Hi, I'm Tina from Turner's.
You know
what I love? Cars. Just kidding. I really love all our Turner's shareholders. Tall ones, fat ones, skinny ones, even the crazy little nana ones.
I love you all. And I'm so glad that the last year has been a win, especially with mad COVID trying to come and wreck everything. I especially love all the shareholders who've gone out of their way to make sure that their friends and family buy and sell their cars through Turner's because then your friends become our friends and then everyone's shares go up. It's a win win situation with an extra win on the end because then we get to open some Turner's branches all over New Zealand and I get to meet more people and see more cars,
which is amazing.
So thanks for coming along today to have a cup of tea and listen to Todd and Grant talk about whatever, Todd and Grant are going to talk about. I hope something interesting and special happens to you this week. Because as my auntie says, when your friends are happy, then you're happy because friends are like dogs.
Well, that's a bit of a hard act to follow, but I'll do my best. Welcome, everyone, and thanks for joining us at the 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Turner's Automotive Group. My name is Grant Bacon, and I'm the Chairman of Turner's. The notice of meeting and 2021 annual report and financial statements have been circulated and made available to shareholders. As you can see, today's meeting is being held online via the Computershare online meeting platform.
This allows shareholders, proxies and guests to attend the meeting virtually. All attendees can watch a live webcast of the meeting and read the company documents associated with the meeting. In addition, shareholders and proxies have the ability to ask questions and submit votes. I'd like to introduce my fellow directors. So Paul Burns, our Deputy Chair Matt Harrison, Al Petrie, John Roberts, Anthony Bryans and also Martin Berry.
Now obviously, we're all streaming in from different locations, but Martin is the furthest away in Singapore, but he is participating fully in the meeting today. Also online with us are Todd Hunter, our Group's CEO and Aaron Saunders, the company's Group CFO. There's also a number of senior managers and staff online today, so welcome to all of you. And also in attendance are the company's auditors, Staples Rodway, as well as our legal advisors, Chapman Tripp and other advisors. So thanks to all these firms that provide valuable services to Ternus.
Now obviously, we were looking forward to the opportunity to meet shareholders in person and to share our plans and our enthusiasm for the future of the business. However, like many situations we faced in the last 18 months, we've had to adapt And this meeting having to be postponed from August and shifted online is yet another reflection of that. If you do have a question to submit during the live meeting, please select the Q and A tab on the right half of your screen anytime. You can type your question into the field and press send, and your question will be submitted immediately. If you need any assistance, you can type your query and 1 of the Computershare team will assist with the chat function and reply to your query.
Alternatively, you can call Computershare on 800, 650,034. So that's 800, 650,034. Please note that while you can submit these questions from now on, I won't be addressing them until the relevant time in the meeting. Please also note that your questions may be moderated or if we receive multiple questions on one topic, they'll be amalgamated together. Finally, due to time constraints, we may have run out of time to answer all your questions.
If this does happen, we'll answer them in due course via e mail. Accordingly, I encourage you to get in early to ensure your questions get answered at the end. Voting today will be conducted by a way of poll on all business items. In order to provide you with enough time to vote, I'll shortly open the voting for all resolutions. At that time, if you're eligible to vote at this meeting, you'll be able to cast your vote under the vote tab.
Once the voting is opened, the resolutions will allow votes to be submitted. To vote, simply select your voting direction from the options shown on the screen. You can vote for all resolutions at once or by each resolution. Your vote's been cast when the tick appears. If you do want to change your vote, simply click on the Change Your Vote icon.
You have the ability to change your vote right up until the end until the time I declare the meeting closed. I'm now to clear voting open on all items of businesses. The resolutions will be open in the vote tab. Please submit your vote at any time, and I'll give you a warning before I move to close the voting. Today, you'll hear from me first and then an update from Todd.
Then we'll deal with the resolutions where voting will be conducted by way of poll on all business items. Following the presentations, there will be an opportunity for discussion and any questions you may have. We'll answer 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 our operations. So to start, let me give you some comments on the year just gone and how we're positioned as a company. Obviously, 2020 was a pretty strange year, a year like no other, but I couldn't be more pleased about the shape the business is in, the trajectory we're on and the future for the Ternus business.
Reflecting on the last 12 months, our teams responded incredibly well with the pandemic challenges presented throughout the year. Their high levels of engagement combined with the diversified nature of the business ensured we were well positioned as we moved out of the lockdown. We've continued to focus on building our digital capability, optimizing our retail network and customer experience and continue to grow high quality lending. Our growth plans are being realized and the work we've been doing over the last 3 years is now getting some serious traction. Quality, growth and yield are the key themes I wanted to drill into a little with you today.
So let's start with quality. As a group, we've continued to focus on quality. We know the great trusted brands we have in our stable. Quality customer experiences are leading to improvement in earnings, quality and consistency. We continue to extend our competitive advantage through digital initiatives, and we know that improving the quality of the work environment for our people will be critical in helping deliver quality experiences for our customers and of course, returns for our shareholders.
We do have some serious momentum in the business. We already had signs of a step change in late FY 'twenty, but the March 2020 lockdown put a temporary halt on this, but the halt didn't last very long. We achieved a step change in performance over FY 'twenty one with a 19% uplift in underlying profits. In prior to lockdown in mid August, year to date FY22 has seen monthly operating results tracking comfortably ahead of run rate profit levels in the second half of FY 2021. Given the lift in 4 months in the 1st 4 months of this year, we were well on track to achieving at least 15% uplift in profits through FY 'twenty two.
However, our short term performance has been impacted by the level and duration of COVID-nineteen restrictions on trading. However, it is good to see our branches outside of Auckland now returning to Level 2 restrictions and we're really hopeful we'll see Auckland move down levels in the next couple of weeks. Our geographic diversification is very helpful at the moment as it was in previous Auckland centric lockdowns. What I do want to be clear about is that this latest lockdown doesn't change our medium term view on the prospects for turners. At the annual results announcement in May, we put out a market for our 3 year growth plans.
We aim to deliver a further 31% growth in underlying profits to $45,000,000 profit before tax in FY 'twenty four. If anything, we feel even more confident on this medium term target now given how the business performed heading into the lockdown. Our performance and sustainability of profits is being reflected in our growing dividend stream. We declared a final dividend of $0.06 a share, slightly above our published guidance, which resulted in a record payout for shareholders in FY 'twenty one of $0.20 a share. We do intend to maintain our current dividend policy, that's 60% to 70% of net profit after tax in the year ahead, and that's just to ensure the business is being supported in funding its growth opportunities.
Based on last year's dividend of $0.20 a share and a share price of $4.50 this produces an attractive gross yield of 6.2%. I think this is a major attraction for shareholders and as a shareholder, it's definitely an attraction for me. I thought it might be useful for other shareholders and prospective shareholders to understand why I personally believe in the company so much. I recently increased my holding in Ternus and now own over 7%, I think about 7.5% in the shares on this year. I actually really enjoy the business and being involved in it and I plan to be a long term shareholder.
I really love the yield we're generating through dividends and also like that we get the dividends quarterly. There There's also a significant growth opportunity across all our businesses, but particularly within auto retail and the finance business. With the growth we've experienced in finance and insurance, our earnings consistency has really improved over the last couple of years. We're also creating some significant value in our property portfolio, which currently sits off balance sheet. Now Todd's going to go into this further later on, but we conservatively have another $14,000,000 in unrealized property gains and more to come as we make further property investments.
I think the business is extremely well run. The culture is really positive and at all levels of the organization, we see committed and engaged people. I know that's something Todd focuses on right across the business. The business is also well positioned from a competitive perspective and our strategic focus is designed to make these advantages grow bigger. Also, our brand strength is a massive asset.
Ternus stands for trust in a market that is known for mistrust. We're the biggest buyer and seller cars in New Zealand. Our network reach is unrivaled, which gives us economies of scale and an ability to be closer to our customers. Our business is diversified in terms of earnings, geography and for vehicle sourcing. We've also made significant investment to ensure we have agility within our finance and insurance systems.
This means we can react and take advantage of opportunities quicker than our competitors. And we're also going to continue to invest heavily in digital. Plus, we're a big player in a highly fragmented market, which means I believe we have the means to do things others can't, particularly in the data and digital space. It's important to reflect and remind ourselves what's happened with the previous lockdowns over the last 18 months. We've built a really resilient business group that's robust even in the most difficult market conditions.
We also know that once these restrictions ease up, customers return to normal really quickly. We also know the new car market is resilient with around a quarter of the cars in New Zealand turning over each year and hundreds of thousands of cars needing to be replaced in the coming years. Our business has geographical resilience, no more highlighted than the exact situation we find ourselves in today. And also, our high level of annuity earnings help mitigate some of the short term interruptions in vehicle sales due to COVID level restrictions. This reduces risk and also provides stability in terms of earnings and dividends.
Our HITRUST brands resonate with customers, particularly in times of uncertainty. Digital investment will continue to be a competitive advantage, and we know there's lots more we can do in the future to drive that advantage home. Lastly, we have a very strong balance sheet and the business is very well funded and well supported by our bankers, ASB and BMZ. We reached an inflection point a bit way through FY 2020 and since then we've seen a step change in the business. The key strategic investment initiatives and changes that have been completed over the last 3 years are delivering.
We're really happy with the momentum and the plan and feel confident there's a lot more to come. Todd shared the FY 'twenty four plan at the annual results presentation in May. We felt it was important to give some insight to shareholders on how we're thinking about the growth trajectory internally and which divisions of the growth would come from. Based on our plans and the results we're seeing, we're very confident that in less than 3 years, we'll see profit before tax of $45,000,000 a dividend payout of around $0.24 per share based on the current dividend policy. The team are very focused and driven around achieving this goal.
Of course, I do have aspirational goals of my own, which I've said a little bit higher than that. I recall about 5 years ago, I went to a management meeting and one of the guys asked me what my goals were for the company. I'm pretty ambitious person by nature. So my reply was I want 3 things starting with the 5. The first one was a $5 share price.
The second one was $50,000,000 before tax, profit before tax and for us to break into the NZX-fifty. Now obviously, we're not there yet, but we're pushing really hard and I think those are really achievable goals. In closing, I thank you, shareholders, for your ongoing support and interest in the company. We're well advanced in growing a high quality business with reliable and diversified earnings capable of success throughout the cycle. We're confident in our growth plans and are already seeing significant traction from the investments and initiatives we've put in place.
Our improving business performance will enable us to continue to deliver a growing and sustainable yield to shareholders. Now, in mind, we're going to hand over to Tyler to review operations strategy for each business unit in more detail. But we do have another ad from Tina.
Hi. I'm Tina from Turner's. And you know what I love? Cars, Big ones. The tiny ones.
Uncomfortable ones. I love them all. Not that one. It is a bit sad when they leave. But it's pretty cool when new ones turn up out of the blue.
If you're keen to sell your car? Book in online. Drive on over. We tell you what it's worth. And boom, money in the bank.
You might even find something you like. Like that crazy thing?
So over to you, Todd.
Thank you, Grant. May I start just by thanking the Board and all the directors on behalf of the Turner's Auto Group team for their support and guidance through the last 12 months. And on behalf of the wider Turner's team, thank you to each of you, our shareholders for being with us online today and for continuing to show interest and care about the company. We are delighted by the loyalty of our investor base and we will continue to strive to reward that loyalty with improving outcomes, including dividends. Today, I'm just going to spend a small amount of time looking back on the FY 2020 year and give you a quick overview of the car market in New Zealand, following up with a few comments on how each of the business units is going so far in FY 'twenty two, including the impact of the current lockdown.
I'll then finish up with a discussion on our 3 year roadmap and how we're tracking towards that. Looking back quickly at the FY 2021 results, we announced this to the market back in May, so I won't dwell on the historic outcomes. Suffice to say, we had a step change in our business performance in FY 2021. This included a 19% increase in underlying profit before tax. This is a result of many of the changes that we've made over the last 2 to 3 years that are now really starting to get traction.
Although a disrupted operating period saw FY 'twenty one really down, with the lockdowns, a strong response from the business, including acceleration of our digital strategy and rigorous cost management saw 3 of the 4 segments lift profit strongly. Only credit management was down on last year's result and it was because of an unusual situation where a number of our corporate and bank customers were reluctant to pursue debt aggressively over the COVID-nineteen period. Demonstrating the benefits of the group's diversified annuity businesses, profit rose 50% in insurance, 30% in finance and 11% in auto retail. And all of this helped contribute to the strong and sustainable yield that we're able to deliver to shareholders. I think our team has responded incredibly well to the challenges brought on by the pandemic.
I'm very proud of the high levels of engagement combined with the diversified nature of the business has really ensured we're well positioned to navigate the various national and regional lockdowns. As a group, we've continued to build quality customer experiences. We're improving the quality of our work environment for our people, which in turn we think will deliver the quality returns for you, our shareholders. Our growth plans are working and our confidence in our longer term plan is only growing. And pleasingly, pre the lockdown, FY 'twenty two has started very positively and we have continued to see another step change in business performance.
A few comments now about the used car market in New Zealand. And firstly, in regard to the short term, we now have the August market transaction numbers. And as expected, there has been a short term impact on those numbers from the lockdown. So compared to July, it looks like sales are about a third down on July with the second half of the of August being significantly impacted. However, last year's experience will tell us we can also expect a bounce back in transaction levels once normal operating conditions return.
It's still too early to have a firm view on how this halt followed by acceleration will have on our business. However, we are more confident than we were during the 1st lockdown on how this will play out. And we'll update you further when we announce our half year results in November. Secondly, on the medium term, as many of you will have read about or possibly experienced firsthand, there are significant delays being experienced in the supply of new cars. And this is mostly due to the unusually high demand for microchips.
And based on our conversations with new car manufacturers, we now expect this shortage to continue to impact the market for at least another couple of years. Because less new cars are being sold internationally, vehicles are difficult to buy in Japan, which means there are less used imports coming into New Zealand. And just a reminder, we are much less exposed to the shortage than most of our competitors with less than 10% of our vehicles coming from overseas. This overall reduction in supply has led to used car prices increasing over the last 12 months. Now estimation is probably in that sort of 10% to 15% range.
Price rises are more pronounced than specific makes and models such as Utes. And incidentally, we've certainly observed the impact of the construction boom through those Ute prices. With more regulation now coming into effect from the government, we would expect used car prices to hold at this level or potentially increase even further. Also, the difficulty in sourcing stock means around 10% of registered dealers have left the market over the last 2 years. Finally, to give you a sense on volume, at the end of August, year to date used car transactions are tracking around 10% below the same period in 2019.
If you go back to July, the drop would be about 3%. So let's move on to the business units. In auto retail, our strategy of focusing on the purchasing capability of our business, optimizing our network of sites and enhancing our digital presence is really delivering us gains in both market share and margin. As we've talked about a lot previously, auto retail also drives synergies amongst our other business units. So each month, we are lending more of Oxford's money to Tuna's customers and our new Tuna's brand campaign is attracting new buyers and sellers to the business.
Our customer data platform is complete and we now have over 500,000 contact points for customers. And this is leading to much more relevant and timely communications with customers and is ultimately helping us drive our conversion numbers up in both buying cars and selling cars. We feel we have the winning formula for market share and margin growth in the auto retail business. If we source vehicles smartly, provide quality digital and physical networks, this will deliver great experiences and outcomes for our customers. We continue to be very focused on improving our sourcing.
We source over 90% of our vehicles locally, which means we don't have the exposure to the volatility in the Japanese used car supply chain. The initiatives we have put in place using data, extensive training and the use of diagnostic tools means our purchasing is improving. We are investing in both our physical network and our digital network. It's not an either or situation. So firstly, on our physical network, we're already seeing significant benefit from exiting the large wholesale option site in Penrose in Auckland and moving into smaller retail optimized sites like the site in Westgate.
The 2 property projects we have underway at the moment are Rotorua and Nelson. So Rotorua is now in our position and we're on track for our phased opening as we redevelop and turnarize the main building on-site. Our Phase 1 opening will be in the next couple of weeks. We've had a slight delay obviously with the COVID restrictions with the full site redevelopment to happen over the next 6 to 9 months. We've used this phased playbook before and it allows us to realize contribution from the site more rapidly, while steadily building momentum over a 12 month period.
And this is the concept drawing of what it will look like. So as you can see, we're quite partial to the color blue and it will be quite a transformation from the white kind of building you see on the slide here into the Tunis Blue Building you can see here. The Nelson site development also remains on track. You can see a photo there of part of the old laundry that was on the site there being demolished. So that work is now completed.
Our design and consents are being finalized at the moment and we expect that branch to be operating in Q1 of FY2023. And that is just a quick look at what the main building will look like on-site in the configuration of the site you can see here. Grant touched on the property opportunity in this business and we now own 9 sites across our network of 27 auto retail branches. And one thing we haven't talked a lot about till now is the unrealized gains that we're accruing on this property portfolio. These are all held on balance sheet at cost and even with some very conservative valuations, we have around $14,000,000 in unrealized gains so far.
We're always working on our funnel of property opportunities and we have another 3 property deals in the pipeline at the moment. They haven't concluded, but are well advanced. And these either relate to new sites in new locations or larger sites in existing locations. And we look forward to updating you on that progress in due course. So moving on to our digital networks now, I'm really pleased with the progress we've made and the traction we're getting with customers, which is driving better business outcomes for us.
We now have in place the leading omni channel experience for buying and selling cars in New Zealand. And this means customers can choose how and where they want to purchase, whether that's in person at one of our branches or buying a car completely online from Wodego. Once they do come into a branch, we already have their data and are able to really customize and speed up the whole buying experience. We've had over 13,500 test drives booked online in the 1st 6 months of 2021 and over 300,000 vehicles say to customer watch lists. So more and more of our customers' journeys are being enhanced by our digital platform.
As you
can see on this slide, we have an enormous amount of data in the Turner's Auto Group ecosystem. This includes the largest transaction data set for car sales in New Zealand. Whether that is vehicle related data from diagnostic scanning, the number of cars we value each year or over 1,500,000 vehicle images we take annually, we are building up enormous pools of data that will enable us to keep sharpening up our vehicle purchasing decisions. Every day, we also have material numbers of digital interactions through all parts of the customer journey, and we are getting great feedback on what works and what doesn't work. Overall, digital is becoming what I'd call an intrinsic part of how we operate.
But the key for market leading digital platforms is not to rest on your laurels. And that's why we're increasing our investment into digital every year. Strategically, we see digital as one of our most important competitive advantages and we continue to double down on our investments knowing that our competitors cannot and simply are not taking place. We launched our Tuners subscription offering in October last year. This is an alternative to owning a car outright.
Customers pay us a monthly subscription for exclusive access to the car. And this includes insurance, registration, warranty fitness, servicing, etcetera. The customer only needs to pay the subscription fee and of course, when they fuel up at the service station or at the PowerPoint in the case of an EV. So we currently have around 80 vehicles out on subscription of which around 40% of these vehicles are EVs. We think there is a nice fit with EVs and the subscription offering.
And subscription provides a low risk and low cost way for customers to try before you buy. Also many of the older lower drive range EVs can be priced at a level that makes EVs a lot more accessible to a lot more people. We're looking to increase our EV fleet within subscription as we do see a role for tuners to assist in getting more Kiwis behind the wheel of an EV. Accordingly, the subscription model is the key pillar for the environmental part of our ESG strategy. Just moving on to our finance business.
Finance continues to perform exceptionally well and is our most improved business over the last 3 years. New lending is growing off the back of our market share wins. Arrears continue to drop off the back of our focus on the premium borrower segment of the market. Consistent with our digital investment in auto retail, we continue to improve our reporting and data analytics and as a result, we've never had more transparency and control over the risk we're taking in the pricing that we see. We showed this graph at the annual results presentation in May and we've updated it through to June.
2 things stand out for me. 1 is how much of our lending is in our premium lending tier and 2, the step change increase we've achieved in lending volumes so far in FY 'twenty 2. Arrears continues to track down as the increased quality of the loan book takes hold. This is a structural change and thus will result in ongoing benefit to the business relative to the counterfactual. The cause of this change is the introduction in premium lending that I showed you in the previous slide.
Accordingly, we expect arrears to continue to decrease going forward as premium lending continues to increase as a percentage of our total loans. You can see in the two horizontal lines at the bottom of the graph, the performance of newer loans written since we introduced premium lending in August 2019. The yellow horizontal line are arrears from loans sourced from 3rd party dealers and the blue horizontal line being the loans sourced from the Turner's auto customers. Thus, we should see that top line of arrears continue to track down going forwards, assuming we have relatively stable economic conditions, of course. Our insurance business has seen continued wins in market share in the early part of FY 'twenty two, resulting in positive lift in gross written premiums.
You can see this from the red line on the top graph. We're experiencing some spare parts price inflation and delays in vehicle repairs due to shipping timeframes. However, this is being offset by the improvements we've made in our risk pricing. Finally, our focus remains very much on distribution. We now have a number of API integrations with finance partners in particular, and these will deliver an increase in customer acquisition opportunities over the coming years.
The credit management business continues to be challenged by market wide low default rates and also lockdowns in Australia and now New Zealand. Debt load is up on the same period last year, but it's still tracking below historic levels. We continue to work closely with our debt referrers to manage and improve customer outcomes as we operate in an environment where bad debts are likely to increase and debt collection services will see increasing demand. Just moving on to our short term and medium term plans and goals. Nothing has changed in terms of the priorities we communicated back in May.
And if anything, our conviction levels have increased based on the traction we've seen in trading pre lockdown. On this slide, we have 3 to 4 priorities for each business, but I just wanted to zoom in for now on the top priority within each business. In auto retail, stock acquisition is the single most important area of investment. Strategically, this is where our competitive moat is becoming even wider. In finance, simplifying and automating as much of our lending process to ensure fast turnaround on credit decisions will be priority number 1.
In insurance, continuing to expand our distribution is the top of the work stream list. And in credit management, investing in data initiatives to improve contact rates will be the most important area to work on. As Grant sort of talked you through earlier, in May, we made the decision to publish our 3 year target and growth plan. And this was possible due to the level of confidence we have in the structural improvements that we have made to build quality into the business. We've made a number of changes over the last 2 to 3 years where we're already seeing major benefits.
And we believe we found the right formula and more importantly, we continue to further optimize these known levers in the future. In retail optimization, we will continue to optimize our property footprint and customer experience for our retail consumer. More retail sales improves both our margin per transaction and also our market share. Vehicle purchasing, we are continuing to improve our decision making for buying cars. Like any retail business, we make our money when we buy.
And so we've invested in market leading diagnostic tools and data tools such as AI to improve the percentage of vehicles where we make profit. In digital, we're continuing to invest and in particular enhancing our omni channel customer experience. This will further expand our competitive advantage in that space. And with risk pricing, we continue to refine it refine our pricing models in finance and insurance and use data insights that are both proprietary and third party. Within 3 years, we're targeting profit before tax of $45,000,000 Using our existing dividend policy, this equates to a dividend payout of around $0.24 per share.
Naturally, our future performance also depends on many variables outside our control and COVID is a pertinent reminder that the unexpected can happen. Nevertheless, we believe it's helpful to put stake in the ground, which helps investors to judge the progress of our strategy. The Turner's business in particular, the auto retail and credit management businesses are highly cash generative, which gives us the opportunity to reinvest to deliver organic growth and yield for our shareholders. The focus areas for growth will be auto retail and finance, with retail optimization helping to deliver margin expansion and market share growth. And finance growth will come from distribution expansion and direct lending.
We're confident that if we deliver the growth, the combination of higher earnings and an expanded valuation multiple should better reflect the value we are delivering for shareholders and the quality of the company we are building. We think it is important to be clear with shareholders on how we think about allocating capital in the business for these growth plans. We've received very clear messages from existing shareholders that they want to see both yield and growth, but growth supported from the existing capital base. So our focus at the moment is very much on organic growth, which will be funded out of retained earnings and initiatives to make ourselves more capital efficient. The business continues to be well funded and conservatively geared.
We've got significant headroom in our debt facilities. And also as a reminder, just that 80% of our borrowings actually relate to the finance company. And of course, debt funding is essentially just the inventory of any finance business. Capital allocation will be broadly prioritized across the following categories. An auto retailer will help support our footprint expansion, which can be funded largely through debt using lease premises and floorplan finance or inventory, but it does require some capital investment for the fit out of the retail sites.
We'll use our capital for property and largely mortgage funded. The reasons for this is that de risks the auto business through control of strategic sites and our cost base plus provides opportunity for the long term capital growth that we've already talked about. Oxford Finance growth requires capital alongside the debt to grow the receivables ledger and profits and we are being quite successful in growing that ledger at the moment. And then the last area is digital initiatives across the group. Largely, the digital initiatives are assumed to be OpEx, but this is supported by some capital, which is allocated to support growth initiatives and future proofing.
The focus of our ESG strategy in FY 2021 has mostly been about the social aspect with the obvious focus on our customers and staff safety and welfare during the height of the pandemic. And this key focus has continued over this latest lockdown. We have implemented a tool called Pecom during the year, which was an excellent employee engagement survey and gives our people a regular opportunity to give us their feedback and gives us great information on a whole range of topics. In the chart on the slide, you will see the positive improvement in our scores since launch. We're really pleased with the high levels of engagement right across the business.
And we're also doing a lot in the current business to help old and end of life cars off the road through our damaged and end of life vehicle business. And finally, as I previously went through with Turner subscription, we now have a platform by which we can increase our electric vehicle fleet and thus do our bit to speed up EV adoption in New Zealand. And just some comments now on the outlook. So firstly, the first 4 months of trading in FY 'twenty two have seen a continuation of our positive momentum over the last couple of years. And prior to the lockdown in August, we were tracking comfortably ahead of the comparative periods for both FY 2020 and FY 2021.
And in all the auto related businesses, we've seen good market share gains and yield improvements. And based on that momentum at that time, we were experiencing prior to August, we were easily on track to delivering a 15% uplift on profits through FY 'twenty two. Obviously, these latest COVID restrictions have a short term impact for us, particularly in the auto retail division. And given the uncertainty around this level 4 lockdown period in Auckland and the impact of a more restrictive level 3, level 2 in the rest of the country, we will have to update the market with more specific FY 'twenty two guidance at the half year results in November. Putting the short term impact aside, our pre lockdown year to date performance and trajectory over the last 2 years still gives us very strong conviction levels around our strategy and results.
And in relation to our 3 year goal, I'm happy to advise you that we are well on track to exceeding that target of $45,000,000 profit before tax in FY 'twenty four. Before I finish up and hand back to Grant, I'd like to acknowledge the efforts of our team from our Board of Directors through to the operational teams who deliver day in, day out for our customers and for our shareholders. This group of people are being totally committed and prepared to go above and beyond even in the disruptive COVID impacted periods. This really is a great group of people to be involved with and I feel very proud to be part of such passionate and dedicated group of people. Thank you very much for your attention this morning.
And before I hand back to Grant, I'll just give you a sneak preview of the next TINA installment.
It runs an absolute dream, but why don't you take it for a spin around the block?
Go on.
That's it. Keep coming around. See you soon.
Oh, Dave, selling your car. You should have come to see me at Turner's.
Okay, Graeme, back to you.
Thank you, Todd. It comes up to discussion time now. I'll be checking with the question moderator if there are any questions on the resolutions as we come to them. But in the meantime, moderator, do we have any questions on the presentation or the results?
Yes, we've got one shareholder question, Mr. Chairman. I'm just bringing it up now. Is there any thought of introducing a dividend reinvestment plan? And that's also followed with a question, what is the cost of maintaining the ASX secondary listing?
With dividend reinvestment, we have thought about that. It's kind of a little bit what Todd was saying before as we don't want to increase the shares on issue and keep our capital our number of shares on issue the same as they are at the moment, so people don't have dilution. So that's the main reason we haven't done that. I mean, obviously, people can reinvest themselves if they want to, but we don't really want to issue new shares. In terms of the Australian maintaining the Australian listing, Aaron, you might be best to answer that.
I can't remember the exact number.
Yes. So it's round about $70,000 a year to have that secondary listing.
Okay. That was the only question you had?
That's correct. Yes.
Okay. All right. We'll move on to the formal part of the meeting. 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.
Only shareholders, proxy holders or corporate representatives of a shareholder may vote on today's resolutions. There are 4 resolutions before the meeting today. The first one is that Baker Tilly Staples Rodway be reappointed as auditors of the company and that the directors be authorized to fix the auditors' remuneration. Second one is that Paul Burns, who retires by rotation and has offered himself for reelection, be reelected as Director of the company until the 18th February 2022 Resolution 3, that Martin Berry, who retires by rotation and has offered himself reelection, be reelected as Director of the company And lastly, that Anthony Bryan, who retires by rotation and has offered himself for reelection, be reelected as a Director of the Company. We believe that having directors with relevant industry, commercial and governance skills is essential for the continuing success of the Terners Group.
Diversity of thought in particular and broader commercial acumen are also taken into consideration by the Board when reviewing Board membership. We currently have directors with hands on experience in the finance, insurance and debt management sectors as well as directors with expertise in governance and very diverse experience in entrepreneurial experience in sales, marketing and business growth. Shortly, I'll hand over to the others to talk to you regarding the reelection. But before I do, I did want to say a few words about Paul's contribution to the company, given you'll be stepping down from the Board in February 2022. Paul joined the Board in February 2004, almost 18 years ago, and he's had a huge influence on the company during that time.
Paul is a really skilled director and he's had broad business experience. He has experience as a director with companies as well as Turner's. He's been in a number of chief executive roles in large businesses as well as managing his own portfolio of private investments. And he's also a chartered accountant by profession. It's been interesting kind in those last 18 years.
The company had a very difficult time after the GFC. At that time, we were losing money and we even lost our CEO and 4 step stepped into the breach as acting CEO and then permanent CEO and he ended up staying in the role for 8 years until we appointed Todd. And those were really, really tough times. And without Paul at the helm, I really believe we may not have got through them. And Paul also led or was involved in a number of acquisitions, including the Turner's Auctions business, the Oxford Finance Business and also Auto Show Insurance, all of which have turned out to be fantastic buyers for us and are the foundation of the business you see today.
Some of the acquisitions were quite complex and a bit of creativity was required to get the deals over the line. And war story here, but with the Turner's Auctions deal, Paul and I flew to Miami for some pretty lively discussions with the largest shareholder in Turner's at the time, which was Bartel Holdings. We did manage to put a deal together and thought it would be appropriate to celebrate with the Bartels guys to submit the successful negotiations. These ended up with us trying to find our hotel in downtown Miami at 4:30 in the morning and we actually found out there's 3 hotels in Miami that were Marriott's and we kept down to the wrong one. And we borrowed 1 of the hotel's guys' car, a Range Rover to get back, having consumed a lot of liquor and much more than we should have.
And I woke up with very bad hangovers in the morning, so we all took one for the team. But I always remember back to that time because I thought Paul got hurt more than most of us because the next morning we went out with the Bartel guys in one of those cigarette boats you see around Miami and going really fast. And I remember Paul looking pretty green on that day sitting down the back of the boat. I know I didn't enjoy it too much. So definitely took one for the team that time.
Board level, Paul has been extremely thorough and well prepared and really been an integral part of our growth story. As a Board, we do have some robust discussions from time to time and Paul's often at the forefront of those discussions. He has pretty strong views about things, but they're always well thought out and always help us get to the right answer. A personal level, I've got a great deal of respect for what Paul has achieved in his business career and his contributions to the company and really wish him all the best in whatever he chooses to do for the future. In a moment, I'll invite Paul, Martin and Anthony to speak to the meeting in support of their reelection.
Just a reminder, if you have any questions in regard to the resolutions, please send them through now. So let's start with Paul and then move to Martin and then Anthony. Thanks, Paul.
Thanks for those kind words, Grant. As Grant mentioned, we did some quite significant transactions during my time as CEO, starting with EC Credit and Oxford Finance, the Autosure and completed the Turner's option transaction. Given the nature of M and A, we didn't get all transactions perfectly right. But certainly those major ones have been pretty successful and form the basis of the present Turner's business. The integrated auto retail, finance and insurance model has now proven to be a really sound formula in a successful business strategy.
And I think one good thing that came out of the last COVID-nineteen year, the last 12 months was the value that continued to be created from the annuity aspects of the finance and insurance business, even over quite disruptive trading periods and various economic cycles. I think as a result of the steady and sustainable earnings, especially in the last sort of few years, clearly the market is a lot more comfortable with the total business in the current direction. Further acquisitions could well arise in any one of our 4 business streams, but our organic growth opportunities for each means we don't really need to rely on acquisitions to achieve our 3 year target of $45,000,000 profit before tax. But what has changed and will continue to change and you will see that those messages and that strategy coming through in recent presentations is the way we deal with our customers in each of our businesses. In the past few years, under the very capable leadership of Todd and his team, Turner has really stepped up in investment in digital, automated marketing, digital communications and data analysis, and all allowing a more targeted and strategic approach to both existing and potential and new customers.
I fully support the building out digital and customer channels for competitive advantage and growth. Those that know me would certainly know it's not my particular area of expertise. However, just the most significant current risk for the business is neither operational or strategic. It's the risk of further lockdowns as written down. Remember, my decision and these notes were made some time ago, so that risk is not unrealistic.
But very frustrating within the view of many, but most New Zealanders, we should already have been close to fully vaccinated. Even though we handled the COVID disruption particularly well last year, I really want to see through the shorter term risk. Hence, I'm seeking reelection just for a 6 month period after which I'll step down as a Director. I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank Grant for those very nice comments and to thank shareholders for their great support and the Board for their support for me both as an executive and as a director of Turner's over the years. Thank you, Grant.
You're on, Martin.
Okay. So good morning. Thank you, Grant. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for the opportunity to spend some time talking about the reelection return as a role that I've been enjoying a minute last 3 years. As I kind of reflect back on having joined the organization 3 years ago, I think the feedback from my peers and the sort of execution team within Turner is that I've been able to bring a fresh and strategic perspective group.
And I thank my fellow board members and the team for letting me play that role of really challenging this quo and looking at the reasons why we do things and looking at legacy and does it make sense going forward, to be sort of playing that sort of challenger role to try and get the best decisions for the organization. And I think I've been able to work really closely with the team to then help shape the overall strategy and execution for Terners going forward. I think one of the pieces of feedback that I'm most sort of proud of in in terms of contribution has been in the ability to try and shift the focus at both the Board and organizational level to a more medium timeframe, which I think ultimately will position Turner's for better growth in the future. And you can see through Todd's beautiful articulation today, how clear our strategy is, how medium focused it is, which I think is really, really pleased. I think many of you know that I have a lot of international experience working for some of the largest banks in the world and a lot of that has been around digitalization, technology, financial services.
So my major focus, I think, within Turner's has really been how Turner's could better leverage digital and data as a key enabler of growth. And it's so pleasing to hear Grant and Todd talks about digital and data at the forefront of our strategy. And I think I'm immensely proud of what the team has been producing and the results we've been delivered around these key themes. I think personally, another major highlight for me is how we're transforming our digital organization and our technology team, which includes the appointment of our Chief Officer, Jeremy Rooke, who is someone I spend a lot of time talking about strategy and execution. So while I think it's fair to say that I'm happy with the progress that we've made, I'm not really satisfied as I see tremendous opportunity for Turner's going forward and especially as it relates to the continued build out of our digital capabilities and how we leverage these to future proof the business and build competitive advantage.
I also think that is at an interesting stage and a critical juncture as it relates to electrification and also sustainability. Key pillars again that Todd has talked about today in terms of how plan. I think one of the benefits of being based here in Singapore is it gives me a strong pulse on Asia and Singapore is often seen as a pioneer in attributes which include electrification and sustainability. So I think I'm well placed to be able to gain those insights and leverage those to help Turner's cash going forward. I therefore feel I'm still very much in the early stages of the involvement with Turner's and the journey that we're on.
And I'm hugely excited about where this business is heading. And it's a role that I would really like to continue to be a part of, because I think I can continue to add value and work with such a wonderful team of people. So therefore, I'd like to seek your support in the reelection and continue this great journey with Tanners. Thank you.
Thank you, Martin. If we could now move on to Anthony, please.
Yes, it would happen. Hi, everyone. My name is Anthony Vranz and I've been an Independent Director of Turner's since 2016 and Chairman of DPL Insurance since 2012. I'm also a member of the Audit Risk Management and Sustainability Committee that was recently renamed. I am offering myself up for reelection as I wish to continue robust independent governance within the Ternus Group as well as continuing to guide and support the trajectory for DPL Insurance as a strong business, which has delivered a consistently growing earnings stream.
I think that's particularly pertinent in uncertain times as has been proven in the last 2 years. And we have seen an increasing burden of regulator oversight, compliance and change. The actions of our own FMA, the Reserve Bank and changes in regulator policy in Australia are all translating to a change in our operating model that we are working through as a board and a business. As an independent director, I've been strongly involved in ESG research and conversations with a keen interest in the sustainability credentials of the sector, as well as leading our current search to actually bring diversity to our Board. To this point, my work as part of DPL and Turner has been an exciting and fulfilling experience and I thank my fellow Board members and management team for that.
As many of you heard last year and reflected in my profile, I currently hold a full time financial services executive role in Asia, specializing in both risk management and digital transformation. I'm also leading the strategy work within our organization to look at the impact of COVID over the next 2 to 3 years, insights that I will also bring back to New Zealand. So as such, I bring a really strong local and international lens to our discussions as well as that strong corporate sense. As you heard also last year, I've made a commitment to be available in person at most of our board meetings over 80% of the time and on video on all other occasions. I trust my performance to date has earned your confidence and ongoing support.
And I do wish you all a really good day. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Anthony. Okay. Moving on to the proxy vote. A lot of the shareholders who aren't attending this meeting have voted by proxy.
So I need to advise that proxy has been received for 25.71 percent of the shares on this year. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our discussion on the items of business. In a couple of minutes, I'll close the voting system. Please ensure that you cast your vote on all resolutions. I'll now pause for a minute or so to allow you to finalize those votes.
While we're waiting, if there's any further questions we can deal with while we're waiting, have we got anything else? Moderator?
Yes, we have. Not so much a question as a comment. Well done, team, great strategy and results. Each component, including finance that we are buying that will be in their own right valuable businesses in the future. Very nice comment from a shareholder connected with ASP nominees.
And that's all I have, Mr. Chairman.
All right. Thank you. Let's give it a few more seconds. All right. I'll now declare the voting closed.
The results of today's voting will be posted on the NZX as soon as we can. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our discussion on the items of business, and that brings the formal part of the meeting to a close. I therefore call the 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders closed. Thanks to you all for your attendance today and most importantly, your ongoing support. We very much value our loyal shareholder base and welcome your feedback.
Thanks again for your patience and participating in an online meeting, and I really hope it's not too long before we can once again meet face to face and share some refreshments. In the meantime, we'll continue to work hard to ensure your company continues to grow and prosper. And as we discussed, we're really confident about our future trajectory. Thanks.