Credit Corp Group Limited (CCP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and welcome to the 2025 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders of Credit Corp Group Limited, and thank you very much for joining us here today. I'd also like to welcome those shareholders watching the meeting online via the live webcast. I'm Eric Dodd, the Chair of the Board of Directors of Credit Corp Group Limited, and in accordance with the company's constitution, I'm the Chair of this meeting. I'd like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of the land on which I'm speaking to you from today. And I also acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which each of you are working from today. I'd like to pay my respects to Elders, past and present. We have a quorum present, and I declare the meeting officially open. And I'll ask the Company Secretary, Mr. Thomas Beregi, to advise whether we have any apologies.

No apologies.

No apologies. Thank you, Thomas. I'd now like to introduce our company directors who are all here with me today: Mr. Thomas Beregi, our Managing Director; Mr. James Millar, a Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee; Ms. Trudy Vonhoff, Non-Executive Director, Chair of the Nominations Committee and a member of the Remuneration and HR Committee; Mr. Phil Aris, Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Remuneration HR Committee and a member of the Nomination Committee; Ms. Lyn McGrath, Non-Executive Director and a member of the Audit and Risk and Nominations Committees; Mr. Brad Cooper, Non-executive Director and a member of the Audit and Risk and remuneration and HR committees; and Ms. Sarah Brennan, Non-Executive Director and member of the Audit and Risk and Remuneration and HR committees. Other members of Thomas' executive team are here today and can I please ask those present to stand and make themselves known to the meeting as I introduce them: Mr. Michael Eadie, our Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary; Mr. Mitch Symes, -- where is Mitch? There were go -- our Chief Operating Officer for Australia and New Zealand; Mr. Martin Wu -- is Martin with us? Thank you, Martin -- our Chief Analytics Officer; Ms. Carrie Luzar, our Chief People Officer, Carrie; Tim Cullen, our Chief Information Officer; Ms. Alana Hampton, our Chief and Head of Risk; and Ms. Niki Brown -- Niki? You with us -- our Head of Marketing. Mr. Matt Angell, known to all of you, is President of the -- of Credit Corp USA. He is currently in the U.S. and unable to be with us today. So as well as being available for me to call on to assist in answering any questions during the meeting, the executive team as well as myself and the rest of the Board would welcome the opportunity to speak informally with any meeting attendees at the conclusion of this meeting. Also joining us today are the company's legal adviser, Mr. Guy Sanderson from Hamilton Locke. Where's Guy? Thank you; and Mr. Drew Townsend from Hall Chadwick, the company's auditor. No written questions were received in advance from shareholders for Hall Chadwick in respect to the conduct of the audit and the auditor's report. And as per the process is set out in this Notice of Annual General Meeting. But I will call upon Guy and Drew to answer any relevant questions as required during the meeting. I'm going to commence with the Chair's address, which will be followed by the CEO's quarterly update presentation, and we will then proceed with the ordinary business of the meeting, which will include the opportunity to ask questions on each item of ordinary business. Following that, we will open the meeting up to questions covering any aspect of the meeting including my address, the CEO's quarterly update presentation or any other relevant matter a shareholder wishes to raise. I'll now run through some instructions for asking questions and voting of those in the room today. Please note that only those who are registered as shareholders or proxy holders for absent shareholders are entitled to ask questions today. That is people who have a yellow or blue voting card. To ask a question, please raise your voting card. And when the microphone is brought to you, stand and give your name, the name of the shareholder you represent, if you're a company representative or proxy, and then ask your question. Where appropriate, I'll call on specific directors, management, the auditor or other advisers to respond to shareholder questions. However, I do ask that all questions be put through me as Chair of the meeting. If shareholders wish to ask multiple questions, please note that we will take one question at a time from each shareholder or proxy and then return for further questions. Votes on each resolution that are the subject of this meeting will be taken by way of a poll. The poll will be taken on all resolutions at the end of the meeting, and I'll briefly explain prior to voting how the polling process will be conducted. So I'll now commence with my address. In what will be my final year as Chair of Credit Corp, I'm pleased to report a return to strong earnings growth and the creation of an excellent platform for sustained growth over the years ahead. Your Board and management have worked hard over many years to build the resilience and capability to respond to changing external conditions and deliver outcomes for stakeholders. Despite increasingly volatile times, Credit Corp is confidently looking forward to continued growth from lending businesses, coupled with an exciting pipeline of innovation and expansion. During the year, Credit Corp expanded on the foundations established over a long period. These foundations comprise a strong group of businesses, leveraging a core expertise in working with credit-impaired consumers and the ongoing development of unique capabilities to ensure sustained performance. It is this focus on maintaining and enhancing a portfolio of businesses and capabilities that has continued to provide the company with the flexibility to respond to various circumstances while preserving Credit Corp's long-term prospects. The success of the strategic diversification of Credit Corp, which has taken place over many years was demonstrated again in 2025. Company's commitment to sound strategic planning has long recognized the challenge of sustaining growth in the credit impaired consumer segment of financial services while being overtly reliant on earnings and growth from just 1 or 2 closely correlated businesses. Strategic growth initiatives in consumer lending and U.S. debt buying have developed organically over the past 13 years and have transformed Credit Corp into the diversified financial services group than it is today. In 2025, the U.S. and consumer lending businesses produced over 3/4 of the company's earnings. And while those businesses will continue to drive growth, some important steps in establishing a platform for further expansion were also taken in 2025. These included the achievement of key business improvements the addition of innovative new lending products and progress towards the entry into a new geographic market, expanding Credit Corp's footprint as a global operator. The Australian and New Zealand debt buying segment produced a solid result despite constrained conditions. The contraction in total market purchased debt ledger sales volumes over several years continued to impact the segment. By the end of the year, however, the effect of this contraction had largely run its course, and earnings from this business began to stabilize. There were also some encouraging signs that this market may return to growth. Aggregate unsecured personal credit has started to increase, and a large credit provider took initial steps for a return to debt sale after having withdrawn from the market 6 years ago. In the U.S., confidence to invest grew alongside improved operational performance. Local leadership was enhanced with additional appointments to key roles. And the team continued to execute on a comprehensive program of business improvement. Purchasing was limited over the first half of the year as the results of the program were assessed. As collection results improved, the rate of purchasing doubled from $50 million in the first half to $100 million in the second half. And while more work will be required, the year concluded positively with record quarterly collections over the 3 months to June 2025 and the securing of a strong pipeline of purchasing for the year ahead. Strong loan book growth in the prior year propelled the Australian lending businesses to impressive segment earnings growth of over 31%. And while demand across the credit-impaired sector fell, refreshed marketing ensured sufficient volume to grow the loan book over the course of the year. The expanded book has provided a sound platform for another strong result in 2026. Behind the solid headline business performance, it was disciplined execution of a program of improvement and expansion to sustain competitiveness and growth into the future. Company devoted considerable resources to the development of enhanced digital and artificial intelligence or AI capabilities. The deployment of improved tools and resources increased the number of collection outcomes produced by digital interactions by more than 50% over the prior period. While Credit Corp has been a leader in the use of analytics to price risk and direct operational activity in 2025, a separate AI function was established to harness the power of large language models. An appropriate governance structure was established and the technology has already started assisting in areas, including software development, and the automation of collection activity recordkeeping. Work is also now underway to deploy large language models to assist in enhancing the quality of customer interactions. While the category-leading Wallet Wizard cash loan product has driven much of Credit Corp's success in consumer lending to date, other products are required to ensure continued growth. After our pilot period, the innovative Wallet Wizard -- sorry, Wizit digital credit card has been deployed for rollout in Australia. Wizit is unique as the only card credit offering in Australia to the credit-impaired consumer segment. The product's performance through the pilot phase demonstrated that it complements Wallet Wizard by appealing to a broader group of customers and can be distributed through a wider range of products. Late in the year, terms were agreed for a small acquisition to accelerate the company's entry into the U.K. lending market. The U.K. credit-impaired consumer segment is considerably larger than Australia's and is presently underserved. Credit Corp will adopt the same responsible positioning it has established in Australia by providing one of the most affordable offerings in the market and plans to consume -- to commence consumer lending during the 2026 financial year. Strong businesses and capabilities are built by people and a positive culture. The values of transparency, accountability and discipline define the culture at Credit Corp, transparency to honestly appraise business prospects, identify shortcomings and set a plan of action; accountability to embrace and achieve challenging goals; and discipline to follow through with the right execution to deliver sustainable long-term outcomes. It is the day-to-day application of these values by Credit Corp's people that will underpin its success into the future. It's been a great privilege to serve on the Board of Credit Corp for 16 years, including more than 4 years as the company's Chair, working with my fellow directors and the management team to grow a positive culture. I'm pleased to have been part of this exciting strategic transition of a monoline Australian debt buyer into an ASX global financial services provider. I had initially planned to retire as Chair following this AGM. However, I have agreed to remain in my role as Chair until a replacement Non-Executive Director and Chair is appointed. Having helped lay the foundation of Credit Corp's next phase of growth and transformation, I look forward to continuing to support Credit Corp during this transition and in time, participating in its ongoing success as a shareholder. I thank my fellow directors and our CEO, Thomas Beregi, and his management team, for leading through values and establishing a positive outlook for the future. On behalf of the Board and shareholders, I also thank all employees for their ongoing commitment and dedication to Credit Corp. I'll now hand over to Thomas, who will provide an update on the company's performance to date and an assessment of the outlook for the balance of the financial year. Pleased to hand over to our CEO, Thomas Beregi. Thank you, Thomas.

Thank you, Eric, and welcome, everyone, today. Good to see you all here, and also welcome to those who might be viewing the webinar. Look, our objective is to lead in the credit impaired consumer segment. We work with consumers who've had trouble with credit, most of them having defaulted on a previous obligation. To succeed, we aim to stay ahead in 3 key areas. So we operate at the risky end of the consumer credit spectrum, and that requires well-developed analytics and the discipline to apply the analysis objectively. Our customers require specialized approaches, and that creates complexity, which demands strong operations. We are more likely to encounter people in hardship or suffering from some kind of vulnerability, so we have to be very responsible and compliant to deliver on our promise to our debt sale clients, other stakeholders and the community in general. Applying these 3 competencies, we target to deliver strong earnings growth into the future while producing acceptable returns, which we define as a return on equity of 16%, with a conservative financial structure. We have great metrics and approaches for each of these competencies across our 3 businesses. Our focus is delivering an outlook of sustained growth. The impact of the contraction in the size of the Australian, New Zealand debt buying market, which Eric drew attention to, has made it hard for us to grow our earnings over the past several years. But as Eric mentioned, that has now largely run its course. And you can see that last year, we produced solid double-digit earnings growth, and we're on track to follow that up with 12% earnings growth at the midpoint of our guidance range for 2026. All 3 businesses are off to a solid start in the current year. In the U.S., collections are up. This is first quarter collections. They're up 22% on last year. Lending has already produced a record first quarter loan volume with growth of 3% over the prior year. And the Australia and New Zealand debt buying business is tracking to expectation. Looking at the U.S. Operational improvement has produced a further lift in productivity over the first quarter. And as we've stepped up our investment there, there has been a strong conversion of that investment outlay into collections. So purchasing has been up by $30 million over the past 12 months and as you can see, annualized collections for the first quarter, are up $31 million. So that's a very strong flow-through, very strong conversion of that investment into collection outcomes. And that's helped produce record quarterly collections for the U.S. business in the 3 months to September. In our lending business, refreshed marketing has driven record first quarter loan volume, delivering year-over-year loan book growth, and that sets us up well for strong interest income over the balance of the year. And as we move into the seasonable peak period for our lending business, we should see further book growth. Our expansion initiatives are also on track with it, as Eric mentioned, is the only credit card available to credit-impaired consumers in Australia. And already having just brought the product out of pilot in July, it is exceeding the expectations in terms of volume and customer acquisition. Similarly, arrears and costs are in line with pro forma. So that rollout is looking very positive. Our entry into the U.K. is also on track. We recently completed the acquisition of a small nonoperating license company to accelerate our commencement in this very underserved market. So we've started the process of building the systems and controls necessary to start lending in the U.K., and we should commence writing our first loan over the balance year. So we have the balance sheet to deliver on our growth agenda while maintaining the flexibility to seize other opportunities as they arise. Our gearing level remains as one of the lowest in the world for our industry at just 30% of the carrying value of our financial assets, and we have more than $140 million in undrawn borrowing capacity to apply to additional investments and opportunities that may arise. So just to conclude and wrap up, we are reconfirming the 2026 guidance, we issued at the start of August. We're expecting net profit after tax in the range of $100 million to $110 million for the full year, and that represents earnings growth in the range of 6% to 17%, so very strong earnings growth on the back of last year's 16% growth. With that, I thank you for your attention, and I'll hand back to Eric.

Okay. Thank you very much, Thomas. We'll now move to the formal business of the meeting, including questions in respect to each of the items of business and then open the meeting up to general questions after the formal resolutions have been put. The only items of business to come before the meeting today will be those specified in the Notice of Meeting. And we have 4 items of ordinary business that you have had the opportunity to review and consider through the circulated Notice of Meeting, and I will take that Notice of Meeting as read. Votes on each resolution that are the subject to this meeting will be taken by way of a poll at the end of the meeting. And Rushad Bachana of Boardroom Pty Limited, our share registry, will act as returning officer in relation to the poll. I'll briefly explain how the polling process will be conducted prior to voting at the end of the meeting. There have been proxies given in respect of today's resolutions, which I intend to disclose when each of the resolution is considered. As mentioned in the Notice of Meeting, it's intended that any undirected proxies given to the Chair will be voted in favor of the relevant resolution. Item 1 on the agenda is to receive and consider the financial report, the directors' report and the auditor's report of Credit Corp for the year ended 30 of June 2025. There will not be a formal vote on this item. I'll now invite questions in respect to this item. And as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please raise your voting card; and when the microphone is brought to you, stand up and give your name, the name of the shareholder you represent if you're a company or a representative or proxy, and then ask your questions. Are there any questions in relation to item 1? Yes, sir?

[ Peter Richardson ], representing [ PNM Richardson Superannuation Fund ]. My question really is around directors. All of your directors, Brad, Sarah, Lyn and Phil, 2 of those have no shares in the company and the other 2 have minimal shares in the company. I came to your AGM maybe 2 or 3 years ago and raised this and suggested that Credit Corp might want to consider doing what other companies do and implement a system whereby directors must accumulate shares to the value of their annual remuneration. I only got a short shift at that time. So I'm going to raise it again and ask whether that's a consideration.

Okay. I'm sorry if you thought you got short shift, but it's certainly...

I guess I got short shifted.

We're certainly listening, and we have implemented directors, nonexecutive directors policy now that will have all directors meeting that requirement at the end of the 3-year period. So I think we've...

I think that's really good.

We were listening and we have it adopted. And we will be compliant for all directors at the end of a 3-year period, coming into effect June 2026. So we need to obviously [indiscernible]. So thank you for your question. All right. Any other questions on -- on that, [ Pierre ]?

[indiscernible] and also Teaminvest. Apart from the fact that [indiscernible] Teaminvest remains the [indiscernible] or incentivizes not based on TSR but rather on earnings per share. That's what the management can influence. Share prices move. Usually, it's -- sometimes it's just sort of some events that people believe that it's going to impact on the company, that sort of thing. Now I know we've had a lot of discussion on this, and I'm simply raising the question that it is still going to be pushing, try and get the TSR [indiscernible]. That's up to the company.

Okay. Thank you, [ Pierre ]. That is, as you know, a perennial, which we do review every year. Previous Chairman sitting in front of you had strong views on that as well. I don't know, Phil, if you want to -- we've had feedback as well for proxy -- from proxy advisers on that issue. And in fact, we have a question coming up on notice about the influence that management has on the share price, which is basically covering that issue. Phil, would you like to add anything to that?

Thank you very much, Eric. Yes. Thank you for your question, and it's a very pertinent question. And we've looked at it. As we do every year, we review our rem structure to make sure it is fitting with the market and expectations of our shareholders. We use TSR, relative TSR against a group of companies that are very similar to us in market capitalization, where we compete in the marketplace for employees and executives. And we believe that as you as shareholders, you have an opportunity to invest in those companies as well. So we also believe that we need to rank ourselves up against them to show the shareholders that we can also be a good company to invest in against those peers. We use the ASX 200, similar companies, similar market capitalization, et cetera. We exclude the mining and energy sector because that's not really relevant to us. But the whole idea is to make sure that we align properly with our stakeholders and our shareholders to say if we don't perform in our share price, even though sometimes I do agree, it's out of our control, but over a longer period of time, we should be able to compete again our peers, and therefore, your investment dollars will attract to Credit Corp.

One suggestion that does come up quite often is, is there a way that you can actually create a blend in the sense of bringing EPS and TSR also working together. That's only a suggestion.

Yes. No, that's a very good suggestion. As I said, we do look at these things constantly. We have to also be cognizant of our particular industry that we're in. For example, with EPS, we use in our LTIs, we use an ROE gate opener, which is quite a challenging 16% return on equity as you know. But that's how we make our investment decisions when we purchase debt portfolios, particularly in the U.S., where we have a minimum target of 16% return on equity. And in order to do that, we want to incentivize our people the same way. We also don't want, when it comes to EPS, if there's excess capital around that they're going to do dysfunctional things like buy back shares, which may stop us from realizing opportunities where in the debt ledger market that we could make a purchase, and we want to be flexible and able to be able to do that. So we think it's the right structure for us. As our business changes over the years, that may very well change. We do think it's very peculiar to us as a business, and we believe it's the right thing to do at this stage.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, [ Pierre ]. I can assure you, we will certainly -- we're reviewing that again this year. Are there any other questions in relation to item 1 on the agenda. Yes, please?

Yes. My name is [ Terry Lee ]. I'm a shareholder. Just under the new Trump administration, I just want to know if there's any regulation that would affect our business going forward, like the interest rates and things like that. Won't they say one thing and the next day is raising interest rate? And also, I also like to -- you're going to United Kingdom. Just share us your vision. What do you see over there and how much our assets are going to be tied up in the U.K. that you're moving over there?

Thomas, would you like to address that?

Sure. Yes. Look, thanks for those questions. In terms of the U.S., obviously, there's all sorts of different policies. There has been a small increase in unemployment. That won't be positive for our business. In order for people to repay us, they will generally need to remain employed, particularly in a market like the U.S., where the welfare safety net is not as strong as a country like Australia. However, since that small increase in unemployment in the U.S., we have not observed any degradation in collection outcomes. So at this stage, that doesn't appear to be affecting us. Tariffs and their impact on consumer prices and cost of living, I guess, there's debate as to whether they have actually flown through into prices that consumers in the U.S. are paying. That could potentially be adverse if people have to pay more for goods and services. Perhaps there's less to repay debt. But once again, we have not seen any impact of that at either. Probably the third and maybe most significant item in the U.S. is the end of probably the last item of Biden administration COVID stimulus. And that is the forbearance on the collection of federally guaranteed student loans. So up until May this year, people in the U.S. -- and think about it. 25% of the working age population in the U.S. has a federal student loan with a significant outstanding. All of those people could either choose to or choose not to repay or continue repayments on those loans. And as at May, about 20% of those people or 5% of the working age population in the U.S. was in arrears on their student loan. And if you think about our business and it's going to be skewed towards younger people who may be more recent graduates. So those people are overrepresented in our book of debt that we're collecting on in the U.S. So they represent about 14% of our customers. So collection recommenced in May. Since then, we haven't seen any degradation in performance. Collection may ramp up in the future. Who knows what we will see future? But at this stage, no degradation. So I guess they are the things we're looking at. They're things that have happened to date that could impact our business. By the same token, there will be policies that are positive. And similarly, as we've seen with the Trump administration, if there are adverse impacts, they may be reconsidered and there may be changes going forward. So we simply don't know. But it's part of the general uncertainty we're operating in. We'd love to be investing more in the U.S., but there is uncertainty and that does put a cap on how much we invest. In terms of your question on the U.K., it's a very big market, many multiples in terms of the credit-impaired consumer lending market that we operate in. It's many multiples the size, probably 5 to 6x the size of the Australian equivalent market, so big market, very underserved. So there were some large operators servicing this part of the market. Many had been around for a long number of years. They were listed companies, they have had to exit due to regulatory troubles and large claims that they have sustained. And that has meant that the consumers still have the need for this form of finance but no one to satisfy it. And even the regulator itself has recognized this and has expressed a concern that consumers may be resorting to the unregulated market, which would be a poor outcome. So our entry is to take advantage of that opportunity and service what is presently unmet demand. And so we would hope to have a business in sort of 4, 5 years' time that might be the size of the Wallet Wizard business we have in Australia, and beyond that, we would grow even further. And if you think of it, Wallet Wizard business is producing over $50 million in profits after tax. So that's a big opportunity to build a business of that size. So we're very excited about the U.K. We haven't started yet. So it's all on the horizon for us, but it is a great opportunity. Thanks.

Okay. Thank you, Thomas. Are there any other questions in relation to agenda item 1? If not, I'll move to item 2 on the agenda, which is the reelection of directors. Item 2(a) concerns the reelection of Ms. Trudy Vonhoff as a Director of the company. I would like to invite Trudy to say a few words. Trudy, thank you.

Thank you, Eric. And just apologies in advance from battling a cold today, so my voice is probably not what it usually is. But thank you for the opportunity to address shareholders and seek your support for my election to the Board as a Non-Executive Director. I appreciate the trust and confidence placed in me since my initial appointment 6 years ago. My commitment to Credit Corp and its success remains as strong as ever. I guess as per the Notice of Meeting, my career has been built in financial services, where I led businesses through operational challenges and strategic transformations. This experience in operations, finance, strategy and people leadership continues to inform my contribution to Board discussions. Currently, I serve as a Non-Executive Director on the ASX-listed Boards of IRESS Limited, which is a technology company and Cuscal Limited, which is a payments company. To balance my Board portfolio, I also serve as a Director on Australian Cane Farms, which is a public company, and as an independent Director on the Nominations Committee for Tennis Australia. This portfolio reflects both depth and diversity, and these experiences help me bring additional perspectives while maintaining my focus on what matters most to Credit Corp. Earlier, Eric briefly mentioned that Credit Corp has commenced our journey into the world of AI. I think we all acknowledge the potential of AI, and my view is that with great power is -- comes great responsibility. This is why, in addition to my ongoing professional development and commitment to lifelong learning, I recently completed the AI fluency sprint, which was run by Sydney University in conjunction with the Australian Institute of Company Directors. I have to confess that the sprint at times felt like a marathon. But in this world of change, the AI opportunity raises risks that need to be carefully managed and opportunities that need to be captured. And we will continue to strengthen our risk management frameworks to ensure that we're well positioned to navigate this and other opportunities responsibly. I'm prepared to dedicate the necessary time and energy to fulfill my duties effectively. I continue to be excited about the opportunity to contribute to Credit Corp's success and to work alongside my fellow Board members to create value for all our stakeholders. Thank you for your support over the years, and with your continued support, I seek reelection. Thank you.

Thank you, Trudy. The -- and thank you for making the effort today because I know you certainly aren't well at the moment. But the resolution reads Ms. Vonhoff retires and being eligible, offers herself for reelection in accordance with clauses 20.1 and 20.7 of the company's constitution. Proxy votes received in respect to this resolution are shown on the slide. And as already noted, voting is by way of a poll, which will be conducted at the end of the meeting. Are there any questions for Trudy while she's still on her feet? We'll let you off then. Thank you, Trudy. If there are no further questions, I will move to the next item of business, which is the reelection of Mr. James Millar as Director of the company. I'd like to invite James to say a few words. Thank you, James.

I'm glad you've got a clap. It's terrific. Thank you, Eric, and good morning, everybody. I have the privilege this morning of having my reappointment as Non-Executive Director confirmed or not by you, the shareholders. I joined the Board 4 years ago. I came to Credit Corp. after an executive career as our corporate reconstruction professional and as a former CEO of a large consulting business. My executive career was spent refining and reverting businesses in various states of financial or operational distress. It was a learning career, and I have to say, my career is still a learning career being exposed to the failings of many while also being part of the reconstruction of large numbers of businesses through that time. And it's great to see them go in and thrive both in my executive -- a non-executive director career and as an -- when as an executive. Over the last 16 years, I've served as an independent Director, Chair or adviser with a dozen or so organizations, both public and/or private, across industries as diverse as property, banking, print, broadcast media, forestry and travel. Credit Corp continues to evolve. My time on the Board so far has seen -- or in that time of that 4 years, I've seen an escalating transformation in both its operations and its governance. I believe that the next decade will again see the business move up another notch as it deploys its considerable and growing human and financial capital in pursuit of its strategic aims. I believe that I bring to the Board a wide and varied level of skills and learnings from both my Board and executive careers. As Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee, we will continue to lead and navigate the management of risk and the challenges to our core businesses while simultaneously advancing new opportunities as they arise. I thank you for your time and your support. Thank you.

Thank you, James. The resolution reads, Mr. Millar retires and being eligible, offers himself for reelection in accordance with clauses 20.1 and 20.7 of the company's constitution. Proxy votes received in respect to this resolution are shown on the slide. I'll now invite any questions in respect of this resolution. Are there any questions? Okay. Thank you. If there are no further questions, I'll move on to the next item of business. Agenda item 3, being the adoption of the remuneration report for the year ended 30 of June 2025. The text of the resolution is on the slide now. The resolution to adopt the remuneration report is a nonbinding resolution, and there is a voting restriction which applies to it. The company will disregard any votes cast in any capacity on this resolution by or on behalf of any key management personnel who are the directors and members of management, whose remuneration is detailed in the annual report and their closely related parties such as their families. However, those persons can vote as proxies of other eligible shareholders where they have been directed how to vote, and the Chairman can vote undirected proxies on behalf of eligible shareholders. Under the Corporations Act, the resolution of shareholders that the remuneration report be adopted or any failure to pass that resolution is advisory only and does not bind the company or its directors. And proxy votes received in respect to this resolution are shown on the slide displayed. I would now invite questions in respect of this resolution. Are there any questions? Thank you. If we will -- there are no questions -- further questions on it, we'll move to the next item of business, which is agenda item 4, being the issue of performance rights under the long-term incentive plan in respect of the 2026 to '28 performance period for the Managing Director and CEO, Thomas Beregi. The text of this resolution is now on the slide. And again, there are voting restrictions, which apply to this resolution. The company will disregard any votes cast in any capacity on this resolution by or on behalf of Mr. Beregi or any of his associates. Similarly, it will disregard any votes cast as a proxy on this resolution by any key management personnel who are all the directors and members of management whose remuneration is detailed in the annual report and their closely related parties such as their families. However, those persons can vote as proxies of other eligible shareholders where they've been directed how to vote, and the Chairman can vote undirected proxies on behalf of eligible shareholders. The proxy votes received in respect to this resolution are shown on the slide displayed. And I'll now invite questions in respect to this resolution. Are there any questions? Okay. If there are no further questions, that concludes our discussion on the items of business for today. We'll now run through responses to the questions that have been submitted by shareholders ahead of today's meeting, and after this, I'll invite any remaining questions from shareholders and proxies related to my address, to the CEO's presentation and any other relevant matter a shareholder or proxy wishes to raise. All questions must be addressed to myself as Chair of the meeting, and where appropriate, I'll call on specific directors, management and the auditor or other advisers to respond to shareholder or proxy questions. If shareholders wish to ask multiple questions, please note that we will take one question at a time from each shareholder or proxy and then return for further questions. Here are responses to the questions submitted prior to the meeting.

The first question we had was what are you doing to fix the share price. To an extent, that's an issue that was raised earlier by [ Pierre ] and others. The share price, as Thomas stated earlier, is not something that is under our direct control. As a management team, our duty is to ensure that we produce consistent earnings growth as well as keeping the market informed as there are risks and opportunities as a company. And to that end, I guess, that's the extent to which we can control or would influence the share price. But it is not something that we control directly and a point that [ Pierre ] himself made earlier in the meeting today. I don't know if there's anything anyone wishes to add to that, Thomas. I think you addressed it largely in your own talk earlier.

Yes. Look, I'd only just say -- redirect that point I made earlier. What has held back our earnings growth -- and there will be a correlation between earnings growth and the share price in time. What has held back our earnings growth has been the contraction in the Australian debt sale market, which has -- which now represents in terms of annual sale volume less than half what it was 5 or 6 years ago. So there's simply less business for us to do there, and that used to be a very big part of our earnings. And our earnings have similarly contracted significantly. The good news is, as I mentioned earlier, that has now run its course. And so that is -- so we no longer have to straddle a business which is going backwards very quickly. That's now leveling off, and it means that growth from the U.S. and the lending business can now flow through into our total earnings growth, and that's how we were able to produce 16% earnings growth last year and why we're on track to produce 12% this year and hopefully, as the market becomes comfortable, that we have a strong outlook for earnings growth that we can see that reflected in the share price over time.

Okay. I think that, hopefully, covers the question itself. And clearly, if we had not embarked on that strategic diversification and growth path, the impact on share -- on the share price, if we had stayed where we were, we [ started ] to contemplate. And that is, therefore, the importance of proper and careful strategic planning of our growth in earnings and diversification of product. The next question we had was why did Ewen Crouch withdraw his consent to nominate for the Board. And when will Eric Dodd retire as Chair. First thing [ Pierre ] asked me this morning. Look, I'll leave it to Ewen, as we announced, to initially accept the role of NED and subsequently as Chair and has withdrawn from that now, and we've recommenced the process of electing a new -- or appointing, should I say, a new Non-Executive Director and Chair of the organization. And I will stay on until that process is finished, which I think makes sense in terms of the stability and continuity for the Board, but that's about as much as I can add at this point in time. No. When will I retire as Chair? Certainly won't be at this time next year. The next question we had is what is the history of proxy advisory firms covering us and did any of them issue reports ahead of today's meeting. If so, were there any recommendations against and on what grounds? I'd like to take that question because there's a good answer. But I think to be fair, it's something that Phil as Head of Remuneration and HR Committee should address. Phil, would you like to?

Mr. Chairman, yes, we did receive 3 proxy reports by Ownership Matter, ISS and CGI Glass Lewis. All of them voted in favor of all the resolutions. The Chairman and myself also had met with them on a number of occasions over the last 2, 3 months where we engaged with them about the rem structure. And most of the considerations were dealt with. And that's probably why we had a positive report from all 3 of them.

Okay. Thank you. The next question we had was how many FTE, full-time equivalent staff do we have and this is likely to fall over the coming 12 months with the rollout of AI. Which parts of our operations are the most prospective for AI productivity gains and how energetically are we embracing those opportunities? We've talked a little about AI and what we're doing on that. But Thomas, would you like to add anything in terms of answering that specific question?

Sure. So as at June, we had 2,065 full-time equivalent staff and we don't anticipate that falling over the next 12 months. If you think about our organization, I talked about analytics and an analysis being very important because of the risk nature of the businesses we're in. And I talked also about the operational complexity associated with very specialized and bespoke conversations being conducted with our customers. So what AI really delivers is it gives us greater insight into what's happening in those conversations. So the large language models are much better at transcribing and monitoring sentiment on these customer interactions. And then we can apply our analytics to this new source of information, so we can better optimize, get real sort of statistical insight into what we should say and when on one of these conversations and ultimately deploy that optimization in assisting our operators on the call or communicating digitally in making sure we say the right thing that's going to produce the best outcome for Credit Corp and hopefully, the consumer as well. In the interim, these tools are helping us in a number of different ways. So already, as Eric mentioned, the tools have largely eliminated what used to be after-call wrap-up, where an operator would finish a call and then have to note various changes in status and different switches in our operational platform to kind of indicate what happened on the call and also provide some additional free-form notes. Now the machine can do all that, and it's dramatically reduced the amount of time operators have to spend in that activity. And that is driving efficiency and productivity. But by far and away, the key message is the big gain will be in optimization, will be being more effective, making our people more effective rather than just efficient. And by that, I mean they will get more outcomes. They'll have more successful conversations that lead to payments. And they'll -- and those payments will hopefully be better payments, more optimized to the consumers' circumstances and their financial capacity. So yes, look, we are pursuing all of this with some vigor. We have a dedicated AI implementation team that is focused on it alongside our operational teams. There's a lot of work. It all sort of seems very easy when you get on to AI and you ask a question, and it delivers an immediate answer. In a business context where the requirement is for high levels of accuracy and you can waste a lot of resources and also get yourself into trouble when things go wrong, there's a lot of manual work in categorizing and labeling data and correcting in order to train these models and then subsequently doing the more traditional regression type analysis to get that optimization. So so yes, we're pursuing that with some energy and enthusiasm and to ensure that we remain competitive across all our businesses. Thank you.