Good afternoon to everyone here, and welcome to our 2025 annual meeting. It is great to see everyone here. I am Colin Sim. I am the Chairman of Millennium & Copthorne Hotels New Zealand Limited. Some housekeeping matters before we start. For those in the room, if alarms start to sound, please use the clearly marked exits and make your way outside of the hotel to the evacuation point areas which are located in front of the main lobby and on the Vincent Street side. Hotel staff will direct the way. Please follow the directions. Should you require assistance, please raise your hand, and we will ensure you receive help. Today's meeting is held both in person and online through Computershare online platform. For those of you attending the meeting virtually, if you would like to submit a question, the Q&A is always open, so please feel free to submit your questions throughout the meeting. These will be addressed at the relevant time. Voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business. I will now open the online voting for all resolutions. If you are eligible to vote at this meeting, you will be able to cast your vote under the Vote tab. Once the voting has opened, the resolutions will allow votes to be submitted. You can change your vote up until the time I declare voting closed. I'm joined today by my fellow directors, Kwek Eik Sheng and Kevin Hangchi, and both of them have flown in from Singapore. Our New Zealand-based directors, Graham McKenzie, Leslie Preston, as well as our Managing Director, Stuart Harrison. A number of our management and operational team are also present. Also joining today are staff and advisors, including our auditors, KPMG, and lawyers, Bell Gully. The notice of meeting has been circulated to all shareholders, and I intend to take it as read. The minutes of the 2024 annual meeting were signed as a true and correct record of the meeting on the 1st of August last year. The audited financial statements for the year ended 31st of December 2024 were released to the market on 24th of February, and the 2024 annual report was sent to you on the 28th of March. You can always find these documents about the company, financial accounts, notice of meeting releases, and so on, on our investor website. I declare that a quorum is present and that the meeting has been duly convened. Before dealing with items on the agenda, I would like to say a few words about MCK's 2024 performance. I will also make a few comments about the takeover offer from CDL Hotels Holdings New Zealand Limited from the perspective of the independent directors, and then ask our MD, Stuart Harrison, to provide some additional insights on our business, including the outlook for the year. Following the resolutions, we will be happy to take any questions you may have in relation to our company operations. Also, at the close of the meeting, shareholders in the room are invited to join our board and the management team for refreshments. After 2 years of hard work, it is really pleasing to report a significant uplift in revenue and a continued improvement in profit. We are pleased with a 21% increase in revenue to NZD 176.2 million. We are also pleased to come back on the turnaround of our core hotel business, as well as CDL Investments returning to a stronger level of sales from increased confidence in the residential property market. Taking out the effect of the one-off non-cash deferred tax adjustment, the increases in operating profit and profit before tax of 32.1% and 25.6%, respectively, says a lot about how we have been able to succeed with the intense focus on performance management throughout the business. In addition to adding to our revenue and profit, we are pleased to complete the acquisition of the Mayfair Hotel in Christchurch for NZD 31.9 million earlier this year. Returning to Christchurch has been a key strategic imperative for us, and the Mayfair Hotel will provide us with the ability to target new market segments and customers which we have not had access to. Fiscal Year 2024 was the first full year of ownership of our 50% joint venture in Sofitel Brisbane. Overall, the hotel has seen consistent demand following a soft first quarter, and we expect an increased profit contribution this year, despite the impact of severe weather events. Stuart will provide more detail on its operations shortly. We have also continued to build the value of our hotel and property portfolio, which, when taking into account the company's ownership proportions, had an assessed fair market value of NZD 911 million as of 31st of December 2024. With all that, we believe MCK continues to be in a strong position operationally and also from an asset perspective. It has strengthened its platform for growth, and despite recent global turmoil, we continue to be positive on the medium to longer-term prospects for MCK. At this, I would like to say a few words about the takeover offer from CDL Holdings Limited from the perspective of the company. As you know, the offer put to shareholders from CDL Hotels Holdings New Zealand Limited expired on the 8th of May. CDL HHNZ now holds approximately 84% of MCK's ordinary shares, which is below the 90% threshold required under Takeovers Code to undertake compulsory acquisition. CDL HH New Zealand is therefore unable to put forward any new offer to shareholders until January 2026. Whether they do so is a matter for them, but it's not something that is up for discussion here today. I would emphasize that this meeting is about us, MCK, and not CDL HHNZ, and therefore not the forum to discuss the merits of our now expired offer. Any questions about it are for CDL Hotels Holdings New Zealand Limited and should be put to them outside of this meeting. At our board meeting yesterday, all directors considered the immediate future of the company and what is in the best interest of all shareholders. We reached a number of conclusions by consensus. As a board, we still believe that MCK should remain listed on the New Zealand Exchange for the moment. This will allow public trading of MCK shares, which we believe is in the best interest of all shareholders. The board will continue to function as it has. As stated in the amended notice of meeting, Graham McKenzie is retiring by rotation and is standing for re-election. Graham McKenzie is retiring, as we said in our announcement, after the original notice of meeting was dispatched. One of MCK's larger minority shareholders requested Graham reconsider his position and seek re-election. That shareholder believes that it will be beneficial to minority shareholders for MCK to retain three independent directors of a board of directors of six. And also, Mr. McKenzie's experience with the company, as you know, Graham was part of the Independent Directors Committee, which led the company's response to the recent takeover offer. Graham has therefore agreed to seek re-election today, and if re-elected, his intention will be to serve through until the company's 2026 annual meeting of shareholders. Now for some welcoming news that most of our shareholders have been waiting for. This morning, the board resolved to declare a dividend for 2024 of NZD 0.03 per share to all MCK shareholders holding ordinary or redeemable preference shares. The dividend will be fully imputed and paid to shareholders on 19th of June. The board felt that it was appropriate to declare a dividend for 2024, now that there are no restrictions on doing so. We also took into account shareholder feedback in making our decision. Management is strongly focused on delivering a profitable result as it can be for 2025. It is therefore very much business as usual. On that note, I will now hand over to Stuart. Thank you. [Foreign language] Stuart Harrison [Foreign language]. [Foreign language]. Thank you all for joining our meeting today. We appreciate the time that you are giving to our team and to our business with your attendance. This year marks our 30th anniversary, both as a hotel group and as an NZX listed entity. For reference, you will see some of the annual reports cover spanning those years. Colin has spoken about our 2024 annual results, and I therefore want to look at some of the things that helped us deliver those results, as well as focusing on the current year, some of the challenges we are facing, and how we are dealing with them. I'm often asked what I think of the uncertainty currently being generated from world markets, and it's something that we obviously have to monitor closely. We know that international tourism and accommodation generally has been a critical part of New Zealand's economy for over 40 years. As a country, we've seen tourism spending returning to pre-pandemic levels, and the official statistics from last year show a 14.6% increase year-on-year to over NZD 44 billion. Anything that impacts the continued growth of visitor numbers, whether it's global economic downturn or another pandemic closing borders, hopefully not, is something we keep an eye on and assess regularly. Our sales force continues to do outreach to our global and local clients, and they've met with positive responses despite the global uncertainty. I'm encouraged that New Zealand's reputation and perception as a safe and attractive market for tourism remains strong in the current volatile climate. As a company, MCK remains committed to investing in its infrastructure and committed to growing our market reach and market share. It was pleasing to see last week in the government's budget that there was some recognition of tourism's contribution to the country and some added resources being applied to the sector. We need an ongoing commitment from government, central, and local to work with us as an industry to promote the country and to promote locations. Last year, I spoke about the international visitor numbers to New Zealand and the current state of the markets. The good news is that the first quarter of this year saw a continuation of the growth we experienced last year and has resulted in positive numbers. What is now top of mind for us are the second and third quarters of this year. As an industry, the outlook is subdued. Compared to the last 2 years, all market participants in tourism and accommodation are likely to see the same patterns. Weaker demand, increased competition for business, and heavy pressure on margins and profits due to the continuing low domestic demand, a lack of any events to attract global parties to New Zealand in our winter, and due to macroeconomic conditions. As an industry, we have a propensity to approach this by cutting room rates in an effort to obtain access to a smaller pie. The reality is this only weakens the operating performance with no increase in the quantity of people staying, but a cheaper room rate. Great for the customer, not so great for the investor. Our response to this is that we need to lift our game with more targeted marketing and clever management of our inventories and revenue. Earlier this year, we welcomed our new Vice President of Sales and Partnerships, Mel Beattie, to the company. Mel has been tasked with developing and implementing our sales strategies with a particular focus to take us through this period and deepen our already strong relationships with our key clients and customers. An important part of attracting repeat business visitors to our group, both in New Zealand and internationally, is our loyalty program, My Millennium. There has been a renewed effort to align and enhance our brand across the New Zealand and global group landscape. This is seen in room screens featuring videos from the Millennium Hotels and Resorts Global brand video, along with hotel-specific videos. You might have noticed in the hotel's lobby as you came in, a screen behind reception featuring the global MyMillennium video. For those guests and shareholders that sign up, there are various benefits such as complimentary welcome gifts and discounts off dining, whilst also accruing benefits for future stays here in New Zealand and across the global network. Over the course of this year, our hotels will be encouraging guests to sign up to MyMillennium at their check-in so that they can start their journey of enjoying those benefits. Also, top of my mind is the completion of our key refurbishment projects. You will recall that at previous shareholders' meetings, I've said that we are in a revive phase of our strategy, and it was a priority to complete projects at our key hotels in Queenstown, Rotorua, and the Bay of Islands to ensure that we could obtain an uplift in revenue and to secure new clients. As we've shown in our annual report, we are well on our track with our plan. Over 390 rooms have been refurbished in the last three years, and over 140 additional rooms are due to be completed in this financial year. In total, this represents over 30% of our owned rooms in New Zealand. A recent milestone was the completion of the first stage of rooms refurbishments at Millennium Hotel Rotorua, and we are well advanced on the next stage. The difference has been reflected in very positive comments from our clients and guests. Earlier this month, there were almost 1,200 delegates in Rotorua, with many of them visiting our hotel to attend Trends, a tourism event facilitating connection between New Zealand tourism operators and international buyers, aiming to boost future tourism. We've also had similar positive feedback from our completed projects in Queenstown and the Bay of Islands, where we returned 40 rooms back into hotel operational inventory. Not only do these refurbishments lift our standing in the market, but it gives our employees a positive boost that they are working for a company that is willing to invest in the hard product as well as our service. As we continue to progress the refurbishment and upgrade the hotel properties, we are building the value of our hotel and property portfolio, which grew to a total of NZD 1.1 billion last year. Credit is due to our Director of Property Management, Louise Boughton, and her team, who have been looking after a wide range of projects last year and into this year. When considering our current trading, it's helpful to understand the comparison with the Brisbane market. 2024 saw us completing our first full year of operation at our 50% joint venture, Sofitel Brisbane Hotel. The landscape for hotel operations within Brisbane provides a contrast to what we encounter within New Zealand, and more specifically within Auckland. Auckland has seen a significant increase in the quantity of hotel rooms, plus 35% in 4 years, as we saw a market preparing for the opening of the New Zealand International Convention Centre and increased underlying demand. We also see a seasonal drop in visitor arrivals over the winter months, hence the need to drive business and attract visitors during that time. Brisbane CBD, however, has consistent demand throughout the year, usually soft in Q1 during the holiday season before settling into a consistency over the balance of the year, culminating in the hotel's strong conferencing facilities being fully utilized over the quarter four and Christmas lead-up. Earlier this year, the Sofitel Brisbane Hotel braced itself for a Cyclone Alfred that was forecast to hit the Queensland coastline. This saw a significant drop in business as conferences and guests canceled their trips. Fortunately, the storm did not hit the hotel or cause any significant property damage, and many of the conferences have rebooked. One aspect of the hotel and Queensland government does well is its engagement with multiple sporting events that occur over the winter months, with Super Rugby, A- League, NFL, and AF teams and supporters frequenting the hotel. This year is expected to be no different and will have a heightened demand with events such as the NRL Magic Round, the British & Irish Lions Rugby Tour, and finishing with the English Cricket Ashes Tour of Australia. I also want to spend a bit of time talking about our recent acquisition of the Mayfair Hotel and how it fits into our overall strategy. Christchurch has always been an important market for us. At our peak before the Canterbury earthquakes, we were obtaining around 20% of our overall revenue from our three Christchurch hotels, and at one stage, we had five owned, leased, franchised hotels within the city. Not having a presence in Christchurch for a long time was something that was affecting our business as a national chain. Over the years, we've been exploring many options to return to Canterbury, and the Mayfair is, in our view, the right opportunity for us. Already established in the luxury segment of the market and having a vibrant café and a sought-after location, the Mayfair has already allowed us to talk to new clients who might not have considered MCK as their preferred hotel partner previously, but are keen to engage now. We're very excited about the prospects and opportunities that this acquisition will give us. Work is being done on rebranding the hotel to fit within the current brand portfolio, and we're definitely looking forward to showcasing the hotel in due course. Watch this space. Last year, I spoke of improving and redesigning key elements of our employee experience. We've since launched a vibrant set of key values that speak to what we are about, with this involving our staff and the process of their development. Our Director of Human Resources, Lisa McLean, and her team have succeeded in expressing who we are and what is important to us as a hospitality business. Our energy, passion, and attention to detail are things that often make a difference to a guest experience, and in an exceptionally competitive market, these can be what makes and breaks a stay. The level of employee engagement is pleasingly high, and I hope you will have the opportunity to stay at one of our hotels and see what MCK stands for and how it stands apart from its competition. While I've already mentioned Brisbane, I'd also like to mention Sydney. Long-time shareholders will be pleased to note that we continue to sell down our interest in the Zenith Apartments in Sydney. During the 2024 year, we sold nine apartments, leaving us with 22. These units are predominantly on the lower levels and one-bedroom units, so more likely targeted towards first-home buyers. Our remaining units are actively being marketed, and we expect to report one sale by half year and targeting a further eight before the end of the year. CDL Investments New Zealand Limited, or CDI, is 65% owned by MCK, and earlier today, it held its annual meeting in which they outlined land acquisitions which have recently completed. CDI has been carefully building up their development portfolio, with work currently in progress with subdivision consents, earthworks, and titling of properties for sale, which will provide a pipeline of future sales. This includes three stages at Iona and Iona Terraces in Havelock North, Worsley Road in Christchurch, and Highlands Drive and Lucas Terrace in Nelson, with these supplementing sections available in Prestons Park Christchurch. CDI is continuing to progress their work on two fast-track projects at R2 Growth Cell in Hamilton and Arataki Road in Havelock North. The current environment continues to produce acquisition opportunities, but the lack of infrastructure capacity and new legislation impacts acquisition and development feasibilities. The update confirms that year-to-date, the property market in New Zealand has been subdued, and management is implementing strategies to look to improve sales throughout the year. Over a number of years, we've made a concerted effort to focus on some base elements of sustainability where guests can work with us in our sustainable initiatives. This has included encouraging guests to reuse towels, removing single-use plastic bottles from conference facilities and hotel rooms, and increasingly, there has been a focus on replacing light bulbs with LEDs and the providing of guest EV charging car parks. Other highlights include our continued support of Save the Kiwi Charity through our room servicing opt-out program, and 12 of our hotels are maintaining their Qualmark Sustainable Business Silver Status. These are all part of a transition process, and in 2023, we performed several measurements so as to determine our emissions footprint without forming our base year. Within 2024, we saw a 6% increase in emissions across the business, in part due to an increase in hotel occupancy rates. Our direct emissions from hotel gas and electricity use are closely linked to our operations, so an increase in guests correlates to an increase in emissions. This means we are tracking to increase emissions each year unless we scope and implement sustainability projects. Following the appointment of our first sustainability manager in late 2024, we've put in place management structures and groups to support internal decision-making and reporting, including a sustainability steering group and Hotel Sustainability Champions Network. 2025 will include further development of a sustainability strategy to set the direction and roadmap for delivering sustainability across our business. Taking sustainable actions within our business will not only reduce our emissions and minimize climate-related financial risk, it will respond to changing guest preferences for brands who demonstrate that they care about the environment. We are continuing to accelerate growth initiatives, optimizing our hotel network and exploring strategic opportunities to expand our footprint in New Zealand and Australia. In addition, we continue our program of refurbishments and upgrades to ensure our properties meet the expectations of our clients. For Whangarei, we're currently refining the development proposition for a circa 85-room hotel. At this stage, the work has focused on the respective hotel amenities, the requirements as to number and mix of rooms, restaurant and meeting area requirements, car parking, and structural requirements. We've previously met with various local Harpoo representatives and the council, and once we have settled on some elements, some key elements, we will be able to engage further with them. As we look across our portfolio, we're conscious that there are a number of locations where we have unused buildings, hotel room blocks, and surplus land. Work has been carried out to assess the options available for us to use such areas, and over the course of this year, we will continue to refine our thinking on these. This may lead to further development in partnership with suitable parties or potential sale. We'll keep you updated as we move forward with any significant decisions. The M Social Auckland and Downtown Car Park. Many of you will be aware of details released by both the Auckland City Council and Precinct Properties relating to the sale of the Downtown Car Park and the pending development on that site by Precinct. Plans have been submitted to the council and are going through the consenting process. There is no doubting that this will have an impact on our M Social hotel operations. Overall, we favor this development and believe it will be a positive impact on this quarter of the Auckland CBD, but we have concerns in relation to the impact of the project with aspects such as traffic management during the construction and in its final state and how this can adversely affect the hotel. We will continue to monitor that situation and look forward to working with Precinct on the way forward. Hotels in general are increasingly being seen as an investment option. Recently, there's been a confirmed acquisition of a hotel located within one of Precinct Properties' buildings for NZD 180 million, suggesting a value of almost NZD 1 million per hotel room. This has increased various expectations as to respective hotel valuations and investment appetite for such. We have a careful and comprehensive acquisition strategy, and any hotel we add to our portfolio must meet a range of criteria, including return on investment, the location, the business market mix, drawing upon our support office resources, and the brand fit within our Millennium Hotels and Resorts branding. We continue to look for opportunities for appropriate hotels which will fit into our portfolio, noting that in New Zealand, there are several locations where we don't have a hotel brand presence or we should be looking to increase our presence. I hope that this gives you some insights as to how we see our business and the world generally. We recognize that there are still challenges in the market and are not back to 2019 levels of business as a country or as a business. As I highlighted earlier, the second and third quarters will be challenging for everyone in the tourism and accommodation sector. Everyone will be competing vigorously for business, and we will certainly be doing what we can to defend our patch. We have a clear strategy and clarity of purpose. Our focus is on ensuring that we have the best people and product in place for both the current market and as visitor numbers grow. This will drive our revenue, our profit, and our value for our shareholders. My team and I remain determined to do what we need to do in order to keep our hotels front of mind and a preferred choice in their markets. At the heart of all we do lies an unwavering commitment of delivering a perfect guest experience. By investing for growth, our products and our people will ensure our guests continue to choose us as their preferred hotel provider. We know what we need to do, and we are focused on ensuring that we execute on our plans to get the results we believe we can achieve. Before I hand back to Colin, I'd like to thank and acknowledge our Vice President of Operations, Ken Orr, who is standing down from that position, having made the decision to relocate to the South Island for family reasons. Ken has been with MCK for over 20 years, having started in Queenstown and became one of our most experienced and knowledgeable General Managers, having worked across our network, including at Grand Millennium Auckland here at the height of the pandemic. The Vice President of Operations role is not an easy one and requires someone with an excellent knowledge of hotel management and the ability to translate the intricacies of a lot of information into things people who have no exposure to the sector need to understand. Despite the Scottish accent, Ken has managed to corral, motivate, and lead our diverse teams across the country. I would therefore like to acknowledge his contribution as the Vice President of Operations. Luckily for us, he will not be staying—better get this right. Luckily for us, he will be staying with the group and has accepted the role of becoming the Hotel General Manager at the Millennium Hotel Queenstown, so we will not lose his knowledge and expertise. Thank you. I'll now hand you back to Colin. Thank you, Stuart. I would now like to move to the resolutions. They were notified in the notice of meeting, and explanatory notes have been provided. Voting on each of the resolutions will be by way of poll. Only shareholders, proxy holders, and corporate representatives of shareholders may vote on today's resolutions. For online shareholders, please cast your vote under the Vote tab on the meeting platform. For those in the room, please complete your voting form. I wish to advise that proxies were received prior to the meeting in respect of 96,002,313 shares, being 90.93% of total shares on issue. The board intends to vote all discretionary proxies we have received in relation to Resolutions 1 and 2 in favor of the resolutions as set out in the notice of meeting. Resolution 1 is in relation to a director reelection for Graham McKenzie. The first resolution is the reelection of Graham. Graham has previously indicated that he would not be standing for reelection at this annual meeting when he was due to retire by rotation under the NZX listing rules. However, after the notice of meeting was dispatched, one of MCK's larger minority shareholders requested Mr. McKenzie to reconsider his position and to seek reelection. That shareholder believes that it will be beneficial to minority shareholders for MCK to retain three independent directors of a board of six. Also, Mr. McKenzie's experience with the company. Graham was part of an Independent Directors Committee which led the company's response to the recent takeover. Graham has therefore agreed to seek reelection at the annual meeting. If reelected, his intention will be to serve through until the company's 2026 annual meeting of shareholders. As most of you already know, Graham is a barrister, a solicitor of over 30 years' experience in corporate and commercial law, is currently a member of the New Zealand Law Society, Disciplinary Tribunal, and the Independent Trustee of Development West Coast. The board has determined that Mr. McKenzie is an independent director as defined under the NZX listing rules. The board considers Mr. McKenzie to be an independent director for the purposes of the NZX listing rules, despite him being a director for more than 12 years. The board believes that the length of time Mr. McKenzie has been a director has not impacted his ability to act objectively or adequately monitor management and that his independence was demonstrated by his role in the Independent Directors Committee's response to the recent takeover of CDL Hotels Holdings New Zealand Limited. The board unanimously recommends shareholders vote in favor of the reelection of Mr. McKenzie. Graham, would you like to say anything? Can you hear me? Yep. First of all, I really didn't expect this to happen. It was a surprise, but I'm happy to stand, and I can confirm that in my view, I am independent, and it doesn't matter whether you've done 12 years, 12 years or one day. I'm resolute in the fact that I believe I am an independent director and will act independently in the best interest of the company. Lastly, I should say thank you to the shareholders that have supported me because the proxies are significant. Thank you. Thank you, Graham. Are there any questions in regards to Graham's reelection? Mr. Zingle. Good morning. Excuse me for not standing. Thank you for that. Graham, thank you for putting your name forward. I must confess I was considerably surprised because you have spent a long time with this company, and it is traditional in New Zealand companies once they are beyond 12 years, there have to be very good reasons why they are reelected. You are well aware that this company has a governance issue with the major shareholder for going back a long time. Your independence over the years has not been clear to me, but possibly that's a personal issue. I wish to test your, if you wouldn't mind, just explaining to us, if you would tell shareholders your understanding of the rights that shareholders have when the controlling shareholder votes to change MCK's constitution. You will be aware that a letter to this effect was sent to shareholders, including from Sydney Developments Limited, setting out their position. I can read you the paragraph because you seem to be confused about that one. Would you like me to do that? CDL already controls MCK, which allows, amongst other things, the ability to change MCK's constitution, appoint new board members, to influence the change of MCK's strategy, including decisions on operations, capital expenditure, capital structure, and the dividend policy, recognizing the rights of minority shareholders. I would like you to, if you would, tell us what rights the minority shareholders would have under that situation. First of all, I should make it really very, very clear that simply the independent directors were saying that is a possibility, that is an entitlement once you get over 75% of the shares of the company. There is no proposal that I'm aware of to amend the constitution. Let me make that very clear. That was simply a right. If it was amended, what would be the rights of minority shareholders? They're entitled to vote, and it would be subject to NZX compliance. What would that entail? What rights would the shareholders have if they changed the constitution and got over 75% of the vote? It would depend what was in the constitution. Now, you are aware that in the case of a special resolution, those dissenting shareholders have got a right. Could you tell us what that right is? There's a buyout. Right. Sorry? There's a buyout. Right. Right. And what valuation would that buyout right be? It's an independent valuation as I understand it. Right. And what is the likely level of independent valuation likely to be at this stage? I'm not going to speculate on that. I think that's entirely inappropriate. I would like you to give us an estimation. I'm not going to give you an estimation because I would not be completing the valuation. It's not appropriate that I do so. Because the valuation, as you understand it, for the takeover offer, and we're not going to discuss it in any detail, was completed independently by Northington Partners, and they were required to be approved by the NZX before that occurred. Right. I'm sorry, I can't give you that detail because it doesn't exist. But it's a fair question. I understand. The chairman remarked that you were a member of the committee put together to vet the takeover offer. Why did you, the independent committee of directors, agree to not insist on that a dividend be paid? The answer is quite simple. We have no ability to do so. It's quite a normal procedure with a takeover offer that the party making the takeover offer insists on there being no dividend paid, so they don't want to see cash depleted. We had no ability to do so. You might have liked to have sat at our directors meeting yesterday and found that once the 8th of May had finished, the independent directors were highly supportive of a dividend being paid, and that has been announced today. I appreciate the dividend being paid. Thank you. Perhaps the one other thing I should say that is relevant to independent directors is this company is not unique. I know of a number of other listed companies where directors have lasted well beyond 12 years, remained independent, and are still there. It is not that unusual. I think it is only a court recommendation. It is. Mr. Cooper. Thanks to you. My name's Blair Cooper. I run ACC's listed property fund. We currently own in the region of 4.7% of Millennium & Copthorne's voting shares. Look, I'm happy to confirm that we were the institution that asked Graham to stand again. That was simply in the view that with the current situation, with the takeover underway, that was definitely in our best interests and in the best interests of minority shareholders. I'll take one issue with what Graham said. We do believe tenure impacts on independence, ultimately. It's something we consider every time we vote to confirm election. We do not run lines in the sand. We consider each case on a case-by-case basis. In this particular case, we thought it was very much in shareholders' interests for Graham to remain on the board and remain as an independent director. Just happy to confirm that. I think there was a question raised around the comments by CDL in relation to capital raising, etc., etc. My personal view around that is it's somewhat boilerplate in these types of situations. It's not unusual to see those comments from either from an independent board in takeover situations. I'm certainly hoping, and I think both in CDL's support of Graham and in the confirmation that the dividend has been paid, that CDL's sort of served notice of its intention to continue to operate in a completely responsible manner throughout the engagement and as we engage going forward. I think both those things sort of serve as evidence of their intent, and I certainly hope that's the intent, and we'll be holding them to that level of behaviour. Thank you. Thank you, Blair. On that note, as independent directors, we will be doing the same. Are there any further questions in regards to Graham's reelection? Looks like no. Any questions from online? There is a comment from the NZSA standing proxy, and I'll just read it. NZSA appreciates the stance of the independent directors in respect to the consideration and rejection of the CDL takeover offer. We believe the right decision was made, and as Mr. McKenzie led that stance on behalf of independent shareholders, NZSA supports his reelection. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Mr. McKenzie did not need that. It was Leslie Christian, the Assistant Chairman, that came up. Yes. Can the NZSA kindly be advised? I do not believe that. That is what we have got here, so it is up to NZSA to correct it. There is a representative from the NZSA here. No idea. They are online. [audio distortion] NZSA's representative is online. Thank you. Appreciate from the NZSA. If they can get the facts right, we would be appreciative. We will address that accordingly. Thank you. Please vote on this resolution. The second and final resolution today is to authorize the directors to fix the fees and expenses of KPMG as the company's auditor. Are there any questions regarding this resolution? No? This concludes our discussion on the resolutions. In a minute, I will close the online voting system. Please ensure that you have cast your vote on all resolutions. I will now pause to allow you time to finalize those votes and for the forms to be collected. Sorry, Graham, I stole your papers. It's all good. I don't know what happened to mine. I just took the staple off. It's still locked. Okay, voting is now closed. The results of the voting will be released to the NZX as soon as practicable. Before I close the meeting, is there any other business that shareholders would like to raise? Hello, thank you very much. My name is Zhaoyu Chen. I'm the shareholder. I do have a few questions regarding the presentation. For the beginning slides, the Y axis seemed to be always missing. Regarding the occupancy, whether it is talking about the absolute number of occupancy or relative rates in%, I could not see it there. Also, for the quarterly revenue, I could not see the number presented, so I am not too sure whether it is a technical error or some kind of problem happened. Also, later on, you mentioned about sustainability. I am wondering, is there any food waste problem for the hotel? If there is, is there some kind of food rescue program to minimize the waste of edible food? Thank you. Stuart, I just want to refer those questions to you. Also, you can ask in a shared duration to relisted slides if you want to. That is fine. Firstly, in terms of the charts that we are showing, yes, we have not shown some of those axes. My concern, I guess, is that we are the sole publicly listed entity that deals in hotels and hotel occupancy. For us, putting out some of that information and being specific as to what our hotel group is doing occupancy-wise can be sort of more beneficial to our competitors and that sort of thing. Yes, it is to provide you an indication of it. They are relative and they are actual relative dollars and they are relative occupancy. It is very clear that that actual movement in that quarter over quarter as far as the quarterly movements. On an occupancy, when we're showing, they are direct occupancies that have occurred through the course of that year. In New Zealand, we do have a scenario. We start high in quarter one, we do drop, and then we come back out the other side. Brisbane, it was relatively flat. We have deliberately put it on that basis. On your sustainability question around food waste, yeah, that is one of the areas that has been, forms part and parcel of our consideration over the course of the year and becomes an area that we do start, we are focusing on. There are various actions that are getting taken on that front. Are we there yet? No. There is more to be done on that part of it. I think one thing that the sustainability journey has done is actually highlighting specific areas of the business where there are emissions and where we can actually look at revisiting. Food waste is one of those areas that, yes, we would be looking to revisit. Alan White, Redeemable Preference Shareholder, and until 15th of May, I was also an ordinary shareholder. Governance, I'm very pleased to see the announcement of the dividend today. I think that shows that the board here is going to act in the interests of all shareholders, and I welcome that. Well done. In terms of governance there, I attended the CDI AGM earlier today. Since the CDI came out from under the wing of MCK, it used to be stifled by MCK, and that's building into a very nice little company. It's really good. I think Jason's doing a good job there. I mean, it used to be an all-run two and a half people organization a couple of years ago, and now they've got a proper staff, a proper setup there. People, where there's work to do, there's people to do that job. Next point. Rebranding. Sofitel Brisbane and Mayfair. Is there a timeline for that? Third, you've already touched on Precinct, M Social. Do you really think you're going to be able to keep M Social open? There's going to be noise. There's going to be road cones everywhere. Auckland's famous for them. The other problem is, of course, we're well known from the refurbishment of M Social there. There's this asbestos in the thing. And how are you going to keep a hotel open when asbestos dust is likely to be running into the air conditioning system? People are going to tramp it in through the doors. That's going to be a nightmare job. Do you really think you can keep the hotel open? Stuart, you still want to take that on? Okay. I think the first one that you had as a question was around the rebranding with the Sofitel and the Mayfair. The Sofitel Brisbane Hotel, there is a hotel management contract in place for Accor to manage the hotel. It is a case that we would have to work with how we extricate them from that. I think we've been comfortable with allowing them to run it and what we've been able to extract from that. In due course, we would start looking at some work around refurbishments and things of that nature. I think that for me would be an ideal timing to revisit some of that rebranding. That is something that we continue to monitor as to how that one will go, but have to acknowledge there is an Accor management agreement in place on the hotel. The Mayfair and that. We actually have a work stream in place at present that is looking to do that. That should be something that will be in place in the next three, potentially four months to do that. I think probably the key thing for that is just shifting some of the systems over onto our systems to be able to fully see that one through from a branding perspective. Precinct and the M Social. We are actually in negotiations all the time with Precinct, I believe they're still submitting the resource consent. It has not been approved yet, but we are in constant discussions with them. We will take everything into consideration as you have raised in the question. Great. Thank you. Any questions online? Any more questions here? Sorry. My name is Hamish James. I'm a shareholder of Modern Reach Years and Preference Years. I've got a number of questions, and I might break them in parts. The first is the sale of Intercontinental is short talked about, really revalues hotels significantly in New Zealand. He mentioned the value of NZD 180 million, approximately NZD 1 million per hotel room. Is that going to be reflected in your fair value of hotel properties in the annual report? How do you value hotels, particularly given this new big sale of the Intercontinental in March this year? All our valuations are done professionally by outside valuers. In our book values, I think, how do you address that? Leslie? Do you want me to? Or you want to? Yeah. Sorry. Yes, as Colin has said, all valuations are independently done by an independent valuer. The key part, I guess, for valuers is that they also do look for market evidence. This is now real market evidence, and we would expect that that would therefore be something that they would bring into account when we look at our next round of valuation of hotels. When will the next round of valuation be? We tend to do those annually as part of our annual financials. Okay. That will be later this year? Yes. My second is about that you've got this land around the country, particularly the land in Queenstown, which overlooks the waterfront around the city centre. It's probably very valuable given the sale price in Queenstown recently of land. Is that valued separately as part of hotel properties? Is there a valuation available to shareholders for that land? Yes, there is a separate value that actually values the land portion at the front of Lakefront. That is embedded in the numbers that we put out there in terms of the total of it. It would be unusual for us to issue the valuation specifically for properties. Okay. Also on another topic, we mentioned, but obviously we are not talking about the takeover, but you got a lot of feedback. You had a lot of feedback from shareholders recently about the dividend. How do we give you feedback during the year? Either online through our website, yeah. Okay. And And we welcome them. Yep. Sorry. And just so that you know too, I mean, all the public releases have my email address. I am more than happy to have questions directed my way to be able to pass through to the board. Takeshi Ito is the Company Secretary. Again, same sort of principle process can work. And we will respond. Okay. Most important. Thank you. My last question for the minute is about the independent advisors report, which came out during the year. There's a couple of things I had with it, concerns I had. The first is that it came out, and I think before the sale of the Intercontinental was reported, was that right? Should it have been revised because of the new value with the independent reporter of what the value of shares was? That is a subject for obviously the independent advisors to answer. They were independent advisors, so we don't interfere with what they did. Whether they used or took into consideration that particular sale, I don't know. Okay. They also reported that the share value was a median of NZD 4.70, but it could be more if the preference shares were cashed in at NZD 1.70, which was possible. They didn't actually say how much more. I know in the media, ACC implied the value of shares could almost be up to over NZD 5 or perhaps over NZD 6. 6. Do you think that should have been included, the actual amount, the valuation should have increased given the weakness of the potential to convert the preference shares? Do you think that could have been included in the independent advisors report so shareholders would actually know the actual value? There was no offer as such for the preference shares. As an independent board, we never really looked or addressed that issue at all. If there were obviously an offer to take out the preference shares, we would have given you an assessment and a report or a recommendation. It was not on the card, so we did not look at it. I agree. Perhaps the implication from what I read a number of times is that the preference shares would only, the shareholders were only paid out at NZD 1.70, whereas the offer was for NZD 2.80. 2.80. I know there's nothing. Is there anything you can do about that from advocating for shareholders? Subject to be, there's nothing we can do, really. It's subject to be redeemed at some stage, isn't it? Yeah. I don't think it's a forum to discuss that at the moment. I'm more than happy to take it on board. If there's anything that we can address, we will address and revert back to you. Can I jump in here? Sure. The preference shares, they said that the possibility of takeover there, of redeeming the shares. There's a redemption process in the thing there. It's based on a 20-day long-term weighted average price of MCK trades. Of course, so far there's no story that they're going to actually redeem the shares. They also at the same time said that they would acquire shares on market through their broker Cradle Code at NZD 1.70. The redeemable preference shares. What's the question? It's not part of the, it wasn't part of the takeover itself, but there was an offer to stand in the market independently. It was in their notice, but it was not part of the takeover offer. As such, it was not part of the takeover process. If it was, we would have addressed it. Most definitely. It was just a notation within the offer that this is what they would do with the preference shares. There was no official offer on the table for the preference shares. Yeah. They said there's a possibility that if a successful takeover, they would look to redeem the preference shares. The offer is now lapsed. Yeah, the offer is now lapsed. We sit here as a public company. I guess given the preference shares, they may not have got the same price as the ordinary shares in this situation. Is there anything as a board you can do for preference shares and shareholders now to improve their value? Anything in the shareholders' best interest? I wish I could. I would do all I can within my means to enhance your value for you. We are doing all we can as a company to improve our performance, and hopefully it will reflect in this share price and its preference share price. Other than that, I think it's beyond our control and outside of our control. Thank you. Thank you. Thank Thank you. The NZD 0.03 dividend that you paid, possibly a solution for our gentlemen there. If you were to increase the dividend to say NZD 0.50, then that would affect the price of your preference shares. I'm not greedy. NZD 0.05 would have been nice, but NZD 0.03 was appreciated. Thank you. Considering we have a valuation of our company at NZD 4.60+, it does seem a little bit stingy that you're only getting NZD 0.03 in a time when the company was reasonably profitable. Just a comment, but thank you. Hopefully, 2025 will be a better year, and we'll be looking forward to a bigger dividend for you next year. Same would apply to the preference shares. It's Neil Hurt. I'm a minor shareholder, and I've got some preference shares. I was just wondering about the bed tax that was talked about last year. Just wondering what the progress on that is and if that's just going to be passed on to the people that rent the rooms or what. Thank you. I have a question for you. So bed tax, I guess, has been more around being mooted as an idea. The central government has basically gone down the path of saying there is no, they will not do bed tax as a tax. For now, it's mooted. It's fair to say out the other side, the mayor of Auckland is a very strong advocate of such things and keeps on referring to such. I guess it's something that, as an industry, we'd obviously prefer not to have and think that there's better ways of going about it. Thank you. Mr. Cooker again. Thank you. I've already been through the introductions. I'm Blair Cooper, and I've spoken here for the last two years. The good news is the share price is materially higher than the last time I spoke here. To that end, I'd like to thank the independent directors for their role that they've played for us and representing minority shareholder rights. It will come as no surprise. We've been pretty public, but I think they absolutely came out with the right recommendation in terms of the final offer from CDL. Also, I'd like to thank everyone else who stayed in the room, who stayed invested and stayed in the company. When you're dealing with takeover code and buyout rights, strength in numbers definitely applies. One of the things that's been really great to hear today, both before this meeting when I met with a number of you outside and during this meeting, is the understanding that the smaller shareholders have about the rights they own and the numbers and how they play out in takeover situations. They're not straightforward, but the depth of understanding is pretty clear and very pleasing. Just on the subject of the valuation, the gentleman down the end there has raised the issue of the non-voting preference shares. The number simply adjusting the NZD 4.70 and spreading it over the 100 million- odd head shares rather than the 150 million total shares is above NZD 6. That's the number. I should know I calculated it. I think the value to CDL in this transaction is very clear. Before we leave that, shareholders, the exit price for the redeemable, the price at which the redeemable shares are redeemed at, is simply set by the market. Every single person in this room can impact the price at which those shares are redeemed at. It is not set by the board. It is not set by the purchaser. It is simply set by the volume weighted trade price in the market. If, for example, the shares were to trade in the market at NZD 2, NZD 2.50, NZD 3, wherever they traded, that is the price that they can be redeemed at. Hopefully that is the answer to your question. Look, to the CDL representatives on the board, I would just like to say that I think it makes absolute sense for you to own 100% of this company. To be able to engage and purchase assets as and when you wish without the close review of minority shareholders makes absolute sense to me. To be able to control the cash flows, buy what you wish, and do what you wish with it is certainly worth something. As set out in the independent report and adjusted by me, well over NZD 6 in terms of the value. I do not think the question is whether it makes sense. It clearly makes sense for that transaction to happen. It just simply takes a reasonable offer from CDL for the shares. Once that is put on the table, a reasonable offer, I think there is a sensible outcome here. Until it does get put on the table, what I can sort of tell you and assure everyone else in the room is that ACC will absolutely be defending, representing our rights, and we'll stay in the shares as long as we have to to achieve value from our ownership of them. Chair, I'm conscious of your comments around questions to the directors, but let me frame what I had written in a slightly different manner. I think questions around value are absolutely fundamental to what a board does and what a company does. These are questions you could ask any company. I would definitely be interested, and I think shareholders in this room would be interested in why market valuations are good enough for a company to spend NZD 150 million of our money to purchase the Sofitel and to purchase Mayfair. Why it's acceptable to rely on market valuations in that case, but subsequently to describe those market valuations as used in the independent valuation as theoretical. It goes to the heart of our ability as shareholders to assess whether the board is making good decisions and whether the value paid today is going to hold up and be sustained going forward and what indeed this theoretical valuation that is past that date. We have, like I said to you on many occasions, on various occasions, yes, we do have independent valuations. We do have our own criteria as to how and why we invest in a certain asset. Those criteria have actually been quite open and disclosed. They are, like I said, we have investment criteria, and we make sure that those investments meet those criteria before making a commitment or a recommendation. I understand that. It does It does not really answer the question. I mean, the issue here is the board with its 80%+ shareholder spent NZD 150 million of collectively our money and then subsequently offered cents in the dollar to purchase the balance of the shares back. Somewhere between purchasing the assets in cold hard cash and in which case the market valuation was clearly what was relied upon and the time at which the takeover offer was lodged, somehow those market valuations became less valuable or. Not really, Blair. That is what the independent directors did for you. We represented very clearly to the bidder the values that we paid and expressed by those assets there. That is the reason why we recommended what we recommended. I absolutely appreciate that that was the view of the independent directors. I am just curious as to why that is not the view of the CDL representatives. Unfortunately— You clearly control and participate in some of those asset acquisitions. I think I earlier expressed to you this is not a forum to discuss that. It's a question to CDL Hotels Holdings Limited. As far as the independent directors are concerned on this board, we have maintained the values that we have paid for the assets, and we've expressed that very, very clearly in our valuations and our recommendations to the shareholders. I think it's the question you may have to direct to the business of the company. Okay, that's fine. Just out of guess, I suspect it's a question that every single one of your shareholders in the room today would like answer. Very interested in knowing the answer to. Yes, certainly. Like I said, it's not a question for us to answer as a board. We have done, as an independent board, the best we can for the shareholders in establishing the values of all the assets purchased now and in the past or recently and in the past. Thanks. Thank you. No more questions? No. Excuse me. Roger Clark's my own shareholder. Sure. Look, can you just give us a bit more detail about the discussions with Precinct Properties? Because that's sort of been something that's been going on for a couple of years now. Is there any chance they'll buy out the hotel? There are discussions. Most of them are in commercial confidence. We are, obviously, we'd be welcoming if they are interested in purchasing us to make us a decent offer. I guess that's how shareholders feel about CDL's offer. Just make us a fair offer. I think that's what Blair is saying. It will be. I can assure you, as a board, we will make sure it's a fair offer. All right. We'll hold you to that. Please do. As I have demonstrated more than once, this is what we will do for the shareholders, and we'll intend to carry on that way. For the records, Blair, we still have over 1,200 shareholders on the list after the takeover. Sorry? 1,100. 1,100. Thank you to the 1,100 shareholders in believing that this company is going places. Thank you. Yeah, one more question. I'll just re-emphasize or make it clearer after Blair contributed before about the actual value of ordinary shares, given the implication that the preference shares would only be bought for NZD 1.70 is more NZD 6. I would have liked to have seen that report, that actual number reported in the independent values report, or perhaps a different scale for what you get for preference shares, how that maybe if they gave NZD 2 for preference shares, how much ordinary shares would actually be valued at. Instead of shareholders having to estimate that, it would actually be in black and white for shareholders to actually see. Yes, certainly, as part of the takeover process, we are governed by a code and a process we need to follow. It was very clear that we Northington Partners. our role was to give them the information they needed, or for management to give them the information they needed, and for them to make their informed decisions. It's not our role as a board to influence Northington and what they do with the information and how they look at the different components. Could perhaps they could be, they did say it would be a higher value, but perhaps could you ask them next time to clarify that? Simply ask them to give you a number. Should there be another process, we will. We'll engage. If there isn't a takeover bid after January, this will be another process and another valuation will be. Duly noted. Yes. Let's make it really clear. It is required to be independent. The independent directors did not get involved in trying to influence the value up, down, or sideways. That was really important. The NZX would have roasted us if we had. They got all the numbers from management, and that's where it all came from. They formed their own view independently. Look, it's not unusual for people to not agree with an independent value. I totally agree. I just want next time perhaps to ask them to, in black and white, include that detail about the redeemable. I think we'll ensure that. Yeah, we'll ensure we follow the proper processes when we engage with an independent valuer. Should the process kick- off again? Just one follow-up question, please. If there was to be another takeover offer, would you use Northington again, or are you bound to use a different value? I don't think we can use the same. It has to get approved by the NZX. Thank you. Peter Cormack, I'm a shareholder. I'd just like to thank the entire board for turning up today, not just the independent directors. I'd like to thank Blair for his comments. I do just have a request if the board could release the top 20 shareholder list as it stands today to the NZX. That would maybe give us a little bit more information about where we do stand as holdings and things. Thanks. It is on the investor website. No. No. No? [audio distortion] Take advice. [audio distortion] I'll take legal advice on that, Jack. Yeah. We'll take it offline and rewrite. No further questions. I'll declare the meeting closed. Thank—