Well, good morning, good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the twenty-ninth Annual General Meeting of AMCIL Limited. Thank you for those of you who've journeyed here to the Westin Hotel to be in the room with us this morning. This is perhaps more intimate than commodious or more intimate than cavernous. But anyway, I hope you're all very comfortable. I'm told we did have a room swap because there's some drilling going on outside the room that we were to have been in. But nevertheless, you all look very comfortable, and I hope you are. And welcome to those of you joining online. If you see me looking in that direction, that's addressing the online shareholders that are joining us. As always, of course, we welcome your, your feedback on the venue and the logistics for this meeting. The company secretary has confirmed that there is a quorum present, and so I now formally open today's meeting. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which we're gathered today, the Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin nations, and I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. My name is Rupert Myer, Chairman of your company. May I introduce the people on the stage with me? We have to my left, your right, Managing Director, Mark Freeman. Good morning, everyone. And my fellow, non-executive directors. Actually, you're going to have to look in this direction now. Roger, Roger Brown. Good morning. Paula Dwyer. Good morning. Now, this way, Mike, Mike Hirst. Morning. John Webster. Good morning. Jodi Auster is attending the meeting, but virtually. She's not able to be with us personally this morning. We also have our Company Secretary, Matthew Rowe, to my right. Good morning. Our Chief Financial Officer, Andrew Porter. Good morning. to my left, and our General Manager of Business Development and Investor Relations, Geoff Driver, to my right. Good morning. So you've done all your calisthenics this morning. In due course, we'll be hearing from Mark Freeman and investment analysts, Jay Guy, and Gilbert Battistella, who'll join us from the podium. We're also joined by other members of the investment team in the front row of the audience here, and I think a number of them will be known to you. I will take the opportunity to introduce Kate Logan, partner of the company's auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers. Kate is very happy to answer questions on the audit and the preparation and content of the auditor's report at the end of the presentation that are... to be made. Today's meeting, as I just mentioned briefly, is being held as a hybrid meeting, and today's presentation has, in fact, just been released to the ASX, and is available on the company's website. I remind all shareholders using the online platform that whilst questions can be submitted at any time, I will not address them until the relevant time in the meeting. To ask a question, select the Q&A icon, type your question into the text box. Once you have finished typing, please hit the Send button. Please also note that your questions may be moderated or if we receive multiple questions on one topic, amalgamated together. To cast your vote, simply select one of the options. There's no need to hit a Submit or Enter button, as the vote is automatically recorded. You will receive a vote confirmation notification to your screen. I now declare the online voting open on all items of business. I will give you a warning before I move to close voting. Moving on to the business of the meeting, I'll take the notice of meeting as read. With regards to the minutes of the twenty-eighth annual general meeting, they have been signed as a correct record and are available to shareholders for inspection today. The first agenda item is the consideration of the financial statements and reports for the year ended thirtieth of June, twenty twenty-four. We will do this via a presentation, after which I will ask shareholders to comment or to raise any questions either about the presentation or of the auditors, if they have any questions about the audit. Before passing to Mark and his team for a presentation, I should like to comment on our retiring director, Dr. Jodi Auster. As notified to the ASX in August, Jodi has decided to retire from the board at the end of this annual general meeting. Her deep experience and insights of high-performing international business models and companies and of the digital economy have been of particular value to the board and to your company. We wish her well with her very busy workload, and we will miss her contributions at the board meeting, at the board meetings, I should say. On behalf of the board, I wish to record our thanks to Jodi for her valued service to shareholders and wish her very well for the future. I'll now pass you to our Managing Director, Mark Freeman, to start today's presentation. Thank you, Mark. Would you join me in welcoming him? Okay. Thanks, Rupert, and welcome everyone here today. Can we just start with a disclaimer to say we're here to talk about the company. We're not here to give any advice as such. Just the agenda. I'll give a bit of a background on the purpose and approach that we're taking at AMCIL. I'll pass over to our CFO, Andrew Porter, who will give some summary on the financial results. And then myself, Jay, and Gilbert will go through the portfolio, some comments on the overall market, and then some outlook comments from there. If we just move to the first slide, just to go through our approach in AMCIL. We are a focused portfolio. We want to invest in quality companies, and we don't want the size of the holdings to be determined by the index as such. And that's one thing that makes AMCIL different from other funds in the market. It is a comparatively low management cost. There are no performance fees, and there is strong equity ownership from staff and directors. So we are aligned with the shareholders in the performance of AMCIL. But we also want to be tax effective. We want to be relatively low turnover, and therefore, we are driven by taking a long-term approach to investing, which once again pushes us towards being in quality companies. So if we move to the next slide, if we think about, well, what are some of the characteristics we think about when investing in a quality company? So we're looking for companies that have unique assets that are hard to replicate. In particular, businesses that are starting to move to a leadership position. We want companies that have a sustainable competitive advantage. We're wary of companies where external factors can impact on the business. Balance sheet is always important. Debt is still a key factor that gets companies into trouble. We prefer businesses that have a more consistent earning stream. And importantly, what I was taught on day one when I started in this business, it's all about the people. So we're looking for businesses that are run by effective, passionate management teams with ownership alignment, and that often means that we are a large holding, what we call owner-driver or founder-led businesses. So those characteristics, when you add those up together, these produce sustainable competitive advantage, which leads to high return on capital. So we like companies that can reinvest in their business and make high returns. This allows the opportunity for further reinvestment to drive growth, capture market share, and enhance their leadership position. All of these elements come together to deliver strong shareholder returns. We seek to buy these companies when we see long-term value. We will reduce or exit holdings if companies no longer fit these characteristics, and we will trim positions when we see valuations being excessive. Another couple of elements or to think about with this framework, it's important to be early to a story, so applying these what I would call a set of characteristics. Investing is all about identifying characteristics in a business that our experience tells us will lead to success. We can't predict the future, but we can identify characteristics in companies, and that's what we're doing in AMCIL. We want to be early to the story and buy when we see the opportunities present. We can only make good returns for investors by owning companies. Watching companies does nothing for you as shareholders, so we want to identify great companies and make sure we own them. We're happy to keep buying companies, good stocks, on the way up. And for more established businesses, we're looking for what we would call price dislocations. So opportunities when a large company goes out of favor, we're happy to buy those as well for the portfolio. So that's a bit of a background on our approach, and I'll pass over to our CFO, Andrew Porter, to talk about the result. Whoops! Thank you, Mark, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. And, AMCIL won't be picking up the damage that's been caused by that. So profit for the year, last year, AUD 7.5 million, slightly down from AUD 7.6 million the year before. The dividends that the company received were down slightly, 1.4%, but considering the ASX 200 dividends were down 5%, that was a pretty good result in terms of stock allocation and dividends. As shareholders will be aware, the dividend was AUD 0.04 for the year. That includes the AUD 0.01 interim dividend. The special dividend, slightly reduced from the previous year, to 0.5 cents or half a cent. Special dividends can be paid depending on the level of reserves and the level of franking credits that the company has. It's important to note that in twenty twenty-four, the company had brought forward capital losses. Those had to be recouped before capital gains tax could be paid and franking credits generated on realized gains. So that was one of the reasons for a reduced franking credit. That, and the board also need to take into account what the outlook is and what is a sustainable level of dividends. The question is often asked at the end of June, after the payment of the final and special dividend, AMSL had franking credits sufficient to generate four cents worth of dividend income, so just over a year's worth of normal dividend. That's fairly common amongst LICs. We'd consider that to be comfortable. The portfolio returned 20.5% against the market of 13.5%. There'll be some updated performance figures later on, so we'll look more at the performance later on in the presentation, and the management expense ratio of 0.56%, so that's 56 cents for every AUD 100 invested. That is down from last year. Those of you with longer memories will recall that we did point out at last year's AGM that the MER would likely reduce because the previous year's underperformance was reflected in a reduced level of AICS costs during 2024. We think that 56 cents for every AUD 100 invested with no outperformance fees is a pretty good level for this sort of investment vehicle. If I move on to the next slide, which is the share price relative to the net tangible asset figure, you'll see that the discount of the share price to the NTA remains stubborn. I should point out that AMCIL is not unique in this. Other LICs are also particularly suffering from this at the moment. We may go into more detail on this later on, but shareholders should be aware of steps that the board have taken in this regard. We are now producing weekly NTAs to point out to the market that you can essentially buy one dollar's worth of assets for 90 cents or less. There is a buyback in place, which has been utilized, and there are increased marketing efforts going on. Of course, one of the other contexts that many of us have seen, particularly in terms of asset allocation, is with increased interest rates, there has been a move into term deposits. We suspect that has been impacting on LICs as well. With that, I will pass back to Mark. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Andrew. Just on to the current market conditions, what we're seeing. So economic growth continues to be solid, reducing the risk of recession, but there are signs of softness across the broader economy, with some slowing in consumer spending, although employment conditions remain reasonable. And we're seeing this particularly in the U.S., where, again, employment continues to be quite strong. Obviously, central banks have shifted towards more of a neutral or an easing bias, and we've seen rate cuts in the U.S. China has just announced some significant easing measures to try and stabilize their economy. However, we do view equity markets as fully valued at this point, and we'll move to a couple of slides just to point this out. So this, there's a couple of slides on the Australian market. So the chart on the left is price to sales, and you can see this goes back over 20 years, and you can see where we are at a relatively high level, and the right-hand side is price to book, again, at a high level. This makes us somewhat cautious. You could argue that perhaps earnings are gonna pick up from here. Maybe the market's too cautious on earnings, so maybe the market's not as overpriced as what it seems, but we're certainly taking a more cautious view at this point, and we have built up a little bit of cash in the portfolio. Looking at the U.S. market on the next two slides. Again, if you look at the price to sales, incredibly high at the moment and price to book. You could argue, though, that the nature of the U.S. market has changed over time. There's a lot more tech stocks now. They trade at much higher price to sales and price to book. So there's always arguments as to why you might see these elevated valuations. But for us, it just means we are a lot more cautious on where we're sitting at this point. Just moving on to the performance. We look at our performance on a grossed-up basis, so we add the franking credits back. We also add the franking credits back to the index because we're trying to get a like-for-like comparison. And you can see over 1, 5, and 15 years, the portfolio is ahead. 10 years, it's about in line, but noting, though, that our performance is after cost. The index hasn't got cost taken out. And also, we've only included franking to the extent we've paid it out. We actually haven't paid out all of our franking. If we were to do that, the performance would lift, and if we added costs into the index, the performance of that would lower. So if you were to adjust for those on a one, five, ten, and fifteen, AMSL would be ahead on all measures. Just looking at some of the activity in the portfolio. We have exited CBA, and I'll come back to that shortly, with a chart which picks up Westpac as well, where we've reduced. We've exited PEXA. Domino's. Domino's has been a tough one for us, but we just want to see them overcome their balance sheet issues, as I've noted earlier. Weak balance sheets gets companies into trouble. If we were to see that improve and the business picked up, we could always look at it again. And we've used share price strength in a couple of stocks like Goodman Group Technology One to take a bit off the top, and we just strategically slightly reduced our CSL and SEEK. Wesfarmers, I will come back to that shortly as well. We've added to a couple of stocks. I mentioned one of the things we try and do is add to great stories, that we think there's still a long runway of growth ahead. And we put ARB and WiseTech in that category. We think ARB's got a lot of opportunity in the US, and WiseTech continues to go from strength to strength, so we added to those. Over the most recent period, we've seen some weakness in the resources stocks, so we added to BHP. Redox, after their result, fell away a bit, so we've added to that. Mineral Resources also had been weak. When the market was getting very concerned about the lithium price, we used that weakness to add, and we also added to some Block. The other stocks, Auckland, Region, Sigma, and Life360, we will come to shortly. We'll jump into that. I think Jay is going to start. Thanks, Mark. My name's Jay Guy, and I work in the investment team and also work closely with Mark on AMCIL. So I'll just touch on two companies that we established a new position in and added to during the period. So Region Group, you may not recognize the name, but there's a very good chance that you would have walked into one of their shopping centers. So they manage a portfolio of neighborhood and regional shopping centers. Often have an anchor tenant in Coles or Woolworths, and they have a very defensive tenant profile with a high weighting to grocery sales. We saw an opportunity to add to this position where the market had been a little bit too negative on the earnings outlook. They have a solid balance sheet, but they do have a bit of gearing, and that meant that interest costs were going up. We think that's now largely played through in the P&L, so we do see a fairly attractive earnings growth profile. It won't shoot the lights out, but we think that there's quite a consistent profile there. And the business also pays a very attractive dividend yield of 6%, so we can see a really clear pathway to 10% plus type of returns from this investment. And management have done a really good job in kind of conservatively growing this business since the IPO in 2013. So this is a new position for the portfolio there. We also added to our holding in Auckland International Airport. So this company owns the international airport in Auckland and also the Queenstown Airport in New Zealand. These quality infrastructure companies are becoming rarer on the stock exchange. A lot of them are being privatized. We were very sad when Sydney Airport was taken over and taken private. We thought that was a great asset. Auckland Airport's also a little bit differentiated in that they own the land that the airport's located on. So it's not a leasehold that at some point they may have to hand back. We think that gives them a lot of optionality to, over time, as domestic passenger growth comes through, they can expand the terminals, but they also have a fairly large commercial property holding that we think they can develop to and add value over time. We also think that management doing a really good job. We saw an opportunity where they raised some capital recently at an attractive discount, so we took the opportunity to top up our holding, and we think that management should generate an attractive return from there. I think on the next slide, I'll pass on to Gilbert to talk about Life360 and Sigma Healthcare. Thank you. Thanks, Jay. My name is Gilbert. I'm an analyst. I work with Mark, Jay, and the team on AMCIL. 360 is a location sharing app, primarily used by parents to track kids. They've got over 70 million users globally. This business, historically, it struggled with monetizing the user base, so it's an app that parents love, and is growing virally, but 360 have struggled to actually get the users to pay for that. So the penetration in terms of the number of those parents that actually pay for it, it's only around 10%, and then 90% of those users have used it for free. So we took a position on the turning point where their strategy around monetizing this business improved. So that was advertising. So they've rolled out advertising now, and they're in discussions with ad partners, which is an opportunity to then monetize that 90% of user base they're not getting paid for currently. And then at the same time, that back book of subscribers they have, they've been able to reprice that up quite materially, which has really improved the earnings profile of this business. It has found a lead. Given the early stage, we have just taken a smaller position in this business. The next one, Sigma Healthcare. So Sigma Healthcare's proposed acquisition of Chemist Warehouse. In effect, that's a backdoor listing of Chemist Warehouse, so that consolidated entity, about 90% of that will be Chemist Warehouse earnings. So we've bought this for that look-through exposure to Chemist Warehouse, which we view as one of the best retail franchise models in Australia. So the stores are in excellent store economics. There's a long-term store wallet opportunity, and within a very attractive retail category in pharmacy, with, like, defensive structural growth there. There is uncertainty on this one related to the ACCC process, so, and we don't have any particular insights there. So with that awareness of that risk, we have made it a smaller position, but we just view the valuation as attractive with that understanding of that risk in the context of that longer-term opportunity for this high-quality business. Thank you. Yes, so it's interesting that both those stocks fit into the category I talked about when we see companies with certain characteristics. So on Life360, I think, Gilbert, they've got about sixty million users worldwide, so it is a global business. They've got no debt. They've got opportunities to start to produce profit. So it lined up, and so we took a position, and it's been good for us so far. And as Gilbert pointed out, Sigma in a similar position, where if you wait for the ACCC ruling and it comes out in their favor, it'll almost be too late because we've seen already the stock run very hard over the last few weeks. The market's thinking that this deal is gonna get up. There's still a lot to happen for that to occur, but we got in at an attractive price at this point, and I think the market will be very keen to own the Chemist Warehouse if the deal actually happens. So just moving on to a slide, just to go back to some of the trimming and selling we did as to why. These two charts show the P/E ratio or the price earnings ratio of Wesfarmers and CBA, once again, going back around twenty years. ... You can see the PEs these stocks are trading on are extremely high by historical standards. And this probably reflects the broader market and why we're cautious on the broader market. You can see Wesfarmers at a PE of 28 times. We've been reducing. It's a great company. We love it. We've still got it, but we did feel like we needed to take some out. And CBA, we've exited completely. Again, this is a standout business. It's a great company. We'd love to own it again, but we're out at this point, and we've also been reducing our Westpac costs quite considerably. So certainly, CBA would be a great stock to own again at some point in time, but we just think the valuations. I've never seen valuations like this on the Australian banks. Once again, perhaps there's reasons why they're trading higher than what they used to. They do have stronger balance sheets than they used to have. Maybe there's an argument they're not taking the same risk they used to do, but we still think these valuations are very full and find it hard to see a good return stacking up over the long term. Just looking at some of the other features of the AMCIL portfolio, we talk about being a long-term investor, so we thought we'd put down the top 20 stocks here and how long we've owned them. We just wanted to demonstrate that we're not here to trade share prices. We want to be an investor in companies. The power of compounding is considerable. When I think about, over my time in the market, the key thing about great companies, the market continually underestimates the potential for, to grow earnings sustainably over a very long period of time. That's why I always think there's hidden value in quality stocks, because the market will do a valuation out for ten years and then have the earnings trailing off. Great businesses can have great earnings growth for twenty, even thirty years. So you can see we've been long-term investors in many of our companies in the top twenty. And just moving to the next slide, this is the, actually the entire portfolio. We've sort of grouped them into three buckets, I guess. Growth companies, core, and income companies. I would point out, though, in, within the growth sector part of the market, there are a number of founder-led or owner-driver companies, and I'll point some of those out. If you look across, the top there, Goodman Group, Macquarie Technology, Mainfreight, ARB, Reece, Netwealth, ResMed's second generation, Objective, WiseTech, Block, Life360, Redox, Mineral Resources, Temple & Webster, Chemist Warehouse within Sigma, PWR. And then there are a number of companies that were originally founder-led, such as SEEK, TechOne, and there are a couple of other businesses where you've got CEOs that certainly behave like that in Gentrack and Breville. So it is, something that makes, I think, AMCIL special. It's finding these companies that have great management team, with businesses that have great long-term prospects and then owning them within the portfolio. There's only a couple of stocks that we've kinda missed that are on our watchlist, Pro Medicus and JB Hi-Fi. They're probably my biggest regrets since running AMCIL. I sometimes get questioned, "Well, what stocks haven't worked for you?" The normal answer could be to look at something that's in the portfolio and say, "Well, what hasn't worked?" I think over my years, the biggest issue you can have is it's actually not what you own, it's what you don't own that is way more important, and capturing winners is a critical part of driving performance. We have missed a couple, which I regret, but fortunately, we've had big positions in many of the other companies that have done well to make up for most of that performance. And it probably goes back to the point, make sure you identify great companies and make sure you own them. So, just some outlook comments. Earnings growth is becoming a little bit more challenging with the market trading at all-time highs, and valuations do appear a bit full. There has been a shift in central bank policy settings to more neutral and even easing, but the portfolio, we think, is well-positioned to weather any portfolio volatility. We think across the portfolio, there are great management teams. These businesses have the opportunity to grow earnings regardless of what goes on in the economy, and we have companies that have strong, resilient balance sheets. So with that, I will pass back to Rupert. Thank you, Mark, and thanks, Andrew and Jay and Gilbert, for that presentation. We'll now deal with any questions on the financial statements and reports for the year end of the thirtieth of June 2024. Just before doing so, I'd like to comment that even with the twenty twenty-four financial year, having seen some good investment performance, and the board being satisfied with our approach to investing in quality companies, the shares have traded at a discount, which at times has exceeded 13%. Despite that persistent discount over the year, the share price return over the financial year, including franking, was 17.5%, following on the strong portfolio return. To the end of September, this figure is 24.1%. The discount is not something that your board can control in the short term, and indeed, speaking with some shareholders, they don't mind a discount if they're on the buying side, of course. But we're very conscious of the discount, nevertheless... More recently, as Andrew mentioned in his remarks, the company has uplifted its communication with brokers and financial partners, moved to weekly disclosure of our portfolio NTA, and begun to buy back shares in an orderly fashion when the opportunity arises to do so. But the board remains very focused on investing in quality companies that outperform the market over an extended period of time. This will ultimately drive our share price more than the shorter term vagaries of the market, so I just wanted to mention those comments up front. I'd now like to invite questions from shareholders. For those in the room, we have microphones available. It's nice we can all see each other in this space, and if shareholders could please state their name when addressing the meeting and ask all questions through the chair, that would be greatly appreciated, and of course, the questions coming online as directed before. Maybe I might start with online questions, just to bring them into the room. Jeff, do we have any online questions? We have a question from the same shareholder about the discount to NTA and buying back shares, but I think you've addressed those. But the other question is, what other options does the board have to narrow the discount to NTA? Look, I'm happy if Mark wanted to make some comments on this, too. I have attempted to address that in the remarks that I've made. The move to weekly NTAs is actually very significant. I said it very quickly, but as shareholders would know, until we did that, there was only a monthly NTA that came to the market with the pre-tax and post-tax performance of the stock. The intention of going weekly had been to keep the market better informed about what the movements in the NTA had been between the monthly formal reportings. Indeed, the feedback that we've received has been very positive on that, as a way of seeing in which direction the NTA is moving. That's obviously designed to have shareholders really well informed about what the NTA is at any time. I did make the comment perhaps a little bit too flippantly that not all shareholders want to see that gap close. Clearly, for those wishing to acquire stock, the ability, as was made in the remarks, to buy AUD 1 worth of assets at less than AUD 0.90, is not unattractive. Of course, when the shares trade at a premium, then others may choose to act in those circumstances. So this is a movable feast, and for those of you who've followed the stock over a long period of time, and indeed followed the way LICs have moved generally, that's been a pattern of moving in and out of discount and premium. Mark, did you have any- Yeah. Probably just the other thing we've been doing is, we've been trying to lift our marketing efforts. So, I mean, the marketing, it's really informing the market, going around to brokers, financial planners, talking a lot more about AMCIL and what makes it different. And I think I've been through some of those characteristics in the slide. It is quite a unique portfolio focused on these great niche businesses. So I think it's another thing we'll be looking to do, is just to keep up our presentations to brokers, so it sort of gets more to the front of mind when they're recommending opportunities to their shareholders, sorry, to their clients. I see Sue and Catherine are poised with microphones. Are there any questions in the room, please? Just a moment. Thank you. Firstly, I'd like to congratulate the board on turning the performance around, and particularly Mark Freeman. I think he's done a fantastic job in- It's a team effort. ... taking it on. As to the portfolio, I'm suggesting, for the purposes of the debate, that the shareholding in CSL is still too high. I notice that you've now characterized it as a stalwart rather than a growth stock. It's got an earnings yield of about 3%. That translates to a P/E of about 35 times and a dividend yield of about 1.3%. And it's underperformed the index, according to CommSec chart, over the last four years. And so I'm suggesting it's an opportunity cost in holding it at the high level of 8% of the portfolio. It's costing you money because there's opportunities that have done better than that. That's the first thing about the portfolio. The second one, I think the banks at 15%, I think the risks are more downside than upside there. They're expensive, and I think that's something that's got to be watched. I think that the banks will go off from this point. We've seen that you've sold down CBA, which is a good thing. We want to watch the other ones. The next one is Transurban's, a bit like CSL. It's gone sideways for about four years. Very expensive on a price to sales basis. That's probably enough. But another one is Woolworths. I think Woolworths are going sideways. I was on the ABC radio the other day, and I was telling Raf that Woolworths and Coles are whipping boys of politicians for generations, both sides of the political spectrum. And in fact, they're the best supermarkets in the world, I think. I've seen a lot of supermarkets, they're the best, but Woolworths is losing market share to Coles, but particularly Aldi. Aldi is the one that's getting market share. I think Woolworths won't be doing much for some time. ... Thank you. Okay. Thank you. A couple of questions there. Thanks, Christina. I'm gonna ask Mark if he'd make some comments on the stocks specifically. So just starting on CSL. I don't disagree with you, actually. I think we've got a bit too much in it. However, I think it's the wrong time to reduce it now. I did trim a little bit, probably about a couple of months ago. I think it ran up to about three hundred and twenty. We took a little bit out. But we think the earnings profile, actually, after several years of, I think, of subdued growth, I think the company is now positioned to start to do double-digit growth, probably for a number of years. And so we think this is the wrong time to actually be reducing. I think now is the time you wanna be owning it. And when you put in double-digit growth over several years, the valuation doesn't look too bad to us. It is one that, into some share price strength we would reduce, but we think- I think it's the time to actually own it now rather than owning less. On banks, we've actually got about 4.5% in the major banks now. And that's not including Macquarie, but we've got Macquarie Group is probably 5.5%, something like that, but we wouldn't regard that as a typical bank. We've just got the NAB and the Westpac at this point. Transurban, yeah, look, it probably hasn't done a lot over more recent times, but we still get a pretty good yield, close to 5%. If they can do sort of 4%-5% distribution growth, we think it looks sound. And in an expensive market, I'm probably more of a holder at this point, but if we got some more attractive buying opportunities elsewhere, it may be one that we could use to fund it. But I think it's... We're probably comfortable holding that in an expensive market. And probably likewise, Woolworths. As you would probably remember, we took a large amount out of Woolworths at around AUD 37-38, and then when it got sold off with all the bad news, we started to add a bit. And it goes back to my point earlier, when you're looking at more established businesses, if you can buy them in price dislocations or when there's a period of bad news, you can get good returns out of buying these businesses, but you just don't wanna chase them. I'd say where it sits at the moment, it's probably. There's still probably a bit of negative news in Coles and Woolies. I think we're concerned about many of our large companies coming under more regulation and focus. We don't think that's a good thing for the Australian economy and also for the share market. And it does make us wanna look elsewhere to allocate capital if there's gonna be more and more regulation put on these sort of sectors and businesses, maybe offshore, maybe, I don't know. But as it stands, I still think Woolies has got a great footprint, and over the years, you do see periods where Coles gains a bit on market share, Woolies gains a bit, Coles gains a bit, Aldi does a bit better. But I still think over the long term, Woolies has got a really good footprint if they run their business well. And at this point, I still think there's probably the news is quite negative, which means it's probably reasonably valued at this point, but we're not adding a lot, a lot to it, but we're happy to hold it. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I'm Roger Flynn. My question is, Chairman, is the board prepared to consider pausing the DRP and similar, in future occasions if the shares are still trading at a significant discount, as you've highlighted a couple of times? As it seems to make little sense to me to be issuing shares under the DRP and then buying them back at a bit of a premium to that immediately after. Yeah. Look, it's a very good question, Mr. Flynn, and indeed, at every just board discussion around dividend, both the interim and the final dividend, we make a separate decision about whether we're going to offer a DRP and a DSSP to shareholders to participate. So it's an active decision, actively made each time. The view that we've taken so far is that we will continue to offer it depending on the particular circumstances, and of course, the uptake in both of the share purchase plans has varied over time, sometimes as high as about a third, other times below 20%. So it's not a huge participation by all shareholders. There have been occasions in the past where the DRP, before the DSSP was introduced, was offered at a discount. We've obviously not done that for a very long period of time. But look, it is subject to active discussion, both at the audit committee as well as around the board. And the next time we'll be having that discussion will be in January. But your point is noted, and it certainly feeds into the nature of the discussion that we have. I understand. Roger, the other thing, too, is when you cross, look across all four of our LICs, there's been periods where the stock's been at a premium and periods when it's at a discount, and we tend to find there's a large portion of people that just go in it, rather than a lot of people going in and out. So if fundamentally there's a large group that just stay in it, there's periods where they're getting stock at a premium, which is not fair for them, but there's periods where they get it at a discount, and it tends to balance out over time. Now, I get the point at the moment, it's a big discount, but we hope that closes over time, but it can still be an ongoing discussion. But that was the fundamental background to the way we think about it over the longer term. Thanks, Mark. But my understanding is if you just pause it. I'll just give you that. If you pause it, that doesn't cancel their registration for participation. So if you then reactivate it, they would still be in it. Yeah, I think we've just got to be careful. I guess my point was just be careful that if you keep pausing it, I'm not saying this is what you're saying, whenever we're at a discount, then when you're at those times you're at a premium, people are gonna go, "Well, I'm not going in it because the only time you run it is at a premium, therefore, there's no point going in it." So, that's the offset. I'll just ask Jeff, are there any other questions online? Yes, there are. So, what's the current cash holdings, and, what... How does this percentage compare with the average cash holdings over time? Thanks. So, Jeff, Mike, I might get you to comment on that. It's about 4% at the moment, which is we're not a fund manager that tries to hold these large cash holdings. One thing I've always been taught is that you can't guess where the market's going, and that never changes. I have no idea where the. We, we've put out slides saying it looks full, but I've got no idea where the market's going. I wouldn't have a clue. Four percent is probably just a tad high for us. And, you know, that we've had periods where we may have been at 5% or 6%, maybe for short periods of time, but generally, we'd be around 1% to 2%, because we want our money with companies working away. So it's slightly higher than what we do normally. And, Andrew, I think we have undrawn facilities of AUD 10 million. We do. We do. Yep. Yep. Yep. Correct. All right, other questions in the room, please? Hi, Jeff Thomas. I'm a pretty dumb investor because I just continue to compound with the DRP, and sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, but I understand that's the eighth wonder of the world, compounding, so it works for me somehow. Just another comment on CSL. I was talking to someone over the weekend who's from America, out here, advising them, and I asked him what he thought. He's was very, very impressed. He comes out regularly, and he says they're doing a fantastic job. I personally, I don't own them direct, and I won't plan to do so 'cause of the yield situation, but I'm very happy to own them through the fund here and get some better dividends as well. Just a comment on a company that I don't own, but it's got a fantastic business, I believe. Thank you very much for sharing that with us. It reminds me, in this rather more intimate format of sharing perspectives is really very valuable, and on compounding, yes, I think we're all familiar with that with that statement, too. Thank you. Other questions in the room or comments? Any questions for the auditor? Kate's sitting here all poised. Go online. Questions here. Yes, please, go ahead, Jeff. Yeah, so, I'll see if we can get through these. What mistakes were learned from the investment in Domino's Pizza? Okay, so probably the main one was, it, it's... When you buy is important. There's probably three things. It's, it's when you buy, but it's also the size of the investment. You know, it had a lot of the... Domino's got a lot of the characteristics we like about a business. And when we bought it, we probably just paid a bit too much, but we probably bought too much. Probably we, in hindsight, you take a little bit if the valuation's in full and then buy more stepping back. But then the main shift, though, was when they started taking on a lot of debt, because the track record over the longer term was to have a strong balance sheet. Often what we find is when companies take on a lot of debt, just coincidentally, it happens when, for some reason, the business is going through some pressure, and that's the downside of leverage, so you had them taking on debt at a period of time when the franchisees were under pressure, and that sort of makes the situation a lot worse than what it should have been, and we reflect that if they'd gone into this tougher period with no debt, you probably just run with the business a bit longer, and when you've got no debt, it's easier for the business to adjust their business model, but when you're under pressure to meet interest payments consistently, puts the business under a huge amount of pressure. Probably the mistake was when they stepped up the gearing. We should have probably stepped away from the stock. When they start to fix the gearing, look at the stock again. Thanks, Mike. I might also add that, I mean, the board is quite granular in the way in which it analyzes both the successes in the portfolio and the ones that have been less successful, and papers are presented, and you know, this is a matter, as you would expect it would be, that's part of the discussion that goes on between the board and the management. And those lessons learned are seared in memories. Other questions? Yes. So, which is a more accurate valuation of the portfolio, pre-tax or post-tax? And the related question is, ... on our weekly NTAs, why don't we do the post-tax NTA also? So I'll ask Andrew to comment on that, but just to say that both serve slightly different purposes. And as you would imagine, one is able to sort of present what the whole portfolio looks like on pre-tax, not knowing where the tax will land from various positions, and the other is an accurate statement of what the embedded tax position is at that moment in time. But Andrew, perhaps you'd add some additional commentary? Thank you, but you're quite correct, of course. The post-tax figure is what would happen if we were to sell all of the portfolio. So if we were to liquidate the portfolio, what would the value of that be? Although, of course, that doesn't include the value of the franking credits that would thus be generated and will presumably be passed on. Historically, the pre-tax NTA has always been regarded as the most accurate measure, simply because that compares the portfolio to the market value of the underlying securities. For instance, if you've got a portfolio which is 100% BHP, then the value of that portfolio to most people would be, what is the market value of BHP, not what is the value of BHP? Although, it might be interesting for your personal reasons, what would the value of that BHP if I sold it and had to pay tax on it? So that's why we in the market generally use the pre-tax NTA. I think a couple other things, too, is that if you're looking at an ETF on the market, that's essentially a pre-tax valuation. Anytime an ETF has to sell stock, the investors will have to pay the tax on that. So on a like-for-like basis, in comparing ourselves with the index, we do it on the pre-tax. But also about the pre-tax, that's how much money we have in the market working for you. We're collecting dividends off AUD 1.32 of assets and passing them through to you. It's not dividends on a hundred, AUD 1.14 or something like that. It's AUD 1.32. That's what's working for shareholders in the market at this point. I might also add, it's worth re-reminding everyone, it's probably pretty self-evident that the index doesn't pay management fees and doesn't pay tax. So the comparable index, of course, has that, those particular sort of tailwinds in any comparison that's being made with the performance of NTA. Jeff, sounds like you've got a- I've got a couple here. A couple there? Yeah, so with regard to the dividend reinvestment plans, why don't we just, particularly if they're trading, we issue at a discount, why don't we buy back the shares as an automatic strategy? So look, the comment that I'd make on that is we've discussed aspects of the DRP and the discount. We do have a buyback approved, and we have participated just recently when shares were at a very steep discount in that buyback, and continue to do so. But we don't intend to do anything robotically. In other words, each decision will be made separately, quite independently, and based on the particular circumstances at that moment. I think that's the best way to approach such trades with some degree of caution. Did you want to add anything, Mike? No, but I get the point, though, which is if you're issuing stock at a discount, that satisfies the needs of the people that wanna be in DRPs and don't wanna be getting out and getting back in. But then, if you can then buy back at a similar type price, then you're avoiding the diluting impact. So I get the logic of it, and we do sort of mention that as one of the things we think about amongst a whole lot of other things when we're looking at buybacks. Next. How come we don't own Nuix? How come we don't own? Yes. There's probably a long list of stuff we don't own, but go ahead, Mike. Yeah. No, I can't say. It's probably, it just doesn't fit our profile and our process at this point. Okay. Would AMCIL consider increasing its dividend? Look, in line with the earlier discussion on dividend, a separate decision is taken at each time. One of the key focus areas around this, and shareholders would recall that the dividend strategy, until comparatively recently, was that we would pay out 100% of franking credits, and we have moved to a position of paying a dividend that is more sustainable over time. We've come to the view that there is merit in some degree of predictability around the dividend and future dividend flows, and therefore, by having a special dividend, that's some signaling to shareholders that they ought not expect that the special dividend will continue to be paid year after year after year. But we have capacity to do that when we've had a particularly good year or there would be cause to do so. I think the board and its considerations on this matter is that we. And till we're absolutely certain that an increased ordinary dividend is sustainable over several years, we wouldn't be rushing to change that setting. But I go back to my earlier remark, that each decision is made six monthly now at the interim, which, as you know, is only a relatively new introduction, and the final dividend and the decisions made in light of the particular circumstances at that time. Sure. I'll also note, perhaps because it's relevant, that, over the last couple of years, since FY twenty-two, the two years after that, the ASX two hundred has seen a reduction in the dividends that it pays out. That obviously has an impact on the dividends that we receive, but one of the advantages of an LIC is that it can use its reserves to smooth out a dividend. An ETF would just be, you'd be receiving that falloff in income if it had no other gains, et cetera, but an LIC can do reserves, so it's something the board do look at. So thanks, Andrew. ... Would AMCIL consider releasing the value of franking credits in its monthly NTA? I'll pass that one to you, Andrew. It's in the annual, it's in the annual report, each year. The details are in there, so one can do the calculations very simply with regard to the income that is, that is coming in, the dividends that we are paying out, et cetera. Also, the issue with the franking credits, a lot of it is generated by the realized gains that we make each year. We don't know for sure what those realized gains will be until the end of the year. So I think to try and put something as an estimate as to what that would be, would actually be confusing and not give a real view of what the final position will be. It is those realized gains that I think is a particularly crucial part. Thanks, Andrew. No other questions here, Rupert. Any other questions in the room, or indeed, if any of those questions prompted other, other questions? Well, look, if not, there will be an opportunity for informal discussions after the meeting, when we hope that you'll all stay on for a cup of tea and something to eat, I hope. I'm not offering something that isn't- Yeah. Yes, good. I suddenly thought, "Oh, better check that." But so look, thank you very much for your participation, and thank you for those online who've also put questions to us today. We now... There There is no resolution that is required under that item. But we now move to the formal resolutions of the meeting. And just to remind everyone that this is a statutory meeting, what I'm about to say is of a fairly statutory nature. So your directors' recommendations are set out in the notice of meeting. I can confirm that where undirected proxies have been given to me as chairman, I will vote them in line with the board's recommendations on each agenda item. Voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business. Representatives of Computershare will oversee the conduct of the poll. It's really nice seeing some familiar faces here at each of these meetings. Firstly, if there is any person present in the room who believes they are entitled to vote, but has not yet registered to vote, would you please seek assistance from our share registry Computershare? I will now go through the procedures for filling in the voting papers. In respect of any open votes a proxy holder may be entitled to cast, you need to mark a box beside each resolution to indicate how you wish to cast your open votes. Shareholders also need to mark a box beside each resolution to indicate how you wish to cast your votes. Please ensure you print your name where indicated and sign the voting paper. When you have finished filling in your voting paper, please lodge it in the ballot boxes that will be available at the end of the meeting. And of course, you have right up until the end of the meeting, until the voting closes, to actually, cast your vote, or your votes. The second agenda item is the resolution to adopt the remuneration report. This is required by the Corporations Act to be considered by shareholders annually and as an advisory resolution only. The remuneration report can be found in the company's 2024 annual report. As administration, management, and investment services are provided by Australian Investment Company Services Limited, AICS, and the details of this relationship can be found in the annual report. The remuneration report is only concerned with non-executive director, director's fees. I will now show the proxies received in respect of this resolution, which are now shown on the screen, on each side of the room. I remind shareholders and proxies attending virtually that, who have yet to lodge their votes, to do so now, as the voting is open. There were no questions asked prior to the meeting concerning this resolution. If you have any questions on this item, please submit them now via the online portal or raise your hand if you are in the room. Perhaps to go online. Jeff, do we have any questions online? Chair? No questions online. Are there any questions in the room? Well, if there are no questions in the room, fill out your voting preferences. The third item of business is my own re-election, and so I can't do that myself, of course, so I've asked Director John Webster to chair the meeting for this item of business, and I think the right convention is that I sit down at this point. Thank you. Yes, Rupert. Thank you, Rupert. As Rupert said, the third agenda item is the resolution to re-elect Rupert Myer, AO. Rupert was re-elected as a director by the shareholders at the 2022 AGM, and he's standing for re-election again today. In accordance with Rule 46 of the company's constitution, he retires from the board of directors and, being eligible, offers himself for re-election. Rupert, would you care to say a few words? Thank you, John, and I think the right protocol is I remain seated for this part of it, but thank you, thank you for taking the chair. I'm pleased to offer myself for re-election at today's annual general meeting. In the ordinary course of events, I wouldn't have been offering myself for re-election until next year. But with Jodi Auster not offering herself for re-election and the requirement for a re-election of a director to occur, I agreed to step forward, even though I was re-elected two years ago, nominally for a three-year term. In doing so, I acknowledge that I have served as a director of AMCIL since 2000 and as chair since 2020, which overall is now considered to be a fairly lengthy period of service. But in offering myself and in serving, I wanted to share with shareholders that I have maintained and continue to maintain to bring to each of our meetings a very keen interest in AMCIL's approach to investment, a keen interest in working with Mark and the entire team, and to working alongside each of the directors. I'm committed to achieving long-term shareholder returns and note that many of the successful companies in which we are invested have stable, long-term managements and boards. If reelected, I look forward to serving the shareholders for a further term. Thank you. Good. Thank you, Rupert. I will now show the proxies in respect of this resolution, which are now shown on the screen. There were no questions that were asked prior to the meeting concerning this resolution. But I would like to take questions from the floor. Any questions? If not, Jeff, have we received any questions online? No, John, we haven't any questions. I will now hand the meeting back to Rupert. Thank you. Thank you. You get your exercise here. Had I been asked a question, I was just preparing to make the comment that Andy and the tech team here have been working at this for over twenty years, and probably just feeling you're getting started, so thank you for what you do for these meetings, too. Thank you, John, for chairing that part of the meeting. The final formal resolution is the proposal to renew the proportional takeover approval rules in the constitution. Rules seventy-nine and eighty of the company's constitution allow a majority of the company shareholders the opportunity to consider and either accept or reject a proposed proportional takeover offer for the company. In other words, we place that responsibility in the hands of the shareholders, rather than the shareholders leaving the board to make that decision. The Corporations Act requires that shareholders renew these provisions every three years by special resolution, which requires the approval of 75% of all the votes cast. These provisions were last approved by shareholders at the 2021 AGM. They therefore need to be renewed today for a further three-year term. The directors consider that it is in the interest of shareholders to have the proportional takeover approval provisions in the company's constitution for the reasons that I've just shared, and of course, these provisions do not apply to full takeover bids. I move that the constitution be amended by adopting Rules 79 and 80, as set out in the notice of meeting. There is no change to the existing wording in the company's constitution. I'll now show the proxies on the screen. And now I'll turn to any questions, either online. There are no questions online. Are there any questions in the room about this matter? If not, please complete your voting forms. Oh, excuse me. I'm very sorry. As a matter of interest, has anybody ever tried to approach the company for a takeover? Not in my time, either a proportional or a full. However, there's a bit of activity going on in the LIC space. So, you know, we're very aware of that, and we're keen to make sure that we've got all our provisions in place to put such a decision back to shareholders in the event that anything were to surface. But it's a good question. I've wondered the same thing myself, whether it's worth doing this every three years. I think it is. And it certainly sort of focuses all of our minds on what would happen if such a thing were to occur. But thanks for asking the question. So, ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our discussion on the items of business. In a couple of minutes, and particularly addressed for those of you online, I will close the voting system. Please ensure that you have cast your vote on all resolutions. For those in the room, may I now ask that you complete your voting card, and Computershare staff will collect your voting card at the end of the meeting. In fact, Exhibit A, you will see a purple box into which you should place your voting forms. I'd like to thank shareholders for your continued support, and thank you for the comments that have been made at this meeting and for your interest that you've shown in the affairs of the company by your attendance, both personally and virtually today. We appreciate the feedback, and of course, we welcome feedback and in the other sessions that we have during the course of the year. Shareholders are reminded that the team will be holding a webinar following the release of the half-yearly results in January, and also holding shareholder meetings in Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra, Brisbane, and Sydney during March next year. So they're generally more informal occasions without the statutory business that is transacted at the annual general meeting, but we look forward to an opportunity to interact with the shareholders on those occasions. I think I've given everyone sufficient notice on the voting, so I now make the remark that online voting is closed. The results of these votes will be released to the ASX later today, and I now declare the meeting. Actually, just before I do that, I'd like to thank my fellow directors, too. I feel I haven't given them enough today, and of course, with the closing of the meeting, it also marks the end of Jodi's term, and I just want to acknowledge that again. But thank you to my colleagues. It can sometimes be a bit lonely being a chairman of a public company these days, and I'm feel very well supported by the colleagues that I have around the board table and in the management team. So thank you again for that. I declare the meeting closed. Thank you.