisions. What was simple has become exponentially more difficult. The need for technology to bring simplicity and safety back to travel has never been greater. Zeno real time information for safer choices with integrated approval workflows and policy checks to run a leaner travel program and intelligent technology that builds a single connected trip itinerary, so you can work smarter, not harder. This is the next generation of business travel. Don't just return to travel. Come back safer, leaner Booking a trip for most business travelers around the world is becoming more and more complex. It involves engaging with multiple suppliers, interpreting complex and disparate information and accessing numerous apps or tools. Choice can be overwhelming. Simple changes can be frustrating, post trip expense reconciliation and dealing with disruptions can be maddening. We've been delivering innovative ways to manage these complexities locally to gain the market share we have today. But the need for technology like ours on the world stage has become a focus and it is this opportunity we now seek to capitalize on. In many ways, the complexities of this industry reflects the overall travel market. The business travel supply chain is highly fragmented. There are multiple airlines, multiple car rental companies, multiple hotel chains, all offering different prices and plans and these are constantly changing. Add to this other business essentials such as finding the right restaurant to take a client or a meeting space at short notice while you're in a foreign city. A simple trip becomes a logistical challenge. It is the same also for suppliers. There is no simple way for them to get their product in front of business travelers. Your flight, your hotel room, your rental car are offered across multiple channels often at different prices, creating confusion or at worst, distrust. Zeno solves these problems. We bring clarity and simplicity to systems that were never designed for a consumer or business travel application. We bring technology and mobility together to remove the complexity and stress of business travel. Zeno is not just a product or a platform, it is a technology that creates a marketplace, a venue where business travelers and business travel suppliers connect and transact. And through a global network of alliances, we funnel travel content and travel services into our marketplace from air travel, hotels and airport transfers through to carbon offsets and risk and travel budget management. Zeno is the consolidated storefront to a broad range of business travelers. At one end of the spectrum, we help small businesses and individual travelers who access our platform directly, Providing a travel as a service, our new modern approach to managing travel built using the connected trip. All bookings are made and later managed through a single interface. At the other end, we help the world's largest enterprises manage employee travel, ensuring bookings align with their corporate policy and boundaries and meet their duty of care. We reach these different segments of travelers through our alliances around the world. And Zeno is a storefront to our travel management company partners and is now powering the likes of Flight Centre with Savvy, Orbit with Orbit Online and of course booking.com for business. In the last 12 months, our technology has reached into more than 180 countries in 10 languages, More than 200,000 small businesses and 5,000 currently activated enterprise and government customers are on our platform. It has set a new benchmark for what is possible in addressing the global business travel market. And what is truly exciting is that we're just at the start of our journey with Zeno. In the face of the pandemic, we have been laser focused on our strategy, defining our ladder to success and executing towards this plan. We have a clear and achievable plan for Serco to become a truly global player, although timing remains uncertain in the face of COVID. Our vision is the reinvention of business travel retailing with the creation of the world's first business travel marketplace. Our mission to make that a reality is to connect the world's business travelers with the universe of travel content, information and services they need at every stage of the journey to create the connected trip. It is a big vision and one we are pursuing in deliberate and a focused way. In practical terms, this means leveraging the strengths of our core home market to expand into the international markets through the strategic alliances. The building blocks on this journey are consolidating our position in Australasia, building out our position in North America and capturing the potential of our partnership with booking.com and putting in place the infrastructure that allow us to scale up to the volumes we anticipate flowing through our platform. The strategy enables us to focus on a 3 pronged approach to success, which is broken down into the growth in our Australia and New Zealand markets in both transactions and the average revenue per booking and growth in the Northern Hemisphere via both our direct to corporate deals and via our travel management resellers and our small business platform, which has started its journey powering booking.com for business. I'll now cover how each of these markets are positioned and where we are on that journey towards our midterm target of $100,000,000 Our strong position in the Australasian travel market underpins the group. And while we have a large market share, this region still offers opportunities for expansion. We provide corporate travel content, flights, rental cars, accommodations to almost 3 quarters of the managed travel customers in the region. We and we still see growth in this market as we meet more of the business travelers' needs. New Zealand has been performing well, delivering us travel volumes ahead of the peaks in 2019. And this growth has been assisted by the onboarding of new customers with a combination of new wins and our migration program with Orbit as they move their customers off the previous competitor booking tool and onto Zeno. Australia has clearly suffered some setbacks with the delta strain of COVID. However, we are optimistic that in that in time business travel will return to the volumes we saw prior to the pandemic. But the way people travel will likely be different. We have become accustomed to video conferencing and working from home and it is very clear that businesses globally are welcoming us. Working from home is also allowing them to reduce on premise accommodation costs and in some cases redirect these savings into new forms of business travel as they look at new ways of managing remote workforce and deploy people closer to their customers. The challenge is to maintain corporate culture and the serendipity of water cooler conversations. It means remote workers staying at head offices longer and it means companies investing more in off-site meetings. The Australian and New Zealand travel markets provide us a really good guidance on how we believe the recovery will unfold. As evidenced by the bounce back in travel volumes following each lockdown. And we can see this data from the reason for travel that is loaded at the time of booking in our system. And we continue to monitor for trends in travel, which enables us to focus on what is becoming important within any given market. We know that when people feel safe, they begin to travel. So the higher vaccination rate, the greater the likelihood of travel. We saw this with the now suspended travel bubble with Australia where more Australians flew to New Zealand due to them feeling safe in our management of COVID, but this wasn't reciprocally reflected by outbound New Zealand travelers. We're also seeing strong demand for new content such as providing carbon offset and COVID-nineteen risk information at point of sale. This information helps businesses ensure they are just discharging their duty of care obligations and looking after their people. We're focused on delivering the gold standard in managing the compliance needed by government and enterprise customers within this market. And we'll continue our research and development activities directed at our home market as it's an ideal test bed for features that can have a global appeal. Some of the new features include Carbon and Environmental Management, Right to Travel, our new NDC, which is New Distribution Capability, Air Fares with Qantas and our drive to create a seamless integrated travel platform. We continue to believe that by adding value for our customers, suppliers and resellers, we can over time achieve a target of a $20 average revenue per booking in this market. Our strategy in North America, a market pre COVID saw around 450,000,000 domestic trips made every year is built around 3 pillars, the mega travel management companies, mid market travel management companies and a direct to corporate. In the mega travel management companies or TMC category, we are focusing on the top tier, which we believe collectively have around 75% of the U. S. Market for managed business travel. We already have established relationships with 2 of the players in this group, Flight Centre and CWT, And we're seeing growing demands from larger enterprise Fortune 500 Companies, which are resulting in all the mega agencies looking at new innovations such as Zeno. Because of their size and volume, this is a slower sales and activation process, But the upside will be significant as these TMCs start to bring their customers onto our platform. Our target for this sector of the market is to drive $5,000,000 transaction run rate over 3 years from the mega agencies. The second part in the mid market, we are focused on the top 50 TMCs that make up most of the remainder of the market. And because of this smaller scale, the sales and activation process is generally faster than the mega TMCs. And we've signed 10 of the top 50 to date and have active customers gradually starting to transact across most of these customers. Our approach is to grow to between 10% 20% market share of these customers, again targeting around 5,000,000 transactions. And finally, our direct to corporate approach. And this is aimed at a very select group of companies in the Fortune 500 we reach by leveraging our international networks. Encouragingly, we have seen an increase in RFPs for these customers and we are confident in our ability to win at this level. Once signed, a direct deal gives Circa immediate access to all business travelers within the corporate, reducing the reliance on a partner to drive the migration of business. Our target is to sign 1 to 2 major Fortune 500 Companies in our current financial year FY 2022 through to an increasing number in the following financial years. And our aspirational long term goal is to sign 20 to 25 large market customers, generating an average of around 200,000 bookings each, again giving us a target of around 5,000,000 transactions through this section of the market. The first two years have been about making sure the product and platform meet the market needs and we have achieved these first set of goals. Our brand is starting to resonate with our target market segments. We have employed some amazing talent in the region to sell and support Zeno locally. And we now have trading customers in both the USA and Canadian markets. Activity, of course, is at low levels given the stringent travel restrictions that have been in place in these markets. And our second phase, the phase we are now entering is to focus on the scaling the solution across our target segments. There's a process of learning and adapting the technology to meet the changing needs and the new market conditions that the return to regular business travel will require. Our partnership with Booking.com. BrandedBooking.com for Business is aimed at becoming the leading digital business travel platform for small and medium sized businesses in the unmanaged travel space. And the first phase of our plan included a test rollout in several markets in 2020. We then move to extend into additional languages and then into full migration phase of existing Booking.com for business customers. We commenced in March 2021 and are rapidly moving towards completion. The 2nd phase is activating engagement with the platform and optimizing it across the global markets. This includes enabling new content within each market such as flights, rail, car rentals and COVID-nineteen risk mitigation. As we move to extend both and features available, we believe we will create a broader global appeal. This will lead Serco into the 3rd phase of scaling up and increasing marketing activity and focusing on both acquisition and retention of customers. Our goal is to access large portion of the unmanaged travel spend with a single well connected marketplace for customers that have struggled with managing and reconciling business travel. Today, we're in the final stage of migration. We're incredibly proud of how Serco and Booking dotcom teams have come together to plan for and execute the migration to the new platform. We've been following a well structured phased migration of different customer types and size and are pleased to announce we have more than 200,000 activated businesses on the platform. In the month of July, we also saw over 5,000 new businesses sign up to the platform in addition to the migrated customers, and we expect to continue to grow new customers as the market awareness increases and business travel activity resumes. Our aim has been for the transition to be seamless, allowing customers to transact as soon as they are activated. We're meeting these goals with an average migration taking less than 6 seconds and with close to 100% success rate. As previously indicated, booking.com and Serco have agreed the migration phase will be extended by 2 months beyond the original expected date of 31 July. And this is to transfer the remaining business customers onto the new platform. We expect The SME or small business customers booking behaviors will be different from our enterprise customers. And it's uncertain when and how often migrated customers will transact, particularly during COVID effective periods. Transactions, however, have been occurring for a percentage of migrated customers who are comfortable traveling under the current COVID conditions. And we're optimistic that we will see travel pick up in Europe following the traditional holiday period in July August. And as global vaccination programs become more widespread. Activations don't necessarily translate immediately into bookings and this is due to the intermittent travel needs of SMEs and the impact of COVID. But we are excited to see the amount of business customers activating, checking out the new platform and readying their business account for the purchase of travel, notwithstanding the pandemic and travel restrictions that are in place. As you may have seen from the Booking Holdings quarterly announcement, the Connected Trip remains a key focus for the group. The goal is to enable customers to book every aspect of their travel experience seamlessly through a single platform. And we are pleased to be delivering the connected trip for business customers across multiple markets already. And as we grow our content availability across these different catalogs of travel, we expect the connected trip to become the new way of booking. From a technology perspective, We are focused on scaling the platform to enable connectivity to a broader range of partners and introducing new content. As we extend our reach across the globe, we are running a 20 fourseven system where in any given month we could be releasing as many as 200 updates and over 10 updates per day. Our teams continue to work on new insights and processes to take CIRCO to the next level in both resilience and speed, and we have made significant gains in the last 12 months. Scaling a system to bring on the volume of small businesses others have taken a decade to achieve in as many months is a real true testament to the talent in the Serco team. As mentioned, we are rolling out options to manage carbon emissions across all types of business travel And this is a move entirely aligned with our commitment to do the right thing by our people, our customers and our communities as well as our shareholders. We have introduced a broad range of COVID risk management measures, including clean hotels that allows travelers and corporates to see at a glance hotels that have implemented COVID health and hygiene measures. We've also introduced point of sale information that displays up to date airline policies for COVID, including health screening and passenger well-being measures. Meanwhile, our ambition continues to make it easier for travel content suppliers to connect to Zeno with the pursuit of an open application programming interface or API architecture that will enable third parties to connect in and build on our system globally. We are at the early stages of this program, but we'll provide regular updates as we scale towards this goal. To build a world class team, you need to create a culture that supports diversity and high performance. Throughout 2020 2021, we'd strive to build on our culture, How we employ people and drive performance. It was gratifying for the entire team to hear the judges at both the High-tech and Infants Awards, praising our team, ethos and culture and our success in embracing diversity. This year has also seen the strengthening of our executive team with further new appointments to help us scale for growth. Rachel Satterlee is Serco's new Chief People Officer. She joins us after 15 years in leadership roles with global travel giant He brings to Serco 30 years of experience in finance, commercial and leadership roles and most recently as CFO of the NZX and ASX listed company Pushpay. Shane replaces long serving Susan Putt, who is now pursuing her ambitions to ski every Bluebird Day this season. Susan Nemeth is presently and very aptly filling the role of Interim CFO until Shane starts. These are tremendous additions to our team. Serco is in good shape, Notwithstanding the severe impact of COVID has had on our industry over the past year, we believe we are well positioned for the eventual in global markets as we scale up to achieve our global ambitions. New Zealand has been currently performing well and we are optimistic Australia will follow suit as vaccinations put public health conditions on a more stable footing. We continue to target an increase in booking volumes and revenue per booking in both markets as transactions recover. Our North American business has put in place the infrastructure for growth and we are planning on contributing increasing revenue to Serco's business as travel normalize. Our partnership with booking.com for business is progressing well. And we are in the final stages of the migration, which once complete will give us a better idea of those booking trends. And finally, we've made great strides in scaling our people and systems for growth. It is very exciting time to be at Serco. We're on the cusp of driving a transformation of both the company and business travel globally as travel progressively returns. And before I hand back to Claudia, I also wanted to echo her thanks to the Serco team. As I said at the full year earnings announcement, your dedication to the company despite the significant personal and professional challenges of COVID has been inspiring. I also want to thank Claudia, my fellow directors and especially Simon for your long standing commitment and support for Serco and the guidance and assistance you have provided to me personally. You've dedicated 8 years of your life to Serco, enter our ambitions to become a world leader. You've helped guide the strengths in our risk management and how we guide and work with our shareholders. I want to personally thank you from not only the team, but from myself and Bob. I also want to welcome Jan to the Board, who brings the governance and balance needed to make sure Serco remains one of the most trusted and respected brands on the market. And I will now hand back to Claudia. Thank you, Darren. I would now like to give shareholders and proxy holders online today the opportunity to ask questions of the Board, management or the auditors. There will also be an opportunity to ask questions on each of the proposed resolutions during the formal business session. Are there any questions online? Claudia, there are currently no questions online from shareholders. Thanks, Sarah. As there are no questions, we will move to the formal business be addressed at the meeting. You may ask questions on each matter being put to shareholders today. The resolutions that we will be voting on will be displayed on the Shareholders will be able to cast their vote using the electronic voting card received when online registration is validated. To vote, you will need to click Get Voting Card within the online meeting platform. You will then be asked to enter your shareholder 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 5 minutes after the conclusion of this 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. As noted in the notice meeting, our share registrar will disregard any votes on Resolution 2, Director fee increases, cast by any non executive director of Serco or their associates except where they are acting as a proxy for another shareholder who has directed them how to vote their shares. Proxies have been appointed for the purposes of this meeting in respect of approximately 66,600,000 shares, representing approximately 61.6 percent of the total number of shares on issue. The results of the proxies will be displayed following voting. Now moving to the resolutions. Resolution 1 is the reelection of Robert Bob Shaw as Executive Director. So Resolution 1 relates to the reelection of Bob Shaw. The Board recommends Bob to you as an Executive Director and unanimously supports his reelection. I'll now invite Bob to briefly address the meeting on his proposed reelection. Welcome, Circa's Board, fellow Secodians and shareholders. Firstly, I would like to acknowledge our former Chair and NED, Simon By the way, contribution to Serco and particularly me personally. With Simon's foresight, guidance and his exceptional governance skills, I've grown under his leadership, and I'm very grateful for his tenure at Serco. Thank you, Simon. I also welcome Jan with her vast experience to the Board. As a leader in the technology space as a respected executive and co founder of Serco, one of my key strengths is my ability to open doors that would normally be closed to others. As one of the largest shareholders in Circa and current director, I help guide the company's vision and strategy on a path towards global success. And as the company heads into one of the most disruptive times in the history of global travel, I want to continue to support Serco and the industry in its reemergence and reinvention as a result of the pandemic. With those foundational underpinnings, I'm seeking reelection for another term as a Director of Serco. My Serco Board experience totals 14 years in aggregate, 7 as a public company, during which I've established the governance framework for Circo security methodology in 2007 and our pandemic plan in 2,009 following the H1N1 swine flu outbreak. These have proven instrumental with the global increase in cybersecurity and led to a positive response to continued operations when we transitioned to remote work from home services last year. The pandemic has put the spotlight on future market developments around airline recovery, sustainability, right to travel and payments, especially touchless in light of the virus. I have profiled most of these categories over the past 5 years and continue to model opportunities and highlight risks as we evolve. We will continue to see an increased reliance on technology to facilitate and support the demand serviced by less industry resources. In summary, circa is well positioned to deliver innovations to businesses within our ecosystem as the technology recovery resumes across different global regions. I thank you each for your continued ongoing support and restate my commitment to each of our stakeholders. I welcome the challenge and opportunity to continue to guide Serco through the healthy recovery of the global travel industry, an industry that's been my personal passion since 1987. With that, I seek your acknowledgment for reelection as an Executive Director of Serco I now propose that Bob Shaw be reelected as an Executive Director of the company. Are there any questions concerning the motion? There have been no questions raised on this resolution. Claudia? Thank you. Please now select either for, against or abstain for Resolution 1 on the voting card. That brings us to Resolution 2, Non Executive Director remuneration. Resolution 2 proposes an increase of NZ150 dollars per annum in the non executive director annual fee pool to provide the Board with flexibility to accommodate an additional international non executive director as part of the Board's succession plans to support the business as it scales globally. While Serco can rely on a mechanism in the NZX listing rules to automatically increase the fee pool when it the new director, we are conscious that we may need to pay higher fees to attract the right international director and we would like to give shareholders a voice on any proposed increase. Serco regularly benchmarks directive fees to ensure Serco's non executive Directors are fairly remunerated. Following the independent review undertaken by strategic pay referenced in the notice of meeting, We believe the current fees paid to directors reflect the market and are fair and reasonable, taking into consideration the level of skill and experience required to fulfill the role of Director at Serco and the significant workload associated with overseeing Serco's growth and international ambitions. There is no current intention to increase the fees currently paid to the non executive directors, which are included in the notice of meeting. I now propose as an ordinary resolution that the maximum aggregate amount of remuneration payable by Circa Limited to its non executive directors and their capacity as directors be increased by New Zealand dollars $150,000 per annum. The full text of the resolution is set out on the screen. Are there any questions concerning the motion? Claudia, there are no questions that have been raised on this motion. Thank you, Sarah. Please now select either for, against or abstain for Resolution 2 on the voting card. That brings us to Resolution 3, fixing the fees and expenses of the auditor. Resolution 3 relates to the fees and expenses of Circrow'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 company's act, Deloitte has been automatically reappointed as the company's auditors. Details of the statutory audit fees paid to Deloitte the financial year ended 31 March 2021 are set out in the 2021 Annual Report. I now propose as an ordinary resolution, the directors are to fix the fees and expenses of Deloitte as auditor for Circa Limited. Are there any questions? Claudia, no questions have been raised on this motion. Thank you. Please now select either for, against or abstain for Resolution 3 on the voting card. Shareholders can now submit your votes online. Voting will be open until 5 minutes after the conclusion of this meeting. 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 right now. I would now like to give shareholders a final opportunity to ask questions whether related to the presentation, the financial statements or the management of the company. You can continue to provide questions online and we will also address questions already submitted online. If we run short of time and we're unable to answer your today, we will endeavor to respond to you after the meeting. Are there any further questions from those online? Claudia, we haven't received any questions. We can wait a couple of minutes and see if any come through. Sure. So no questions have come through. Claudia? Thanks, Sarah. So if there are no further questions from the shareholders joining online, I would like to thank you for your online attendance at CIRCO's annual meeting. Please keep safe no matter where in the world you are and I now declare the meeting closed. The results of the meeting will be released on the NZX and the ASX later today. Thank you.