Good morning. It's 10:00 AM, so I think we should get underway. So welcome, and thank you for attending the 17th Marlin Annual Shareholders Meeting. I'm Andy Coupe, the Chair of Marlin. As usual, we have put in place the Computershare virtual meeting option for those who are unable to attend in person, and we welcome those who have joined the meeting via that platform. We are duly convened as a notice of meeting has been circulated to shareholders, and I can confirm that a quorum is present, and now the meeting is open. Please note that the exits are at the back of the room and in the front of the room. Please ensure that your cell phones are off or put on mute. For those here in person, there will be the usual light lunch at the conclusion of the meeting, and as always, we do look forward to meeting you, as many of you who want to have a chat with us afterwards. Firstly, some introductions. Firstly, to my right is Carol Campbell. She is the Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee. Next to Carol is David McClatchy. He is Chair of the Investment Committee. Next to him is Fiona Oliver. Next to Fiona is Sam Dickey, our Portfolio Manager, and he will be speaking to you soon. And next to Sam is Wayne Burns, our Corporate Manager. Also here in the audience, we have Senior Investment Analyst Chris Waters and Investment Analyst Charles Barty. We're also pleased to have in the audience today representatives from our share registrar, Computershare, auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, our tax advisor, Deloitte, and our legal advisors, Bell Gully. Right, the agenda for today. The minutes of the Annual Shareholders Meeting are available at the registration desk and on the Marlin website. The 2024 Annual Report has been circulated to shareholders, and additional copies are available at the registration desk and also on the Marlin website. Today, I'll give the usual brief summary of the 2024 financial year and an update on the year to date, and then Sam will review the portfolio in more detail. After the managers review, we'll have a Q&A session, and then we'll move to the more formal part of the meeting. There are three resolutions for you to consider, which I set out in the notice of meeting. If you're attending the meeting online, there's a Q&A at the top of your screen. To send a question, type in your question into the field and press send. Your question will be submitted immediately. We've set aside time at the end of Sam's presentation for general questions relating to the operations and management of the company. Questions relating to the three resolutions will be dealt with in conjunction with each of those resolutions. Should you require any assistance, you can type your query, and one of the Computershare team will assist you with the function and reply to your query. It's now my pleasure to present the chair's overview for Marlin for the year ended June 2024. We typically start our annual meetings with a quick reminder of Marlin's investment objectives, being to achieve a high real rate of return comprising both income and capital growth with risk parameters acceptable to the directors, and also to provide access to a diversified portfolio of international quality growth companies through a single tax-efficient investment vehicle, and Sam will speak in more detail to those growth characteristics shortly. Oh, we got it. There we go. Corporate governance. Now, turning now to corporate governance, please note there are a raft of governance policies on the Marlin website. However, ESG and climate in particular are currently very topical, so these are the ones I'm going to address this afternoon or this morning. As we have previously advised, Marlin does not have a formal environmental, social, and governance framework known as ESG. I'm sure you're all familiar with that now. However, the manager does have a formal ESG framework, which governs stock selection to which the Marlin board is committed and fully supportive of. Legislation passed in 2021 introduced new financial reporting requirements for climate reporting entities, or CREs, and Marlin is designated as a CRE and is therefore required to produce an annual CRD report. The purpose of the CRD is to provide transparency regarding a company's contribution to climate change, the impact of climate change on its operation, and to show how it is managing these risks. In the case of an investment company such as Marlin, this means we're talking about the underlying portfolio companies that Marlin invests in. The evaluation of climate risks and opportunities has always been part of the manager's STEEP analysis, ESG framework, and responsible investing policy. However, the manager has now developed a new and more detailed lens on climate risks and opportunities, evaluating all of the investments in the portfolio in terms of their disclosed exposure to climate change and the potential impact of change on portfolio company performance. Marlin launched its first climate statement on the 16th of October this year. It's available on the Marlin website, and it is an important document. Unless current initiatives to extend the timeline by a further year are successful, next year we'll be required to include Scope 3 emissions in addition to currently Scopes 1 and 2. This will make an already complex statement even more complex. As I say, I urge you to read it, but be warned, it's not an easy-it's not a light read. 2024 overview. For those who've had a chance to review the annual report, you'll be aware of many of the following performance numbers. Marlin recorded a net profit after tax of NZD 37.2 million, a 58% increase over the previous year. Total shareholder return, or TSR, being the performance of the share price and warrant price plus dividends paid to shareholders, was 13.8%. The return being negatively impacted by the share price weakness, being the discount to the NAV. The share price discount to NAV increased from 1.4% at the end of the previous year to 6.7% as at 30 June 2024. Marlin's regular dividends continue to contribute to the total shareholder return with NZD 0.0759 per share paid in dividends during the year, which is equivalent to a dividend yield of 7.9% as it was paid out of net profit after tax. These returns are calculated based on the average share price for the year. The net asset value per share rose from NZD 0.93 to 1.03. The adjusted NAV return was 19.5% for the year, which represents a net return to an investor after capital allocation decisions and after expenses, fees, and tax. Continuing with the overview, this chart compares the adjusted NAV return and the gross performance return, that one being the return before expenses, fees, and tax, and to the benchmark index over the periods of one, three, and five years. The Marlin portfolio has outperformed the benchmark index over one and five-year periods, both on an adjusted NAV and a gross basis. So while returns have been softer over the three-year period, which we acknowledge, we are pleased too that the portfolio has achieved its objectives over the longer term, and we believe it represents a very reasonable outcome for most shareholders over those periods. Sam will discuss the international share market dynamics in more detail and a description of how the portfolio performed and how it is positioned shortly. Earnings per share. This chart shows earnings per share. The movements between 2021 and 2023, in particular, represent a potent reminder of the degrees of volatility that equity markets can experience from time to time and the impact on those shareholder returns. Look, I'd just like to remind shareholders that all of these financial terms that I've described are available on our monthly newsletters, our quarterly newsletters, and in the annual report. If you need to remind yourself as to what these things mean, then you can look them up there. They're also footnoted on the slides. Movement in shareholders' funds. This chart shows the Marlin NAV of NZD 193 million increased by a net NZD 30 million to 223 million as at 30 June 2024. The movements during the year, as represented by the gray, purple, and green columns, were a NZD 37 million net profit, less NZD 16 million of dividends paid, and one million of share buybacks, but adding back six million for dividends reinvested by shareholders via the DRP and the four million of new shares issued with warrants that were exercised. Right, Q1 of 2025. Not quite such good news, but one summer does not a swallow make. Having mentioned the volatility of equity markets a couple of slides back, Q1 of Marlin's 2025 financial year has unfortunately seen ongoing global share market volatility, which has resulted in losses in July and August and in a flat September. The unrealized net loss for the three months was NZD 4.5 million. The NAV per share was NZD 0.99 after the payment of the dividend of NZD 0.0207 per share. Marlin's adjusted NAV for those first three months was -2%. Benchmark index for the three months was up 5.5%. Total shareholder return for the quarter was a - 2.3% due to the decrease in the share price over the quarter, again offset by the December dividend, September dividend. Lastly, warrants. As part of Marlin's overall capital management program, Marlin made a warrant issue in May of this year. The exercise price is $1.04, and it will be adjusted down for dividends declared where the dividend record date occurs before between the settlement date and the announcement of the final exercise price. The exercise date is 16th of May 2025. Now, that concludes the directors' or the chairman's overview. Just in closing my address, I just once again, on behalf of my fellow directors, I'd like to thank you all for your continued support of Marlin. I'll now hand over to Sam, our senior portfolio manager. Excellent. Thank you, Andy. G ood morning, fellow Marlin shareholders, and welcome to the members of the board and ladies and gentlemen. I did want to say a couple of thank yous straight away. T he first one is to Bev, who's sitting right at the back there. And some of you might not know Bev and Wayne up the front here. Wayne doesn't need to wave, but Bev, if you could wave from the back there, both of them are instrumental in the management of Marlin behind the scenes. Now, I particularly want to thank the three analysts who work on your Marlin portfolio with me. So first of all, I'll just call out Dan Moser, who slipped through the cracks before because he's kindly returned from his mother's birthday to answer all of your hard questions afterwards. And Chris Waters, who's been with the portfolio for some time, and of course, Charles Barty, who some of you may not have met. So all of them are absolutely critical in the management of Marlin. So thank you, Chris, Dan, and Charles. As always, it's worth reminding ourselves, why do we invest internationally as New Zealand-based shareholders? The first thing is, and we mentioned this last year, that 99.8% of the 60,000-odd companies that are listed around the world are listed outside of New Zealand. So Marlin gives us, as shareholders, access to world-leading companies outside of New Zealand as New Zealand-based investors. And diversification is key. As international investors, we remember 2022 none too fondly when U.S. and international share markets were under pressure, but back closer to home, New Zealand and Australian share markets gave us more defensive characteristics. Now, since then, the opposite has been true. And then if you helicopter out over a five and ten-year view, international markets have given us strong returns and solid diversification. So today I'm going to provide you with a review of markets for the 2024 Marlin fiscal year. I'm also going to talk about what's been going on in markets, that volatility that Andy alluded to post-balance date. How did Marlin portfolio companies perform last year and since then? How are we positioned now and for the future, and what changes have we made to your portfolio? And then a few thoughts on the outlook. So just let's kick off with a review of markets for Marlin's fiscal 2024 year. So 2024 capped off another strong year for global stock markets. So it was strong in 2023 and again strong in 2024. And there were many, many drivers, as usual, but there were two key drivers. So the first one was the remarkably resilient global and especially U.S. economic growth. And the second one was falling inflation. So we probably remember that U.S. inflation got up to as high as 10%. That's now almost 2%. It's back almost in line with the Federal Reserve's target range. However, there has been a lot going on under the hood late in Marlin's financial year, but certainly post-balance date. That's seen a tick up in global share market volatility recently. We're seeing some unusual dispersion across countries and within sectors, which is making it an interesting operating environment for our Marlin companies. To give you a couple of examples there, when you think about cross-country volatility, Japan in August of this year had its biggest single down day in 35-odd years. That's because Japan's trying to create inflation and trying to raise rates, which is flying in the face of what the rest of the globe is trying to do, which is drive inflation down and cut rates. Then China had its strongest stock market rally, two-week stock market rally in decades recently, because equally, they're trying to stimulate their economies, whereas the rest of the world's trying to rein their economies in. But even within sectors, so if we take the key U.S. housing sector, which is a key driver of the biggest economy in the world, if you look at new home sales, they're at decade highs, whereas existing home sale numbers are at 50-year lows. So this sort of dispersion within sectors is quite unusual. I think said another way, astonishingly, four years on, we're still seeing the aftershocks of COVID. And that is creating unusual distortions for us as investors. Just a little bit more detail on those two key drivers of markets over the last 12 months or so. On the left-hand side there, you can see economist forecasts for U.S. GDP growth through time. So if we wind back to, say, June 2023, economists were forecasting for the 2024 calendar year a pretty paltry 0.6% of a percent GDP growth. Now, what you see on the screen there on the left-hand side is a really powerful growth upgrade story. And today, economists are forecasting for the 2024 calendar year with a couple of months to go, about 2.6%. So that's really powerful. Economic growth drives corporate profitability, which drives share prices. On the right-hand side there, you see four of the key central banks around the world. Of course, RBNZ I include in that as well. It's the European Central Bank, the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Reserve Bank of Australia, and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. And there's two things that stick out to me on that right-hand side chart. The first one is it is remarkable how sharp that rate rise cycle was over the last 18 to 24 months. T he second thing that stands out to me is most central banks around the world are now knee-deep in a rate-cutting cycle, which is welcome relief for consumers and investors. So the key point here is when you have accelerating economic growth and easing monetary policy, that is a powerful environment for equities. The other thing that's been interesting in driving markets is a handful of high-tech companies who are actual or perceived AI winners have been outstripping the rest of the market. So on the left-hand side there, you see what's called the Magnificent Seven. I'm sure you've heard of it. Those Magnificent Seven companies are Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta, and Tesla. And you can see they're up. This is the calendar 2024 year. You can see they're up about 36% so far this year, which is about twice as much as the other 493 companies in the bellwether S&P 500 Index. But on the right-hand side there, I want to put those stock price moves into context. So again, the primary driver of stock prices is earnings power or earnings growth. And you can see that the Magnificent Seven earnings are absolutely outstripping the other 493 companies. So the stock price moves are actually justified. So let's look at the performance of our Marlin portfolio. After a strong year in 2023, Marlin had another strong year in absolute terms and also in relative terms. So to give you the numbers there, I'm sure you know them well. Marlin was up 23%, which is about 8% ahead of the benchmark, which is up 15%. Now, on the right-hand side there, right on the right-hand side of that chart, you can see what Andy was alluding to there. And it has been a tough year, certainly in relative terms for the Marlin portfolio since balance date. So it's about flat in absolute terms, but it's underperforming this benchmark. And then if you helicopter out over a longer period of time, over that six-year period, the portfolio is up about 110%, which is about 45% ahead of the benchmark. So this slide shows the key drivers of portfolio performance by company last year. And if you're above the line, it means you were outperforming the benchmark. And if you're below the line, that means you were underperforming the benchmark. There's three things that stick out to me on that chart. The first thing is it's always good to see when your biggest companies are performing. So that's sort of Meta, Google, and Amazon on the left-hand side there. The second thing is it's really good to see new ideas like Intuitive Surgical, for example, which I'll talk to you about shortly, and diversified medical technology companies like Boston Scientific outperforming, which is quite diversified from the big tech performers. And then the third thing is on the right-hand side of the chart there, we saw a disappointing change in thesis and our thesis on the discount dollar stores, which I'll absolutely go into in a little bit of detail in a moment. So Amazon, Meta, and Google perform really well for us, and they have a really interesting and powerful thing in common. And that's why they are all platforms for growth. So what does a platform for growth mean? It means that your core business is so strong, so dominant, that you have the ability or even the luxury to grow outside your core to develop businesses we'd never heard of as investors. So let me give you an example with Amazon. Its original core online retail business is still a juggernaut. So over the last decade, it's grown profits by about 500%. Certainly not to be sneezed at. But then you look on the right-hand side of that chart there, and you see businesses like Amazon Web Services and its digital advertising business that we hadn't even really heard about a decade ago. And when you layer all of those businesses on top of that strong core, Amazon's driven overall profitability by 8,000% over the last decade. Meta's not too dissimilar. That original Facebook Blue business that Mark Zuckerberg dreamed up in his dorm room is still very powerful today. That's grown profits by about 400% over the last decade. But again, a decade ago, Meta didn't even own WhatsApp, and it had just bought Instagram for a very small sum of $1 billion. When we layer those businesses on top of that strong core, Meta's grown its overall profitability by about 1,600%. We really like the characteristics of medical technology because that sector lends itself to wide moats, long growth runways, and it's more often than not run by really long-term thinkers. That's not dissimilar to Fisher & Paykel Healthcare here in New Zealand or ResMed and Robbie's portfolio in Australia. What are these moats that generally underpin these stocks? So the moat is normally underpinned by decades of research and development, which is really, really hard for you and I or any competitors around the world to replicate. And that's supercharged by the patents they have on their medical devices or products. When we think about the growth runway, that's underpinned by an aging population, but also it's that key nexus of medicine and technology. So that might mean faster discovery of drugs. It might mean more efficient medical devices. It might even mean robotics. So take Boston Scientific on the screen there, and it's not dissimilar that the power of the core business is so strong that it's been able to layer on new businesses we hadn't even heard about. So Boston Scientific is a diversified medical device company that has dominant businesses in the cardiovascular and surgical markets. Its core sort of secret sauce, its deep expertise, its research and development, so it's able to identify opportunities in the medical technology space before its competitors and certainly before investors knew about them. If I give you an example, they launched a new product recently called FARAPULSE, which is a heart ablation device to fix irregular heartbeats. The traditional method is extreme heat or extreme cold, which targets the affected cells in the heart, but it also unfortunately hits the healthy tissue around it, whereas FARAPULSE only targets the affected cells. That's led to very strong growth for that product, and they got there before all their competitors because of that really strong core business and strong process. That light blue bar at the top there is not dissimilar to the Amazon picture. Ten years ago, we hadn't even heard of those high-growth businesses, but today they're driving a lot of the profitability. When we think about our medical technology companies, Boston Scientific, ICON, Intuitive Surgical, Danaher, Edwards, and Dexcom, they're all solving critical global health issues, but it's not linear. There is volatility in that because they're either growing fast, they're trying to do the difficult thing of changing patient behaviors or changing clinical behavior for doctors. So there is some volatility. We've seen some volatility in those med tech companies post-balance date, but that has to be set against the attractive characteristics of the sector. Went for a kayak this morning and swallowed a lot of seawater, so excuse me. I talked to you about the extraordinary dispersion we saw in the U.S. housing sector, and the U.S. consumer is no different. This is quite unusual. So overall, the U.S. consumer is quite healthy, but the low-end consumer is abnormally weak relative to a pretty strong overall consumer. And that's the backdrop for the disappointing thesis shift we saw with our discount dollar holdings. As always, at that point in time, we go through what happened, what's changed in our thesis, and what have we done about it. And if I look through the lens of Dollar General, which is not dissimilar to the Dollar Tree situation, the thesis was these have very, very defensive customer bases. So back in the global financial crisis, the low-end consumer was relatively strong versus the overall consumer, but equally importantly, they were able to capture the trade down. So what do I mean by that? I mean when the middle-income consumer tightens their belt, they trade down to the lower-priced discount dollar stores for their groceries or their goods. Now, both of those things changed here. So as I said, the low-end consumer is abnormally weak, and that's partly driven by a global cost-of-living crisis, which we've all felt. And the other thing is they didn't capture the trade down. So as the middle-income consumer in the U.S. is tightening their belt, Walmart, Amazon, and Temu are taking those customers rather than the dollar stores. So that means the moat narrowed, and it was time to exit. Now, you might recall that we exited this company previously, Dollar General, that is, because we weren't comfortable with the way that the current management team at the time was taking the business. Now, the board of Dollar General obviously agreed with us because they fired the CEO and brought the previous high-performing CEO back into the business. We re-entered the company thinking that he could turn around the business, and that was wrong. I just want to make one point here is while the macro shifted against us here, we will often buy stocks where the macro environment shifts against us. So if I give you Floor & Decor as an example, their primary value driver or macroeconomic value driver is existing home sales. So you're most likely to put a new floor in your house before or after you sell an existing home. L ike I said, that's at 50-year lows. But any weakness we've seen in the share price and Floor & Decor related to that macroeconomic variable, we've bought a nd the key reason is Floor & Decor is taking market share in this weak market. In fact, some of its competitors are going bankrupt, whereas Dollar General and Dollar Tree were losing market share. So as long as the moat is intact, we will take advantage of macroeconomic weakness. Now I'm just going to take a look at the portfolio activity and what changes we've made. So during the 2024 fiscal year, we added three new companies to the Marlin portfolio, and since balance date, we've added another three. And we also exited five companies during the last 18 months or so. As a general comment, we've typically been buying companies with slightly wider moats and slightly longer growth runways than the companies we've been selling in. To give you two examples there, Intuitive Surgical. So that has 90% to 100% market share in the soft tissue robotics market. It is pretty daunting to be operated on by the combination of a surgeon and a robot, but the robots don't get tired. They're more accurate. That means they're able to get through hospital systems, they're able to get through bigger backlogs of patients, which is why the hospital systems are buying more. And most importantly, it leads to eventually better patient outcomes. When we think about the moat of Intuitive Surgical, it really is that clear market leadership and technological advantage and the many, many decades of research and development tucked away. So to give you an example, they launched their da Vinci 5 new robotic operating system recently, and that's made big leaps forward in haptics. So what does haptics mean? It means simulating a sense of touch. And da Vinci 5 halves the force on the surrounding soft tissue when they're doing an operation. A common operation they do is the removal of gallbladders. It just so happens that the immediately surrounding tissue there is the liver, so you definitely want to halve the force on that. There's also a long growth runway for this company. About 5% to 10% of soft tissue surgery is done by robots today. We think there's a long growth runway, but equally importantly, the AI embedded in a Da Vinci 5 system is learning fast every operation it does. We think before long it will be able to do on its own without a surgeon looking over its shoulder, simple operations like stitching up the wound after a gallbladder operation. ASML is the other company I wanted to talk about for a second. They have a monopoly position in lithography tools that manufacture advanced computer chips. Now I'll explain exactly what that means in a second, but I just wanted to paint you a picture. So these tools or machines are the size of a bus, and they cost about $250 million. So what does it mean? It means that this machine takes ultraviolet light or extreme ultraviolet light to print the tiny circuits or transistors that go on a computer chip. Now it wants to print them in a very tiny fashion so you can load more and more of these transistors onto the chips to make them more powerful. And to give you an idea, back in the day when the first computer chips were on the scene, there was maybe hundreds or maybe a few thousand transistors or tiny circuits on the chips. If I think about my iPhone today, which is only an iPhone 13, the single computer chip in there has 19 billion transistors on it, and that's where ASML fits in very neatly. When we think about the moat of ASML, the technology really is very complex, and these things have been called the most complex machines on earth. But on top of that, ASML has done really clever things like it's locked in its unique supply chain partners. So it owns about 25% to 30% of Carl Zeiss mirrors, which makes the most precise mirrors on earth. So you need those mirrors to focus the ultraviolet light to print the tiny circuits. And to give you an idea how precise these mirrors are, just pretend I blew this mirror up to be the size of Germany. The imperfection on that mirror would be the size of a human hair. Now, when you think about ASML and how we traded it, we started off small, and more recently there's been cyclical weakness in the company, so we've been using that to grow our position. On the right-hand side of the spectrum there, if you think about companies like Alibaba and PayPal, those companies used to have very wide moats and limited competition, but competition has proliferated or grown. So let's look through the lens of PayPal, for example. When it began, it had the online payments market largely to itself, but now you have companies like Apple Pay, Shopify Pay, Google Pay, or Pay with Prime by Amazon, so that the moat has narrowed for these companies. Just as a general parting two comments on the slide, the first point is, per the discount dollar conversation, if the thesis changes, we absolutely will cut risk or exit positions. But secondly, if you look at the companies on the left-hand side of your screen there, compared to the companies on the right-hand side, they have slightly wider moats and slightly stronger growth runways. So we're generally speaking increasing the quality and growth characteristics of Marlin. So what do I mean by quality and growth through the lens of some numbers? On the left-hand side of your screen there is returns. And when you think about returns, and particularly the sustainability of returns, they're a key element of a quality company. And you can see that the median Marlin company there has an almost 30% return on equity, and that's more than triple what the benchmark has. When we think about growth, I've just looked at simple sales growth there, but Marlin has about 11%, or the median Marlin company has about 11% sales growth, which is almost twice the benchmark. So just moving on to some thoughts about the outlook. On the positive side of the ledger, the key positive surprise over the last 18 to 24 months has really been how resilient that core global engine has been, the U.S. economy. So if we take a step back and see what the Fed, the government, and the economy itself has really achieved, despite the fastest rate hike cycle in 40 years, the economy is still growing almost 3%. Unemployment is still low. The consumer and aggregate is still strong. So said another way, the Federal Reserve managed to land a 747 on a pinhead. The second positive we've seen since we met up last is that inflation has fallen, and that's really helpful. So it peaked at 10%. It's now about 2% in the U.S. And the best thing is, if you remember back to that chart of what the central banks have been doing, they now have, post the big rate hike cycle, a lot of ammunition or firepower to cut rates in the future if they see signs of a recession looming. But there's always risks too, and stock markets have had a really strong run, as we've discussed. So equity valuations are a bit more elevated. The second thing is, four years on after COVID, we're still absolutely seeing the aftershocks in sectors and our company's business models, which is an unusual operating environment for our businesses. And then, of course, there's uncertainty that stems from the sad state of geopolitics in the Middle East, and of course, a certain political situation that's going on right now as we speak, but that's all I'll say on this matter for now. But of course, we're going to continue to focus our efforts on research and investing in high-quality companies with long growth runways run by highly aligned, highly intelligent long-term thinkers. So thank you all for your time today, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you, Sam. Firstly, I owe you an apology. I didn't realize you'd slipped in. I was told you were in Fiji, so you might as well have slipped in without my seeing you. So Dan, welcome from me as well. Also, I follow up on that shout-out to Bev too. Well, Bev does a lot for the manager team. She also is very helpful to the directors, for which we're very appreciative. Okay, the meeting is now open for general questions from shareholders or anyone who has been appointed as a proxy. I think I can guess what the first question will be, but I'll let you know if that's the case. At this stage, we are making time available for questions relating to the management and operations of the company, which are not specific to the resolutions. So please reserve your questions specific to the resolutions until that stage of the meeting. Once again, there are two microphones set up for questions. If you have a question, please hold up your hand. You'll be given a microphone. State your name, whether you're a shareholder or proxy, and just address your question to me in the first instance. If I can answer it, I will. If I think one of my colleagues will do a better job, I'll refer the question to them. But firstly, online, are there any questions? There are none. Thank you. Questions are now open from the floor. Noel Thompson, shareholder. I noticed in an earlier slide you had 30% allocation to medical, medtech, and in the portfolio. It seems a very high proportion, and I was just wondering where you consider the future benefit is, because I understand in the States there's possible changes that could occur in that area. Thanks, Noel. Appreciate the question. Like I said, we are positive of the medtech sector in general because those companies have particularly wide moats, long growth runways, and it's astonishing how long-term the thinkers are there. As to the Achilles heel, it absolutely is the fact that the regulator has his long arm out, has all her long arm out, and often reaches into their pockets. So we absolutely take that into account when we score the steep scores for these companies. Some of the companies are more affected, like something like UnitedHealth, for example, but the further you get away from the directly regulated part of the sector, so Dexcom, for example, which is providing continuous glucose monitoring devices to diabetics and pre-diabetics, the less acute that regulatory risk is. But I guess if they didn't have that regulatory risk overlay, they would be some of the most attractive companies on earth, but we score that directly into our STEEP scores and therefore our sizing of those companies. That wasn't the first question I was expecting, to be honest, but I can't see any more hands. Oh, there is a hand. Yes, good morning, Martin Klietz, shareholder. I have a couple of questions. One is relating to the basket of fees, and the other is regarding the warrants issues. I was wondering if the warrants are the ones that you were wondering about. Regarding the fees that are charged, some shareholders, not me, last year expressed concern at the high level of management fees, and your answer was, Why the management fee for the 2003 financial year was greater than the prior year? David McClatchy explained that the 2002 management fees had been reduced by the Fulcrum fee rebate at a rate of 0.75% due to the underperformance by the manager. In contrast, the 2003 management fees had not been reduced and were at the normal rate of 1.25%, which leads me to my first question. If that is the normal rate, if you go to page 47 of our annual report, it is reported that management fees this year have gone up another 16.1% from NZD 2,266,000 to 2,631,000. So that is quite a jump considering the inflation rate now, an increase of 16.1% in the management fee alone. But the management fee is calculated on the funds under management, so as the funds under management have grown and hence the profitability, then that's the reason why the management fee is higher. And just while I was talking about fees, just as a reminder, and I think David mentioned it last time around, just in regards to fees, you'll be aware that three or four years ago we negotiated down the performance fee from 15% to 10%, and it was subject to a cap. And the other thing that's worth remembering is, to my knowledge, and I'm pretty confident about this, no fund, we're the only three LICs that's Marlin, Barramundi, and Kingfish LICs as opposed to funds, but no other investment vehicle has a Fulcrum fee whereby the fee can be reduced for underperformance. So I just want to remind shareholders of that. But sorry, Martin, back to you. No, thank you for that. Well, it leads on to the second point. I'm just asking about fees. It was reported that this year an additional cash payment was made to Fisher Funds, the fund manager. It's on page 47, an additional NZD 893,000 performance fee. ` I've read the criteria for that performance fee. Can you please clarify? Could somebody explain to us all how that performance fee was calculated, as I came up with a different figure? First of all, the performance has to be higher than the previous high watermark, as it's called. Okay? I t's calculated on up to 10% of the profit over and above the high watermark represents the performance fee. No caps at 1.25%. Correct, which wasn't the case before. So that's a further, if you like, shareholder benefit, what was being negotiated. So I'm just saying your previous watermark figure is not shown to shareholders in this report, is it? No, but I think you can take comfort from the fact that the accounts are audited, so I don't think we needed to disclose that. Surely you can rely on the fact that it's been calculated accurately. It's just the previous year there was no performance fee. The previous year was an absolute disaster when those funds were invested in banks that had cozied up with the cryptocurrency traders. This group here, the shareholders, lost millions of dollars on that. Yeah, well. So I can understand that, but I can't understand how we suddenly have this performance fee. It's not just last year's assets minus this year's assets, is it? The high watermark level was achieved. As I say, performance fee is not paid unless the previous high watermark is exceeded. So you'll just have to take it from me, Martin, that that has been the case. And again, if it wasn't the case and we internally calculated in an erroneous fashion, it would have been picked up. So the answer is that's a fact. No, no, no. Amen to that. Just asking a straight question. What was the previous watermark time? When was that, please? I. Must have been years ago. I'm looking across at Wayne. I can't tell you that off the cuff. Please pardon? 2021. 2021, we think it was. That's what I'm saying. Over four years ago. Yeah. Yeah. We're going back to several years before the AGMs and from that fee, and then this change here is why that reward is being given. Yeah, and that's the point of the high watermark. You can have a profit, but until you've actually got up to where the last one was paid, you don't get anything. So that's, again, a shareholder benefit from having the high watermark. Thank you. No, I appreciate that. That's all right. Now, with regard to the warrants, now my own feeling in the gut is that this is becoming a quietly stagnating investment fund. Looking at the attendance here makes me wonder. But the question is, if we go to page seven of the annual general report, we're told that the prior Marlin warrant had an exercise date of 10 November when warrant holders had the option to convert their warrants into ordinary shares at an exercise price of NZD 0.92 per warrant. On the exercise date, 3.8 million warrants were converted. This is what worries me. Out of 50.5 million warrants were converted. That means of all the warrants issued, people only exercised 7.5% of the warrants. And when I look at farther back, it brought in peanuts in additional money. It was only a 7.5% exercise of those warrants, and it only brought in less than 1.5% additional funds. Is that of concern to you? No. I mean, obviously, the rate of conversion or exercise clearly related to the fact that the warrants were out of the money, and we try to caution shareholders or make them aware of the price of the share and the price of the warrants leading up to, but it's not our business to give advice, then the question is, if there's a continuation of warrants being exercised or not exercised or exercised at a very low level, what does that mean? I can tell you that over the course of the warrant history from Marlin, from day one, the average rate of conversion or exercise is 30%, a little lower than we'd prefer, I have to say, but again, if we wanted to grow the funds, you talked about it being stagnant. If we were to deeply discount the warrants, yeah, we'd have a higher take-up level, but that would also depress the share price. I know a lot of questions that we get from shareholders, they're very concerned about the fact that the share price isn't growing. And that's because of the dilution that would occur if we did a deeply discounted warrant issue. So long as we're paying dividends out of net profit after tax, I'm not. The board is not wildly concerned that the fund is at NZD 200 million and not, say, 300. We've said before, you've heard me say before, that there are some benefits to the fund being larger and that the management expense ratio becomes a little bit lower. Also, the heft that the portfolio managers have when it comes to getting access to companies is somewhat greater if their shareholding is greater because the funds under management are greater. At the end of the day, we think an awful lot about the warrant structure. I've talked to you about how we change the basis from setting our warrants from share price to the NAV. Again, I reiterate, we're very cautious about setting a warrant structure which is a deep discount to the NAV because of the dilution factor. Look, there's a lot of thinking that goes into the warrant structure. We've looked at revising the term. I think other shareholders at the Barramundi shareholders' meeting would have heard me talk about that. So short answer is not wildly concerned, probably prefer to see it somewhat greater, but we're not going to do deep discounted issues just to achieve growth. Thank you. What I'd just like to clarify, when you referred earlier to share price and then net asset value, the net asset value of the shares right now were NZD 1.03 is the same as it was five years ago when it was NZD 1.03. That's not what I call growth. The point I'd like to make, though, is when you go to the next paragraph in your letter, you say, sorry, the previous paragraph, on 16 May 2004, 53.7 new warrants were allocated. The warrants were exercisable on the 16th of May at NZD 1.04 per warrant. I went back and had a look. Our shares have never been NZD 1.04 on the market since the 9th of September 2022. In the last 26 weeks before this warrant was issued, they were never near that figure. A couple of days after the warrants were issued, it scraped to NZD 1.02 to 1.04 for 24 hours, and it's tanked ever since, dropping yesterday down to NZD 0.89 and scraping back to NZD 0.92 when 50 shares only were sold at NZD 0.92. That being the case, how on earth was the figure of NZD 1.04 a warrant, excepting before dividends are written off, how was that figure reached considering that figure had not been reached in the two previous years of market sales? Thank you. I'll just reiterate the point that that would have been the net asset value at the time, and we don't want to issue shares at deep discounts to the NAV. So that's a simple reason. That would have meant at that time the shares would have been trading at a discount to the NAV, and we're setting our warrant prices off the NAV. So that's the simple answer. But as a customer, for example, I bought another 25,000 shares significantly below. I got them in market far, far cheaper than if I'd exercised warrants. So just clarifying, the customers look at the market price, not the NAV you've calculated. There was a decision to shift. I think the methodology is faulty. Thank you. Thank you, Martin. Are there any other questions? This gentleman here. I'll come back to you. Hello, Sijian Chen. As a shareholder here, related to the previous question, several questions here. If that gentleman is not happy about the performance, if there is any pro-trader or pro-shareholder here that can way outperform the current team in both short term and long term, how easy is it to replace? The other thing is, is it okay for transparency purpose to the gentleman? How much does Mr. Sam Dickey get paid for the salary? No, that's not a matter, that's a matter for Fisher Funds. We have a management contract with Fisher Funds, so that's a matter for Fisher Funds and Sam. I don't even know the answer to that, but I don't need to know. Well. If anyone thinks they can achieve better investment returns than the management team, well, the beauty of an LIC, of course, being a listed investment company, is you can sell your shares at any day of the week, and then you go and do your own thing. Whereas if you're in a unit fund of some description, then you've got some further. It's not as easy to exit, shall I say, so we're very happy with the performance overall. As I say, it's a longer-term equity investment over the longer term. We've shown you positive comparisons with the benchmark, the equity benchmark over one and five years, not so good over three. But you go into the equity markets with a longer-term horizon, and the very long-term horizon for Marlin's been very good. Would you say that in that case, the job security may somehow reduce some incentive to do well, do you think? I can't comment on that. That's, again, that's a matter for Fisher Funds. We contract to Fisher Funds to manage the portfolio. That management contract is a five-year. W hen it comes up for renewal, we examine the performance. We examine a whole range of things, but it's not based on performance per se. So all of those things are taken into consideration when we look to review the management contract. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Maybe I can just make one comment there, just on the stagnation point and on the alignment point. So when I look down at my team here, Martin, I see an incredibly energized team. I've really worked with a more energized team, and I can assure you there's zero stagnation. In terms of alignment, I own shares in Marlin. My mother owns shares in Marlin. I can assure you that's the highest praise. So we're absolutely aligned with you as shareholders because we are shareholders. So thank you for your questions. And just while Bev's walking down, I guess Terry will say that if you look over that longer six-year period, the 45% outperformance speaks to how energized the team is. So thank you very much. Hi. My name's Neil Anderson. I'm a shareholder. As chair, you talked at the beginning of your presentation quite a bit about the climate risk reporting and the ethical investing. But I didn't note that Mr. Dickey spoke much about that in respect of the portfolio. And there are two quite large chunks in the portfolio where we would have concern as shareholders about climate risk. For example, the information technology in the communications area. Cloud computing nowadays is starting to make people notice. But data centers need to. Using huge amounts of energy. Yeah. I'd like to know what the portfolio managers are doing about dealing with that issue. Thank you. Excellent question. There are three points there. Firstly, within our STEEP scoring, we absolutely take ESG into consideration, and it's a direct input into our scoring. Secondly, when you look at the Marlin portfolio and use a metric like carbon emissions, for example, the carbon emissions of the Marlin portfolio are about 85% to 90% below the benchmark. So they're 10 times better than the benchmark. Now, that doesn't mean they're perfect, and you bring up data centers and how hungry they are for energy. So these are sort of things we'll engage with these companies on. We won't just blanket sell companies because they're not doing perfectly. We think if they're really good investments for everyone in this room, and we can make progress by engaging with these companies to do better, that's what we'll do. So that hopefully answers your question. On the data center thing specifically, AWS, for example, I think is about 90% renewables with the energy that drives its data centers. So these are all things we absolutely consider. So great question. Thank you. I think that wraps up questions. So thank you very much. That will now take us on to the formal resolutions of the meeting. Now, there were three resolutions to be put to the meeting. For those connected to the meeting online, the voting for the three resolutions, again, as you've been told before, can be accessed via the voting tab at the bottom of your screen. I now declare voting open on all matters of business. Today, we'll be voting by way of a poll. When the meeting comes to an end, please remember for those present to put your voting papers in the voting box. All votes cast during the meeting, both in person and those online, will be added to the votes already received, and results will be announced to the NZX later today. If you didn't bring your voting paper with you, you can get one after the meeting from Computershare at the back of the meeting. Now, moving to the formal resolutions, I will introduce each resolution and then propose the resolution to the meeting. After the resolution has been proposed, I will then ask if there are any questions. If you wish to ask a question in relation to that resolution, please raise your hand. Wait till you've been given a microphone. And as before, please introduce yourself. Per the notice of meeting, we received the Marlin annual report for the year ended 30 June 2024. However, we are not required to pass a resolution to adopt the annual report. Also, as per the notice of meeting, we have the three resolutions, which are to re-elect Carol Campbell as a director of the company, to re-elect David McClatchy as a director of the company, and to authorize the board of directors to fix the remuneration of the auditor for the ensuing year. First resolution relating to Carol Campbell, who is Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee. Carol has been a Marlin director for just over 12 years, having joined the Marlin board in June 2012. The board's view is that Carol's length of service brings important knowledge and skills to the board. She has, during her time as a director, demonstrated a strong and uncompromised commitment to bringing independent judgment to bear on issues before the board and act in the best interest of the company and to represent the interests of the shareholders generally. The board certainly wishes to retain her institutional knowledge, having already appointed two new directors as part of our board succession planning in the previous three years. The board, therefore, unanimously supports her re-election. I'll now ask Carol to speak to that re-election. Thanks, Andy, and good afternoon. I always end up standing here thinking three years have gone past very quickly, and for those of you that are shareholders in Kingfish and Barramundi, of course, it hasn't been that long since I stood before you, so apologies if you're listening to me again. My bio is already in the notice of meeting, and I think that most of you do know me. You've spoken to me at various of the meetings. I do enjoy the board of Marlin, and as I've said before, I think we have some very good, strong debates. The four of us come from different backgrounds. They always tease me because I'm the chartered accountant looking at the balance sheet, looking at retained earnings, and are we paying dividends out of retained earnings or not, while the capital markets part of the board is always looking at NAVs and share prices. I can assure you that I take my role seriously. I, like you, am a shareholder of Marlin, and therefore, we're working on the same team for the same outcome. Thank you for your previous support of me as a director, and I hope that you'll continue to support my re-election. Thank you. I think the auditors can confirm that Carol is sharp as a tack and doesn't miss a thing. So once again, the board unanimously recommends that shareholders do vote in favor of Carol's re-election, and I'll now put that resolution. I move that the company re-elects Carol Campbell as a director. Are there any questions relating to that resolution? Thank you, Carol. Nothing personal, but responsible for risk is primarily what your responsibility is, I understand it. Did you speak out against the fund's investments in those two American banks that failed within seven days of each other when it was learned? And I was told last year the board was aware that they had committed themselves to climbing into bed with cryptocurrency traders as a banking service. I'm not sure I really need Carol to answer that. At the end of the day, I think that's a question for the portfolio managers. But Carol, okay, she's Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee, but risk is also covered on a holistic basis, if you like, through the investment committee. And we've got very important risk parameters that we deal with. It's unrealistic, I think, for Carol to be able to express a risk which was unknown at the time for the portfolio managers. So I think it's a bit unfair to expect her to have said to you, Yes, I would warn them of that risk before the portfolio managers were aware of it. Is that fair, Carol? I think you can see that that's, I mean, we're here to govern. We're not portfolio managers. We don't make investment decisions. And therefore, risk around the specific investment is a portfolio manager issue, not a governance issue as such. Last year, I was told that the board was aware of these risks when it made the decision to invest in those companies. Now, either Carol was aware of that or not aware of that. That's all I'm asking. Thank you. I. Can I just pick up on that, Martin? I think you're causing the confusion as to who makes the investment decision. We are not involved in investment decisions at all. That's a portfolio manager's decision, but mainly, after the investment that we hear about that they've made. And we may question them at that time, but we make no investment decisions ourselves. Over here, Bev, there's a question. Hi, Carol. I'm sure that, well, I strongly believe in your ability to do well. But I'm a bit concerned about whether you are overworked in directing so many companies. So does the Fisher Funds learn from one of the companies' mention about the human surgeon work well along with the robotic surgeon? So does it happen in Marlin in order to reduce the workload, the work stress, and maybe even the cost and so on for the directors to do so? We have interviewed several robots for director roles, but so far, we've found they lack the necessary EQ, but look, I'll let Carol answer, but I just want to make the point that we interact with the Shareholders Association, who are very important and a growingly important body in the New Zealand equity markets, and Carol's workload and tenure, and for that matter, my tenure, have been discussed with the Shareholders Association, so they've considered those aspects, and the Shareholders Association is voting to support Carol's re-election, so Carol, you may like to add to it if you like, but as I say, it has been considered by what is, I think, the most powerful representative shareholders in the country. It's really interesting as a public company director because I guess people judge you on what you contribute to the board and your competence, and it ends up that I've been asked to stay on boards longer, and so therefore, obviously, people are thinking that my contribution is great. Just for your information, I have now come off as chair of New Zealand Post. I did 12 years as New Zealand Post director and was asked to be the chair after 10 years, and so after 12 years on the board, I've just finished 31st of October, so my workload has considerably reduced, and I'm not intending to take on any more directorships. Thank you. Yes. Hi, I'm Neil Anderson, and my other hat is I'm representing New Zealand Shareholders Association. Good thing I gave you a plug. Yeah. And I just wanted to confirm that New Zealand Shareholders Association has raised with the board the fact that Carol has been on the board for a long period of time and yourself, of course, and that the board has given assurances to the Shareholders Association that you are making efforts to increase the sustainability of the board in respect of tenure. We're aware of the longevity issue, and it will be addressed. But yes, thank you for those comments. Yeah. It's funny with talk of longevity when you look at some of the most experienced or most successful companies in the country. One of them, of course, is Mainfreight. Most of those directors have been there since I was a baby. So I'm exaggerating, of course, but you get the point. Okay. You should all cast your votes. Now, the next resolution is for the re-election of David McClatchy. David joined the board in 2021 as Chair of the Marlin Investment Committee, as well as an Independent Director. Not only is David an experienced company director, he has extensive investment management experience across New Zealand and international markets over the past 35 years, having served at very senior positions, including Chief Executive and Chief Investment Officer with major asset management companies in New Zealand and Australia. I think we're very lucky to have David on our board. So I'll now ask David to speak to his re-election. Thank you, Andy. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Like Carol, I won't speak to my past career because it is in the notice of meeting, other than to say that all of my career has been in the investment management and asset management space and continues to be so in involvements and businesses I have away from Marlin. I am a strong advocate of excellence in corporate governance, the principles, the practices, the processes that are important to achieve shareholder confidence. I'm very fortunate to work with a very experienced and skilled and capable board of directors who are collaboratively yet bringing considerable diversity to the board table, very robust discussions and insights, and drive very much for a view and delivery of corporate excellence and governance excellence. I've been on the board for three years. I've certainly enjoyed that time on the board. I've taken on the role of the Chair of the Investment Committee over the last couple of years. It has been a period of time where there have been considerable challenges in the investment environment. There's been considerable changes in the regulatory environment. Andy spoke to the changes associated with climate-related disclosures, and the ironic thing about the climate-related disclosures, of course, is that we probably cut down a whole lot of trees trying to create all the reports, and we'll probably cut down a whole lot more forests into the future to try and make them more perfect into the future, but it is a very important space and will be increasingly and continuing to be a challenge for boards into the future. I have great respect for my board colleagues, and certainly I have, and indeed we have a very clear focus on delivering successful outcomes for you as shareholders because we all are also shareholders. I am seeking re-election to continue to be a director and Chair of the Investment Committee, and I certainly appreciate your support to date and your support in advance with regards to my re-election. Thank you. I can say that David is an excellent chair of the Investment Committee and is definitely an improvement on the previous one. And I can say that because that was me. Okay. So the board unanimously recommends that shareholders do vote in favor of, oh, sorry, I should ask if there are any questions. My apologies. Therefore, the board does unanimously recommend that David is re-elected. And I'll now put the resolution. I move that the company re-elects David as the director of Marlin Global. Shareholders should put their voting papers. Now, resolution three. I'm not allowed to make auditor jokes, apparently. That the board of directors be authorized to fix the remuneration of the auditor for the ensuing year. No resolution is required to reappoint the auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, but a resolution is required to authorize directors to set their remuneration. So I'll now put that resolution. I move the directors be authorized to fix the remuneration of PricewaterhouseCoopers as auditor for the ensuing year. Are there any questions in relation to that? There are none. Shareholders should complete their voting for this resolution. Right. That brings us to the conclusion of the resolutions. Once again, please make sure you put your voting papers in the box as you leave the Computershare table. For those people online who have voted online, the voting will remain open for approximately five minutes, and then we'll close for counting, and the results will be announced on NZX later today. Once again, thank you for your support. Thank you for turning up today. I now declare the meeting closed.