Ansell Limited (ANN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is John Bevan, and I am the Chair of Ansell Limited. It's my great pleasure to welcome you here today. Before I open the meeting, I'd like to take you through the procedural aspects of the meeting. Today's meeting is being held online via the Lumi platform. This allows shareholders, proxy holders and guests to attend the meeting virtually through a live webcast. In addition, shareholders and proxy holders have the ability to ask questions and submit votes. Every effort has been made to ensure this meeting runs smoothly. A full recording of this meeting will be provided on our website. Online attendees can submit questions at any time. [Operator Instructions] Text questions can be submitted at any time, and you do not need to wait for the relevant item of business to ask your question. We encourage you to start asking questions now. If you have any difficulties, please contact the AGM hotline number, which is displayed on the screen now. Please note that while you can submit questions from now on, they will not be addressed until the relevant time in the meeting. Questions may be moderated. And if we receive multiple questions on one topic combined together, depending on the questions asked, I would decide as to whether I will answer or ask a member of management or the auditor to respond. [Operator Instructions] Today, Anita Chow, our Head of Investor Relations, will be helping to moderate any text or audio questions. Voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business. Voting for all resolutions will open shortly, and the poll will remain open during the meeting so that you can vote on all items at any time. If you are eligible to vote, a new polling icon will appear. Selecting this icon will bring up a list of resolutions and present you with voting options. To cast your vote, simply select one of the options. There is no need to submit or the enter button as the vote is automatically recorded. You do, however, have the ability to change your vote up until the close of the meeting. Voting is now open on all items of business. The polling icon will soon appear. Please submit your votes at any time. I will now move to the formal proceedings of the meeting. The Company Secretary has confirmed that a quorum is present, and I declare the Annual General Meeting open. The Notice of Meeting was released on the 7th of October 2021, and with your approval, I will take the notice as read. This is a shareholders' meeting and only shareholders, their attorneys, proxies and authorized company representatives are entitled to vote and ask questions at the meeting. If you are attending as a proxy and have been instructed how to vote, I ask you to ensure that any vote you cast is in accordance with those instructions. We have appointed Herve Ferriere, a manager at Computershare Investor Services Proprietary Limited, assisted by members of his staff, as Returning Officer for this meeting. Joining me today in Melbourne are Peter Day and Nigel Garrard; and in the Ansell New Jersey office, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Neil Salmon; Leslie Desjardins; Marissa Peterson; William Reilly; Christina Stercken; Christine Yan; and Morten Falkenberg, who is standing for election as a Director at this meeting. I would also like to welcome our former CEO and Managing Director, Magnus Nicolin; and Company Secretary, Martin Evans, who joined us. Note that at both sites, we are adhering to the appropriate COVID safety procedures, maintaining physical distancing and wearing masks in common areas or where physical distancing cannot be maintained. Penny Stragalinos, who was KPMG's audit engagement partner on the Ansell account for fiscal year 2021, is also online and available to answer any questions during the meeting regarding the conduct of the audit and the content and preparation of the audit report. Before we move to the business of the meeting, I'd like to share with you a few comments on the state of the company. First of all, I'd like to acknowledge the departures of 2 highly experienced Independent Directors and, of course, the delayed retirement of our Chief Executive Officer. Consistent with Board policy, 2 long-serving Directors, Marissa Peterson and Peter Day, will retire from the Board at this meeting. Marissa joined the Board in August 2006 and Peter in August 2007. I thank them both for their splendid service and their many and wise contributions. I would like to provide Marissa and Peter with the opportunity to say a few words to you about their time on the Ansell Board. Marissa?

Let me begin by saying how privileged I feel to have had the opportunity to serve you as an Ansell Board Member over the last 15 years. I am deeply appreciative of my experiences with this Board, a Board that is well functioning, supportive and collective, but also not afraid to challenge and expand each other's thinking. I am immensely proud of Ansell's growth in both revenues and profitability during my tenure. But more importantly, it's a success in remarkably amplifying and validating the importance of our business purpose, why what we do at Ansell truly matters in people's lives, helping keep them safe, particularly as the world continues to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, I retire from the Ansell Board with a feeling of inspiration and optimism about the future. With an excellent management team under the leadership of new CEO, Neil Salmon, who will be building upon the fruitful leadership of the previous CEO, Magnus Nicolin, and of course, supported by an extraordinarily hard-working Board under the leadership of Chairman, John Bevan, I leave you all with my profound thanks and best wishes for the future. Thank you.

Thank you, Marissa. Peter, would you like to say a few words?

Thank you, John. Firstly, I'd like to thank shareholders for permitting me to be a Director of Ansell for the last 14 years, something approaching 20% of my life. But one of the things you quickly realize when you become a Nonexecutive Director is that it's not about you anymore. What it is about is how we can try to help other people to be the best they can be. In turn, that hopefully translates to a higher performing, more sustainable and thus more valuable company, producing sensible, reasonable returns to all stakeholders, including shareholders. In my time with Ansell, we have witnessed incredible growth in the caliber of our leadership, our management and the level of contribution by all employees. And the change in our footprint, diversity, ingenuity, ambition and drive has been remarkable, new markets, new products, new facilities, new people, new customers and new suppliers. Team Ansell has grown in so many ways. My thanks to you all for your efforts, delivery and performance. I do believe Ansell is incredibly well positioned to take advantage of the developments and potential in the health care and industrial safety solutions spaces. Management and our employees have positioned us exceedingly well in markets where we can grow and innovate. But no company is immune from the incredibly disruptive forces alive in the world today. So Ansell's increased focus on better society, better environment and better business resonates strongly with our long-standing core values and our differentiation from others in the industry. Finally, I'd like to acknowledge and thank Magnus for his inspired leadership and drive over the last 10-plus years. I feel confident in the strength of the baton he has passed to Neil and the senior team. To my now former Board colleagues, I say best wishes and just keep helping our people to be the best that they can be. Thank you.

Thank you, Peter. As planned, our Chief Executive Officer, Magnus Nicolin, stood down as CEO at the end of August this year. Magnus has tremendous contribution to the company over the 11 years has been widely and appropriately acknowledged. Here, I will only add that shareholders and staff alike are all clear beneficiaries of his effort and his vision. When you leave the company in December, I personally will miss you greatly, Magnus, and I wish you well in your post-executive life and career. I would now like to provide Magnus for the opportunity to say a few words to you. Magnus?

Thank you, John. Wow, it's been a pleasure to work for this great company. So dear fellow shareholders, after 11 years, I have the opportunity for the 11th time to address you to talk about the business and what is happening in the marketplaces. The focus today, of course, is more long term. I will try and put a little bit of perspective of what has happened in our industry, in our world over the last 10 years and what we have done about it to position Ansell for increasing strength for the long term. Neil will, of course, focus more on the short term and especially on the future, and more on that is coming in a minute. So let me move to my first slide, which really does what I just said. It lays out, first of all, 2 eras, if you will. The first era of 1999 to 2010, was the first period after Ansell became an independent company. And clearly, there was quite a bit of focus on dealing with a very fragmented industry. We had seen during that time, globalization pick up speed. And the world was getting increasingly globally integrated, health care demand accelerating, especially in emerging markets, regulatory requirements picking up speed. PPE solutions are fairly basic, though. Ansell focused a lot during this time on restoring investor trust after the Pac-Dun split and to maximize cash flow. Products were increasingly outsourced and investments were lower than depreciation levels. And there was quite a bit of focus on the Sexual Wellness business. Fast forward 2010, I was hired by the Board to go back on offense. We were seeing already then in 2010, and that has continued during the 10-year period, an increasing awareness of safety. Clearly, the succession of crisis, Ebola, SARS, MERS, COVID contributed to this. We had also and have also seen a continued focus on globalization and more and more sophisticated just-in-time networks being perfected, more demanding production and regulatory requirements and digital channels changing everything with many new go-to-market avenues. At Ansell, we focused on innovation. And we focus on building our brands to be relevant, focused, consistent. We accelerated investments in emerging markets. We upgraded manufacturing and spent quite a bit of money over these past 10 years to accomplish that task. Sexual Wellness was divested for the simple reason that we couldn't be #1 in the world, realistically speaking. And instead, we focused on doubling down in PPE with 10 acquisitions. Software and solutions focus was added to the company with our Guardian program, for example. And we increasingly started to invest in sustainability, especially over the last 5 years, with the intent of reducing water, energy use and waste to launch it. So that's the era we've been living through. If we now turn to our strategies on the next page. It essentially is summarized in these 7 areas: Focus where we came in #1 and #2; adopt to global customer-centric organization; focusing on selling solutions, not just gloves; simplify and standardize branding; drive innovation through the organization; expand focus on emerging markets, invest in manufacturing, with in-sourcing of everything that is differentiated, where we felt that we could bring something special and unique to the marketplace; and selectively use M&A carefully, thoughtfully but aggressively to make sure that we could pick up market share or expand into new categories. So when COVID hit, we were exceptionally well positioned to respond to rapidly changing needs and we're able especially to respond to the needs in single-use in surgical and in life science. And that, of course, has helped greatly for the company to be successful during a very difficult and problematic time. Next page. On this page, I summarized a couple of KPIs or key performance indicators. And when you look at it, you see that our sales is close to doubled, but what is more important is that we've seen our core brand sales quadrupling, meaning the top brands is really where the action is. We have seen our emerging market sales triple. We have seen new product sales triple. SG&A is down because we're increasingly getting into scale. I'm sure there's a little bit more opportunity there. EBIT has grown nicely. Quality has improved rather dramatically. A number of new products has increased significantly and percentage of global sales on a modern ERP has gone from 0% to 85%. Manufacturing CapEx, up from $12 million to $76 million or 6x and a return on capital employed initially was very high for the simple reason that we didn't invest much. And over a couple of years, was much lower, but we have now seen it return to higher levels again. And of course, earnings per share steadily growing. So I'm personally quite pleased with this. And of course, it's a tremendous effort by the entire Ansell team worldwide to deliver this. Next page. If we now take that into the summary metrics that are most relevant for U.S. shareholders. It's the earnings per share that we deliver. And this chart simply says that over the last 5 years and also over the 10-year period, we have seen a pretty steady increase in our earnings per share and especially in the last couple of years. But -- we do like the fact that we've had double-digit growth in earnings per share for the last 5 years. So I must say I feel good about where we are. Ansell is strong and uniquely positioned. We have a balanced portfolio. We can deal with whatever comes our way. We have a strong and very passionate team who are able and ready to bring the company forward. And I'm convinced that our best times are still ahead of us. I would like to finish by thanking you, fellow shareholders for the opportunity to serve. And finally, to wish Neil and the management team all the best. I think it's going to be an exciting journey ahead. And with the Board that we have, nothing is impossible. Thank you.

Thank you, Magnus. A magnificent time over 11 years. Thank you very much. Neil Salmon has taken over as Chief Executive Officer. Neil is well-known to shareholders as the former CFO prior to him running Ansell's Industrial business. I am sure shareholders understand that Neil has been an intimate collaborator with Magnus in the creation of Ansell as a modern, highly integrated PPE global market leader. So it will come as no surprise that Neil's appointment very much reflects strategic continuity for the company. In effect, our CEO succession will see Ansell doubling down on the characteristics that have seen the company so successfully distinguished itself from its peers. Namely, we will harness our growth prospects to the dynamics of emerging markets, and we will continue to focus our business on PPE product markets where we are clearly in the top 2 and where our strengths can make an obvious difference, and we will progressively bring more supply in-house where the opportunity makes commercial sense and we will further leverage the benefits of integration through material innovation as well as brand development. Briefly, I will now offer some thoughts on the company's current situation. In the short term, the impact of COVID remains a dominant influence, both positively and negatively. We expect more volatility than we've seen so far during the course of the pandemic. Volumes in our health care business will remain strong, but single year's pricing is likely to experience pressure following industry expansions. Recently, we've run into significant supply interruptions as new COVID waves impacted our plants and our suppliers in Southeast Asia and various markets. The longer term presents us with a different picture. Quite obviously, since its onset, COVID has provided the company with some dramatic and unprecedented tailwinds. In response, Ansell has committed its strong cash flows to growth, and we will soon begin to see the impact of some very significant capacity expansions emerge. So far, our most substantial expansion has come about in Thailand, where we have plans for 7 new differentiated single-use glove production lines with 4 lines now operational. On the 7th of October, we announced an even more substantial USD 80 million greenfield investment in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu. This is the largest greenfield investment in many years. It will be the most advanced plant of its type and will be designed explicitly to meet the most demanding carbon emission and water efficiency standards worldwide. We are building this plant to supply surgical and specialty gloves in both the domestic Indian market and export markets. The Tamil Nadu project and our ability to fund it is a function of how Ansell transformed itself with the sale of our Sexual Wellness business, which has enabled us to take full advantage of the extraordinary challenges of COVID. The company is now able to boost its global footprint and extend market leadership in emerging markets from a powerful platform of operational scale and financial strength. Now I'll briefly turn to 2 further themes that are clearly important to shareholders. Firstly, capital management. In February 2021, we announced a new dividend policy. This will see Ansell pay a proportional dividend targeting 40% to 50% payout of profit attributable. We've done this to better align shareholder benefits with movements in earnings while supporting growth through preserving a strong balance sheet. On-market buybacks will remain an option to supplement dividends as evident by the extension of the existing buyback program that was announced yesterday. Secondly, in relation to our commitment to excellence in ESG performance, I want to emphasize our focus forced labor in our industry. We have pledged to ensure no forced labor or modern slavery practices is present at our plans. We believe this to be the case, but we must continue to be vigilant. In addition, we have pledged to work with our suppliers to help eradicate the presence of forced labor in our supply chains. We have resumed physical third-party audits of labor standards at all of our own plants. Some of these were interrupted with the onset of the pandemic. Audits of our suppliers have also resumed, but COVID movement restrictions have forced the postponement of some physical audits. This will be resumed as soon as is possible to do so. At Ansell, we believe that meeting forced labor test is a clear condition of entry to our sector. Indeed, one of the important drivers of continuing to move supply in-house is to maximize control over our supply chain. Nonetheless, we are hard to see improvements across the glove industry over the last year, especially, and we expect to see improvement continue. To conclude, in the second pandemic year, Ansell has continued to perform extremely well, often in the face of unexpected logistical challenges and interruptions to global trade. There are short-term -- these are short-term challenges. But despite these, we have such confidence in Neil Salmon and his team that we are confidently investing in growth. I would like to now invite Neil to provide more detailed comment on the results and the outlook for the -- in the current year. Neil?

Thank you, John. Thank you, Magnus. And good day to my fellow shareholders. As you are aware, I took over from Magnus as CEO of Ansell on September 1 this year, having served in a number of years in senior roles with the company. In presenting the performance of the company during 2021, I'm going to take the opportunity to reflect a little more broadly on the results than is customary. I want you to have a clear understanding of my views of the company's strengths and where my priorities will lie. But first, I want to present the core features of our very strong year. As you can see on this summary slide, Ansell sales exceeded USD 2 billion for the first time, achieving impressive organic growth in sales across the business of over 22% in FY '21. This was driven largely by our Healthcare business where organic sales growth was 35%, but was also supported strongly by our Industrial business, which sprang back from the shock of the onset of COVID the previous year. A significant improvement in EBIT margins to 16.7% helped deliver very strong EBIT growth of over 50% in constant currency. This impressive financial performance provided further evidence that the highest return investments we can make at Ansell is in our own organic growth potential. And as previously indicated, we increased our capital expenditure by 36% to support growth in the next financial year and beyond, while also significantly increasing our dividend. Quite clearly, the COVID-19 pandemic created significant demand for some products, influenced pricing during the year and also benefits is our margins. In fiscal year '22, many of those same factors are now unfavorable versus '21 for a portion of our portfolio. So does this mean that the higher levels of sales and profit seen last year will entirely reverse? Well, there are good reasons why I believe our recent performance should encourage shareholders on the long-term value creation potential at Ansell. Firstly, Surgical, Life Science and Mechanical also grew significantly and ahead of the estimates of market growth rates for these businesses that we presented at our last Capital Markets Day. Our teams are currently working to update our strategy for a post-pandemic world, and we now believe meaningfully higher medium-term growth rates should be our ambition for these 3 businesses compared to our previous expectations. Secondly, the strength of single-use and chemical in FY '21 was not exclusively pandemic-related. Yes, we saw significant gains on the undifferentiated styles within SU and chemical that were most relevant to the pandemic response. And these gains are now partially reversing. But these trends are primarily on products that are not a core strategic growth focus and represent only a portion of our single-use and chemical businesses. More important to our long-term value potential is the success of our differentiation strategy in single-use and chemical. And we also saw in fiscal year '21 and continuing into '22 significant progress in this backed by manufacturing capacity investments oriented to the technologies behind these products. So broadly, while Ansell enjoyed significant price and sales benefits from Exam/Single Use, the company's performance was strong across its portfolio, including in areas not clearly correlated with the pandemic and in areas where the pandemic instead produced headwinds. Our confidence in the long-term potential of our portfolio is driving our increased investment ambitions. These investments are targeted to increase capacity, improve our manufacturing effectiveness and competitiveness for Ansell's more differentiated, high-utility product lines where market trends and our durable competitive advantage support higher rates of organic growth. They also collectively advance the strengths of Ansell's overall supply chain network, maximizing the benefits of Ansell's vertically integrated model of innovation, production and distribution and further strengthening our ability to differentiate with customers in the reliability and robustness of our supply chain. In some cases, these investments respond to national requirements for local production, now highly valued by customers after the recent experience of the pandemic emergency on PPE supplies. Our $80 million greenfield investments in India, mentioned already by John, is closely aligned with all our key strategic priorities. It will support significant growth, enhance our product differentiation, improve our competitiveness and strengthen the robustness and reliability of our overall sourcing network. And here you see pictures of work already progressing on site. Turning now to expectations for this current year. When we announced our results in August and set out our guidance for fiscal year '22, we made it clear that the unprecedented COVID-19 emergency was in the process of evolving. And with it, PPE markets were evolving, too. We issued a wider guidance range than normal, reflecting this uncertainty. And talking to you now 3 months later, it remains an uncertain market environment. It's now clear that external conditions are more challenging than anticipated for some of our businesses. But as ever, Ansell's diverse portfolio means we have opportunities, too. Mechanical, Surgical and Life Science has started the year well, growing despite the COVID manufacturing constraints that we mentioned in August, and that have led to delays in fulfilling some orders. Supported by our capacity investments, our in-house differentiated single-use styles also are performing well. However, the correction of market pricing and demand, particularly on the less differentiated single-use styles, is occurring more quickly than anticipated. Within Mechanical, while the strength of industrial markets continues in most of the world, manufacturing activity is clearly being hindered, at least in the short term, by the chip shortage, energy costs and delays in transportation. We believe the disruption to Ansell's manufacturing from COVID restrictions is now behind us, and our goal is to catch up on that lost production over the full year. We're carefully managing our cost base in this inflationary environment, while also putting price increases through in coming months. So overall, we are maintaining our EPS guidance range. Our goal is to offset more challenging conditions for less differentiated styles in single-use and chemical through outperformance in differentiated styles and in other SBUs, and by carefully managing pricing, and costs. I should note though that several factors will unfavorably impact first half margins. These include the cost consequences of COVID restrictions at our sites over the first 4 months of this year and the impact of inflation, particularly in transportation costs, with price increases only going into effect in coming months. Our teams are doing an outstanding job managing price in a very dynamic environment and continue to do so this year, taking increases on some products but also lowering prices, particularly in single-use, where required to stay competitive. This means that for single-use, we will also see the reversal of a trend that benefited last year and will hurt this year. Our goal is always to price to current market conditions, but our product costs lag behind market because of the months of inventory we carry. With rising prices, this is favorable. As we adjust pricing lower, this is unfavorable, even though we are successfully securing lower input costs on outsourced styles because it will be some months before the benefit of lower input costs shows in cost of goods sold. The year-over-year unfavorability from this trend we expect to be most pronounced in this fiscal half. Taking these factors into account, we're likely to see a more pronounced weighting of EPS delivery to the second half than is typical. Let me conclude by stepping back for a moment because I think a key question on shareholders' minds as we emerge from the pandemic is whether Ansell's ability to create value for all stakeholders has been enhanced or diminished during this period. I believe that it has been substantially enhanced, and now we need to demonstrate that going forward. By maintaining a consistent long-term focus against the strategies Magnus outlined earlier, we're now performing above our previous expectations in the part of our business most important to long-term value creation. I believe we are well-positioned to benefit from industry trends as the fundamentals of our business model are better aligned to what matters to our key customers than ever before. We are a vertically integrated PPE player, unlike the majority of our competitors. We have unique global sales and distribution infrastructure as well as leadership in manufacturing. And through our safety expertise and the breadth of our portfolio, we are well-placed to provide optimal protection solutions in rapidly changing workplaces globally. More than ever before, a differentiated supply chain is essential to competitive advantage. The flexibility and strength of our network, our unique technology and our commitment and investment behind ESG principles are all of increasing importance to customers who now consider these factors, as well as competitive and effective hand and body protection, as key to their purchasing decision. So as we look forward, I see an opportunity to refine our overarching mission for customers and shareholders and in so doing, bring greater clarity to the value creation opportunity for both. Our mission is Ansell protects. I'm committed to extending this mission in 3 dimensions: through increased R&D spend, developing advanced and more sustainable materials, we will bring to market protection solutions aligned to changing customer needs. And through pioneering smart connected PPE, we will significantly expand our capability to reduce injuries in the modern workplace. These efforts will redefine how we protect workers and workplaces. Secondly, in relation to who we protect, we're going to reach many, many more end users. I've referred to our greenfield investment in India. It perfectly captures our objective, which has delivered significant emerging market growth by adding sales head count and local manufacturing capability and reaching new end users. We see other sizable market niches with large numbers of users who haven't traditionally had ready access to Ansell protection. And now for the first time, we have answers to how to reach them, including through e-commerce channels. Finally, we'll bring a credible experienced-based answer to the question, what is our protection responsibility? Yes, we must protect our customers' workers and workplaces. We must protect our own workers, and we remain committed to safety at work, especially in COVID-19 times, and to protecting the rights of all our employees. And in turn, we will drive best practice at all of our suppliers. Finally, we will set ambitious new sustainability goals consistent with the Paris agreement and announce those later this year as we seek to also protect the environment. I'd like to conclude with a heartfelt thank you to the global Ansell team who has steered the company through these dynamic and challenging times, demonstrating incredible commitment and dedication while achieving impressive outcomes. And I'm confident these qualities will shine through again in FY '22 and beyond. Thank you for your attention, and now back to you, John.

Thank you, Neil. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now move to the formal items of business set out in the Notice of Meeting. As has been mentioned earlier, the poll is open on all items. The results of the proxy votes already received for each resolution will be displayed after any question in respect of the resolution that has been dealt with. The final results for each resolution will not be displayed at the meeting but will be lodged with the ASX following the meeting. The first item is to receive and consider the financial report and the reports of the directors and auditor of the company for the 2021 financial year. These items give shareholders the opportunity to ask questions and make any comments in relation to the financial statements, the directors' or auditor's report or the operations of the company. I ask the questions relating to the remuneration report be held until we get to that item later in the meeting. There will be sufficient time to address those questions later. Anita, are there any questions or comments on the financial statements, the director or auditor reports or the operations of the company?

Mr. Chairman, yes, we do have a few questions from shareholders. The first question is an audio question, which comes from John Whittington from ASA, who has 2 questions on the financial statement.

My name is John Whittington, and I'm [ advanced TX company ] monitor to the Australian Shareholders' Association. Today I hold proxies from 144 ASA members and nonmembers for almost 230,000 Ansell shares. Mr. Chairman, we would like to first thank you, the Board, the management and all Ansell employees for their efforts in producing such a great result in very difficult times. We also thank Marissa, Peter and Magnus for their considerable contributions to the company over the years and wish them well. As mentioned, I've got 2 questions. Do you want me to ask them one at a time or put together?

John, do one at a time, I think, is best to do.

Yes. Certainly. Mr. Chairman, I'm surprised that I had to read as far as Page 28 in the annual report for any reporting of safety performance and/or actions and was hardly mentioned in today's presentation. It seems that financial performance is considered vastly more important than employee or contractor safety. Is that the case?

John. And look, thank you for asking that question. We dealt with that in the conversations we had before the AGM when you -- we got together over Zoom to cover those questions. Safety is a very, very important element of the culture and the objectives of Ansell Limited. We are fundamentally a safety and protection company. So our own performance is a very good indicator of what we expect to see and be able to help our own customers with. Our safety performance this year continues to be well below our international competitors and comparable companies in the industrial space. But I recognize that actually your point that we haven't mentioned it much today, and we have not mentioned it until a fair way through the annual report is a reasonable comment, and we should look at that for next year. But thank you for raising it with us.

Mr. Chairman, my next question is, last year, we asked about cash flows and recall that the company quite "expect to maintain strong cash flow." However, in financial year '21 operational cash flow dropped significantly to one of the lowest level since 2014 and was less than net profit for the first time since at least 2014. Free cash flow is similarly down, lower than any other year since at least 2014. So what happened?

Well, 2 things are happening. One is that the value of our inventory is going up significantly as our cost base rises through COVID-19. So most of that increase is in working capital that relates to an inventory build, that as pricing changes and cost change will unwind. So we should see that start to unwind in this financial year. So it's a timing issue more than anything else. We also had large amounts of capital expenditure to increase our footprint in terms of manufacturing. And we -- and both Neil and I have talked about that in our speeches, and we will continue to do that for the next 12 months. So we're using our cash to apply that for future growth of the business. So they are the 2 reasons why our cash flow in the year was lower than you would normally expect.

Thank you, John. Mr. Chairman, the next question comes from [ Colin Long ]. It's a text question. He has asked, in 2016, Ansell entered into an agreement to reinstate workers in Sri Lanka after an industrial dispute that arose from Ansell's attempts to block workers exercising their rights to freedom of association. In 2018, Ansell was ordered to pay compensation by the Sri Lankan courts. This was reinforced by Sri Lanka Labor Department prosecution. But Ansell keeps appealing. So 11 of these workers have still not been reinstated and/or compensated. Can the Board please inform us when these workers will be reinstated and/or compensated and detail what remediation Ansell will implement for allowing such an extreme delay in due process?

Thank you, Mr. Long. And as you know, this is a long-running issue. There were originally 300 employees who was involved in wildcat strikes in 2013. For -- 289 of those have been fully compensated and that issue is fully resolved. So for the vast majority, they've either rejoined us or have been paid retirement benefits. There are 11 employees who were subject to some arbitration. And at the conclusion of that arbitration, which took 5 years, the issue was found against the company. But we have appealed because those 11 individuals were involved in the original development of the strike action, which led to violence and behavior that we did not believe was appropriate given Ansell's values. That is before the court in the High Court in Sri Lanka. And so I won't comment any further other than to say that whatever the High Court specifies the company will follow.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The next question is a text question from Ms. [ Jillian Margaret Kean ]. She has 2 questions and a statement. Thanks for including this year's annual and sustainability reports, so much information about Ansell's risk from climate change and what Ansell is doing to reduce both these risks and Ansell's contribution to damaging the climate. This is most welcome, and other companies will do well to follow this good practice. It is good to see that in financial year '21, Ansell set internal site-level absolute greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. I note that Ansell is currently undertaking detailed work to establish a strategy by which Ansell would be able to commit to significantly longer-term reduction in our carbon footprint, and that the company is on track to present our conclusions and recommendations to the Board and executive leadership team in financial year '22. So question one, what exactly -- when exactly in financial year '22 is a carbon footprint reduction strategy due to go to the Board and executive leadership team?

All right. Thank you, Ms. [ Kean ], first of all, thank you for acknowledging the fact that we're making good progress on our drive to reduce emissions across our entire network. These are Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions that we're focusing on. The COVID-19 pandemic has actually prevented a lot of our engineering and operations staff from visiting a lot of the plants to develop the longer-term plans. That will give us confidence to make a strong statement around what our emissions should be. All I can say on the timing is when that work is completed, it will be presented to the Board before the end of June next year, so the end of this financial year. And you're likely to see us make a statement on that at that time and then follow that up in our sustainability report that comes out around September next year.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Her second question is, will the strategy focus on Ansell reaching zero net greenhouse gas emissions urgently and the steps to get there? If not, why not?

Well, that's the plan we're trying to evaluate right now. The Net Zero is a target that the company and the Board very much wants to achieve over time. The work that we're doing now is to work out how to build the road map to get there and that the Board needs to be confident that the company can get there before making that commitment. We expect that we will get there, and you should see the output of that discussion by about June next year.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are no further questions from shareholders.

Okay. So as there does not appear to be any further questions and there are no formal requirements for a vote on this matter, I will move to the next item being the election of directors. As I am the first director seeking election today, I will invite Peter Day to take the Chair and conduct this item of business. Peter?

The first director due for election is John Bevan. John resides in Australia and joined the Board as a nonexecutive director in August 2012 and became Chairman in November 2019. He retires in accordance with Rule 33C of the company's constitution, and being eligible, he offers himself for reelection. John is the Chairman of Ansell and a member of the Human Resources Committee and Chair of the Governance Committee. John is Chairman of BlueScope Steel and a nonexecutive director of Humpty Dumpty Foundation and Alumina Limited. John was formerly the Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of Alumina and brings to the Board extensive international business experience. Prior to joining Alumina, he had a long career with the BOC Group, where he was a member of the Board of Directors and held a variety of senior management positions in Australia, Korea, Thailand, Singapore and the U.K. The Board considers John to be an independent director. As mentioned, John is on the Board of 2 other listed entities: Chairman of BlueScope and nonexecutive director of Alumina, in addition to his Chairman position at Ansell. I wanted to take the opportunity to mention that John has always ensured that he has sufficient time to dedicate to all 3 companies and will continue to do so in the future. This is illustrated by his 100% attendance at all Board meetings in the last 2 years since he took on the additional role as Chairman of Ansell. John has also remained available with the doubling of Board meetings in this financial year '21, up from 8 in financial year '20 to 19 in financial year '21 due to the additional work with the finalization of the CEO succession process and the greater business complexities arising from COVID-19. John, would you like to say a few words.

Thank you, Peter. It is an honor to be standing for reelection today. I was first elected to the Board in 2012. Ansell is a truly global company. One of only a few listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, which makes nearly all of its sales outside of Australia. We should be very proud of our company, not just because of its global nature, but for the role it has played in providing personal protective equipment through the last 2 years of the pandemic. In my executive career, I spent 15 years living in Asia and even longer away from Australia. This international experience enables me to bring knowledge of the markets that Ansell competed. I enjoy working with your other directors and look forward to continuing in the role as your Chairman, and I thank you for your ongoing support.

Thank you, John. I now move that Mr. John Bevan be reelected as a Director of the company. Anita, are there any questions in relation to this resolution?

Thank you, Mr. Day. There are no questions pertaining to this resolution.

As there are no questions, I will now move on to the proxy results. Proxy results in respect to the reelection of Mr. John Bevan, as a Director, should now be displayed on your screen. I will now hand the chair back to Mr. Bevan for the remainder of the meeting.

Thank you, Peter. The next election is that of Mr. Morten Falkenberg. Morten is a highly experienced and seasoned executive with nearly 35 years of leadership experience within the FMCG, telecoms, technology and consumer durable goods companies, most recently as CEO of Nobia, Europe's largest value kitchen company, from 2010 until his retirement in 2019. Prior to that, Morten held senior positions at Electrolux, Tele Denmark and Coca-Cola, and has lived outside his native Denmark in the United States, Israel, Norway and Sweden. Morten is currently on the Board of 4 small to mid-cap Stockholm NASDAQ-listed companies, where he is a nonexecutive director of 3 and Chairman of 1. These companies range in market cap from AUD 50 million to AUD 1.8 billion and is also on a private company Board. Morten plans to step down from one of his listed company Boards as well as the private company Board by the 31st of March 2022 to ensure he has sufficient time to dedicate to Ansell once he is appointed as a director. This has been noted on our website. Upon election, Morten will be a member of the Audit and Compliance Committee and the Sustainability and Risk Committee. The Board considers Morten Falkenberg as an independent director. Morten, would you like to say a few words.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With the COVID restriction starting to be lifted, I have had the good opportunity before my appointment as director of Ansell to fast track my induction, both with a visit to the factory in Portugal and the U.S. headquarter in Metropark, New York. I'm very impressed with the team members I have met. Their focus, their dedication to Ansell and how they live the values every day. I still have so much to learn, and I'm eagerly awaiting the next steps in the Ansell induction program. I recently ended my nearly 10-year tenure as the CEO of running a large-cap NASDAQ Stockholm kitchen company. Like Ansell had many factories, but also retail stores where B2C project sales was part of the company's value chain and the daily life. My experience also covers 13 years in fast-moving consumer goods for the Coca-Cola Company and industrial products as part of group management of Electrolux Group with global responsibility for small appliances. Most of my roles has been to optimize the different areas of the value chain, starting with strong consumer insight, ended up in innovative differentiated products where we mostly could command a price premium versus competition, but also ensuring that the logistics and manufacturing footprint were created to ensure competitive advantage and secure the value for the customers and the end users. Ansell has performed extremely well during the past many years and has navigated very well during the early years of the pandemic. Going forward, will definitely not be less challenging, but Ansell is well positioned to excel also going forward. I'm looking very much forward to playing my part together with management and my fellow Board of Directors in the time ahead. Thank you.

And thank you, Morten. I now move that Mr. Morten Falkenberg be elected a Director of the company. Anita, is there anyone who wishes to ask a question in regard to this resolution?

Mr. Chairman, we do not have any questions from shareholders.

Thank you. So as there are no further questions, I will now move on to the proxy results. Proxy results in respect of the election of Mr. Morten Falkenberg, as a Director, should now be displayed on the screen. We will now move to the next item of business being the proposed changes to the company's current constitution, which are set out in detail in the Notice of Meeting. The company proposes that the constitution be amended to include updated provisions relating to proportional takeovers and to increase the potential maximum size of the Board of Directors of the company from 8 to 10. The company has decided to wait for further guidance from the government and changes in the law regarding the use of technology and meetings before undertaking a general modernization of the constitution. I now move that the special resolution, allowing for the changes of the company's current constitution be passed by shareholders. Anita, is there anyone who wishes to ask a question in regard to the special resolution?

Mr. Chairman, we do not have any questions from shareholders.

Thank you. As there are no further questions, I will now move on to the proxy results. Proxy results in respect of the changes to the company's current constitution should now be displayed on the screen. The next item of business relates to the grant of performance share rights to Mr. Magnus Nicolin, special adviser to the Board under the terms of the company's long-term incentive plan. As previously announced, Magnus ceased to be Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, effective the 1st of September 2021. And until his retirement on the 31st of December 2021, will continue as a special adviser to the Ansell Board and the incoming Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. To ensure a smooth and orderly transition between the outgoing and the incoming Managing Director and CEO, the Ansell Board asked Magnus and he agreed to remain as a special adviser to both the Ansell Board and the new CEO, Neil Salmon, for 4 months. Magnus' contribution during this period will be highly valued. Under the ASX Listing Rules, a company must not issue shares to a director under an employee incentive scheme or to a person, which has been a director in the last 6 months, unless shareholder approval is first attained. Shareholder approval is therefore sought for a grant of 20,732 rights to Mr. Magnus Nicolin under the long-term incentive plan. The award for Magnus operates by way of a grant of performance share rights, subject to the satisfaction of various performance conditions, which are detailed in the Notice of Meeting. Magnus is entitled to the grant of one ordinary share in Ansell Limited per right. I now move that approval will be given for the grant of 20,732 performance share rights to Mr. Magnus Nicolin on the terms summarized in the explanatory notes to the Notice of the Meeting. Anita, is there anyone who wishes to ask a question in relation to this resolution?

Mr. Chairman, there are no questions from shareholders pertaining to this resolution.

Thank you. So as there are no further questions, we'll now move on to the proxy results. As set out in the Notice of Meeting, any votes cast in favor of Resolution 4 by Mr. Nicolin or by his associates or any other person who will obtain a material benefit as a result will be disregarded. Proxy results in respect of the grant of 20,732 performance share rights to Mr. Magnus Nicolin should now be displayed on the screen. The next item of business relates to the grant of performance share rights to the incoming Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Neil Salmon, under the terms of the company's long-term incentive plan. And as part of his new remuneration package, which entitles Mr. Salmon to an annual grant under the plan. This award is subject to the satisfaction of various performance conditions and entitles Mr. Salmon to the grant of one ordinary share in Ansell Limited per performance share right. Accordingly, shareholder approval is sought for the issue of 73,092 performance share rights to Mr. Neil Salmon, under the plan in accordance with the ASX Listing Rules 10.14. A summary of the terms and conditions of the proposed grant are set out in the Notice of Meeting. The Board believes that an equity-based award is an important component of executive remuneration to ensure an appropriate part of reward is linked to generating long-term return to shareholders. I now move that approval is given for a grant of 73,092 performance share rights to the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Neil Salmon, on the terms summarized in the extraordinary notes of the Notice of Meeting. Anita, is there anyone who wishes to ask a question in regard of this resolution?

Mr. Chairman, there are no questions from shareholders.

Okay. So thank you. And as there are no questions, I will now move on to the proxy results. As set out in the Notice of Meeting, in accordance with the Corporations Act, any votes cast in favor of this resolution by Mr. Salmon or any of his associates will be disregarded. Proxy results in respect of the grant of 73,092 performance share rights to the CEO and Managing Director, Mr. Neil Salmon, should now be displayed on your screen. Ladies and gentlemen, the final item on the agenda is a nonbinding advisory vote for adoption of the remuneration report, which is set out on pages 51 to 74 of the company's 2021 annual report. Ansell's remuneration strategy is designed to provide a link between the achievement of the company's strategic objectives and executive reward. It is designed to reward, motivate and retain the company's executive team with market competitive remuneration and benefits to support the continued success of the company's business and the creation of shareholder value. The remuneration report sets out in detail the company's policy for determining remuneration for directors and for senior executives. It includes information on the elements of remuneration that are performance-based, the performance conditions that apply and the methodology used to assess the achievement of these performance conditions. During the last 12 months, a thorough review of our remuneration framework was completed, which will see changes being implemented during the current financial year. These changes are detailed in the 2021 remuneration report. The vote on this resolution is advisory only and does not bind the directors or the company. However, the Human Resources Committee will take into account the discussion on this resolution and the outcome of the vote when considering the remuneration arrangements of your company. Your Board commends the remuneration report to you. And I now move that the remuneration report for the year ended the 30th of June 2021 be adopted. Anita, is there anyone who wishes to ask a question regarding this matter?

Yes, Mr. Chairman. We have John Whittington from ASA on the telephone. He would like to ask 2 questions on the remuneration report. John Whittington, please go ahead.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Again, John Whittington from the Australian Shareholders' Association. Benchmarking remuneration against [ AFFO of ] companies with market cap, $3.5 billion to $7.5 billion from the Godfrey Remuneration Group shows that the CEO was getting considerably higher than the 75th percentile for on-target performance is even getting well more than the median of the largest group of 38 companies on the ASX with market cap over $10 billion. Market has done -- sorry, Magnus has done a great job, but this does seem rather excessive.

Look, thank you for that question, John. And look, Magnus was first employed in the United States and then move to Belgium about midway through his term as a Chief Executive Officer. His salary was set against his peers to attract him in the U.S. market because that's -- and his package reflects the market in which he operates. And if we want to have great talent in the company and attract them, given that most of our executives are not based in Australia, the company feels that we need to be able to benchmark ourselves against comparable companies in the United States or Europe, wherever the Chief Executive is domiciled to set the appropriate salary level. You will note that with the appointment of Neil, who is based out of Brussels, his package is considerably less than what Magnus was because of the proximity of being in Brussels rather than the United States. And that's the market we compete in.

Thanks, Chairman. I have another.

Please go on.

Yes, we also have concerns about the terms of the former CEO's FY 2022 and FY '21 to '23, long-term incentive plan shares. It seems that these will be paid in full even though he will only work for part of the period. Surely conditional -- surely, conditional on targets being met at the end of the period, these should be paid pro rata, i.e., [ 30 36 ] for one of the awards and [ 18 36 ], i.e., half of the other of the awards since he only worked half of the time that, that applies. This appears to be a termination payment in disguise.

John, I think we discussed this with you face-to-face when we met together a few weeks ago. In 2019, we announced that we were going through a process of selecting the new Chief Executive. So in effect, Magnus had a long way ahead of him in terms of being able to continue to do the role for an extended period of time. We wanted Magnus to act in the best interest of the long-term future of Ansell and that his reward system should reflect the fact that the actions that he's taken and the decisions he's made in the last 2 years will continue to benefit Ansell in the years ahead. And therefore, the Board decided using its discretion that the previous 2 years, in 2019 and 2020, issues would go for full 3 years, and you get 100% of the value of those when they vest or don't vest. We also ask Magnus to extend his period by a further 6 months while the pandemic was on to ensure that we could have an orderly changeover. The Board has not been able to travel and meet with the executive team very much in the last 18 months, and it was important that the Board got to know the alternative candidates for the new Chief Executive. And so Magnus agreed to stay on an extra 6 months. For that particular issue, which is the issue you've just voted on, Magnus will only receive 6 months of the 36 months period if those shares should vest after 3 years. The Board feels that the decisions that's made are in the best interest of the long-term shareholder value that is generated in the company. And that is saying that Magnus has been there for 11 years, and we want the results of the decisions that he's made to continue on for a number of years from here, and that's why he should be appropriately rewarded for that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Anita, are there any other questions?

Mr. Chairman, there are no further questions from shareholders in relation to the remuneration report.

Thank you. So as there are no other questions, we'll move to the proxy results. As set out in the Notice of Meeting, none of the company's key management personnel, including directors and senior management, may vote in relation to this matter, except as a proxy for a shareholder who is not prohibited from voting or if the proxy is the Chairman and the appointment expressly authorizes the Chairman to exercise the proxy even though the resolution is connected with the remuneration-related matters. Proxy results in respect of the approval remuneration report for the year ended 2021 should now be displayed on the screen. Okay. So as this is the first time we have conducted a virtual meeting with shareholders having the ability to ask text or audio questions, we've set aside some time prior to the close of the meeting for any further questions from shareholders that we are unable to be asked during the discussion on each of the resolution. If there are any further questions that you wish to ask, we invite you to do so now, either by text or audio. I'll just wait a few seconds to enable you to do that. Anita, are there any final questions from shareholders before we close the meeting?

Mr. Chairman, we have a question from [ Colin Long ]. It's an audio question in relation to labor rights. [ Colin ], please go ahead.

[ Mr. Long ]?

Thank you very much. We will -- sorry, a proxy on behalf of the Australian Center for Corporate Responsibility. We welcome the earlier announcement of a commitment to end the forced labor, but there are limits to third-party inspections. We also note that Ansell is committed to ensure that freedom of association and the right to organize independent trade unions exist in all Ansell's factories in the entirety of its supply chain, but that is not our experience with the current situation or that experience by workers in Ansell factories and contractor factories. When will Ansell allow freedom of association in practice and not just in statements? And what processes will be put in place to ensure independent verification that union rights are respected throughout Ansell's business operations, including contractor factories?

So [ Colin ], there's 2 parts to your question here. One is about the Ansell factories and others are about suppliers to Ansell. In respect to the Ansell factories, we've got a very clear policy, which you can see on our website as to how that should work. And over 70% of our employees are paid under collective bargaining agreements, which are either around union involvement or a works council involvement. So employees have the right to join whatever union they like. It is the employees decision on that. And the implication that the company is somehow in the middle of that, I sort of take the exception to it because I don't believe that's the case. In terms of our suppliers, we will inform them about our view on the freedom to -- for employees to form a union and take a union-type thing within their particular facilities, and we'll encourage them to do that. And we will work with them to adapt policies and procedures, which are in line with what Ansell's policies are. And for most of our suppliers, we are a significant component of their offtake. And we can normally work with our partners, supply partners to improve facilities across all of the facilities that in our marketplace. Where we are not a significant supplier, our influence is less. And in some cases, we choose to then take that capacity in-house into the Ansell manufacturing system. Anita, are there any other questions?

Mr. Chairman, there are no further questions from shareholders.

All right. As there no further questions, that concludes our discussions on the items of business. I will now close the voting system. Please ensure you have cast your vote on all resolutions. I will now pause to allow you time to finalize your votes. [Voting]

Thank you, everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, voting is now closed. The results of these votes will be released to the stock exchange later today. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings us the conclusion of our business today. I thank you for attending, and I now declare the meeting closed.