Good morning, everybody, and welcome to all our shareholders here today and joining us online. We appreciate you taking the time to attend and hope you find our presentations interesting and of value. Today's meeting is being held both in person and online via the Computershare online meetings platform. For our online participants, this allows you to watch a live webcast of the meeting, ask questions, and submit votes. For those of you attending the meeting online, if you have a question, please select the Q&A tab on the right half of your screen anytime. Type your question into the field and press Send. Your question will be immediately submitted. We will answer any questions after the presentations. Questions may be moderated or if we receive multiple questions on one topic amalgamated together. Due to time constraints, we may run out of time to answer all your questions.
If this happens, we will answer them in due course via email. Should you require any assistance, you can type your query and one of the Computershare team will assist with the chat function and reply to your query. Alternatively, you can call Computershare on 0800 650 034. Voting today will be conducted by way of a poll. I will shortly open the voting online for all resolutions. If you are eligible to vote at this meeting, you will be able to cast your vote under the Vote tab. Simply select your voting direction from the options shown on the screen. You can vote for all resolutions at once or by each resolution. Once your vote has been cast, a tick will appear. To change your vote, simply select Change Your Vote.
You have the ability to change your vote up until the time I declare voting closed. I now declare voting open on all items of business. Please submit your votes at any time. I will give you a warning before I close the online voting. Since taking over as chair in 2017 when the business was burdened with high debt, poor inventory quality, and many non-performing assets and other aspects of the business, we have undergone a complete refresh of the board and management, and I'm very confident we have an excellent team dedicated to driving the growth of our company. Joining me today are your directors. I'll ask each of them to raise their hand when I introduce them. Firstly, Chris Ellis, Steve Reindler, John Beveridge, Karen Jordan, and Andrew Flavell. Andrew joined our board in October last year and is standing for election by shareholders today.
John Beveridge is retiring by rotation and is standing for re-election. You'll have the chance to hear from both of them later in the meeting. Also joining us today are Steel & Tube CEO, Mark Malpass, Chief Financial Officer, Richard Smyth, and Legal Counsel, John Gordon. A number of our advisors, including our auditors, are also joining us today. I'd like to thank the professional firms who have provided valuable advice to Steel & Tube over the last year. We are pleased to be able to update you on our progress and our 2022 financial year results at today's meeting. You'll hear from myself first and then from Mark. Following that, there will be an opportunity for shareholders' questions and discussion. We encourage you to submit any questions as early as possible during the presentations. We'll then move to the resolutions.
Following the close of the meeting, shareholders are invited to join your board and the management team for refreshments. I'll now move on to my address. Steel & Tube is one of New Zealand's leading providers of steel solutions, a position that has been built up over many decades. 2022 is, in fact, our seventieth year of trading. We offer New Zealand's most comprehensive range of steel solutions and products through our e-commerce platform and our nationwide network of 27 branches and distribution centers. We play a vital role in the New Zealand economy as a reliable and trusted provider of steel solutions. We supply our products to businesses ranging from spa pool manufacturers to satellite makers and to some of New Zealand's largest infrastructure projects, from City Rail Link to motorways.
Steel is also a key component in the construction of projects focused around climate change, such as wind farms, and Steel & Tube has good expertise in this area. Our investment into inventory over the past 12 months has ensured that these and other projects were able to continue despite supply chain, mill, and labor interruptions. five years ago, we embarked on a journey to reset our organization for a stronger future. The results of our endeavors are now evident with Steel & Tube reporting record sales and EBITDA for the financial year ending June 2022. We would like to thank you, shareholders, for supporting us on this journey. The 2022 financial year allowed us to demonstrate the value of our turnaround and focus on growth. We delivered a strong financial performance and now have a robust operating model in place to support our growth ambitions.
Our digital strategy is a key enabler, and we are leading the charge in the industry to make it more efficient and more effective. We have a very clear focus on two pathways that will allow us to continue to generate double-digit returns on our funds employed. Firstly, continuing to strengthen our core business, and secondly, to grow by investing in high-value products, services, and sectors. We are well-positioned to deliver through the economic cycle with the expertise, operating platform, and growth strategy that will create continued shareholder value. Our company has been transformed over the last five years since we started our Project Strive turnaround program in 2018. This slide demonstrates the substantial improvement over this time. Our financial performance has improved significantly to this year's strong results, with embedded value now being realized from Project Strive and our growth strategy that is underway.
Our long-term aim is to operate our business in a way that is financially rewarding for shareholders and positive for our people, our customers, and our planet. We have three key focus areas, maximizing steel's contribution to a sustainable and low emission society, supporting our people and customers, and delivering value for our shareholders. Steel, one of the most essential and sustainable building products, permanent, forever reusable, and the most recycled substance on the planet. On a cradle to cradle basis, steel's environmental performance compares favorably to other materials such as concrete and timber. In New Zealand, it's estimated that 85% of steel from demolition sites is returned to steel mills for recycling. Extending the life of a structure also enables more value to be extracted from the resources invested to build, operate, and maintain it. For many construction and manufacturing applications, steel is the only choice.
However, we are mindful of the greenhouse gas emitted during steel's production. We are closely monitoring new technologies to decarbonize steel, but are conscious that these are still in the very early stages. In the meantime, we are focusing on initiatives to control our operational emissions, optimize energy consumption, and minimize waste. Our investment in technology is an important enabler of our progress towards reducing our carbon footprint. One new initiative we are excited to support, the carbon credit offer for our infrastructure customers in conjunction with the Heavy Engineering Research Association. Now, customers can opt to offset the embodied carbon in the steel they order, which Steel & Tube will facilitate through our partners.
These credits will be passed directly through to the customer, with the cost being used to fund the planting and protection of native trees across New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. Steel & Tube does not make any money from this program. We are focused also on continual improvement in key areas that matter to us. Both employee safety and employee engagement have significantly improved over the last year. We have a great team leading our company and passionate people who are focused on delivering the best possible solution and experience for our customers. Pleasingly, our people rated their satisfaction score as 7.8 out of 10, a reflection of the supportive and strong culture at Steel & Tube. The board recognizes the value of diversity of our workforce and the part this plays in creating a rich and vibrant culture.
30 different ethnicities are represented in our workforce. Māori leaders now represent 18% of the direct reports to our general managers. We have commenced a Māori scholarship cadetship with Te Puni Kōkiri. Our diversity and inclusion team have led awareness campaigns on cultural traditions and practices which affect key demographics of our workforce. Our internships and the Steel & Tube career coaching program are also new initiatives to attract and retain great people. While we have initiatives in place and numbers are growing, we recognize that women remain underrepresented in the sector, and we are committed to addressing this as much as we can. Early on in COVID, we recognized mental well-being was going to be important, and during the lockdowns, we supported our people, not only financially, but also their well-being.
Every six weeks, we've continued to run webinars on a range of topics that affect our people, both in the workplace and at home. These range from mental health, parenting, managing stress, financial advice, nutrition, and mindfulness. It was also important that our people and their families were healthy and safe, and we were the first to invest in COVID vaccine incentives. We pushed booster support and provided RAT tests for families. We have also invested in training and skill development while many of our workers were stuck at home to keep them engaged and also allow them to upskill and progress their careers. Customer satisfaction also continues to increase and reflects our ability to deliver during what has been a challenging year.
Our greenhouse gas emissions reduced year-on-year with a 7% reduction in emissions per ton sold, and this is a result of multiple supply chain and operational initiatives. We are committed to generating value for our shareholders. Steel & Tube has a high gross dividend yield, with this year's full year dividend of $ 0.13 per share representing a yield of 11.4%. This gross yield compares well to our peers. Earnings per share are $18. 3 per share, with net tangible assets at $ 1.22 per share. Total shareholder returns in financial year 2022 were 19.1%. Steel & Tube has a clear forward strategy, a strong operating platform, and the means to invest in growth.
Our goals are threefold, to position Steel & Tube as the preferred supplier for steel solutions and products, to increase the company's valuation by growing our existing offer and programmatic smaller merger and acquisition in adjacent sectors, and to deliver increasing returns and value for our shareholders. The turnaround and commencement of the growth strategy has been proved with this year's record sales and EBITDA result. I would like to acknowledge the exceptional efforts of Mark Malpass, who stepped down from the board to take on the role of CEO in late 2017, and the leadership team, as well as all the people at Steel & Tube who deliver outstanding service to our customers every day. I would also like to thank my fellow board members whose industry knowledge and skills deliver significant value to Steel & Tube. Thank you.
I'll now ask Mark to talk to you in a bit more detail about our strategy and our progress.
Thank you. Thank you, Susan. I'd also like to start by acknowledging the leadership team. Most of them are sitting in the front row here. As you would appreciate that any turnaround like we've been doing over the last five years requires a lot of support and is a real team effort. I just wanted to acknowledge the team for their contributions and support. I'm sure that I'll be very keen to meet with you after the meeting concludes to discuss the business. Excuse me. Just in terms of our highlights, as Susan said, we've got two very clear pathways for growth. The first is around strengthening our core business and secondly around investing and growing in high value products, services, and segments.
One of the drivers of this year's financial result, of course, has been strong economic activity that's been driving steel consumption and demand. The residential construction markets have been booming. The manufacturing and infrastructure markets have been steady. Of course, commercial has also been busy. In fact, infrastructure, we've seen very strong spend in terms of government focus in that area. Three Waters, wharves, rail bridges and of course motorway upgrades. In addition to that activity this year, we've also had COVID to deal with. In the first half of the year, we had a lot of regional lockdowns. In the second half of the year, we had a lot of absences of staff due to COVID-related illnesses.
Steel & Tube has been very well placed to manage those impacts. As well as the COVID related changes, we also had steel mill and supply chain congestion. We had to mitigate the risks of those supply chain pressures. Technology's played a really important part in our business as we've mitigated those impacts, and it's made us more efficient and agile. Throughout the year, our focus has been on maintaining availability of products. Certainly the high demand products, we've ensured we've had inventory available to service our customers, and that's meant a significant investment of our cash to support our customer growth. Supply chains start to ease. We're expecting that some of that cash will be returned to the business.
We've also grown our business through the acquisition of Fasteners NZ earlier in the financial year. Turning to our results, we're very pleased to deliver record sales and EBITDA for the 2022 financial year. That's come through a real focus on the customer, operational performance, supply chain discipline, and supply chain management, which has meant that we've had inventory available to support our customers' growth. Our revenues were up 25%, almost 25% to almost $ 600 million. Our EBITDA increased 73% to $ 66.6 million. Our EBIT increased 130% to $ 47.6 million. We almost doubled our NPAT to $ 30.2 million. Other key metrics also improved. Our Return on Funds Employed increased to 14.6%.
Our customer satisfaction Net Promoter Score increased to 40 versus an industry average of 32. Our employee Net Promoter Score increased to 35 versus an industry average of 18. That represents a very strong culture within Steel & Tube. Importantly, our total recordable injury frequency rate for employees reduced to 1.13 versus industry average of five. Moving to business performance, both of our divisions delivered improved performance for the year, particularly strong performance from our distribution division as they focused on customer service, ensuring that we had the right inventory and supply chain management and trading disciplines in place. We're currently expanding our plate processing offer, which I'll talk about shortly, and also other high margin product growth areas which we have underway and also some more planned.
In the infrastructure division, revenues increased despite the challenging market conditions. While margins were down slightly, due to the impact of COVID on reinforcing, and we have been able to reposition that business to increase returns and reduce risk. Our roofing business, which makes up about 60% of our infrastructure division, has grown, as we've been able to improve sales in that area. I'd like to show you a video from our Tauranga team shortly.
Welcome to Steel & Tube's Tauranga roofing site, also known as the home of your Bay City Rollers. At this facility, we manufacture and distribute roofing profiles for the local market. We are proud to have serviced this region for 30 years and remain committed to servicing our roofing customers. I invite you now to join me and see what we do best. During my 31 years in the industry, I've encountered all sorts of situations, from garden sheds to large commercial buildings and pretty much everything in between. My passion comes from success, not just in sales, but also delivering high levels of service to our customers across the region, whether that's in the Waikato or the Bay of Plenty. What makes this team special is it's made up of many personalities with many years experience. Each day, the team bring their experience to the table.
That gives us an advantage of knowing how we can better service our customers. We're locals, we support locals, and we make it our business to be part of your business. There you have it. Your Bay City Rollers are here to stay, and we continue to drive the success of your business as we are stronger together. What's your next project?
Great. Look, moving forward, we have a very robust operating model that's in place to support our growth ambitions. We're well-positioned to deliver through the economic cycle to drive shareholder returns. Our strategy, as Susan mentioned, is really focused around two key areas. One is strengthening the core of our business, and secondly, that drive towards high value products, services, and segments. We are doing those two things to really focus on driving gross margin dollars. Okay. That's what matters in this business. We're very focused on that, strengthening the core in the first instance, which is about best-in-class customer experience to ensure that our goal of being New Zealand's preferred supplier of steel products and solutions. Secondly, strengthening the core is about leveraging our breadth of scale across a wider range of products.
The ability to cross-sell our services and products using our industry you know, our industry-leading digital platform that we've put in place really helps enable that growing of share of wallet and focus on gross margin dollar and delivering those operational efficiencies that we've seen benefit us today. Investing in higher value products and services and sectors is focused on extending what we can offer to our customers, so moving further up the value chain in terms of what our customers need and helping to meet those requirements. We're also looking into adjacent sectors to make sure that we're capturing any value products and services that we can. That diversification comes through organic growth, and we're also looking at, as Susan mentioned, building scale through programmatic smaller M&A into adjacent sectors where we can.
We're very mindful of the investment that you all make in our business, so we're not focusing on growth for growth's sake. Our focus on those adjacent sectors is really through very disciplined processes to ensure that they deliver the financial and strategic value that we expect from them. I'll talk about the strategic pathways in our current state, but you can see on this slide that many of the initiatives are in their, you know, kinda early phases and that the, you know, the full benefit of those, the value is yet to be realized. I'd like to talk through some of the things that we've got at play at the moment in a little bit more detail. Firstly, our digital advantage. You know, this is a really key enabler for our business. We certainly know it will drive competitive advantage over time.
We've seen digital steel trading emerge in the U.S. and Europe very quickly over the last few years. In New Zealand, the market here is still very analog and digital is a new thing for many of the customers in the steel industry. We know from what we've seen emerging in Europe and America that we're on the right track here, and it's given us a lot of conviction to continue our investment in that digital growth, making it easy for our customers. We can deliver efficiencies for both our business and our customers and also support the growth of New Zealand Inc. Data and analytics have helped us to date capture opportunities in pricing, in procurement, and certainly in review of product lines and operational efficiencies.
An example of our growth strategy, and I'll talk while the video is playing here, is the plate processing investment that we've made. That's adding a lot of value to plate processing, where we have invested in new equipment to expand our plate processing offer. This is a very high value category with strong demand that provides attractive margins. Our expanded capability allows us to benefit from that growing demand and value-added processed steel plate while continuing to supply our existing processing customers. This new kinetic machine that you can see on the screen offers a combination of cutting, milling and drilling, which helps increase the efficiency to maximize productivity from each piece of plate. It uses laser cutting technology that can cut a variety of different metals.
Thanks to fully integrated software, that means that we can process parts from start to finish in a single setup, saving time and increasing productivity. The touchscreens make it easy for our operators and simple to operate to enhance productivity. Not only does this new machinery deliver substantial, you know, operational benefits, but it also reduces waste and the nesting that the software is enabling us. This was operational from June this year and has been delivering great results through this quarter. On the 1st of August, we also acquired Kiwi Pipe & Fittings, which is a sort of symbolic of that strategy to grow selectively into those high-value product categories and sectors. Kiwi is a fairly small business which specializes in fire and water reticulation products.
It builds on that existing offer that we have, but provides us with a lot more scale and market share growth. As well as being immediately earnings accretive, bringing Kiwi into the fold makes us one of the larger players in that fire and water reticulation market. Now, moving to talk through our trading update. If it's moving. Yep, great. Trading through July and August has been fairly steady across the market sectors that we participate in, and earnings have been supported by you know, our operational and trading disciplines that I mentioned earlier. This time last year was impacted by the nationwide alert level four lockdown. That was at 11:59 P.M. on the 17th of August.
If we compare this current year, it's basically 34 days up until the 17th of August 2022. Our revenues are up about 15%, and our volumes are fairly flat with last year. We've also had a very strong pipeline in place for forward workload. Moving to the outlook at a sector level on the left-hand side of the chart there, you can see infrastructure is expected to grow as the government, you know, rebuilds investment in this area with large infrastructure projects planned over the next decade, which are, you know, proposed to increase about 56% over the last decade. The manufacturing sector is showing very strong positive signals.
We've seen expanding what's called the PMI index, which has been in expansionary mode over the last few months at about 54.9, I think last month, which talks to, you know, an expanding manufacturing base. Residential construction consent data remains positive. We are starting to see some softening in that residential market. Now, we expect that to be partially offset by social housing spend and also retirement village spend. The commercial markets are remaining fairly steady. Looking at the 2023 financial year, we're expecting continued volatility in the global and local economies. Steel pricing in New Zealand dollar terms is expected to remain elevated in the shorter term.
Customer activity is anticipated to be steady, although we are seeing some sectors moderate off the extraordinary high demand levels, as we're already seeing in sectors like residential. Our focus remains on that gross margin dollar per ton metric that I've talked about a number of times, and really driving that continued double-digit return, which leads to shareholder growth. We are well-positioned. You know, Steel & Tube, we believe can deliver strongly through the economic cycle and take advantage of new product opportunities. We have a very clear focus on strengthening the core and growing in those high-value products, services and sectors. While the majority of the growth will be organic, we will continue to consider smaller bolt-on acquisitions if they meet our criteria.
The benefits of the current strategic initiatives are expected to commence in, you know, this 2023 financial year, and to be fully realized in the 2024 financial year and onwards. We'll continue to be responsive to the changing environment and changing customer and sector demands, and our team has the experience and skills to solve challenges and identify opportunities. Our focus remains on how we differentiate ourselves to stand out as the preferred supplier of choice. We expect continued earnings momentum, and our goal is to, you know, as I said, to continue with that sustainable double-digit Return on Funds Employed. I'll just now turn to a video on our staff and careers.
At Steel & Tube, we believe that the more we develop our people, the stronger we get as a team. Which is why we're pleased to offer everyone the opportunity to define their own path with the support of our career coaches. Our career coaches are Steel & Tubers from across the country, from all different walks of life. There's so many locations and roles here that the opportunities for success are vast. But there's no one path to success. Our Steel & Tube coaches are trained to help you find the path that's right for you.
I elected to join the steel industry because I could see some growth for myself and for my family.
I needed to set myself a new challenge.
I felt that I was ready. I had been ready for a long time.
I found a passion for the construction industry and started having a think about where I would like to go at Steel & Tube. When my manager started talking to me about the prospect of, like, a continuous improvement role, I absolutely jumped in. I was like, "Let's go.
I started out as a storeman initially. That was a lot of fun. I learned a few things on the way. I got to interact with some customers and form good relationships with them, which drove the business into a bigger and better place. I've been able to take that same mindset as the role I have now, and as such, expanded my field of opportunity within the business.
I think having ownership over my work is what makes me happy. Now I have the right skills there to do what I need to do.
There you have it. Stories of our Steel & Tubers carving their careers with us. Let us help you find your path. Join us.
Thank you, Mark. I hope you enjoyed a few of those videos which help make things come alive, 'cause it's one thing to look at papers and reports, but it's nice to get a feel about our business. I would like to invite questions in relation to the annual report or any of today's presentations. There'll be an opportunity to ask questions about the resolutions when I put those to shareholders. From our moderator, do we have any questions online before I turn to the floor?
We have several questions. The first one is around imputation credits moving forward.
I'll pass on to Richard, our CFO, to address that. We are now in a tax-paying position.
Thank you, Susan. As you mentioned, we have become a taxpayer again this financial year, so we've 50% imputed the final dividend for 2022. While it's a board decision that is made on each dividend, where the expectation is that we'll have sufficient imputation credits going forward to continue to impute the dividend at approximately 100% level. As I said, that is a board decision each time.
Thank you, Richard.
The next question is around active capital management. Is the board ensuring active capital management to ensure cash is deployed in inventory only if we see double-digit returns, no write-off of stock, and no bad debts in tough times, and accordingly ensure capital management with a buyback or capital return if the business has scaled?
Thank you. I think that obviously that is around, you know, capital. We'll see in our report that we have had a large growth in inventory this year. That has been around. That's because the supply chains have been much longer. In order to keep projects moving for our customers, it's meant that we've had to invest a lot more in capital. We did have a board meeting this morning, and the shareholder was right. The two big topics for us were managing our inventory and also, you know, managing debtors. Let me just pass to Mark to fill you in a little more on that.
Yeah. You covered it well there, Susan. I mean, it really is a balance and that inventory has increased as a result of unit price and the length of the supply chain.
I know competitively that you know, we're in a reasonably solid position there. I think we continue to see fairly high prices. Where, as I mentioned earlier, at least in the nearer term, for prices to remain fairly elevated, just given the regional pricing and U.S. dollars, and then you look at those on a New Zealand dollar basis, that you know, prices remain fairly elevated. Really the focus for us is ensuring that those inventory turns are as fast as they possibly can be, so that we're as efficient as we can in terms of managing those inventories in our system. We spend a lot of time, and our digital systems are helping aid us in that area. Debtors we watch very closely.
You know, that's the balance for us as a team.
Thanks, Mark.
There's one more question at this stage. Certainly good results last year. Congratulations. You talked today, though, a lot about future growth. While the outlook sounds more like flat or steady, I'm wondering whether you could expand on that a bit. Do you expect revenue and earnings to keep growing, or are we more looking at some areas growing and others shrinking?
Yeah. Look, I mean, as we've noted, it's varying speeds across different sectors. We are expecting some sectors to be running a lot stronger than others. You know, I mentioned infrastructure, where there's a lot of government spend going in behind that, you know, for the forward decades at least. Projects like Three Waters, a lot of motorway work and upgrades, bridges, those type of projects, are a reasonable portion of our product mix. We also have commercial and manufacturing. That's an important part of our mix. Manufacturing is in expansionary mode, and you can see with the lower dollar, manufacturers are exporting a lot more. You know, you can see strength in that sector.
The residential sector, on the other hand, is probably topped out, and we, you know, although consents are still high, we think the actualization of those consents will start dropping off. We see it in products like mesh that are starting to slow down. It's a smaller proportion of our product mix. About 10% of our business is in the residential markets. Commercial is another sector that's been fairly steady, you know, we're expecting that to remain reasonably steady going forward. A difficult one to call in terms of giving absolute numbers about revenue growth, 'cause that's also obviously dependent on prices and what happens with price going forward. We're expecting things to remain reasonably steady, although some sectors will come off those significant highs that we've seen.
Thank you. Are there questions from the floor? Yes, sir.
Hang on. I'll just if you wait.
Renewable energy. You will have heard the big announcement in Queensland last night about going out of coal in 1935. What's our position regarding wind farms, solar panels, solar power? What are we doing in that area? Is that an area that we specialize in?
Mark, you can take that if you wish, yeah.
Certainly involved in renewable energy and providing steel into those sectors. We're working on a couple of wind farm projects at the moment. Very large scale, one of Meridian's larger projects we're involved in building at the moment. We're constantly talking to people that are interested in expanding in those spaces. Also solar farms. You know, there's a number of companies that are involved in solar farms in New Zealand at the moment that we're talking to about supply lines and bringing product in for. Ourselves, in our own business, we've invested in renewables. We're just in the process of putting LED lighting throughout our whole business to help, you know, significant capital return by doing that. It's also great for the environment.
We spend a lot of time and energy around efficiency of our vehicles, how we can reduce fuel use. There's quite a lot we're doing as a distributor to try and lower our carbon footprint, as you probably saw in the charts there earlier, and working with our customer base around how we can help.
Currently a Kamp shareholder. I'd like to understand a bit about your manufacturing. I think you said something about 60% of your business is manufacturing, or is that processing and forming steel that you've imported, or is it New Zealand-made steel?
Yeah. It's certainly more on the processing front. We've taken the raw steel and then as you saw with the plate processing.
Mm-hmm.
that type of thing. It's not strictly manufacturing. We do obviously for making roofing, we call that processing. Bending a lot of rebar to go into foundations and into buildings. Making composite floor decks out of plain steel and then rolling that so they can pour concrete, et cetera, on it. It's much more processing rather than actual manufacture. Mark, anything further to add? Yeah.
There was a bit of a problem with Chinese steel, probably still is, a few years ago. Are you less reliant on Chinese steel?
One of the programs that we put in place, probably about four or five years ago, was actually to have Lloyd's certify internationally the steel mills which we buy from. So they go back and look at all their, you know, quality, systems and processes. They go back and have a look at their environmental practices, have a look at their labor practices to make sure that those are, actually, you know, up to standard and they're not breaking any labor laws, environmentally. But we don't buy a huge amount from China, more from the likes of Taiwan. Mark, anything further?
Is there any New Zealand steel being manufactured still?
Oh, yes. Yes, absolutely. Its about seemingly .
Yeah. About 40% of our steel procurement comes from New Zealand, either New Zealand Steel or Pacific Steel, who are the two main suppliers. They actually are a primary producer. They make iron billet and from iron sands and produce steel in New Zealand. Then there are other suppliers in Australia and through the region, as Susan said, Thailand, Korea are other key suppliers for us. We buy about 60% from offshore, including Australia, and then 40% locally.
Okay. Last question is: How are you positioning yourself to the challenge of Vulcan Steel?
Yeah.
I'll let Mark take that one. They've been around for a long time.
Yeah. It actually goes to your first question around manufacturing and processing. We have, as Susan said, you know, our infrastructure businesses. It makes up about 40% of our business, and then 60% is distribution, roughly. The infrastructure businesses are involved in processing and some light manufacturing. Distribution, typically, we haven't added a lot of value to those products, so move up the value chain. The competitor you mentioned, they are probably most like our distribution business. They don't do a lot of the infrastructure products businesses we do. Of our distribution business, including coil and purlins, we probably process about 10% of those products. We're adding more value and services to them, where the competitor you mentioned would be processing close to 50% of their products.
For us, which is why that strategy is really the second part of our strategy around growing higher value products, services is key for us is growing that percentage of the added value to those products is really critical. Our ambition is also follow that sort of profile because it means a better margin profile for the business. You'll have seen in the earlier charts, our focus on margin growth is just critical because our costs, you can knock them around as much as you can, but you get them into a pretty race fit position which we're in. Really, the game is then around growing those gross margin dollars, and that's what we're, as a team, very focused on. That's probably the main answer to your question.
Thank you. Excuse me. I think you deserve congratulations and plaudits for the excellent initiatives and care you take with your employees. The various statistics on welfare and diversity, et cetera, I think is outstanding. They are obviously the basis of all the work you do. I think it's very interesting, the move to digital and obviously critical, and it must affect all aspects of your work. Now, do you have problems finding people who are already qualified in that area, or do you have to provide the training yourself? 'Cause it's employed throughout the whole of your work, isn't it?
We did focus on digital early on, and we were very lucky to attract Mike Henry to the business, who is our Chief Technology Officer and in charge of all our digital. You're absolutely right. It has meant a lot of reskilling across the business. In the digital area, what we've done is we have a really core team who understand our, you know, systems and processes, et cetera, and our digital platforms. We also bring in the consultants to assist us from time to time 'cause you wouldn't want to hold and have on staff the number of people that we need when we're doing significant projects and implementation.
Of course, it has meant, you know, reskilling and retraining the entire workforce really because they're all impacted by the use of technology. Not only our workforce, we've had to, you know, train and upskill our customers as well 'cause a lot of them were not used to using online platforms. So, you know, that's been training them and working with our customer service people to help our customers understand how they can interact with us digitally, how they can find their invoices online, how they can get their test certificates online, all those things which actually make our customers more efficient and more effective.
Does the apprenticeship scheme include training young people in this technology or not? Does it?
Anna, why don't you take the question on that?
Sure. We don't. It's mostly our internships is probably the equivalent that we focus on. Absolutely. I think for any of our new entrants that are coming in from either schools or from tertiary education, it is absolutely part of their training is digital and digital literacy.
Questions, shareholders?
Yeah. This is the first meeting I've been to since COVID. A couple of years ago, you fellas seemed to have hit the wall and no dividends and did fundraising. What were the main reasons for that?
Initially, when Mark, myself and Steve and Chris and we all came into the business, it was burdened with really high debt. It had done quite a few acquisitions. They hadn't really been integrated into the business, so we weren't getting the value of those. They didn't have a lot of systems and processes to actually understand what the inventory was, where it was, where it was held, what the pricing should be, what it had been bought at.
We had to do, you know, a lot of investment, both in refreshing the whole management team, investment in technology, which has really allowed us now to actually understand the business more, know what we should be buying, know what we should be charging for it, integrate onto one platform things like, you know, the different businesses that we had bought over the years to make sure, you know, again, we could understand them. We, you know, again, with having the right information, we can still, you know, service all our customers. We've done a lot of taking costs out of the business, you know, which Mark mentioned, but it's also in managing inventory, buying the right stuff, finding the right customers, having better customer service that, you know, has really benefited us in the turnaround.
Thank you.
Any other?
My name is Michael Connor. I'm a shareholder. May I say you've done an excellent job in restructuring this company. Really, really good. What's presented today is fantastic. If the dividends are imputed at 100%, which sounds like they're going to be, that's gonna be 13% yield, and your P/E ratio of seven is really low. The market doesn't believe you. This is the issue for the company. There is no love. There's none. Carry on doing the work. Magnificent. We've still got a profile issue.
The questions about the steel is still the issue. I understand clearly what those issues were, and there's a lot of misconceptions about what the company did wrong, and it was fined, and it was punished. That stain is still with you. Yet, when I come to the meeting, this is really good. You need to share the love with the investment community 'cause they do not buy it. The market is not buying it. Maybe we need more runs on the board, but there's a big gap between what this company is worth and what it's worth at the moment.
Thank you for that feedback. I think you know, the comments that you make are absolutely accurate. We do work quite closely and have a good investor relations program. I think you know, you are right. We're only just coming out of that turnaround, and now we've got some runs on the board. We need to absolutely continue that, and we will certainly keep up with our investor relations. You know, Mark and myself have been visiting different wealth managers and things in the last few weeks to explain our story, explain where we are. But we'll certainly keep working on that investor relations program. Anna, there's one at the front here too.
Alan Best, Shareholder. In the annual report, the operating cash flow was -$ 34.1 million, and there's a large divergence in the working capital. We understand the need for inventory buildup, and you've told us that you're focusing on that. But will we see an improvement in the $ 34.1 million cash flow, and will we see an improvement in the stock turn?
Absolutely, Mr. Best. I'll let Richard, our CFO, 'cause, you know, that's exactly the topic that we've been discussing this morning.
Sure.
Yeah. Excellent question, it is something that we are very, very focused on cash. That deficit that you mentioned, the $34 million, was largely funding the inventory purchases. We think that we've reached our peak on inventory, and we'd expect those to stay stable and slightly decline. You know, that should release cash flow going forward. We look and check every dollar that goes out the door, and I would expect that to be a significantly better number going forward.
It's probably worth noting the first quarter. We've been turning positive cash flow every month. You can see that leveling of product prices.
Yeah.
has meant that, you know, we're no longer just having this ramp-up of product pricing that you've gotta pay for. It's one of the positives of sort of leveling off of pricing.
Thanks for that. That's a real assurance. Could I ask one more thing? You mentioned in your address that 85% of steel in New Zealand is actually reprocessed, and that figure surprised me, though we can understand that reinforcing steel is reprocessed steel. The future, according to some of the international experts, is that reprocessing will become even more important than mining. What do you reckon this company's measure is of the quality of steel being reprocessed steel in its raw material, or its processing, as compared with, you say, 85% of the national?
It's a great question. Just to be clear, even reinforcing steel. There is no repro. There's a slight amount of reprocessed scrap in New Zealand, but the bulk of it is going offshore. You know, crushed cars, all the scrap that comes out of our households as well as industrial steel waste is mostly sent offshore nowadays. The electric arc furnace closed in New Zealand in 2014. Globally, 90% recycling is more common, but in New Zealand it's about 85% just because a lot of it is shipped offshore. That 15% is going to land waste, and that's the opportunity for us.
We've got active projects in place at the moment to see how we could be looking at more scrap collection and more, you know, recycling ourselves because we produce scrap as well through our processing operations. We work with New Zealand Steel and others just on how we can increase our involvement in that opportunity.
Okay. One more question over here.
Yes. Peter Roman, shareholder. I would just ask whether I'm correct that in times of inflation, it would be very beneficial for the firm to hold very high inventories, that would benefit the end result.
I'm not sure there's a tight correlation. I mean, typically what we've seen is post-COVID, as globally many governments and economies have expanded coming out of COVID, that there's been a real rush up of demand and supply, particularly in where 50% of steel is actually produced, over 50% has consumed a lot of that and kept pricing very tight. There's probably been a bit of a correlation more recently with rising pricing and inflation. I couldn't speak to whether that's globally true over the long term.
Just the New Zealand dollar. What's the safeguards, the financial safeguards against that, if you're using any, you know, like, hedging some insurance? You know, that's gonna be a big problem.
Could be. Could fall over tomorrow.
The liquidity issues. How many on issue? I mean, there's not many on issue. You can lose 10 or 15% just buying a few thousand, selling a few thousand. Has the board thought about all those issues?
Richard, do you want to take that?
We have a hedging policy where we hedge our forecast transactions going forward. That has a limited life. We do monitor the impact of FX quite closely. We are lucky that, you know, it's an input into our total costs, but it's also a factor in the price that we get to charge. There's a little bit of a natural hedge there as well, but we do have an active hedging portfolio.
Are there any other questions before I move to resolutions?
Hi. I'm not sure if you have a dividend reinvestment plan. If you don't have one actively in place, are you considering doing that?
We keep a monitor all the time on our different, you know, capital management, and at the moment, we have sufficient headroom in our, you know, banking covenant, our banking facilities. We're not looking to raise capital at the moment, therefore, we don't have a dividend reinvestment plan. If we were looking to need additional capital or looked at that over, you know, a longer period of time, certainly it's one thing that we would consider. If there's no more questions, let me move to the resolutions. These were notified in the notice of meeting and explanatory notes have been provided. Voting on each of the resolutions in the notice of meeting will be by way of poll. Only shareholders, proxy holders or corporate representatives of a shareholder may vote on today's resolutions.
For online shareholders, please cast your vote under the Vote tab on the meeting platform. For those in the room, please complete your voting forms. We will take questions on each resolution as they are put to shareholders. The first resolution is to authorize the directors to fix the fees and expenses of KPMG as the company's auditor. Are there any questions relating to this resolution? If not, I'll move on with the next resolution. The director resolutions. John Beveridge is retiring by rotation and being eligible is standing for re-election. Andrew Flavell was appointed to the board last year and is therefore standing for election by shareholders. The board unanimously support their elections. The first of these resolutions is the re-election of John Beveridge.
John has held senior leadership positions in the construction and steel industries and has particular expertise in people and culture, logistics, supply chain and procurement, manufacturing, and sales and marketing. He's a very valuable member of the Steel & Tube board. John, I'll ask you to come say a few words.
Good morning, everyone. My name is John Beveridge. I'm pleased to offer myself for re-election to a second term on the Steel & Tube board. Much has changed since the beginning of my first term, and we have survived and indeed thrived through the trials and tribulations of COVID. The board met something like 23 x in that first year, and we've worked very well with management to ensure we've got to where we are today. I'm pleased to be able to contribute to the board and to the emerging transformation of Steel & Tube. I bring 20 years' experience in steel markets from distribution to manufacture. The board and senior leadership team is well-balanced and has worked hard to improve the performance, and we have a clear strategic pathway that we are pursuing.
We're very focused on results and ensuring we conduct our business in a way that is positive for shareholders, team members, customers, and our planet. I'm a board member, board committee member of the Audit and Risk, the QSEC, Quality Health Safety team, and the lead director on sustainability. I consider my skills and experience add to the overall competency of the board and are well matched to continue to help create a bright future for Steel & Tube. Thank you for your consideration.
Thank you, John. Are there any questions regarding John's re-election? Or are there any questions online? The next resolution is for the election of Andrew Flavell. We were pleased to welcome Andrew to our board in October last year. Andrew is a very experienced senior technology executive and has driven digital transformations in companies such as Nike and Microsoft. He was recently Chief Technology Officer at Plexure, the New Zealand-listed global mobile engagement company. Andrew has a Doctor of Engineering, Systems Engineering from Tokushima University in Japan, and did his Bachelor of Engineering at University of Auckland. Steel & Tube's digital strategy is becoming an increasingly valuable pathway for our company, and Andrew's extensive experience is of significant value. Andrew, would you like to come and say a few words?
Thank you, Susan. Kia ora koutou and good morning, shareholders. I'm pleased to offer myself for election as an independent director of Steel & Tube New Zealand . I believe that digital technology is foundational to the success of all publicly traded companies today, and that increasingly, the complexity and breadth of adoption of digital technologies requires that boards take a more active role in the strategic direction, risk management, and governance of digital initiatives. While I'm new to the steel industry, I have decades of experience in the development and deployment of digital technologies. This includes the design of supercomputer architectures and applications of AI during my doctoral research in Japan.
Almost 15 years at Microsoft, leading large teams delivering complex software and systems, and more than six years as a leader in the Nike digital team, where we completely transformed the way that Nike delivered its software and services. These experiences have given me a definite knowledge in risk management and governance, digital initiatives, in delivering successful digital transformations, and in privacy compliance and cybersecurity. As an expat Kiwi who recently returned home, I'm excited to use my extensive experience in digital here at home and for the impact I can have in shaping the digital future of Steel & Tube. Thank you.
Thank you, Andrew. Are there any questions on this resolution? The final resolution today is in regards to directors remuneration. This is the first time that we have come to shareholders to seek an increase in director fees in five years. There has been significant change in the organization since 2017, as we have moved through a period of resetting to now deliver record sales and EBITDA with a strong foundation for growth in place. In addition, over the past five years, regulatory and legislative requirements have also increased. This added regulatory oversight and the increasing demands of the business are reflected in the knowledge and experience required of directors, as well as time commitments. As noted in the Institute of Directors report, directors' time commitments are at the upper quartile of comparator companies.
Steel & Tube's governance committees for audit and risk, quality, health, safety and environment, and people and culture play an important role in the risk management and oversight. We take our responsibilities in these areas very seriously and are very aware of the reputational damage and impact on the short share price should issues in these areas arise. Our reputation and strong value proposition are also really important in attracting and retaining staff. All of Steel & Tube's directors are passionate about the business, its success, and delivering sustainable value for shareholders. We aim to ensure fees are at a level to attract and retain experienced directors with the appropriate skills and expertise to govern the company. The board engaged the Institute of Directors in New Zealand to undertake an independent benchmarking review and assessment of appropriate director fees.
A summary of the IoD director fee report has been provided in the explanatory notes of the meeting. The board is proposing an increase of NZD 67,500 to the current fee pool. This is in line with Institute of Directors recommendations and represents an annual increase of 2.3% per year over the last five years. Are there any questions on this or any questions from online?
There's no online questions.
Thank you, Jackie. This concludes our discussion on resolutions. In a minute, I will close the online voting system. Please ensure that you have cast your vote on all resolutions. I will now pause to allow you time to finalize those votes and in the room for those forms to be collected. I think everybody's had sufficient time to vote. They will still keep collecting your forms. We will now close the online voting. The results of the voting will be posted to the NZX as soon as practicable. Is there any other business that shareholders would like to raise? I will then declare the meeting closed. Thank you to all shareholders for your continued support. We remain committed to realizing the potential of our business and delivering value on your investment. For those of you in attendance today, we welcome those to join us and have some refreshments.
Please feel free to come up and speak to any of the board or our management team. It's very nice that you've been able to join us in person. Thank you very much.