Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. My name is Mark Verbiest, and I'm the Chair of Summerset Group Holdings. As you know, we had to make a last-minute change to make this an online-only meeting. The Wellington region was put into a state of emergency yesterday following extremely high rainfall and flash flooding, and that has continued through today. In the interests of safety, we didn't think it was responsible to have an in-person attendance this year. I hope our Wellington-based shareholders are safe and dry. Thank you for working with us as we've adapted to these conditions. We're pleased to welcome you as online participants through our virtual meeting platform provided by our share registrar, MUFG Pension and Market Services. Welcome to Summerset's 2026 Annual Meeting. Shareholders can vote and ask questions online. I'll provide you with further instructions as we progress through the meeting.
Virtually in attendance today are my fellow directors Fiona Oliver, Dr Marie Bismark, Venasio-Lorenzo Crawley, Gráinne Troute, Dr Andrew Wong, and Stephen Bull. We also have with us our CEO, Scott Scoullar, our CFO, Margaret Warrington, our Auditor, Rich Day from PwC, and David Raudkivi, our lawyer from Russell McVeagh. Now covering off the formalities of the meeting. The company secretary has confirmed to me that the notice of meeting has been duly given to all shareholders and other persons entitled to receive it, and that the meeting has been duly convened. I'll turn to the formal resolutions later in the meeting. I confirm that a requirement for a quorum for this meeting has been met and declare the meeting open. The agenda for today's meeting will be as follows. I will give an address and you will hear from our CEO, Scott Scoullar.
You will get an update from our Board Committee Chairs. There'll be general business and a chance for shareholders to ask questions. Then we'll address the formal business of the meeting, which includes the formal resolutions. In this regard, I do note that we have previously decided to withdraw resolution five, director's remuneration from the meeting due to the changed landscape since the benchmarking work was completed and the resolutions were originally put forward. Voting on all resolutions will be conducted by way of poll. Shareholders will be able to cast their vote using electronic voting cards received when your online registration was validated. Please refer to the virtual meeting guide, or you can phone the helpline on 0800- 200- 220 from New Zealand or 1800- 990- 363 if calling from Australia. Questions from shareholders will be taken through the virtual meeting website.
To ask a question, click on the Ask a Question box, either at the top or bottom of the webpage, at any time during the meeting. Type your question into the form and submit. Your question will immediately be then submitted, and I certainly encourage shareholders who have questions to send their questions through as soon as possible. There can be a slight delay as these are loaded onto the platform. Proxies have been appointed for the purposes of this meeting in respect of approximately 142 million shares, representing approximately 58% of the issued capital. As indicated on the proxy form, I intend to vote all undirected proxies I've received as Chair in favor of the resolutions being put to the meeting. I'm holding up to 233,280 undirected proxies for each resolution. The results of the proxies will be displayed following the voting.
The financial statements for the 12-month period to 31 December 2025, together with the auditor's report, are set out in the company's annual report, which has previously been distributed to all shareholders. We will address any questions on the financial statements in the general business section of the meeting. It is my pleasure to address you today at this annual general meeting as your chair. Over the past financial year, the wider business environment has continued to be challenging and uncertain with a sluggish economy and property market in New Zealand. Despite this, Summerset delivered another strong operating result for residents and shareholders, remaining disciplined on our build rate and costs while continuing to grow the portfolio. Our underlying profit for the last financial year was NZD 234.2 million, which was up 13% on the prior year, reflecting further increased sales and continued portfolio growth.
We also lifted our net tangible assets per share by NZD 1.32 over the year to NZD 13.75, and the board declared dividends totaling NZD 0.245 a share for FY 2025, and that was consistent with the prior year. The board remains focused on maintaining a prudent balance sheet and strong liquidity. Note that we repay debt after completion of developments. We don't tend to carry core debt within the operating side of the business. At year-end, our gearing was 37.1%. Bank debt approximated NZD 1.97 billion, of which we retained NZD 627 million of undrawn debt capacity, and we continue to have strong lender support. This gives us flexibility as we progress major village developments across New Zealand and Australia. I'd like to share key aspects of our performance and progress, which are fully detailed in the annual report released in February.
We believe our last financial year result reflects the strength of our core broad acre model and the disciplined approach to sales, build rates, and costs. Looking ahead to the current financial year, the board's priorities are to continue supporting portfolio growth in both New Zealand and Australia, but only while maintaining balance sheet and cash flow disciplines. FY 2025 was another strong year for sales, with 1,560 Occupation Right sales in total, of which 805 were new sales and 755 were resales of existing units. That's a 26% increase on the prior year. We did also meet our build guidance, delivering 637 homes under ORA, or Occupation Right Agreements, and made significant progress across our development pipeline in both New Zealand and Australia. As the businesses continue to grow, the board is also focused on disciplined cost management.
While we expected some cost growth as our village footprint expands in both New Zealand and Australia, we are carefully scrutinizing expenditure and are supporting management to find efficiencies while protecting the services that we offer residents. Through FY 2025, we continued to experience high demand and inquiry for our offerings. The number of population aged 75+ continues to grow at a reasonable clip. There continues to be a significant number who have a desire for improved lifestyle, health, and a greater sense of community. Despite tough economic conditions, our addressable customer market continues to grow, and it will do so for some decades to come. At year-end, our total unit portfolio reached 8,673 units, which is up from 7,970 units in the prior year, and we continue to scale our teams across villages, construction sites, and offices in New Zealand and Australia.
Focusing on New Zealand, our construction team worked across 18 villages in New Zealand during the last financial year and delivered 637 homes, in line with our forecast build rate. Major milestones included the delivery of our Cambridge village center and significant apartment deliveries at St. John's. There was 120 apartments alongside a major build at Boulcott in Lower Hutt. In the first quarter of this financial year, we officially opened the new village center buildings in Cambridge, Waikanae and Whangārei . Completing so many buildings at once did impact our operating cash flow, but we knew that and we are now past that concentrated build period. We continue to be committed to expanding our footprint and enhancing our offerings to meet the growing demand for our services, and that demand is continuing despite perhaps, and maybe because of, in some respects, the current environment.
Today we have 44 villages completed or under development, including 10 greenfields sites and a well-diversified land bank of around 6,672 units and care beds across New Zealand and 4 current sites under development in Victoria, Australia, with a further 3 proposed, giving us quite a lot of flexibility in the rate and location of our development. In Australia, we continue to follow a measured and deliberate growth path. A major milestone last financial year was completing our first village center at Cranbourne North in December. In fact, we've introduced our first residents into that facility as I'm speaking to you today. We delivered 56 homes in Australia in the last financial year, including 46 at Cranbourne North and the first 10 villas at our second village, Chirnside Park.
Construction has also progressed at Oakleigh South and Torquay, with civil works underway as we progress these sites towards our first ILU deliveries, currently expected from 2027. In the current financial year, we expect to build 100-150 homes in Australia and continue to build our brand and sales momentum as Cranbourne North Village Centre comes fully into operation. Scott will speak in more detail shortly about our financial performance for the last financial year and the drivers behind our result. As Chair, I wanted to add a specific comment on cash flow because it is a clear focus of many of our shareholders. In the last financial year, we generated net cash from operating activities of NZD 548.2 million, which was up from NZD 443.2 million in FY 2024, reflecting the strength of our trading performance and cash receipts from our residents as our portfolio continues to grow.
It is important to recognize that Summerset is still in many respects a relatively young growth company. A meaningful proportion of our portfolio is still either under development or is early in its economic life, and that affects the cash profile of the business. In newer villages, there is typically a period where cash is absorbed as we complete village center buildings and other shared facilities before those villages reach a more mature state in a steady state position. We have focused on improving the transparency of our cash flow disclosures for shareholders, which you can see in our latest full year investor presentation. They show an important point, that cash flows mature and strengthen as we move from the build phase to established operations. As more of our portfolio enters that phase, we expect to see a growing contribution of cash flow from existing operations.
We are proud of our approach to sustainability and have continued to lift our focus from embedding sustainability to delivering measurable results. This year we again released our sustainability review alongside our climate-related disclosures alongside the annual report. This document outlines our successes over 2025, as well as the risks and opportunities that climate change presents for us as a business. For FY 2025, our sustainability initiatives and milestones included installing more than 1,500 solar panels, diverting 5,624 tons of construction waste from landfill, standardizing reduced carbon concrete for future builds, and meeting all three of our sustainability-linked lending performance targets again. We also remain on track to meet our near-term science-based target of a 49% reduction in our Scope 1 and 2 emissions intensity per square meter by 2028, and that's against a 2022 base year.
In terms of the regulatory environment, both the Australian and New Zealand governments are progressing changes that are highly relevant to our sector. In New Zealand, the government has indicated it plans to introduce changes to the Retirement Villages Act in this current year. The proposed package includes ceasing weekly fees after a resident vacates, preventing operators from charging for maintenance and operating operator-owned chattels, and paying interest after 6 months if a home remains unsold. The most significant change is a requirement for villages to buy back units if they haven't been sold after 12 months. Summerset's practices already align with these proposed settings. Our weekly fees stop when a resident leaves. We don't charge for maintenance or repairs of chattels we own, and we already pay interest after 6 months if a home remains unsold.
The vast majority of our resale homes sell within 4-5 months, so we do not expect these regulatory proposals to impact us materially. We will continue to engage constructively with officials and industry bodies, undertake scenario analysis and advocate for settings that support residents while maintaining a sustainable model as the legislation progresses. In Australia, a new Aged Care Act came into force last November. Our Australian team has been working to ensure our policies, systems and training meet the new requirements, and we are confident we can meet these requirements from day one as we introduce care services in the current year. Over recent months, we have seen heightened economic uncertainty following the conflict in the Middle East. As a board, our approach to this environment is straightforward.
We will continue to manage our build program actively, keep a wary eye on the supply chain and signs of potential construction cost inflation or its consequences, maintain a tight focus on costs, and maintain prudent balance sheet and operating settings so that we remain resilient through this volatility. We've actually had to manage this now for the last six years, if you think about it because it wasn't that long ago that the last crisis that the company and the economy experienced was COVID. We'll continue to monitor the conditions closely, and if we see a material change in demand, settlement timing, or cost pressures, you can be assured we will update the market accordingly.
I'd like to thank my fellow Directors for their work and support over the last year, and to thank the Summerset team for all that they do in supporting our purpose and vision, and for their excellent execution last year. Thanks too, also to you, our shareholders, for your continuing support and trust in us as we work to grow and build excellent retirement villages. I'll now turn to Scott, our CEO, to address the meeting. Scott.
Afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us virtually today. Given the weather events, I hope everyone's safe and well at home. Hey, look, I've just got six slides I wanted to sort of talk through with my reflections on 2025. Next slide. I'm just going to start with profitability. As Mark mentioned, underlying profit was NZD 234 million, up 13%. We feel it was a pretty credible outcome given there was a bunch of sort of things we found going on in 2025. There was quite low consumer confidence. We experienced a subdued sort of state in terms of the property market and high cost of living. We sort of were dealing with all three of those dynamics. A 13% increase in underlying profit, we were sort of quite comfortable with. There's two sort of key drivers underneath that.
The first one was strong sales performance, which I'll sort of talk about a little bit more on the next slide, and then there was also improved care profitability. In terms of the care profitability, we started a journey in 2024 to put ORAs on care beds and start charging ORAs on care beds, much like we charge an ORA on a retirement village product. That's been sort of a two-year journey for us. That's had a positive outcome from a profitability sense. That has lifted profitability in 2024 from NZD 2.7 million up to just close to NZD 19 million last year in 2025. I would context that we've got about NZD 1 billion worth of aged care assets. In terms of return on investment, that is still quite a modest return of 2%, but it is a change in terms of lifting profitability.
In terms of the IFRS net profit after tax of NZD 260 million, that was down NZD 70 million relative to 2024. Principally driven by a subdued property market. Meaning, essentially we received less valuation uplift associated with increases in our house prices in our portfolio. We also, as Mark sort of introduced before, we introduced some new cashflow-based measures, and those sort of cashflow measures are really aimed at looking at the kind of the core cashflow generated from the sort of operating side of our business. What that shows and gives transparency around is we generate cashflow from existing operations of NZD 32 million. If you split that up between completed villages, those ones that are sort of mature and operating in a full, we actually generate about NZD 74 million worth of cashflow from those.
In terms of developing villages, the villages that we're sort of just in the process of filling up, building still on, we actually generate cashflow losses of about NZD 41 million on those. As our villages get older or completely fill up and mature, the cash flows improve. There's quite a burden attached in the business to that growth initially, but the longer-term growth, as Mark pointed out before, is a lot healthier. The completed villages sits at NZD 74 million, as I said, relative to the group being at NZD 32 million. In terms of total assets, they were NZD 9.2 billion and up 15%, and a core driver of that NTA share per share uplift to NZD 13.75. Pleasingly, gearing reduced by 0.1% and the rate of debt growth also slowed as well. Next slide.
In terms of trading performance, as Mark talked about, ORA sales: 1,560 homes were sold in the year, and that split being 805 new sales and 755 resales. That 26% uplift in sales at a headline level was substantial impact on the 13% overall profit growth. Pleasingly, at the same time, new sales were up 37% as well. When I look at sort of the stock levels at the end of the year, where we ended up with new sales stock was flat, which is a really strong outcome given we delivered both our Cambridge main building and our St. John's second half of that village, which was 120 homes we delivered in the second half of that village, both right at the tail end of 2025.
For us to be able to hold stock flat given the fact that when you deliver sort of second half of a large village like St. John's and that main building at the end of the year, you're never going to be able to sort of sell those homes down in that year. The rest of the portfolio actually, stock levels reduced right across the rest of the portfolio. Pleasingly as well, the mix of the stock and sort of the quality of the stock improved in the sense that we had 44 more contracted units in New Zealand and 41 less uncontracted units in New Zealand, and which is the bulk of the stock. The quality, there was a lot more homes that were contracted rather than uncontracted, sort of sitting in the stock levels.
In terms of resale stock, we were sitting at about 2.7% of the portfolio being uncontracted resale stock. My experience with being with the business the last sort of 12 years as being at that sort of level, which is pretty much the bottom end of where you can actually achieve or that's as good as you can actually achieve as a business. The stock level was in a very positive state for resale stock as well. There's probably two drivers behind the strong sales performance. The first one is, our brand has strengthened quite considerably over recent years.
If I look across brand metrics being familiarity, awareness, consideration, it doesn't matter which sort of prompted awareness, unprompted awareness, whatever we look at in brand, we've gone from being sort of mid-pack probably 5, 6 years ago to being top 1 or 2 and, for a number of years now, being top in consideration on the brand metrics that we receive. I think the brand is in a very, very healthy state. The second point is, in these property market sort of challenging sort of environments like we saw in 2025, people aren't necessarily always making a lifestyle choice. They are moving for other reasons, security, connection to others, and potentially looking forward at the future needs that they have with aged care as well, and those things keep occupancy strong. Occupancy overall for the business.
At the end of 2025, we were 95% for retirement villages and 94% for aged care. That was, again as well, pretty high levels for the business. Next slide I'll just touch on is first of all is just demand. Sort of that top right graph there that it might be hard to read on the screen, but, essentially what that just shows is the population demographic in New Zealand, and it's very, very similar for Australia as well. That graph looks exactly the same, but over the next 30 years, essentially what it says for both New Zealand and Australia is the population base of people living, who are over 75 years doubles in size. We are fortunate to be in a sector that we have strong demographic tailwinds that support us.
I often get asked the question, what happens if the property market doesn't improve and property market stays flat for the next 5 or 10 years? That graph below that embedded value graph there on the right-hand side bottom, what that basically shows is for all the homes that are sitting in our portfolio, where people are living in them, it shows the valuation uplift that we will get when we basically repay that outgoing resident the sum that we owe them, and what we can lift the sale price for that unit to when we resell that home.
What essentially that graph says is even if property market stays the same for the next 10 years, we've got NZD 2 billion worth of embedded value gains that sit there for shareholders that will be realized as that resale portfolio sort of continues to have homes become available and then resell.
In terms of fuel crisis, as Mark touched on before, there's been a lot of planning and preparation for us, and what we've sort of essentially done is look through the phases of the National Fuel Plan and said, "What is that, at each phase level, what is that impact on us, and what would that mean for residents, for staff, for how we run the business?" We feel very well-planned in the sense of if we were to continue to lift up in terms of phases of the National Fuel Plan that government have. In terms of day-to-day inflationary pressures, we are seeing quite a few bits of inflationary pressure on the operational side of the business. On the construction side of the business, we're protected a little bit more by we have two things.
One is a large component of our construction portfolio has already been tendered, so about 60% of our build program for this year has actually already been tendered. Then the second thing is we have sort of just on 100 supply contracts for materials which are locked for multiple years. If those cost pressures continue to escalate, on the construction side of the business, we're sort of protected through pretty much till close to the end of the year, Q3 at the very, very earliest. We are seeing some pressures on the operational sort of side of the business right now. In terms of sales, I'll touch on like in terms of aggregate sales volumes at the moment, we're not really seeing any change in aggregate sales volumes week on and week out in terms of people coming in a propensity to sign a sales contract.
We are seeing two things. We are seeing a shift a little bit away from. Our Auckland villages are a little bit quieter at the moment, and our other villages across the country are actually a little bit busier at the moment. That whilst I say the aggregate volume of sales hasn't changed a lot, we're seeing a shift between Auckland being actually more impacted and outside of Auckland actually going still really well. Why is that the case? There's a couple of aspects to that dynamic. The first one is we have actually built quite a few main buildings, and so we had Cambridge at the end of last year, Waikanae, Whangārei, and Blenheim all open in probably the last six months. When we open a main building, we're opening access for facilities such as aged care.
We've seen a lot of aged care sort of sales come out of those villages. That's why part of that shift and dynamic is an expected shift attached to just us building large volumes of product sitting outside of Auckland. Part of that, I think what we're seeing in Auckland is attached to confidence around the property market with the fuel crisis going on at the moment as well. We're seeing sort of two things, a demographic shift outside Auckland a little bit and also a shift a bit more towards some of the needs-based product that we have at the moment. In terms of next slide, I just wanted to quickly touch on growth. Mark sort of covered off a large component of the build program for last year. You will notice we didn't really went out acquiring lots of land.
The only land that we purchased was an extension to our build block site, which gives us about another 60 homes that we can develop there. The main focus for last year was sort of transitioning our land bank through to sort of fully consented. In terms of that, for our Mosgiel and our Rotorua villages, we received full consent for those two sites. We lodged applications for our brand-new Mission Hills site in Hawke's Bay, and also two village extensions. We have one in Boulcott, one in Blenheim, and actually we've got a third one in Waikato. We lodged all three of those. Those ones that we've lodged applications for, we're sort of pretty confident that we'll receive approval for those in the first half of this year.
In terms of Australia, Mark did touch on some quite big landmark moments for us opening the first main building in Cranbourne North. That's the first opportunity for Australians living in that Victorian community to sort of really get a true sense of what retirement village integrated living is like in a Summerset village. We do have our first aged care residents there, our cafe open, our swimming pool, all that sort of stuff happening. Our Chirnside Park village, we delivered our first homes there at the end of last year, and we are opening that village sort of mid this year. With two other sites, our Oakleigh South site, which has very well progressed in terms of building both retirement homes but also the main building infrastructure, which we're all building at once on that site.
We're heavily into earthworks at our Torquay site as well at the moment. We think we will and feel we'll progress towards lifting that build rate in 2027 subject to economic conditions to the 300 we have previously talked to the market about. In terms of next slide. Again, Mark's talked about this. I think now at the moment our real focus is on watching what's happening in the economy and the environment, and making sure that we're being prudent with our decision-making, protecting the balance sheet, managing the cost base of the business very prudently as well, but also making sure that we don't compromise our resident experience and our staff's engagement as well. Look, we are really proud of that 91% of customer satisfaction for villages and 89% for care, and much the same with those engagement scores.
You can see there of 8.3 out of 10 and retention of 84%. Those in terms of just context in terms of engagement scores, they would be in the top 5%-10% of healthcare providers around the world. and I think, on the resident side of things, obviously our residents are our number one brand ambassadors for us as well, and so making sure that we get that balance right there. look, just last slide. In terms of closing comments is, yeah, we will continue to watch the fuel crisis closely. We feel we're planned for that. We will continue to benchmark, review costs for this year, make sure that's appropriate.
We'll keep looking at the build rate as well, and so it's fair to say at the moment that, in terms of that guided build rate, we're probably feeling more confident about delivering at the lower end of that spectrum, but that may change as we go on. As Mark said, we will keep the market updated as to what we're seeing in terms of trading conditions. We'll keep a focus on St. John's and Boulcott, which are very important villages for us to continue to sell down. Well, thank you for that, and I'll hand back to Mark.
Thanks very much, Scott. I now ask each of our Board Committee Chairs to make some brief comments on their committee and the work that they've undertaken in the committee over the last financial year. Fiona Oliver chairs the Audit and Risk Committee, Stephen Bull chairs the Development and Construction Committee, and Marie Bismark chairs the Clinical Governance Committee, and Gráinne Troute chairs the People and Culture Committee. Fiona, I'll ask you to address the meeting first, please. You're on mute I think, Fiona.
Apologies. I thought someone else had that control. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to talk about the activities of the Summerset Audit and Risk Committee during the prior financial year. The Summerset Audit and Risk Committee operates under a broad mandate to support robust governance practice, financial discipline, transparent reporting, and effective risk management. These responsibilities are of course crucial for any listed company, and particularly significant for Summerset, given its position in a highly regulated sector and its ongoing expansion in New Zealand and Australia. During the prior financial year, the committee concentrated its efforts on four primary areas, financial and non-financial reporting, capital and treasury management, risk management, and internal audit. Financial reporting has remained a top priority for Summerset. The committee, with assistance from PwC as our external auditor, has worked diligently to ensure compliance with half-year and full-year financial reporting obligations.
To keep financial disclosures robust, clear, and meaningful for investors, significant attention continues to be given to testing and reviewing our potential disclosures. The committee recognizes that transparency and consistency are vital to building trust in Summerset and the wider retirement village sector, and remains committed to responding to feedback that helps stakeholders better understand our business.
The relevance of financial performance measures to different parts of it. Climate-related disclosures continue to be a significant area of oversight. The committee's dedicated to meeting non-financial regulatory obligations and is supportive of the business as it strives to lead in reducing carbon emissions and advancing sustainability practices. Treasury governance represents another important aspect of the committee's responsibilities. This has involved assessing the appropriateness and implementation of the Summerset Treasury policy. A subcommittee of the committee oversighted the retail bond program, and the committee ensured all required reporting is submitted to the bond supervisor. The committee was also presented with and discussed the long-term debt management framework for the group. The committee routinely evaluates Summerset's enterprise risk framework. Every six months, we reviewed and discussed key existing and emerging enterprise risks across the group, along with the effectiveness of the risk management strategies.
The internal audit program is closely linked to risk management, supported by KPMG as our primary internal auditor and with specialist auditors engaged as needed. The committee has completed an extensive program of internal audit reviews. These reviews have covered critical areas such as privacy, cybersecurity, certain operational processes and systems, and aspects of Summerset's Australian operations. In Australia, reviews have included readiness to provide residential aged care, compliance with the Retirement Villages Act obligations, and the effectiveness of settlement processes. The work in Australia is, of course, noteworthy, as it marks the imminent opening of Summerset's first care center in the country. Finally, on behalf of the committee, my sincere thanks are extended to the management team and third-party providers for your engagement and commitment to fulfilling the committee's responsibilities. Thank you.
Thanks, Fiona. I'll now ask Stephen Bull to comment on the work undertaken at the Development and Construction Committee.
Thanks, Mark. I'm just confirming everyone can hear me okay. Not hearing otherwise, so I'll continue. Good afternoon, everyone. As Mark has mentioned, I'm Stephen Bull, and I chair the Development and Construction Committee of the board. I wanted to start by acknowledging my board colleagues who sit on the committee with me. That's Mark, Fiona, Vena, and Andrew. The role of the committee is to provide governance and oversight of the group's development and construction activity. As Mark and Scott have outlined today, we continue to successfully deliver on our pipeline of new villages. As we know, the current global environment continues to make that more and more challenging. It is important that the group continues to assess and reassess how it goes about delivery on its pipeline to ensure we create the highest quality villages while continuing to prudently manage our capital.
The committee plays an important role in overseeing this. A couple of key focus areas for us over the last 12 months include firstly, continued monitoring of the performance of all of our projects and oversight of changes to program design and financial performance. The management team actively manage our portfolio of projects to determine which should move faster and which can be slowed down to best manage our capital. This is an ongoing activity and increasingly important in a volatile world. Maintaining flexibility across the portfolio is a key focus for the committee. Ongoing risk governance. We have had a particular focus this year on managing risk in our supply chain to ensure the stability and quality of our contractors and subcontractors. As I've mentioned in previous years, the committee ensures the group's continued focus on work, health, and safety as it relates to our construction and development activities.
A lot of this is about culture and not just about procedures and practices. To that end, the committee has spent time visiting many of our construction sites throughout the year to talk to the broader team and to see and hear from our staff as well as our contractors, how we approach this critical area of the group's work. The committee takes a strategic oversight view of the scale and makeup of our land bank and our annual unit deliveries. As I've mentioned, with market conditions so volatile, we have ensured our pipeline of new villages is scalable and flexible in both New Zealand and Australia. We continue to look to prudently expand our footprint and to consent our land bank, allowing us to flex build rates to meet the forecast demand in the market.
Fourthly, we overview the continued growth of design, procurement, and construction capabilities in Australia. As we know, Summerset is its own principal contractor in New Zealand, but in Australia historically, we have outsourced that function. We continue to work with the group to establish self-performance capability in Australia with a view to moving down that path for future projects. Lastly, our focus remains on design progression and enhancement. The team take an active continuous improvement approach to our village designs, ensuring that our homes and our main buildings continue to change to meet market expectations. The group challenges itself to not only improve design aesthetics, but to improve design efficiencies without jeopardizing the quality of what is delivered. As Mark and Scott have said, it is important that we prudently manage our development pipeline, and the committee's focus has been very much on that issue this year.
The team have done an incredible job again this year to deliver the result you heard about earlier. Sometimes we hear these results, and we forget about the complexity involved in achieving them. On behalf of the committee, I wanted to acknowledge the team who have sensibly managed this part of our business through these increasingly volatile times. To my colleagues on the committee, I thank you for your focus and challenge to ensure these activities are overseen. Thanks, Mark.
Thank you, Stephen. I'll now ask Marie Bismark to make some comments on the Clinical Governance Committee.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you, Mark, for the chance to share some of the work of our Clinical Governance Committee. I'm Professor Marie Bismark, and I chair the committee, very ably supported by our committee members, Andrew Wong and Gráinne Troute. I would like to acknowledge the other board members who often attend our Clinical Governance Committee meetings as well. As I was reflecting on the year that's been, it struck me that the theme of our committee's work in the last year has really been one of connection and support, making sure that our nurses, caregivers, the rest of the clinical team, and our clinical leaders and our residents never feel alone. I really wanted to talk to you about three areas of connection that have been a focus for our committee. The first area has been connecting our clinical staff with support from senior colleagues.
We know that our nurses are often making very skilled clinical decisions, and it can be a lonely place to be the only nurse in a care center overnight. We're really proud that we've established a telehealth service, which is staffed by some of our most senior and experienced nurses, so that nurses in villages all over New Zealand can access senior clinical support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This service has been wonderful in providing an extra layer of support for nurses in making complex care decisions, and we hear that it's been very rewarding for some of our most senior and experienced nurses to be able to share their skills and experience in this way. We've also been making sure that our team in Australia feel well-supported in establishing clinical care in our first Australian villages.
As you heard, it was a major milestone for us to complete our first village center at Cranbourne North, and we really look forward to welcoming our first assisted living residents and care residents. I want to acknowledge the wonderful partnerships that have happened between the New Zealand and Australian teams to make sure that we're ready for this to happen. Within our committee, we also monitor a dashboard of indicators, looking at things like staffing levels, the stability of clinical leadership, and any adverse events that might be occurring. This helps us to identify which villages are thriving and which villages may need some extra support. The second area has been around creating more time for our clinical staff to connect with our residents.
We know that both our nurses, our caregivers, and our residents really value that face-to-face time, and we've been exploring ways in which technology can free up more time for those in-person interactions. We've been trialing several new technologies, including an artificial intelligence tool which can help nurses with writing their clinical notes in a more timely and accurate way, which frees up more time for face-to-face interactions. The third area that our committee's been really proud to support is around connecting residents with each other. We know that being engaged with activities, feeling part of a strong community is such a big part of what brings the best of life to our residents.
We've installed Lumen, which is a new communication and entertainment system which helps residents to find out what's happening in the village, to be able to book into events, and to be able to message the village team and the other residents. We also know that moving into a village is a really positive experience for our residents, but those first few months can be a big transition. We've been setting up a resident buddy program in which new residents are buddied up with a resident volunteer to help them settle in and feel supported and connected. Those are just some of the initiatives that we've been taking along that theme of connection, care, and support.
I'd like to express my deep thanks for the work of our clinical team, the nurses, caregivers, diversional therapists, and all the other people who really bring the best of life to our residents, including our cleaners, the laundry and kitchen staff, our property team, our village leaders, and the head office staff. I'd also like to say thank you to the residents and families who've chosen to make Summerset their home. I'm really sorry that we didn't have a chance to connect with all of you in person today, and please accept my thanks for your ongoing support of Summerset. Thank you.
Thanks very much, Marie. Last but not least, Gráinne Troute, if you wouldn't mind giving us some commentary on the work of the People and Culture Committee in the last year.
Thanks, Mark, and hello, everyone. As Chair of the People and Culture Committee, I'm pleased to provide a brief update on our work over the past year. I'm joined on the committee by Mark, Marie, and Vena, and supported by the management team, in particular Scott and the Chief People Officer, Chris Lokum.
We met five times in 2025. Our remit is broad, including oversight of remuneration, organizational culture, leadership and succession, workforce planning, employee development, diversity and inclusion, engagement, and board composition. As always, in 2025, remuneration was a key focus for this committee. Summerset continued to refine long-term incentive plans to ensure stronger alignment with shareholder value creation and market practice. We reviewed sales, remuneration, and commission arrangements and finalized the minimum shareholding requirement for the executive team. As part of the executive remuneration review, we considered benchmark roles and pay, reviewed executive performance, and assessed the shared performance metrics used in the short-term incentive program. On workforce planning, we agreed on People and Culture strategy and priorities for the year ahead.
We supported recruitment for the Chief Sales and Marketing Officer role, reviewed performance plans, and considered broader workforce requirements as Summerset continues its journey towards being a more effective and efficient organization. We also maintained a strong oversight focus on talent retention, succession planning, and building leadership depth across the business. Alongside this, we reviewed board performance and supported succession planning and Director recruitment. On culture and capability, we reviewed employee engagement results and actions underway to address those results. We monitored turnover and retention and progressed our work on diversity and inclusion, including understanding pay gaps, strengthening diverse hiring pipelines, and considering what's being done to reduce potential bias in our pay practices and working environments. We also refreshed our employee value proposition and oversaw the development and rollout of the new learning and development strategy for Summerset.
Finally, on external reporting, we continued our efforts to lift the quality and transparency of our disclosures around remuneration. This included clearer explanation of our remuneration approach and how it supports the organization's strategy, improved disclosure of incentive KPIs and outcomes, and increased transparency on pay gaps. Overall, the committee was pleased with the organization's ability to maintain focus across all of these priorities during 2025. I'd like to close by thanking my fellow committee members and the management team for their strong commitment and contribution over the year. "Thank you, all." Thanks, Mark.
Thank you, Gráinne. I'd now like to give shareholders the opportunity to ask questions, whether related to the presentations, the financial statements, or the management of the company. Questions related to the formal resolutions will be discussed when the formal business is being conducted. If you could start, if you haven't already, by submitting your questions now. As I indicated earlier, there could be a slight delay in us receiving them. If your question is received late, we are happy to respond to you after the meeting. You can certainly ask follow-on questions by submitting further questions. I'll allow about 25 minutes for questions. If we do run short of time and are unable to answer your question today, we will endeavor to respond as soon as we can to you after the meeting.
If we receive a number of questions related to a similar or the same topic, we might group those questions together to provide a single response. If we receive questions related to village operational matters, we intend to forward those questions to the relevant village for discussion at the village AGMs rather than at this annual meeting. Now, I can see some questions already in the-
Mark, we've got a number of questions in relation to the share price, which I'll group together for you. Some questions comment on recent movement in Summerset's share price. There are also comments on the share price for Summerset during the COVID period. What do you ascribe share price movements to? Is this cyclical pressure versus any structural change in the business? As a related topic, would you consider share buybacks? Would you consider selling villages in response to the share price?
Well, gosh, there's a lot in that. Firstly, obviously we don't control the share price, so any views that I can offer, and Scott may as well, we'll do our best. From what we can tell, the share price is responding to sentiment largely about the economic environment and concern that perhaps there could be a risk that sales drop off given that. What we do know, and certainly in all discussions with institutional shareholders that we've had, are that we are controlling and performing very well at the operational level, doing everything that you would expect. We do have a situation where, in fact, among the analysts, we're rated as a buy, particularly at the current prices. That's just a fact. We are trading at quite a discount to NTA.
Actually, if you look across the whole retirement village sector that's listed, pretty much all are experiencing the same challenges vis-a-vis the current share price. From what we're told, as I say, at least by our major shareholders, the sentiment is unrelated to our performance. We're still regarded as one of the, if not the preferred, stock in the New Zealand sector. Scott, have you got anything to add to that?
Mark, sort of in a sense, no, I think you've covered it well. It really is, I think, largely a sector dynamic, and so we are seeing the whole sector derate. There is a couple of factors in there. I think there's sort of three things. There's property price concern around the HPI remaining flat in a period going forward if things keep continuing to play out poorly with the fuel crisis. There's concern around property prices, concern around inflationary pressures as a result of that also as well. Yeah, I think those are two things that sort of very connected to current fuel crisis as well. I think there was a sort of also a question there around would we sell mature villages. That is always a consideration.
I guess the sort of consideration as part of that would have to be, as I was talking before about the cash flows from the business, the mature cash flows really come from those older villages. What you'd be doing is selling off your positive cash flow streams. Those positive cash flow streams at the moment are used to sort of subsidize that growth that we do where the villages that are still being developed actually have negative cash flows. I think there's sort of a challenge in that sense. There's also a secondary challenge in terms of the message that you would send to our residents in terms of selling the home that they live in. Part of the reason why they came to us was because they believed in the brand.
I think, that could have a broader sentiment, negative sentiment across the whole of our resident base if we were to sort of look at doing that. Yeah, I do largely think it's sector-related. It's a combination of property price and inflationary concerns around what was going to happen playing out with the fuel crisis, which have caused the decline.
Just to perhaps answer the last part of the question, which I recall was around have we considered buybacks? We haven't actively considered buybacks. As a mechanism, it's always potentially on the radar screen in particular circumstances. Whether or not to do so is always a fraught decision, and it's about how you deploy and what best to invest in terms of allocation of capital and the like. We're happy to continue to invest at the moment because of the good returns that ultimately arise from mature villages and what we are, which is developing our current portfolio. If I move on.
Mark-
Sorry.
We've got a question from [Cee Law]. "Congratulations on a strong result in a tough environment. The gap between 13% underlying profit growth and 26% unit sales growth is wider than is typical for the business. What were the key drivers behind that divergence this period?
Okay. Well, I think the key thing to bear in mind is that the unit sales which we report, that it varies across the different types of units, from care units through service departments, through apartments, through to premium villas. ORA revenues and build costs differ between those types of units. As a result, the resulting margins that we make or we earn can vary quite considerably. The underlying profit we report also incorporates other revenue and expense lines for company operations which impact the result. Hopefully that answers the question.
Mark, I could add to that if you want to.
Sure. Go ahead.
Yeah, look, I think there's sort of three components to that. The development margins that we've seen on the construction side of the business have come off, I think closer to 2% lower relative to 2024. I think the largest sort of components of that difference between great sales result up 26% and profit only being up 13% is you're also seeing, right throughout 2025, two sort of drags in the business. The first drag being operating costs from running our villages have been higher than the weekly fee increases that we're able to pass on to residents. That's reflective of this challenge that I mentioned sort of in my presentation about we have been in a high CPI environment and have not been able to pass on a degree of those costs to residents.
Things like electricity rates, food costs, all those impact us quite heavily. The second sort of aspect is compositionally we've had a lot of new aged care facilities and villages open, which, and are quite early in their full cycle on sort of when I was talking in my results presentation about. The negative impact that has on cash, it also has the same negative impact on operating costs as well. You're seeing a drag attached to that as well. Sales are set up 26%, but those factors sort of dragging that back to the overall profit being up 13%.
Okay. Thanks for that extra color, Scott. Next question.
We have a question from Steven Main relating to two topics. Firstly, the informal policy of the New Zealand Shareholders' Association to withhold proxy disclosure until after a vote is taken. What does that achieve, and is it seen as helpful to the debate? Secondly, did proxy advisors issue reports ahead of today's AGM, and were there any material protest votes against any of the resolutions? And the final piece of this question relates to the withdrawal on March 30 of the proposed increase in the Director fee cap, and do you consider that that resolution was likely to be defeated in light of our share price?
Okay. Thanks, Stephen, for your questions. In terms of the NZSA question. The NZSA has had a policy on this particular matter relating to the disclosure of proxy votes for some years now, and it's been a request of all listed companies in New Zealand, indeed, that they delay the proxy outcome before the debate occurs. Actually, when you think about it, there's no right or wrong answer to this, but I think their request originally emanated, if memory serves me correctly, from not wanting the proxy result to over-influence the debate or the considerations that other, particularly smaller, shareholders might have. So that's where that comes from. In terms of proxy advisor reports, ISS and Glass Lewis, who you'll be very familiar with, did publish proxy recommendations on all of the resolutions we're putting to the meeting and they voted 100% for all of the resolutions.
Finally, in terms of our decision to withdraw the proposed increase in the fee pool for Non-Executive Directors, and your question, was it likely to be defeated given the share price fall? The answer is, as far as we can tell, no. In fact, the indication we got from our institutional shareholder base was pretty much unanimously that they thought an increase was appropriate. We'd done proper benchmarking work, and they felt it was important to remunerate Directors in the right way such that we continue to be attractive to Director candidates going forward. It was literally an internal decision that was made by the board to withdraw the resolution, partly given share price performance, but also everything else, and importantly, considering cost of living pressures on both our staff and also our residents. Thank you.
We've got a question from John Boscawen. "I have been a Summerset shareholder for over 10 years and was intending to travel to Wellington today. I place a great deal of importance on meeting staff and Directors. 15 years ago, before modern technology, this meeting would have proceeded in person or been postponed a week or so. In light of that, would the board consider organizing a replacement meeting, informal if necessary, later this year to provide an opportunity for shareholders to meet Directors, perhaps after a board meeting?
Thanks for your question, John. Funnily enough, at our board meeting that preceded this AGM today, we did discuss undertaking, in colloquial terms, a retail shareholder road show, whereby we did provide the opportunity for smaller shareholders to meet with the team and at least a subset of directors. Watch this space. That is definitely intended.
Thank you. We've got a question from Bruce Parkes. "What increased pressure do you foresee on development margins during a time of accelerating building material costs and a restrained housing market?
Thanks for the question, Bruce. Look, we remain disciplined on our build rate and stage releases to try and match demand and support the recycling of cash. You will have seen that our development margin in FY 2025 was just under 28%. We are certainly continuing to focus on cost and margin outcomes as we deliver our current year's program. We may see some growth in construction related and development costs into the next year. That can also be offset by other components of construction and the like. The fact of the matter is that all of this space is being actively managed, monitored, and looked at.
Our endeavor is to both adapt our program in response to the economic environment as it is affecting our construction and development to maintain as best we can our broader development margins at the strong levels they have been. Thank you.
We have a few questions in relation to a similar topic, which I'm going to group together, and these relate to the practice of annual non-binding voting on the adoption of a company's proposed remuneration arrangements as a way of enabling shareholders to influence executive remuneration, similar to the say-on-pay regime that we see in Australia. Could you comment on whether this is something that the Summerset board has discussed and whether the directors have experience of remuneration report voting at any other companies?
Well, as will be known, remuneration reports to be put to shareholders are not a requirement for New Zealand NZX-based companies such as Summerset, and there's less than a handful, as far as I'm aware of NZX issuers who currently do that. Our key concentration has been and maintains on continuously improving and providing consistent, comparable, and useful disclosures in the remuneration section of our annual report. Opportunities such as these indeed in discussions and question time to enable shareholders to ask relevant questions related to that report. We continue to believe that that gives investors all the relevant and useful information that you should need. Yeah. That remains our current position.
We've got a follow-up question from Tommy Scrivener, following up on those previous questions in relation to the share price. Why build out new villages at full price when you can increase shareholders' pro rata interest in the existing villages at NZD 0.59 on the dollar via a buyback?
Well, there are different ways in which different people and indeed different shareholders look at value. We are very much focused on long-term value. We run a long-term business that does add value over time. Villages take time to build. What the share market might be doing on any given day doesn't necessarily align to the village development profile. Ultimately, when we build a village and sell it down, it's a resident-funded asset that I would say we continue to get annuity earnings from and consequently valuation growth from. It's about prudent capital management.
Could I take that, Mark?
Yeah, absolutely.
I think from my side of things here, we are taking that capital base that we have, and as Mark sort of pointed out before, we're essentially building a village, filling it up, and then using the residents' funds to repay us back. When we've completed that village and filled that village up, we essentially have an asset which has no capital left in it. We're taking that money and using that money to build a second village and a third village and a fourth village. I think at the moment, you're right to say that NZD 0.59 on the dollar is probably not reflective of where we want to be. If you use that same capital, build three villages in a row, you've kind of created a NZD 1.80's worth of value there, which is significant still for a shareholder.
On a better day, you'd hope that that would be NZD 3 rather than NZD 1.80. Yeah, that's the way we sort of look at it, as taking that capital, recycling it, and keep recycling it multiple times to keep building these three assets, which Mark pointed out, then generate perpetual cash flows and revenue from.
Yep. That's very useful adjunct, Scott.
We've got a question from Adam Cockburn. In 2026 to date, how are ORA sale prices and duration to sell holding up?
Look, what we are experiencing right up to the minute is that demand in resale villages remains strong. We actually, across the portfolio, increased prices a bit last year. It was somewhere over 2%, I think. We certainly continue to review prices where there are opportunities to do so. I think our time to sell from our metrics suggests that so far in the first quarter of this year versus last year, things have been relatively consistent. If we talk about new sales, time to sell can be impacted by the volume of stock released. We've had a number of sites, for example, St. John's, Boulcott, where there are large volumes of stock that have been delivered at once due to the nature of the type of development. Time to settle to date has actually been declining.
All that said, we're very conscious of the current environment and that, in fact, we could see a lag, which is why I mentioned in my address that we will be very closely with the team monitoring what happens from here, given just the amount of uncertainty that's out there in the economy. Scott, is there anything you wanted to add to that?
No, Mark, I think that's a good articulation.
Okay. Thank you. Are there any further questions?
We have no further questions under general business. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Stephanie. Ladies and gentlemen, we now come to the matters requiring resolution, which is set out in the notice of meeting. There will be an opportunity for shareholders to ask questions on each of the resolutions, and I ask that you raise questions directly related to the matter being considered. As I mentioned at the start of the meeting, we will call a poll in respect of all of the resolutions. You'll be able to cast votes using the electronic voting card received when online registration has been validated. You will need to click "Get a voting card" within the online meeting platform. You'll be asked to enter your shareholder or proxy number to validate, and then you can mark your voting card any way you wish by clicking For, Against, or Abstain on the voting card.
Once you've made the selection, please click Submit Vote on the bottom of the card to lodge your vote. Voting will remain open until five minutes after the conclusion of the meeting, and results of the vote will be announced through the NZX and ASX. If you require any assistance, please refer to the virtual meeting guide or use the helpline specified. Each of the resolutions set out in the notice of meeting are to be considered as ordinary resolutions, and as such, must be approved by a simple majority of votes cast by shareholders entitled to vote in voting on the resolution. We will announce the outcome of proxy votes for your information after voting has been completed on all resolutions. The first resolution is that the board is authorized to fix the auditor's remuneration.
The motion concerns the fixing of the auditor's remuneration and seeks your approval to authorize the Directors to fix PwC's remuneration. Are there any questions related to this resolution?
We have one question relating to this resolution from Steven Main. I don't understand why New Zealand shareholders are forced to vote on the meaningless auditor remuneration resolution question every year, when they are not given the power to reflect on overall remuneration practices, et cetera, which you've just commented on. Are we lobbying to have the legislation amended to end this type of pointless vote? In relation to the external auditor, PwC, when was the external audit last tendered and when will it next be tendered?
Okay. To answer your question, Steven, no, there is no lobbying on the issue of the resolution to approve. I think it's almost implicit in your question. It is actually a requirement of our Companies Act 1993, and as far as I'm aware, it's not something that the policymakers within the relevant department have been considering. It is really a matter for them. In terms of when we last tendered the external audit, we last tendered and indeed changed our external auditor in October 2024, with PwC taking over from Ernst & Young. We went through quite an involved process in order to do that. We don't have a current intent to change the auditor. PwC have not been with us very long, and we have, certainly I can attest to the fact that having someone new come in periodically, which is where your question will be directed, is helpful.
It's helpful to the board, it's helpful to the management team, and we have got benefit from that. I think there's more benefit to be gained in the short term to medium term, at least by continuing with PwC, as they now have their feet under the table and have a good understanding of Summerset.
There are no further questions on this resolution.
Thank you for that. Right. If there are no further questions from shareholders on that, I would ask you shareholders to vote by now either selecting for, against, or abstain for resolution one on the voting card. The next resolution concerns the reelection of Andrew Wong as a Director of the company, having retired by rotation, noting that it is intended that this will be his final term. The board recommends Andrew to you as a Summerset Director and unanimously supports his reelection. Andrew, I will now ask you to address the meeting and say a few words.
Thank you, Mark. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I'm pleased to offer myself for reelection as an Independent Director to the board for a further term. I was first appointed to the Summerset board in March of 2017, and subsequently being reelected by shareholders in 2017, April 2020, 2023. If reelected today, this will be my fourth and final term. The board has carefully considered my tenure and has determined that I continue to qualify as an Independent Director, and has requested that I stand again given the specific skills and experience I bring, particularly in the area of clinical governance. By way of background, I am the Managing Director of Alivio Health, a private healthcare company.
I am qualified as a specialist medical practitioner with a master's in public health and a fellowship with the New Zealand College of Public Health Medicine. Over a 30-year career in public and private health in New Zealand and internationally, I have developed extensive experience in strategic planning, healthcare investments and startups, operational leadership, and the delivery of quality healthcare services. Through Alivio Health, I am involved in a number of healthcare businesses across a wide range of areas, including diagnostic radiology, cardiology, gastroenterology, cancer care, surgical services, and the development of healthcare infrastructure. I have also held government appointments in the areas of workforce development and healthcare innovation. I have served on the executive of the New Zealand Private Surgical Hospitals Association and as an adjunct professor at the Auckland University of Technology. At Summerset, I am a member of the Clinical Governance and Development and Construction Subcommittees.
Both these areas are central to resident outcomes and shareholder value. A particular focus of mine is ensuring that Summerset continues to deliver high-quality care within the funding framework provided by the New Zealand Government, balancing clinical excellence with financial sustainability in what is a challenging and evolving sector. The main rationale for standing again is centered on continuity and capability at a critical time for the business. The board considers it essential that we retain strong clinical expertise at the board level, particularly as Dr. Marie Bismark, the current Chair of the Clinical Governance Committee, retires next year, and we have just opened our first care center in Australia under a very different regulatory environment. Subject to reelection, I will take on the role of the Chair of the Clinical Governance Committee following Marie's retirement.
Ensuring the consistent oversight of high quality, safe and resident-focused services is a critical part of Summerset's value proposition, and it is important to our ongoing success. Looking ahead, there is more to do. We must continue to innovate in how care is delivered, strengthen our clinical systems and oversight, and ensure we can scale sustainably, particularly as we expand into Australia. In closing, I am standing again to provide continuity in clinical governance at an important point in Summerset's growth, while also ensuring a well-planned transition to future leadership in the clinical area. Thank you for your continued support and for the opportunity to serve as a Director of Summerset.
Thank you, Andrew. Do we have any questions?
There's one question online from Steven Main. "I've never seen a public company Director reelection where the formal words of the resolution lock in that the candidate won't be running again, as this is intended to be his final term. Is there any particular reason why you've worded the resolution in this way rather than just mention it in the notice of meeting? And is there anything stopping Dr. Andrew Wong and the board changing their mind in three years and putting him up for another term?
Look, the simple matter is that we have a very clear intent that this will be Andrew's last term. At the time he finishes, he will have been on the board for 12 years. It's good governance, but at the same time, we were very keen to extend his tenure while we have this issue around Clinical Governance with Marie retiring next year. That is the key thing that we're looking to address. We're very lucky to have the expertise that we have in these two people, and we're just ensuring that we don't lose all our experience at the same time. Are there any other questions?
There are no further questions on this resolution.
Thank you. Okay. Again, shareholders, if you could now select voting for, against, or abstain for resolution two on the voting card. Resolution three concerns the re-election of Venasio Crawley as a Director. Having retired by rotation, the board recommends Venasio to you as a Summerset Director and unanimously supports his re-election. Vena, I will now ask if you could say a few words to the meeting, please. You're on mute, Vena.
There you go. Thank you, Mark. Get my T-shirt in that. Good afternoon and [Foreign language] to everybody. I stand before you seeking your continued confidence as an Independent Non-Executive of the Summerset Group Holdings Limited. I arrived in New Zealand as a Samoan child without a word of English. I schooled during the day and cleaned offices overnight. I've studied across three different continents. I worked across eight industries in New Zealand, Australia, and United Kingdom, and picked up five languages along the way. I share this not to romanticize the journey, but because it shaped the lens through which I see this company. It's a lens of empathy and of understanding and what it means to feel welcomed, to feel cared for, and to be seen. That, in essence, is what Summerset does.
Since joining the board in 2020, I have watched our organization deliver with genuine purpose, underlying profit, revenue, total assets, and homes delivered across New Zealand and Australia. They've all grown, driven by a portfolio going from strength to strength. The numbers matter for sure. They matter deeply, but they are not, for me, the soul of this company. People are. Our resident satisfaction scores are world-class. Our people engagement and retention in the high 70s, still with room to grow, reflect a team that shows up every day for the New Zealanders and Australians in our care. Behind every metric sits thousands of human stories. Protecting and strengthening that is precisely why I am here. I do not chair the board, nor chair any subcommittee, but I hold something I believe is equally valuable.
I am the only Director who is a member across every Summerset subcommittee, Audit and Risk, Clinical Governance, People and Culture, and Development and Construction. That breadth is not accidental. It allows me to connect the threads between resident experience and people culture, capital allocation and construction quality, risk appetite, and community trust. To those conversations, I bring an executive career built with the customer at the center to deliver profitable growth. My conviction is simple. A business sustains its license to grow only when the people it serves trust it completely. Residents, shareholders, and our team. We are navigating a period of real geopolitical volatility that is reshaping how we all think about growth, risk, and responsibility. In this environment, cautious and considered management is not timidity. It is wisdom.
My ability to connect governance, operations, culture, and capital positions me to offer this board both the right challenge and the right support so that every new village from Te Awamutu to the suburbs of Melbourne is fiscally sound and feels unmistakably like home to someone's parent or grandparent. I'm not here because I need another governance role. I'm here because I believe in this company's purpose, in the team running it, and in the distinct perspective I bring as a devoted New Zealander, a proud Pacific person, and a leader who has sat on both commercial and governance tables through the best of times and the most testing of times.
If you grant me the privilege of continuing, I will keep asking the right questions, keep advocating for the residents who cannot be at this AGM or in the room, and keep holding our board to the standard that residents and our shareholders deserve. Thank you very much. [Foreign language].
Thank you, Vena. Very well said. Are there any questions?
There are no questions on this resolution.
Thank you for that. If shareholders could now select for, against, or abstain for resolution three on the voting card. The next, and I think final resolution that we have relates to the re-election of Fiona Oliver as a Director of the company. Having retired by rotation, the board recommends Fiona to you as a Summerset director and unanimously supports her re-election. Fiona, I'll now ask you to address the meeting, please. You're on mute, Fiona.
Hello again, and thank you for another opportunity to address you today. It's been both a delight and privilege to serve as a Director of Summerset with particular responsibilities as the Chair of the Board Audit and Risk Committee and a member of the Board Development and Construction Committee. I'm honored to stand for re-election to the board and continue contributing to the company's ongoing success. Throughout my tenure as a Director, I've consistently aimed to bring independence, diligence and a sharp focus on the long-term interests of the company. As a listed company, Summerset operates in, as mentioned previously, a very highly regulated environment. It demands robust governance, disciplined capital allocation, transparency and accountability. I take these responsibilities very seriously and am committed to upholding them. The timing of my appointment in 2023 coincided with yet another but different period of complexity and change for many.
In fact, I wonder whether really actually this is an ongoing high-level period of complexity and change that we can't anymore segment into different aspects. Regardless, despite significant market-related challenges, I'm proud to highlight that our management team has continued to pursue strategies that enhance performance, maintain sustainable growth, strengthen operational resilience, in parallel with offering people new homes and uncompromised quality of care. I believe that my executive, operational and professional experience, investments and markets background, and broad governance expertise are highly relevant to effective governance of Summerset. I believe that effective directors must ask the right questions, support management when appropriate, but challenge assumptions when necessary. My approach is to bring constructive judgment, commercial experience, and a shareholder-focused perspective to the boardroom, and I will continue to do so if re-elected. Thank you for your continued investment in Summerset and the trust you place in us, the board.
I would appreciate your support and look forward to the opportunity to continue serving the company and its shareholders in the years ahead. Thank you.
Thank you, Fiona. Are there any questions from shareholders concerning the reappointment of Fiona?
There are no questions on this resolution.
Thank you, Stephanie. There are no questions from shareholders. If shareholders could now please select voting for, against, or abstain for resolution four on the voting card. Shareholders, that completes voting on all resolutions. Noting, as I mentioned earlier, we had previously decided to withdraw resolution five, directors' remuneration from this meeting. At this time, I would like to advise the outcome of the proxy votes that were lodged in respect of each of the resolutions. I won't read them for each resolutions, but they should be on the screen now. I see they are. As said, you can now submit your final votes, which will be open until five minutes after the conclusion of the meeting. Results of the poll will be announced on the NZX and ASX after the conclusion of the meeting. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your attendance at Summerset's annual meeting.
I now declare the meeting closed. Thank you.