Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the E&P Financial Group results briefing for financial year 2021. I'm Peter Anderson, Chief Executive Officer, and with me is Paul Ryan, our Chief Financial Officer. This morning, I'll be providing an update on the performance of the business over the year and highlight the progress we've made with respect to our strategic objectives and growth initiatives. Paul will then run through the group's financials before I conclude with an update on the outlook for the company. We're pleased to report that over the 12 months to 30 June 2021, the company delivered a resilient underlying result driven by strong performances from our core businesses. Adjusted EBITDA for the year was AUD 32 million and adjusted NPATA was AUD 11.3 million, which represent a 2% and 22% increase on the FY 2020 result, respectively. Our solid FY 2021 result was driven by the strong performances from E&P Capital and from the core Evans & Partners business. The E&P Capital team had a very busy year marked by a record number of transactions. Evans & Partners continued its strong contribution to group earnings. Our result was also supported by positive investment outcomes on principal investment positions and a growth in funds under management of our core equities offerings. The group reported a statutory loss of AUD 18.8 million due to several extraordinary matters that are not part of our core business. We'll speak to these in greater detail later on. I'll briefly touch on a few key items which contributed to the statutory loss for the year. Firstly, many of our shareholders will have seen our announcement in early July, which outlined the steps we've taken to address the regulatory matters facing the company. The announcement summarizes the conditional settlement reached with ASIC in respect of ASIC's proceedings against Dixon Advisory, which I hasten to add still requires court approval. We've accounted for costs of the expected settlement in the FY 2021 result. Secondly, when Paul and I last briefed shareholders six months ago, the Board and management team were addressing 360 Capital's subsequently unsuccessful takeover offer. Not only did it cause distractions for our business, but of course, we incurred a series of costs along the way as we responded to the offer. Finally, notwithstanding the strong result from the Evans & Partners private Wealth business, the impacts of the regulatory proceedings led to a non-cash impairment of goodwill in the E&P Wealth segment. I reiterate that these events are not reflective of our continuing core business. Another dynamic that has impacted our statutory result this year, which we explained to shareholders at our half-year result, was our decision to suspend the employee share plans for all employees apart from executive key management personnel. Whilst this decision had no impact on employee total remuneration, it created a short-term overlap of cash bonuses with the expenses of historical employee share plan grants in the current profit and loss. Employee remuneration is our single largest expense, so to assist with like-to-like comparison of the continuing business with prior periods, we have presented adjusted EBITDA and adjusted NPATA alongside our statutory and underlying figures as we did at the half year. The adjustments illustrate what the result would have looked like had the employee share plans instead been suspended in FY 2020. Our adjusted earnings metrics also exclude the financial contribution of Dixon Projects from each period as the winds down of the business is now substantially complete. Over FY 2021, our goal was to get our platform to a position from which we could grow and add scale. We've made significant progress with respect to this objective across each of our three divisions, enabling the business to execute our clearly defined growth initiatives. In E&P Wealth, we established and have commenced the transition of clients to the Evans & Partners retail wealth management and to DA Private service offerings. This platform combines the best of our advice infrastructure and reg tech with our quality research-driven advice processes. It is this platform we will leverage to target the underserviced mass affluent retail market to complement our core high-net wealth offering. In E&P Capital, we continued to expand our capability in targeted market segments and established our Hong Kong office. This is an important step to build out our institutional sales and distribution presence in the Asian market in support of our ECM and research offerings. In E&P Funds, we progressed the delivery of value and liquidity outcomes for investors in our real asset funds. This has included a major refinance of URF's debt facilities and progression of its asset sale program. We initiated asset sales within New Energy Solar and completed the merger and subsequent asset sale within the Fort Street Real Estate Capital Fund, both of which will be accompanied by capital management initiatives for unit holders. We also streamlined our equities offering ahead of rebranding and investing in distribution resources to accelerate external distribution. Finally, as we did last year, we continued to invest in our risk and compliance capability and advice systems, and in line with more recent strategic goals, we've implemented a comprehensive enterprise-wide ESG program. In terms of our balance sheet, consistent with our advice to shareholders six months ago, we've continued to monetize our non-core legacy investment assets over the year. This has helped strengthen our balance sheet as cash and liquidity remain key focuses. As of 30 June, we had cash of AUD 50.8 million and no debt. After declaring an interim dividend of AUD 0.02 per share paid in April 2021, the board has decided not to declare a final dividend given the ASIC penalty we expect to pay. The board understands that dividends are important to shareholders but has made the prudent decision given the circumstances. Over the long term, and consistent with our previously disclosed dividend policy, the board remains committed to a targeted full-year payout ratio of 75%-85% of NPATA. I'll now talk to some of the other matters we addressed over the course of the year. As I mentioned earlier, management has addressed two key external matters across FY 2021. The first of those is the unsolicited takeover bid from 360 Capital, which was launched in late 2020. The E&P Board unanimously recommended that shareholders reject both 360 Capital's original and subsequent offers. Despite the final offer being declared unconditional, 360 Capital received acceptances of approximately 0.7%. We view this as a positive endorsement of the group's strategy from the majority of our shareholder base and thank our shareholders for their support. Following the expiry of the takeover bid, Mercury Capital acquired from 360 Capital a 19.9% interest in E&P Financial Group Limited, and we welcome Mercury Capital to the share register. The second key matter largely addressed across FY 2021 is ASIC's Federal Court proceeding against DAS. As mentioned earlier, DAS has entered into a conditional heads of agreement to resolve the legal proceedings commenced by ASIC against DAS in the Federal Court. The terms of the agreement are subject to the completion of certain steps by ASIC and DAS, as well as court approval, with a likely hearing date in late October to December this year. We view this as an important step towards resolving the legal proceedings between ASIC and DAS. I remind shareholders that extensive management and governance changes have occurred across the group over the last two years to ensure that Dixon Advisory acts in its clients' best interests at all times. This included commissioning an external independent review of governance practices by KPMG, with all resulting recommendations implemented. I'll now move on to the key financial metrics for the year. The group generated net revenue of AUD 187.9 million, which was down 2% on FY 2020, resulting from the deliberate structural changes to E&P Funds and the softer firm-wide brokerage revenue, noting that FY 2020 benefited from higher trading volumes as a result of COVID-19 volatility. Adjusted EBITDA of AUD 32 million was up 2% on the prior period. This is compared to underlying EBITDA, which was down 25% on FY 2020, as the suspension of the employee share plans weighed on the underlying result. Adjusted earnings per share for the year was AUD 0.05, which was up 18% compared to FY 2020. As mentioned earlier, the Board has decided not to declare a dividend in respect of the second half of the 2021 financial year. Moving now into our operating performance, we can see that the group's underlying business drivers performed well over the year. Funds under advice was up 22% in the 12 months to 30 June 2021 to a total of AUD 24.4 billion, with strong growth from the Evans & Partners client base reflecting positive investment outcomes. In E&P Capital, net revenue was up 26% to AUD 57.4 million due to the successful integration of institutional capital markets and corporate businesses and high levels of market activity. In E&P Funds, our funds under management was flat at AUD 6.7 billion compared to June 2020, with strong performances across our core equities portfolios offsetting a net reduction in real asset funds from the asset sale programs. During the year, we continued to execute on our clearly defined strategy and progression of initiatives to drive value creation and position the business for the Australian financial services landscape of the future. In E&P Wealth, we did this by leveraging our strong scalable advice and risk systems to establish the framework for the businesses to capitalize on the opportunity in the mass affluent retail advice segment, an area which is being vacated by many of our major competitors while continuing the successful execution of our market-leading finance wealth offering. In E&P Capital, the team continued its sector-driven strategy supported by targeted investment in its research, corporate, and institutional businesses. In E&P Funds, the team has continued to execute necessary structural changes across the real asset portfolios and taken steps to expand the external distribution and marketability of our outperforming direct equity strategies. I'll now provide an update on the performance of our three segments, beginning with E&P Wealth. We've had a very busy year in E&P Wealth. Our work to date in establishing and rolling our new service offerings has been successful. The growth has been steady throughout the year, which is illustrated in the chart on the top right of the page. By financial year-end, we had 365 clients under the new services, representing over AUD 700 million in funds under advice. We expect growth to continue into FY 2022 as more clients transition and we win new business. Another development, in line with the strategy to operate under a unified brand, is that several advisors are now dual authorized to provide advice across both Dixon Advisory and Evans & Partners. These are important steps towards both integrating our Wealth business and improving the quality of earnings by expanding the Evans & Partners financial advice offering across our client base and increasing fee-based revenue. From an operational standpoint, a lot has happened. We've listed a few key highlights on the page, including the following. As of 30 June 2021, 90% of our advisors had passed the FASEA exam, and we're on track to hit 100% by calendar year end. The business transitioned its primary platform provider to HUB24 and key third-party SMSF technology partner to BGL 360, both of which bring multiple advantages for our clients and advisors. These changes are consistent with our key strategic focus to build on our proprietary advice systems with third-party solutions to proactively manage regulatory changes and enhance the client experience. As an extension of improving the client experience, we've established the Dixon Advisory Client Advisory Board to gather feedback on the service and implemented a comprehensive ESG strategic plan, which is integrated into our advice processes. Finally, we've formally launched the Evans & Partners Family Office service, which you can see is a separate component of our funds under advice in the chart on the right. In terms of financial performance, E&P Wealth delivered strong earnings from the Evans & Partners business, offset by a lower contribution from Dixon Advisory as legacy issues are addressed. As a result, net revenue was down 5% and adjusted EBITDA was down 16% on the prior period. As I mentioned before, brokerage revenue was down when compared to the high market volumes experienced last year. Operating expenses for E&P Wealth remained stable as lower remuneration expenses were offset by higher insurance and advertising expenses. Now moving on to E&P Capital. E&P Capital delivered a strong result in FY 2021. The business produced a meaningful uplift in deal volume and revenue compared to the prior year. This result was achieved with increased ECM activity in line with the division's growth strategy and a number of large M&A transactions in targeted sectors of expertise. Our Hong Kong office is now operational, which provides access to the E&P Capital platform for international clients and is expected to contribute to the growth of E&P Capital's sales, trading, and ECM offerings. Excuse me. During the year, we continued to expand our equity research coverage with 135 stocks now under coverage, representing approximately 73% of the ASX 200 by market cap. The reshaping of our research offering, with a focus on small to mid-cap coverage, complementing the division's core verticals focus, is now largely complete and will continue to be a key differentiator for E&P Capital. Finally, as we reported at our half-year results, E&P Capital performed exceptionally well in the 2020 Peter Lee Associates survey. This demonstrated the quality of E&P Capital's institutional sales, trading, and equity research teams, particularly in the small to mid-cap space. Moving now to the financials on Slide 13. Adjusted EBITDA for E&P Capital was AUD 15.1 million, representing an increase of 49% compared to the prior year due to the strong revenue growth from the division. This has generated great momentum in the business, which has carried through into the new financial year. We have seen a strong start to FY 2022 as a direct result of targeted origination efforts, and the business has an encouraging pipeline for the new year from which we hope to build on. Moving now to E&P Funds. E&P Funds progressed several major structural initiatives during FY 2021 to achieve value and liquidity for investors in our internally managed real asset funds, which I spoke to earlier. Our London-listed US Solar Fund continued to grow after successfully completing an upsized AUD 132 million institutional equity raising in May 2021, with proceeds used to acquire a further 25% interest in the Mount Signal 2 solar plant and for capital management initiatives. On the equity side of the business, we made a series of operating platform enhancements to improve the marketability of our strongly performing strategies. This included investment in dedicated distribution resources and strategic marketing to promote further external distribution. Excuse me. The International Fund was rebranded as the Claremont Global Fund and has been awarded an investment-grade rating by Lonsec to complement its existing SQM and Zenith ratings. Our flagship series of equities funds was rebranded to Orca Funds Management, and the listed funds converted to unlisted unit trusts. Moving now to the Fund's financials. As flagged in our half-year result, the deliberate structural changes in E&P Funds, which include no longer seeding real asset funds internally and ceasing related party activities, has resulted in softer earnings compared to the prior period. This dynamic can be seen through the 19% reduction in net revenue compared to FY 2020. The reduction in our fund-based revenue has been driven by lower fees from our real asset funds following asset sales and debt reductions. Partially offsetting this was the strong performance in CD Private Equity Fund series and CVC Emerging Companies Fund I, which led to a significant increase in the value of our principal positions. When combined with cost-saving initiatives implemented during FY 2021, E&P Funds produced an adjusted EBITDA of AUD 12.1 million, which was 19% lower than FY 2020. Adjusted EBITDA, which has been normalized for suspension of the ESP and closure of Dixon Projects, demonstrates relatively resilient core business performance as the business undergoes the deliberate structural changes outlined previously. With that, and just in time, I think, given my voice, I'll hand over to our CFO, Paul Ryan, who will talk to the group financial results. Thank you, Peter, and good morning, everyone. The group's adjusted earnings for FY 2021 were a slight improvement on the prior year, reflecting strong core performance amidst the ongoing Dixon Advisory business model transformation, with our statutory profit impacted by regulatory matters and the associated non-cash impairment of goodwill. Group net revenue of AUD 187.9 million was down 2% on the prior period, as growth in E&P Capital was offset by softer E&P Funds revenue. Overall, the group delivered adjusted EBITDA of AUD 32 million and adjusted NPATA at AUD 11.3 million, up 2% and 22% on the prior period respectively. As Peter mentioned earlier, from FY 2021, given the suspension of the employee share plans, we've reported adjusted EBITDA and adjusted NPATA to assist shareholders with making like-for-like comparisons with prior periods. A reconciliation between the statutory and adjusted measures can be found in the appendices to this presentation. The impact of the suspension of the employee share plan is seen in the higher staff expenses incurred during the year, equating to 67% of net revenue compared to 61% in FY 2020. Staff costs were broadly in line with FY 2020 when adjusting for the impact of the ESP suspension. A continuing theme across the group from the operational view is a strong focus on cost discipline. Operating expenses were 8% lower compared to FY 2020. However, we note the operating expense savings would have been materially greater but for a significant increase in group insurance premiums at the beginning of the year. Depreciation and amortization was down 27% compared to the prior year. This was partly due to rationalization of our office footprint during the year, with FY 2022 to benefit from a full year impact. We expect the amortization of acquired intangibles to reduce further through the next two financial years as the remaining balances diminish. The non-cash impairment of goodwill in E&P Wealth totaled AUD 11.2 million. There were two primary factors contributing to this outcome. Firstly, the legacy issues in the Dixon Advisory business and prevailing regulatory risks. Secondly, because of industry disruption, including through elevated insurance costs. Slide 18 sets out the group's cash flow statement with operating cash flows reconciled to net profit after tax. Net operating cash flows were AUD 21 million for the year, down from AUD 30.8 million in FY 2020, which is reflective of the lower earnings and cash contribution from the E&P Funds business. The decrease in net working capital shown in note one on the slide was driven by provisions for regulatory matters and higher annual cash bonus provisions following the suspension of the employee share plans. The strong gains on the group's positions in the CVC Emerging Companies Fund I and CD Private Equity Fund joint ventures flowed through equity account of profits, given our level of control as the investment manager. The distributions and realized gains we receive on these positions flow through investing cash flows and financing cash flow respectively. During the year, the group acquired further financial investments in respect of pre-existing commitments. This included the reinvestment of fees received from URF and New Energy Solar back into the funds alongside unit holders. Further contributions were also made into both the CVC Emerging Companies Fund I and the CD Private Equity Fund joint venture, as all but one remaining capital call was made throughout the year. The group's cash balance was bolstered as we reduced our position in non-core assets, netting AUD 15.8 million over the year. The assets sold included the partial disposal of the group's cornerstone investment in both the US Solar Fund and CVC Emerging Companies Fund I. Moving now to the balance sheet on slide 19. As Peter mentioned earlier, cash and liquidity continue to be a key focus. It was for this reason that the group maintained a prudent balance sheet over the year and monetized non-core investments where possible. At 30 June 2021, the group had a healthy cash balance of AUD 50.8 million and no debt. As in FY 2021, we've taken out an insurance premium financing facility which fully amortizes over the year. Net assets declined 11% compared to 30 June 2020 as a result of the statutory loss after tax, which included several non-underlying items. As we've done in the past, we've set out a reconciliation of the group's tax expense for the year on the following slide. The group recorded a pre-tax operating loss of AUD 16.6 million in FY 2021 in our Australian tax consolidated group. Notwithstanding the operating loss, we have a tax expense of AUD 1.4 million relating to our Australian entities. The reason for this is that a number of the key items contributing to the pre-tax loss are non-deductible, including the provision we've taken for the ASIC settlement, the goodwill impairment in E&P Wealth, and the group's share-based payments expenses. We do not expect these to continue going forward, with the share-based payments reducing gradually over time as the remaining grants are expensed through the group's P&L. In our U.S. business, we recorded a pre-tax operating loss of AUD 1.4 million as the wind down of Dixon Projects continued. Consistent with the prior period, the U.S. CARES Act allowed the group to recognize a tax credit against past operating losses, totaling approximately AUD 900,000. The overall result was an effective tax rate of 4% for the group. Going forward, we expect our effective tax rate to trend towards the Australian statutory company tax rate as share-based payment expenses roll off and the U.S. wind down reaches completion. With that, I'll now pass back to Peter to talk about the outlook for the company. Thanks, Paul. Execution of the group's strategy and further implementation of the divisional growth initiatives will remain the primary focus in FY 2022. In E&P Wealth, this will be achieved through leveraging the scalable retail advice platform the company's built, to increase presence in the underserviced mass affluent retail market to complement our core high-net-wealth offering. In E&P Capital, the company will focus on increased advisory and ECM deal flow, continued recruitment to complement the existing platform, and the division's recent expansion into Hong Kong. In E&P Funds, the company will seek to grow through a greater focus on the external distribution of core equities offerings, as well as near-term initiatives to improve outcomes for investors in internally managed real asset funds. In FY 2021, we implemented the second stage of our operational review program, which will help underpin our growth initiatives. This includes our ESG program, staff development, and career mapping to foster and retain talent. The solid core business performance in FY 2021 has been enabled by the disciplined strategic initiatives and growth initiatives implemented over the last two years. As previously communicated, the near-term contribution from E&P Funds is expected to reduce as realization of structural change projects continues. The business has had a solid start to FY 2022 with good momentum carried through from FY 2021 and an encouraging pipeline for E&P Capital. Subject to market conditions remaining supportive, we expect this positive momentum in E&P Wealth and E&P Capital, coupled with lower levels of extraordinary expenses, to offset the diminishing contribution of E&P Funds. The final slide of today's deck repeats the message that Paul and I have presented to shareholders at our last few results presentations. E&P Financial Group is building and consolidating a solid services delivery platform, which we think is truly differentiated from those of our competitors. There are several partially completed structural change initiatives, particularly in funds, which need to be seen to their conclusion, but we are at the point where management's focus is increasingly on core business growth initiatives. We continue to work hard as a team every day to realize the strategic and financial objectives of the group, and I look forward to sharing more of our progress with you at future presentations. Thank you everyone for joining today's briefing. We now have an opportunity for Q and A from shareholders. Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on speaker phone please take out the headset to ask a question. Once again, if you wish to ask a question please press star one on your telephone. There are no questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Anderson for closing remarks. Yeah. Well, thank you one all again for joining the call, Paul and I look forward to next updating you along with the board at our AGM in November. Thank you.
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