On behalf of my fellow directors, I'd like to welcome you to Clean Seas Seafood Limited's Extraordinary General Meeting, called by a notice of general meeting dated 11th of December, 2023, and sent to shareholders in accordance with the company's constitution. For those that may not know me, my name is Travis Dillon, and as chairman of the board, I'm also going to chair the meeting today. I would like to begin by acknowledging the Kaurna people and the Barngarla people, on whose land and waters we work and farm. We pay our respects to the elders, past and present. I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today, participating on this meeting. Today's meeting will be conducted virtually. The company secretary has confirmed that a quorum is present, so I formally declare the meeting open. I would also like to introduce my fellow directors, our CEO, our CFO, and the company secretary, who have also joined this meeting virtually. Marcus Stehr, Non-Executive Director, Gilbert Vergères, Non-Executive Director, Katelyn Adams, Non-Executive Director, Rob Gratton, our Chief Executive Officer, David Brown, our Chief Financial Officer, and Eryl Baron, our Company Secretary. The notice of general meeting has previously been circulated to shareholders in accordance with the Corporations Act 2001, the listing rules of the Australian Securities Exchange Limited, and the company's constitution. We will take the notice of meeting as read. There are no apologies for this meeting. As this is a general meeting of the shareholders of Clean Seas Seafood Limited, only shareholders, proxy holders, or authorized company representatives, in the case of corporate shareholders, are entitled to vote on the resolutions. All other attendees are guests and are very welcome at this general meeting as observers. Shareholders were given the opportunity to ask questions in advance of the meeting, and those present today will be given the opportunity to ask questions throughout the meeting. Please be advised that the use of recording devices, photographic equipment, and mobile phones is not permitted during this meeting. I'll now take a few moments to explain the voting procedures that we'll use today. Please pay attention on the following four slides, as this will assist you in the process. As I've already mentioned, we'll also take the opportunity for questions and discussion about the resolutions. Please submit your questions throughout the meeting, and I will address them at the end of the meeting before voting closes. You may submit questions via text or request to ask a question via audio. If you wish to type a question via text, please click on the message icon located at the bottom of your screen if viewing from a phone, or the top of a screen if you're viewing from a computer. Type your message into the Ask a Question box and click the arrow button to the right-hand side of the message box. If you wish to ask a question via audio, please click on the Request to Speak icon located at the bottom of the broadcast window. The meeting broadcast will be replaced with the audio question interface. Confirm your name, enter the topic of your question, and click Submit Request. Follow the instructions to grant access to your microphone and join the queue. All resolutions will be decided by an electronic poll. When I open the poll, the voting icon will appear at the top of your screen. Once you click on this, the resolution will appear on your screen. Simply select one of the options to cast your vote. If you change your mind, simply select another option. You can change your vote as many times as you wish or cancel your vote up until the close of the poll. Your vote will have been submitted when the voting option icon changes color, and there is no Submit button. You can vote at any time during the proceedings until I declare the voting closed. I will close the voting after all resolutions have been considered and once we have concluded the Q&A session. I'll give you a clear prompt later in the meeting to warn you of the closing voting. Please note that only shareholders, proxy holders, or shareholder representatives may vote. So now, the electronic poll is open. We now come to the business of the meeting, and I'll hand over to our CEO, Rob Gratton, who will deliver a presentation. Thanks, Travis, and a very warm welcome to you all. Thank you very much for your support of Clean Seas and for attending today. It's only a short time, a few months, since the AGM, but a lot has been happening at Clean Seas. At the AGM, we spoke about a change in market conditions with cost of living pressures, multiple interest rate rises, war in Europe, and increased competition. Additionally, we spoke of increased feed prices that we've managed to offset over the last two years by reducing inventory and the time our fish in pens spend in the water, and the expectation of further increases in feed prices in the months ahead. In response to these challenges and the impact that they were likely to have on our ability to continue with our growth strategy, in November last year, we announced an operational review and a placement to be used for working capital to facilitate the right sizing of business operations and to execute on other key focus areas of the review. In my presentation today, I'll give an update on progress and outcomes from the operational review we've been conducting, our trading performance, and look ahead to what you can expect over the next few months. In summary, the operational review is on track to deliver a right-sized business with sales and production in equilibrium at circa 3,000 tons per annum. The balance between sales and production limits the working capital, expense, and infrastructure requirements of a growth strategy, and we've already seen the financial benefits of this in the last few months. The business at this size, 3,000 tons per annum, allows us to continue to focus on the more premium segments of the markets in which we do business, and has meant that we've been able to maintain resilient pricing in what remains a highly competitive trading environment. Prices for the first half of FY 2024 were AUD 22.53 a kilo, compared to AUD 22.44 for half one, FY 2023, and AUD 23.02 a kilo for half two, FY 2023. To facilitate the right sizing of business operations and to execute on other key focus areas of the operational review, we completed tranche one of the placement for AUD 6.7 million in November. Following on from receiving that support from shareholders, in December, we were able to renew our AUD 32.2 million bank facility with Commonwealth Bank. The second tranche of the placement for a further AUD 2.8 million is the subject of the resolutions we are voting on in today's EGM, and if approved, the total placement will be AUD 9.5 million. I'll go into more detail in a moment, but the previously announced biomass reduction is now complete and is expected to save AUD 11 million in feed costs versus what it would have cost us to grow those fish to harvest size over the next 14 months. Reducing our biomass and farming footprint allows us to reduce cost and complexity, and our targeted reduction in fixed and variable operating costs of up to AUD 5 million is underway and also on track. While elevated feed prices are ongoing, we do expect some respite this year, as one of the main ingredients in our feed, fishmeal, is seeing its commodity price easing in Q2 FY 2024. As I mentioned in my introduction, the operational review was designed to offset input cost pressures, rightsize the company, and create a more stable and resilient business with a faster pathway to financial stabil- financial sustainability. We've been focusing on biomass levels, operating costs, farming activities, and optimizing the production process to deliver a high-quality king, kingfish to the market at a strong margin. The planned biomass reduction has now been completed through an accelerated harvest and sale of about 550 tons into the fish protein market. This has already resulted in savings of approximately AUD 2 million in feed costs in November, December, and January alone. As I said before, we expect to save around AUD 11 million over the next 14 months, versus what it would have cost us to grow these fish out to normal harvest size. By managing feed and growth levels and achieving the biomass reduction quicker than expected, the reduction required was less than the 800 tons we had previously thought. This new biomass level supports sales volumes of approximately 3,000 tons in the most efficient manner and allows for the consolidation of farming activities. This consolidation of our farming footprint lets us focus on costs, and as such, we are on track to achieve the reduction in fixed and variable operating costs of up to AUD 5 million per annum. The consolidation of farming activities and the reduction in the business operational footprint is also expected to reduce the requirement for future capital spend by approximately AUD 8 million per annum. With the lower-than-expected biomass reduction, we expect the previously advised non-cash asset impairment to be reduced proportionately, and we will update you further on this in our half-year financial results, which we re-released in February 2024. Challenging market conditions have persisted throughout the first half of FY 2024, resulting in flat sales volumes versus the sales for same time last year. The global economic downturn is impacting demand, and we've seen increased competition from all markets from cheaper proteins. While our fish competes very well with these products, and we have a loyal and supporting customer base, we've seen some restaurants transition to these lower-cost offerings due to the cheaper price. This has been most apparent in the cooked main course menus of mid-tier restaurants. Excluding the accelerated harvest as part of the biomass reduction, sales volumes for half one FY 2024, FY 2024 were 1,513 tons, versus 1,526 tons in half one, FY 2023. As I said before, prices for half one remained strong, with revenue of AUD 22.53 a kilo. Fresh prices have held up particularly well at AUD 22.88 a kilo in the half, versus AUD 22.63 in half one, 2023, and AUD 22.98 in half two 2024 in half two, FY 2023. Frozen prices declined to AUD 20.23 per kilo in H1 2024, versus AUD 1.21 - sorry, versus AUD 21.23 in H1 2023, and AUD 23.26 in H2 2023, due to competitive pressures, broadly lower protein prices, and high levels of inventory globally. So for the rest of this year, our goal will be to continue to leverage our premium market channels and positioning in order to maintain pricing, while ensuring that our investments in infrastructure and automation and our operational footprint are focused towards offsetting the impacts of competitive market forces and input cost pressures. We'll continue our commercial positioning, building awareness and demand by highlighting the outstanding quality, culinary flexibility, and unique provenance story of our ocean-farmed Yellowtail Kingfish to maintain premium pricing. Over the next couple of months, we will conclude the implementation of the operating review and expect that by the end of February, we'll have completed that transition to a new farming footprint and adjusted our cost base. We expect a significant reduction in the funding required for infrastructure and working capital as a result of the review, with reduced operational financial risk and a faster pathway to profitability and free cash flows. The new right-sized business will leverage Clean Seas' competitive advantages, long-standing experience and scale, with an exceptional sought-after product with a unique and differentiated provenance story that is only achievable by growing a native fish in its natural waters. The delivery and implementation of our new automated feed barge, the Esprit, is expected in 2024, and we believe this crucial piece of infrastructure will provide scalability while managing operational financial risks on farm. With this new barge implemented, complementing our existing barge, we'll have about 90% of our biomass fed remotely. We'll continue to explore the development of external diets and novel feed ingredients with the goal of driving improved fish performance and identifying offset options to offset our exposure to volatility and feed prices. And over the next year, it is very important that we ensure that the decisions we make with respect to investment in infrastructure and working capital, as well as our biomass and growth ambitions, are appropriate in the context of profitability and cash flows in the short and medium term. Once the operational review is complete, we'll continue to focus on driving efficiencies and improvements across the business. The benefit of these actions is they will support our overarching goal of transitioning to free positive cash flows in the coming years, decoupling our business from input cost pressures. This will create a sustainable financial model for which we are striving. So I'll finish there and hand back to Travis. Thank you again for your attendance today. Thanks, Rob. We'll now move to the resolutions to be put to shareholders in today's meeting. I propose Resolution one as an ordinary resolution as follows: That for the purpose of Listing Rule 7.1, and for all other purposes, approval is given for the company to issue 6,574,065 shares under the placement to sophisticated and professional investors to the terms and conditions set out in the explanatory statement. Please make your electronic vote for Resolution one. I propose Resolution two as an ordinary resolution as follows: That for the purposes of ASX Listing Rule 10.11, and for all other purposes, approval is given for the company to issue 3,703,710 shares under the placement to Bonafide Wealth Management on the terms and conditions set out in the explanatory statement. Please make your electronic vote for Resolution two. As the next resolution relates to the issue of a placement shares to myself, I'll hand over the meeting to Non-Executive Director Katelyn Adams. Thanks, Travis. I propose Resolution 3A as an ordinary resolution as follows: That for the purpose of ASX Listing Rule 10.11, and for all other purposes, approval is given to the company to issue 92,592 shares under the placement to Travis Dillon on the terms and conditions set out in the explanatory statement. Please make your electronic vote for Resolution 3A. I propose Resolution 3B as an ordinary resolution as follows: That for the purposes of ASX Listing Rule 10.11, and for all other purposes, approval is given for the company to issue 55,555 shares under the placement to Marcus Stehr on the terms and conditions set out in the explanatory statement. Please make your electronic vote for Resolution 3B. I now propose Resolution 3C as an ordinary resolution as follows: That for the purposes of ASX Listing Rule 10.11, and for all other purposes, approval is given for the company to issue 37,038 shares under the placement to Katelyn Adams on the terms and conditions set out in the explanatory statement. Please make your electronic vote for Resolution 3C. Before we finalize voting, we'll address any questions from shareholders. There's no questions, so I want to now ask shareholders to complete your electronic voting card if you have not already done so. We'll now pause to allow time for shareholders to submit final votes. I now declare the poll closed. The results of the poll will be announced to the ASX following the meeting. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the business of the meeting. I now declare the meeting closed. Thank you for your attendance.
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