All right. Thanks, Tina. My name is Grant Baker, and I'm the Chairman of Turners. At Turners, we love what we do, and we definitely love cars. Welcome, everyone, and thanks for joining us today at the annual meeting of Turners. It's actually great to see people here again. We haven't seen people in person for, I think, almost three years now. So welcome, and thanks for coming. There's a few housekeeping matters. In case of a fire, exit from the doors you came through and head into the foyer and down the escalators, and fire wardens will direct you from there, and the bathrooms are just outside on the right.
The notice of meeting and 2022 annual report and financial statements have been circulated and made available to shareholders. A quorum is present and therefore I declare the meeting open. I'd just like to introduce my fellow directors in no particular order, but Matthew. You see, you were first. Alistair Petrie, John Roberts, Antony Vriens, Martin Berry on the TV screen there. He's beaming to us from Japan, and our Emerging Director, Lauren Quaintance. Also at the table with us, Todd Hunter, who's our CEO, and Aaron Saunders, who's the company's CFO. There's also a number of our senior managers and staff here today, so welcome to all of you. Also in attendance today are the company's auditors, Baker Tilly Staples Rodway, our legal advisors, Chapman Tripp, and other advisors.
Thanks to all these firms that provide valuable services to Turners. Today you'll hear presentations from me and Todd covering our business direction, the opportunities available to us, and the progress we're making on those opportunities. Following the presentations, there will be an opportunity for discussion and any questions you may have. We'll answer any questions on the resolutions at the time they're proposed, and there will be a further opportunity at the end of the meeting for you to ask any other general questions about the company and about our operations. Obviously, we're really pleased with the year we've just completed because it was another record result for the business. Our track record is showing how robust our business model is and how we're ready for the challenges that lie ahead.
I'll start by looking at how far the business has progressed over the last 10 years or so. I think both these graphs show the progress we've made and shown in periods of three years. Starting on the left, we grew the business initially by acquisition and some very strategic acquisitions to fit with our business. Then in more recent years, and this is something I don't think we get a lot of recognition for, is the organic growth we've achieved. In the most recent three-year period, we've delivered almost NZD 80 million of after-tax profits, and that's up 24% over the previous three-year period. There were no acquisitions in that time, just organic growth.
Obviously, with this sort of growth, we've been able to deliver excellent returns to our shareholders with NZD 0.57 per share, fully imputed dividends paid over the most recent three-year period. As a substantial shareholder myself, I reckon this is a good outcome, and it does paint a stark comparison to what the business was like in 2009 when I first got involved. Narrowing down the timeframe to the last three years, we've made excellent progress in a number of critical areas. Our retail momentum has really gained traction, as can be seen through our auto retail market share, and that's something Todd's gonna talk to you about later. I've just heard a whisper that it was something like 9% last month, so another record.
A high number of retail transactions enables growth in finance conversions, margins, and units sold that we own, which all leads to improvement in our overall margins. The improvements in the quality of our loan book are really obvious, as are the changes we've made to our insurance pricing and claims management. The focus on these metrics is what's driving much of the improved outcomes for shareholders, demonstrated through the earnings per share and through the dividends paid. As I mentioned, 2022 was a ripper of a year for Turners. Net profit before tax was up 15% in a year that's been impacted by Delta and Omicron. Used vehicle supply has eased up since 2021, fiscal year 2021, but overall remains below historic supply levels.
Consumer demand was better than we expected during the level three lockdowns, but it was actually worse than we expected during the Omicron outbreak. We've continued gains in margin and market share in the auto business, and our geographic and earnings diversification have yet again proven to be very valuable during pandemic lockdowns. We do try to operate the business to a very simple formula, and I've always found that simple things and not complicated things work best. The formula is, if we provide a quality environment and conditions for our people, this gives us the best chance of providing a quality experience for our customers, and this should lead to quality outcomes for you, our shareholders. I wanted to talk about each of these parts of the equation a little bit further. We do have a really, really strong people culture right across the Turners organization.
Our employee engagement results have been a priority, particularly given the wider pressure in the economy and on retention and recruitment of staff. We continue to invest in training, remuneration, and other benefits. As an example of this, we have just launched an employee share scheme actually a week or so ago. We're also really pleased to see our engagement scores so high. This is a core strength within the business. Being customer-driven is one of our core values, and the team do an excellent job on this. We've now won the most trusted brand in the used car category for the third year running, but we know there's more work to do. We've also introduced customer experience measures across all parts of the business as part of our good customer outcomes focus.
We're even, quite bravely, I think, measuring customer experience in EC Credit Control, and that's a business where we're collecting money on long overdue debts, but it is giving us valuable customer insights. The combination of this highly engaged team plus great customer experiences underpins the returns we can deliver to you and to me as shareholders. We're really proud of the improved returns we've been able to deliver for shareholders for well over eight years, with the most recent year being NZD 0.23 per share, representing a gross dividend yield of over 8%. As well as loving cars at Turners, we also love property. We've continued to build a significant property asset base. With the sites we have under development, plus new sites we've committed to, the value of the property portfolio is around NZD 100 million.
Because these properties are used within the group, we carry the assets at the development cost on our balance sheet. The unrecognized gains on this portfolio are now stood at a conservative NZD 19 million, which is just extra value for shareholders. We have a number of opportunities now in play and look forward to updating you on these when we can. Of course, in every business, there are challenges, and pandemic uncertainty has decreased, but New Zealand's economic uncertainty has increased. These challenges center largely around the health of the economy, the rapid increase in interest rates and inflation, supply chain on new cars, recruitment and retention of people, and also the regulatory environment. We understand these issues, and we've already taken actions, and we're well-placed to minimize their impact.
Our competitive advantage are what gives us confidence about our ability to stand up to these challenges. We have very high trust brands in markets that generally stand for not very much trust, and we have scale and reach that can't be matched. We have unique diversified sources of cars that are very difficult to replace. Data and technology capability has positioned us well and will continue to do so. Lastly, but definitely not least, we do have a really highly engaged team of people. Last year, we announced our first three-year target, and we're really pleased with the progress we've made against that target of NZD 45 million profit before tax, by the end of FY 2024. Now we actually think if it wasn't for lockdowns and Omicron, we would have achieved that three-year goal in one year.
Like many others, we are expecting the broad economic environment to moderate the rate of growth we've experienced over the last three years. We've updated our three-year roadmap, which now has us targeting to be above NZD 50 million of pre-tax profit in FY 2025. The main growth engine will be out of auto retail, with modest growth from finance, insurance, and credit management. Auto retail growth continues to come from retail optimization and branch expansion. We're targeting 10% market share or more, I hope. Headwinds in finance are offset by growth driven out of direct lending and improvements in distribution, and insurance growth will come from direct and digital distribution. Like last year, this gives some indication on what the growth pathway looks like, which we think is useful for shareholders.
Before I hand over to Todd, which I'll do in a second, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of our team, and that's from our board, thank you very much, and the operational teams who deliver day to day in, day out for our customers and for our shareholders. This group of people are totally committed and prepared to go above and beyond. We're really lucky to have such a talented and hardworking group of people in the business. With that, I'll hand you over to Todd.
Thank you, Grant. Good morning, everyone. Fantastic to be here in person. First time in three years, so it's great to see many familiar faces out there. Okay. Yeah, as Grant said, it's been another excellent year for the Turners business. We've achieved another year of strong growth, 15% growth in profit before tax in FY 2022. Our retail optimization strategy and branch expansion strategy is working very well, and delivering the sort of results that we expected. Our de-risking by focusing on quality borrowing and finance and insurance has positioned us well, and our investments in digital are paying off. I'm particularly pleased with the improved levels of return our loyal shareholders have been rewarded with. Dividend of NZD 0.23 per share being a record and also the earnings per share, NZD 0.364.
Just make sure I'm on the right slide here. Overall used car transaction levels continue to track well below pre-pandemic levels, and in more recent months, there has been a material drop in transaction levels. The causes of this contraction are a combination of the economy, COVID, and government regulation. The impact of each specific one is obviously difficult to know. Our website data is telling us that demand for used cars is shifting down the price point curve, and this lines up with the anecdotal feedback from our branch network in that they could sell NZD 10,000-dollar cars many, many times over, whereas the higher price stock over NZD 20,000, the demand is moderating.
My guess, that is exactly the sort of impact we would expect to see given the environment. Registered dealer numbers are at their lowest point in the last five years, so around that 3,000 level, down 14% from the peak in 2017. There is a very close correlation between the fortunes of the used import market and those dealer numbers, and we're expecting dealer numbers to continue to track down further due to challenges in supply and the impact of government regulation. Just a couple of slides now on the business divisions. Our auto retail division has continued the momentum they finished the year with. Market share has continued to improve with sales volumes increasing year-on-year. As a result, our market share is tracking up very, very nicely.
As Grant just touched on our most recent month, we were right on 9%, which is a great result. The focus to source a much larger proportion of our vehicles locally has paid off, and we are seeing elevated levels of consignment vehicles, particularly from our lease customers coming through the business. We've seen some softening in margins as demand has dropped away due to the economy and COVID. Our focus is very much on a continuation of our wholesale to retail transition. We still sell around 35%-40% of our cars down the auction channel, so down that wholesale auction channel. For every one of those sales that we can move into the retail channel, we make roughly another NZD 1 thousand in transaction margin to the business.
You can see why we are so focused on keeping that shift going from wholesale to retail. Our branch expansion plans are going really well, and I'll just update you in a moment on Rotorua and Nelson. I certainly feel like our sort of supermarket approach to used cars is working very, very well. Rotorua team have now moved into our redeveloped building. That's the photo of the building on the right-hand side there and the concept on the left. About two weeks later than we'd planned. Pretty good outcome in terms of developments. We've been operating on half the site while that development has been going on, so quite a good situation in that we've been able to continue business while that development has been going on.
Obviously, it's impacted the customer experience and the kind of profile that we've had. You can see now we've moved into the left-hand side, so we were operating on the right-hand side. The whole team was operating out of a little Lockwood at the back of that right-hand side, you can see there. They're very happy to be moving into the brand-new building, which is great. We've sold over 500 cars in the first six months of operating there. You know, we expect that business to really take off now that we're operating on the full site. Nelson is looking fantastic and pleased to report that we were able to open there, sort of a soft launch opening, just two weeks ago.
We're about two months ahead of where we'd actually budgeted for that branch to be open and contributing to the business. Really pleased to have that open and really pleased with the initial results that we've got over the last week or so, and really excited about just the opening in Nelson in another new territory, and we think that operation has enormous potential. Just a couple more photos. You can see we haven't quite filled up the yard yet, but you know, getting close to. Some great branding, as you can see. The blue is very, very recognizable now. I think we've certainly kind of refined our approach here, and it's only getting better and better.
You know, just a shot from the other direction. We have a Harvey Norman store right beside us, sort of to the left-hand side. There is a lot of retail traffic being generated into that area. Okay, moving on to finance. Our book is in excellent shape. Our risk pricing model and focus on premium borrowers has been, you know, I think very successful over the last three years, and I'm certainly pleased to be going into the environment that we're heading into, having done the hard work of the last three years. That structural change and the quality of that loan book has been a very, very good move for us. Our focus remains on our highly efficient credit decisioning process.
We're very focused around giving the originators that direct business to us a quick credit decision because that's how we gain market share and improving our loan application conversion. We're continuing to grow the loan book. However, I mean, it's fair to say growth has definitely moderated, both as a result of our pricing strategy and just because of that contraction in the wider used car market. Premium borrower lending accounts for well over 50% of our monthly lending and arrears are continuing to track down at historically low levels. You can see the impact on that right-hand graph of the premium borrower business and just how that's reflecting in the average credit score.
The higher that credit score, the better the quality of the borrower. The business is also still retaining a COVID-19 arrears provision buffer to allow for any degradation in the unemployment stats. In insurance, we're seeing improving returns year on year through less consumers driving their cars and higher investment returns out of our insurance reserves. Both the work from home dynamic and the cost of fuel mean people are definitely driving their vehicles less, which means we're seeing less mechanical breakdown repair claims being lodged. Some of that reduction has been offset by the impacts of inflation, both in parts and labor rates. As we move into higher interest rate environment, obviously the returns on our cash reserves are improving.
Really pleased to say that our digital distribution arrangements, so this is where our core insurance systems are embedded into the selling systems of the likes of Marac Finance and MTF, are working very, very well, and we've got a really good pipeline of opportunities, filling up in that space. The credit management business continues to have lower debt load levels due to the historically low consumer arrears and corporates working back into recovery action post-pandemic. Debt load in FY 2022 was down significantly, down 54% on pre-pandemic levels, and debt collected was down 35%. We've done a better job of collecting the debt that we have loaded, but we've just had less to work with.
As expected, with things getting tougher in the economy, we are seeing debt load levels starting to increase, and there are continued positive signs in the debt recovery rates due to our sort of new collection strategy, which is very much focused around providing a resolution to the customers and clients that we deal with rather than a consequence approach. Our payment arrangement commitments are being met more often under this new resolution collection strategy. With the economic environment expected to deteriorate further, we're expecting debt load levels to increase as a result. It's a nice hedge in the business. Just a few comments about the New Zealand vehicle fleet transition now.
As the largest reseller of both used and end-of-life vehicles in New Zealand, we believe we have an important role and responsibility to support and accelerate the transition of the New Zealand vehicle fleet to a cleaner and lower-emitting future. This transition will take place progressively over a period of time, probably, I think, in all honesty, it's gonna take much longer than probably the commentators would lead you to believe. It will likely consist of a number of elements, including the accelerated uptake of new and used low-emitting vehicles, the retirement and replacement of the older higher-emitting vehicles out of the fleet, so out of the scrapping end, improved availability and adoption of public transport, and the introduction of other new technologies.
I mean, as you can see from the graph here, we are seeing hybrid and EV sales increasing, particularly as more corporate and government fleets transition and those used units start flowing into the used pool. We have also seeded a number of EVs and hybrids into our Turners Subscription fleet. Which leads me on nicely to Turners Subscription. Turners Subscription is an offering that we've launched, which provides a very flexible way of accessing the exclusive use of a vehicle on a rolling 30-day cycle. I think the way people need to think about this is either as a long-term rental or a very flexible sort of short-term lease. The subscriber pays for their subscription and the fuel that goes in the car, whether that's electricity or diesel or petrol, and that's it.
We pay all of the running costs on that vehicle, the insurance, the registration, the warrant of fitness, any of the servicing, is all paid for by Turners as part of that subscription. We now have over 160 vehicles out concurrently at the moment on subscription as of today. There's very high demand for our EV and hybrid stock out of that fleet. I think particularly with EVs, subscription just provide a very flexible and low-cost way of being able to try those cars and whether they suit someone's lifestyle before they might go ahead and purchase it outright. We're really pleased with the progress and the traction that we're getting with this alternative to outright vehicle ownership.
I think it's a really good example of the way we think sort of innovatively about this business, and particularly the role that subscription is playing in helping customers experience low-emitting vehicles. All right. The bit that everyone sort of looks forward to, looking forward. Yeah, I mean, one of the most attractive aspects of this used car market is that it is a needs-based purchase. Certainly historically, it's shown, you know, more resilience and has been less affected by the changing economic conditions. That graph there on the right-hand side just shows you the annual movements percentage-wise between the new car market and the used car market.
Typically, that used car market just operates in bands of kind of ±10%. The numbers you need to think about here is that there are roughly 1 million used cars change of ownerships every year in New Zealand. It is a very big market with lots of transactions. The other thing I like to remind people about is the significant cohort of very old vehicles in New Zealand. The average age of a vehicle fleet in New Zealand is 14.5 years, but around 20% of the New Zealand vehicle fleet, so nearly or over 800,000 cars are more than 20 years old. The average age of a vehicle scrapped in New Zealand is less than that.
We have this big cohort of very old cars in New Zealand that are effectively at the end of their useful life. That gives us the confidence about the demand kind of in the medium term. There will always be kind of movements up and down, with things going on in the broader economy, but fundamentally, there are a lot of cars in New Zealand that need to be replaced in the near term. Our brands, our network, our diversified business position, this company very well, and particularly as we head into an economic environment that will offer up different challenges and opportunities.
We really feel the business has been significantly de-risked, and the work we've done on the local sourcing of vehicles, building the quality into that finance book, adding distribution into insurance, the natural hedge that we've got in the credit management business means the business is positioned to withstand and potentially, I think, take advantage of some of these changing conditions. As Grant outlined earlier, despite the sort of economic headwinds, we're still confident of growth. The main growth engine will be out of auto retail and a little bit of growth from each of finance, insurance, and credit management. Auto retail growth continues to come from retail optimization and branch expansion, and we do have that 10% market share goal in our sights. Our expanding auto retail business obviously has a positive halo effect on our finance and insurance business.
The more retail cars that we sell out of the Turners Cars business, the more finance and insurance we get from those sales. There are some headwinds in finance, particularly around the interest rate environment, and that will be offset by growth driven out of our direct lending and improvements in distribution. Our insurance growth will come from direct and digital distribution. I think like last year, it was the first time we communicated a three-year goal. I think this really does give a strong indication of our confidence around the business, but also the growth pathway looking forward, which we think is useful for shareholders. Probably the bit that everyone's been waiting for is a few comments about how the business has been trading in the first part of this financial year.
In auto, sales have been, I would say, very strong. Margins have moderated, and we're seeing demand shifting to that lower price end of the market. Obviously, we expect further upside in the auto business from the opening of the Rotorua and Nelson branches coming on stream. In finance, we're seeing lower lending volumes as particularly our pricing strategy takes effect, and the lending market in general is just contracting, but arrears are holding, and our net interest margin has compressed as a result, but that was entirely expected. The benevolent claims environment in insurance is persisting and combined with payback from strategic initiatives, insurance returns are improving. In credit, the debt load and associated commission are expected to increase through the year.
I mean, there have been some challenges for us through the Omicron period, and particularly with people being sick and out of work, and I think it also has definitely affected our customer base. We are very pleased to report that after Q1, our underlying profit performance is in line with last year. I feel this business is in the best shape it has ever been in. We have a very robust business with a sustainable dividend yield. The used car market is mostly needs-based, lots of market resilience in that segment, and as I said before, 20% of that vehicle fleet being 20 years or older gives us real confidence about the demand in that market. Our business model is based on vehicle churn. We are neutral about what powers the vehicle.
However, Turners do have a role to play in helping the vehicle fleet transition to different types of low-emission vehicles. We are agnostic about whether the car is petrol, diesel, EV, hybrid, or hydrogen, as it may be in the future. We're very conscious of the clear New Zealand and global economic challenges over the next 12-24 months. We're aware of those challenges, and we have plans to mitigate them, but believe there are still opportunities for the strong to get stronger. Our FY 2025 updated target is the new NZD 50 million underlying net profit before tax. That projection would have been higher if it weren't for the economic kind of conditions that we were heading into. That's a wrap from me, so I'll now hand back to Grant for more discussion in relation to either the annual report or today's presentations.
Thanks, Todd. All right, time for questions. Regarding the resolutions, there will be ability to ask questions about those as they're put to the shareholders to vote. If you have a question now, folks, please feel free to direct it to me or anyone else on the table up here. It's about the annual results or the presentation today.
Hi. You said that the number of registered motor dealers is decreasing. I'm guessing they're selling the stock. Are you guys in a position to pick up some stock at a discount and to help you with this?
Yeah, we are definitely getting presented opportunities.
We are definitely getting opportunities to buy that stock, or certainly there's a number of yards out there who are looking to clear older stock. I think it's fair to say we're very conscious about where in the price point kind of spectrum the demand is, so we are pretty selective about those opportunities. But I think more broadly, you know, clearly in the auto business that if the number of dealers is reducing, that is a good thing for this business. I do think in times of uncertainty, consumers tend to go back to brands that they know, that they trust, that are, you know, large and have scale. You know, I think we are absolutely seeing that at the moment where our market share just continues to rise.
Have you considered, or have you been tempted to consider to give some assistance to one of our competitors who's in great turmoil at the moment?
Thanks very much. No. Short answer. No, I mean, we have discussed that, and we wouldn't see any advantage to us in doing that.
Sorry, I heard you talking about the COVID buffer as well. Is that money that's just sitting there in cash, set aside, or how is that working? 'Cause I know with some of the other companies, they've basically put that money to one side and are just leaving it there in case they have problems that they have to cover cash-wise. How does your buffer work, and how much is it, out of interest?
Sounds like a good question. Aaron, do you want to take it?
Yeah, sure. Yeah. That buffer is a provision. That buffer is a provision buffer in Oxford Finance. It essentially means we've got cover for losses for people who experience difficulty through, you know, COVID impacts, whether that's loss of employment or health issues. At the moment, we haven't used much of that buffer. We've got NZD 1.4 million sitting on the balance sheet as kind of a rainy day fund. It's not in cash, but it essentially will support profits in the event that, you know, there's a massive long COVID problem for some of our borrowers. Yeah. Essentially, we feel that's a very kind of conservative position, similar to what, you know, other people in our industry have taken, the likes of Harmoney, their parent company, Heartland.
That's very reassuring.
Anthony's just pointed out there's also a small claims buffer in DPL Insurance for similar reasons.
My name is Michael Connor. I'm a shareholder. Can you just give me a flavor for how the industrial-type thing works? I think we understand how the general car stuff works, but and like, is that like a big growth area or, in fact, is it an area at all that no one's ever tackled and now you guys seem to be amalgamating that? Can you just give me an idea of how that works?
Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. So there's kind of two components to our industrial business. There's a trucks and machinery part to it, and then the other part is the damaged and end of life vehicle business. The damaged and end of life vehicle is where we sell accident damaged and written off cars on behalf of the insurance companies. It's a big business for us. We're selling over 20,000 of those vehicles a year, and that has been a good growth business for us. There are more cars or more vehicles that the insurance companies in particular are writing off because they're just uneconomic to repair, particularly with the kind of costs of parts and labor and things. There's been more units being sold through that business.
In the trucks and machinery business, about, probably eight years ago, we kinda made the decision to try and replicate the cars model with trucks and machinery. We now have dedicated sites throughout the country. It's much more of a consignment business than, say, the cars business. In the cars business, we would own 50%-60% of the stock that we sell. We, you know, we take a risk position in that inventory and consequently make a bit more margin. The trucks and machinery business is, you know, we're selling for the big kinda contractors and transport companies and organizations like Downer and Fulton Hogan. Yeah, it's a growth business for us, albeit I would say supply is pretty difficult to get hold of at the moment.
Just the same kind of challenges exist in that truck and machinery market that have existed in the new car market around supply chain. Yeah, we've been over the last sort of four-five years, creating a brand identity for that Turners Trucks and Machinery business. Specific sites to run that Trucks and Machinery business off, investing in people. It's going well.
Are we profitable in that division?
Yeah, absolutely.
It is going well and is profitable.
Yep.
All right. No one else? Okay. I'd now like to move to the resolutions before the meeting. 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. Staples Rodway, the company's auditors, will act as scrutineers. Please use the voting paper you received in the mail or were given when you registered for this meeting. If you do not have a voting paper, you'll be able to request one from one of the scrutineers when the voting takes place. Only shareholders, proxy holders or corporate representatives of a shareholder may vote on the resolutions today. The first resolution is to record the reappointment of Staples Rodway as auditors of the company and authorize the directors to fix the auditors' remuneration.
Are there any matters for discretion or questions from the floor on the auditors? Okay. Well, I'd like to move this motion. Could I have a seconder, please? Thank you. Resolutions 2 and 3. The next 2 resolutions are in regard to director reelections. We believe that having directors with relevant industry, commercial and governance skills is essential for the continuing success of the Turners Group. Diversity in thought, in particular, and broader commercial acumen are also taken into consideration by the board when reviewing board positions. We currently have directors with hands-on experience in the finance, insurance, debt management sectors, as well as directors with expertise in governance and very diverse experience in entrepreneurial skills and sales, marketing and business growth. Resolution 2 is for my reelection.
You've already heard from me quite a bit today, so I won't stand here and talk about myself, but I am very passionate about the business. I do put myself forward for reelection as a director, and I'll ask John Roberts to take over the meeting for this portion. Thanks, John.
Good morning. Thank you, Grant. As most of you know, Grant has been a director and chairman of the Turners Automotive Group Limited since September 2009. As businessmen go, Grant is probably at the more, what we'd call unconventional end of the spectrum. He was co-founder of The Business Bakery, has a number of successes under his belt, including the 42 Below Vodka venture and Trilogy International, which recently sold to Chinese CITIC Group, among a number of other ventures he's been involved with. With a 7.49% shareholding, Grant is a long-term committed investor in Turners Automotive Group. He's also an avid collector of specialist cars, vehicles, and a motor racing enthusiast, both as a competitor and as a backer of young up-and-coming drivers.
He's very passionate about the strong Turners brand and its focus on cars. In fact, Grant and I were both part of the working group in management that repositioned the brand and developed the Tina from Turners campaign, which I think you'll all agree has been an outstanding success for the group. He's had very wide experience at a senior level in both public and private New Zealand companies and has been chairman of the Turners Automotive Group since September of 2009. In terms of the listing rules, the board considers that Grant is a non-executive director but is not independent. Are there any questions from the floor on this resolution? All right, I would like to move this motion. Do I have a seconder? Thank you very much. Thank you for that.
I'll now pass back to you, Grant.
Thanks, John. The next resolution is in relation to the reelection of Alistair Petrie, who retires by rotation and has offered himself for reelection. Alistair's been a director of Turners since February 2016 and has over 15 years of senior management experience in both private and listed companies in the agribusiness sector. He has extensive knowledge in sales and marketing in both international and domestic environments, which is particularly useful for some of the challenges and opportunities Turners has in importing vehicles from Japan. Alistair has a number of directorships with companies that have a focus on growth and innovation, and he represents the interests of Bartel Holdings, which has an 11.48% shareholding in Turners Automotive Group.
He worked for many years at Turners and Growers, which was the original parent company of Turners Auctions, which provides a nice connection at board level back to those foundational brand values of trust and integrity. The board considers that Alistair Petrie is a Non-Executive Director but is not independent. I'll now ask Alistair Petrie to say a few words in support of his reelection.
Yes, thank you, Grant. As mentioned, I have been a director since 2016 and represent Bartel Holdings, and they have a cornerstone shareholding, actually since 1990, so that's 30 coming up 32 years, which was part of that original Turners and Growers group. Bartel have been very supportive in the growth and the many value-accretive actions that they've taken it from a very small sort of second-hand auction business to the significant multi-revenue stream business that it is today. I am a director, both current and past, of a number of companies, and actually mainly in the food and distribution sectors. They all share the same objective of growth and innovation, leading to an improvement in shareholder value, and I believe I bring this mindset to Turners and Weatherproof.
I'm active board member on the Lending and Credit Committee, along with Matt and John, and supporting Guy and his excellent team. We're really proud of the progress that has been made in improving the quality of the lending book and positive impact this has had on the overall risk profile of the group. I do have extensive management experience in leading large teams, and I believe this, along with some fresh thinking, is a skill that complements the current board. Very supportive of the management team under Todd and the strategic direction that the previous speakers have outlined, and excited about the growth and opportunities that we have ahead. I look forward to working with the board and management team to deliver this for all shareholders. I look forward to your continued support in voting for my reappointment. Thank you. Any questions? No. Right.
I would like to move this motion. Do I have a seconder? Thank you. A lot of enthusiastic seconders out here. Regarding voting, many shareholders who are not attending this meeting have voted by proxy. I wish to advise that proxies have been received for 10,686,217 shares, being 12.34% of the total shares on issue. Please complete your voting paper by ticking for, against, or abstain in the appropriate place on the form and ensure you've signed the form. Please do not tick the discretion box. If you have difficulty or do not have a voting paper, please raise your hand and someone will assist you. Once everyone's finished voting, scrutineers will collect the voting papers.
We'll just have a pause for people to do that for a couple of minutes.