Eagers Automotive Limited ($APE)

Right on time. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's -- my name is Tim Crommelin, and I chair the Eagers Automotive Limited Board. I'd like to welcome you all to the company's 69th Annual General Meeting since Eagers listed on the stock exchange in 1957. It's just gone past 10 a.m. here in Brisbane, and the Company Secretary, Denis Stark, has advised that a quorum is present. I, therefore, declare this meeting open. This meeting is being held as a hybrid meeting with shareholders attending in person and online. My fellow directors and our Chief Executive Officer, Keith Thornton, are here with me today. Keith is 1, 2, 3 along on my left. And if I could just introduce the directors that are with us, the Eagers Directors. We start at the end of that table, Nick Politis, who's our largest shareholder. Welcome, Nick. And I should point out, Nick, has a medical engagement at 11:30. So if we're still going past 11:30, he we'll certainly have to duck off. Sitting next to Nick is David Blackhall and then Michelle Prater, Marcus Birrell and Katie McNamara and Greg Duncan and Sophie Moore, our Finance Director and CFO. We certainly hope not Nick. Can I introduce also the senior management team that is well represented here. Denis Stark is our Company Secretary. Edward Geschke is the Chief Operating Officer, two on my left. Alison Reynolds is the Executive General Manager of People & Safety. Paul Warburton. Where's Paul? Paul in the middle of the pack there, Executive General Manager of Financial Services. Luc Derix is the Chief Information Officer. James Couper on my immediate left is the Chief Commercial Officer. And Simone Wilson is Head of Legal. It's pleasing also to see former Director here. Tony Love. Tony was on the Board for more than a decade and also some long-term supporters and major shareholders in Eagers. Robin Piper, welcome once again, Robin. And Dr. Alan Porter. I'd also like to introduce David Rogers and Marina Sherman and Stephen Tarling, representing our auditor, Deloitte. David and Marina will be available later in the meeting to answer any questions on audit matters. Apologies, Denis. I think we had one apology from Martin Ward, our former Managing Director. And I understand there's no other apologies. Thank you. Shareholders, this is a hybrid meeting, so I do need to run through a few procedural matters. So please bear with me. Only shareholders and their representatives and attorneys and proxyholders attending in person and holding a blue or yellow admission card and those attending online are entitled to ask questions or vote today. For attendees here in person to ask a question, you'll need to raise hand. When I invite questions, wait for the microphone. Please give us your name. [Operator Instructions] Online attendees can also ask verbal questions by following the instructions below the broadcast window. Although online questions can be submitted at any time, I will address them at the relevant time during the meeting. If similar questions are received, we'll try to group them together. And I will ask James Couper on my left here, our Chief Commercial Officer, to introduce the online questions at the appropriate time. All voting today will be conducted by a poll, and I will open voting shortly. For attendees present here in person, your blue admission card is your voting card, need to follow the instructions on that, mark the appropriate box. Please don't forget to lodge the card in the ballot box before voting closes. Proxyholders who lodge voting cards will be deemed to have voted in accordance with the instructions attached to the card. Any proxyholders that have open votes will need to mark the box beside the relevant motion to indicate how they wish to vote. For attendees online, a voting icon will appear at the top of your screen, click on the icon, present your voting options for each motion. Please just select the option. Follow the instructions to cast your vote. You are able to change your vote at any time until we declare voting is closed. All attendees, whether online or in person, may submit votes at any time from when voting opens until I declare voting closed. Finally, I appoint Lewis Brimelow of Computer Investor Services. I don't know where Lewis is? Where is he? Back up there. Lewis is with Computer Investor Services. He'll conduct the poll and be the returning officer. I now declare voting open on all items of business. Before we proceed with today's formal business, I'll give a brief report on 2025 and then Keith, will provide his report, including comments on the current year. I'll begin with my reflections of the year past before inviting Keith to provide his report on 2025 financial and operating performance as well as addressing the current trading and our outlook for the remainder of the year. It is the Board's view that 2025 was the most significant year in our recent history of this company. Our key measures of financial performance, market position, the strength of the balance sheet and the breadth of the growth platform, the business advanced materially with that. Also, Eagers took 2 major strategic steps with the Mitsubishi Corporation and CanadaOne transactions that will shape Eagers Automotive for some years to come. Revenue reached a record $13 billion, up 16.5%, including strong like-for-like growth of 12.6%, reflecting Keith and his team's continued momentum in executing our Next100 strategy. Underlying operating profit before tax was $424.1 million. It was up from $371.2 million, and the return -- and with return on sales margins, we're able to maintain that at 3.3%, a very good outcome. Statutory profit before tax was $393.7 million. As pleasing as the financial outcomes are, in October 2025, we announced a 65% investment in CanadaOne Auto, a leading Canadian dealership group. Canada is a large, fragmented market, well suited to our operating model, and we're already working closely with the CanadaOne team, led by Pat Priestner, with the deal having been completed in -- as at 30th of April 2026. We also formed a strategic alliance with Mitsubishi Corporation, a global leader with deep automotive experience and expertise who have joined our register importantly, as a significant shareholder as well as investing directly in our easyauto123 business, reinforcing its strength and potential. These partnerships position Eagers Automotive for its next phase of growth, expanding our reach internationally alongside strong and importantly, highly aligned partners. In recognition of the year's performance and reflecting our confidence in the outlook, the Board approved a total dividend for the year '25 of $0.74 per share. It was fully franked, and that matched the record dividend set in '23 and again in '24. On sustainability, the company's approach continues to be straightforward, develop our people, optimize our operations and environmental footprint and report transparently on climate-related matters. At full year '25 People, Planet and Performance Report sets this out in detail. 2025 was the first year in which we reported under the mandatory AASB S2 Climate Disclosure Regime. Across our network, we continue to invest in people. through expanded onboarding, training and their participation in the national Safe Work Month Campaign. We also progressed practical environmental initiatives, including the continued rollout of solar across dealership rooftops, ongoing hail-netting investments and the decommissioning of underground petroleum storage tanks. We also continue to support the communities in which we operate through both local dealership activity and through the Eagers Automotive Foundation, a role we see as a privilege and one we intend to keep building on. Since year-end, so that's the start of the 26th year January, we have continued to act on the domestic pipeline. In April, the company announced a 49% strategic investment in Grand Motors Group across the Gold Coast and Metro Sydney, and the acquisition of Audi Centre Melbourne and Audi Richmond from Zagame Automotive Group. In aggregate, together, all adding approximately $630 million in annual revenue. And most importantly, the CanadaOne Auto transaction, which I mentioned previously, that was settled on the 30th of April this year. The pace of activity reflects both the strength of the company's position and the breadth of opportunity in front of us. As I've said before, our results are not achieved by chance. The performance in 2025 reflects the collective effort of the entire Eagers team and the strong foundations built over many years. On behalf of the Board, I thank our CEO, Keith Thornton, his leadership team, all our people across Australia and New Zealand for their dedication and commitment. I also thank our customers, our OEM partners and our suppliers, financiers, and landlords for their continued support. To our new partners, Mitsubishi Corporation and CanadaOne Auto team, we look forward to working together. I thank my fellow directors for their ongoing support and counsel, which has been invaluable through what has been a very busy year. In particular, I'd like to acknowledge David Blackhall, second from the end, sitting next to Nick, and David retires as a Director at the conclusion of this AGM. David has been a Director of Eagers for 6 years, and prior to that was for a number of years, a Director of Automotive Holdings Group, with whom we merged in 2019. During his time on the Eagers Board, David has chaired the Audit and Risk Committee and has been an extremely hard-working, diligent, professional and loyal servant of the company. Thank you, David, for your significant contribution, which has been to the benefit of all shareholders. Finally to our shareholders, thank you. The support you continue to provide, including through the entitlement share offer that we had earlier in the year. I think it was August, September, October. That's been instrumental in enabling the transformation that we've been able to deliver, and it certainly positions the company well for the next chapter. I now invite Keith Thornton to provide his report. Following Keith's address, we'll move to the formal business of the meeting.

Well, thank you, Chairman, and good morning, all shareholders and guests, and thank you for joining us today. Before I start, for those that have registered their votes, thank you for your ongoing support. As Tim said, this morning, I will review our 2025 performance. I'll talk about our progress against 2026 strategic priorities and provide an outlook through to the end of this year. But before turning to results, I think it's important to acknowledge the environment that we're operating in and that operating backdrop and how it's impacting our business. Over the past 12 months, we've seen, and we're not alone in this, heightened geopolitical uncertainty, sustained cost of living and cost of doing business pressures and volatility in consumer and business confidence. At the same time, the automotive retail industry continues to undergo structural transformation. There's new entrants. There's new business models and this increasing global competition. It's certainly fair to say that it's a more complex and dynamic environment than we've experienced in many years, possibly the most complex and dynamic we've ever seen. However, it's exactly at these times that a company like Eagers stands out. Throughout this period, Eagers Automotive has remained focused on execution. We have continued to invest, which strengthened our strategic partnerships, and we positioned the business not just to navigate the cycle but to create value through it. Since our last AGM, and Tim touched on this, the company has been extraordinarily busy. Our entry into Canada through our largest ever investment in the CanadaOne Automotive Group, the formation of an equally important strategic partnership with Mitsubishi Corporation, a strongly supported $452 million capital raise, and thank you for your support for those in the room that participated. We've grown the business, the like business -- like-for-like business, excluding Canada, by $1.8 billion revenue in 12 months. 70% of that came from organic measures, 30% through acquisition, and that's an incredibly healthy profile. And we've continued to produce clear outperformance of the industry and our peers. So as Tim said in the last 12 months, the company has certainly been busy. Equally, as Tim said, it's probably the single most transformative year in the company's 113 years' history. Turning now to our 2025 results. And I think it's important to note here that despite those key major and transformative initiatives that we executed in the last 12 months, we didn't drop the ball or take our eye off the ball when it comes to our underlying performance. And it's an absolute credit to our operational team led by Edward Geschke, just to my left, our COO and entire operational team. They did a tremendous effort in 2025. The key highlights for 2025 included the revenue growth of 16.5% or $1.8 billion. We produced a record underlying EBITDA of $620.9 million, which was up $70 million on the previous year. We continue to focus on delivering for shareholders. As Tim said, we maintained our record dividend payout in 2025. And as I just mentioned, our net margins, which is probably the ultimate measure for us remain materially above the industry. Now it's worth noting, these are not cyclical windfalls. In fact, these results have been delivered in a sustained period of headwinds in the industry. So what this reflects is a structurally improved business model. This is a business now that has been designed to generate consistent, resilient earnings and compound value for shareholders over time. Today, Eagers operates with industry-leading productivity. Productivity sits at $1.48 million sales per employee per annum. Now this is a very important metric in our industry, and it's a 50% increase since 2019 when we merged A.P. Eagers with Automotive Holdings. We have a diverse, high-quality portfolio of 54 brands that we represent, the very best brands in the world, and we work very hard to make sure we're a preferred partner with them. We are leaders in new energy vehicles. Now this is critical. In 2025, Eagers sold more than one in 3 plug-in vehicles in Australia, a staggering metric. And it shows that the company was very wise to pursue new energy vehicles, plug-in vehicles, EV vehicles very early on in the piece. We have a category killer in our easyauto used car platform performing exceptionally well, and we now have an optimized property footprint, which is underpinned by $900 million of high-quality land and buildings in Australia and another $700 million of land and buildings in Canada. So Eagers now has at a consolidated level, $1.6 billion in owned property. Now none of these are stand-alone achievements. They're all components of integrated strategy, our Next100 strategy. Now this strategy delivers higher margins, which we've demonstrated. It builds greater resilience and it's providing multiple pathways for this company to grow. But importantly, our approach to growth remains consistent. Scale in and of itself does not create value, and I think that's a very important point to note. We believe sustainable quality and an optimized business does. So put that more simply, this company will not pursue growth for growth's sake. We will do it if it strengthens the underlying business. Since 2019, Eagers has used our operating -- our optimized operating model and our structural advantages in our industry to execute on a number of meaningful growth initiatives. Our 2025 investment into Canada represents the next step change for the company. When you consolidate our results with CanadaOne Automotive Group, we will grow turnover by almost 50%. Earnings will grow by almost 60%, and it provides multiple growth options for the company to pursue and that's an important point as well. Given Eagers' size in Australia and New Zealand, quite often, it's been perceived that Eagers has limited growth options ahead of them. I think it's fair to say it's almost limitless these days. The performance trajectory that you see on this slide since 2021 reflects what has been achieved. But more importantly, it shows the foundation for what is to come. Ultimately, the strength of our business is reflected in our margin performance. Over the last 4 years, Eagers' gap to the industry in our net profit margin has expanded from 0.7%, and I'm just going to stop there for a moment. For those that aren't aware, in automotive retail, the historic long-term benchmark for the industry is 2% margin. So to be 0.7% above the industry is already a material gap between us and the industry. But since 2021, we've expanded that gap threefold. It's now 2.1% margin gap between us and the industry. And in the second half of last year, as the industry faced continued headwinds and dropped to 1% margins, Eagers delivered 3.5%, 3.5x the industry we operate in. I'll also make one point that a lot of people don't realize in automotive retail. No matter how big you are in automotive retail, you do not buy cars cheaper than anyone else. The biggest dealer in Australia are Eagers and the smallest dealer in Australia buy cars from the OEMs for the same price. This margin is a direct reflection of us delivering on our Next100 strategy to build the most efficient, productive operating platform and leveraging our scale, our technology over the last few years. And this is not just an incremental improvement anymore. It's a structural separation from traditional industry norms. Moving on now to the strategic progress that we've made this year so far. We're 4 months in, so plenty needs to have been done. And importantly, we -- and finally, we completed our CanadaOne investment last month, and this is a significant milestone. CanadaOne provides the opportunity to materially increase our earnings power. At a pro-forma level, when you consolidate CanadaOne and Eagers, it expands Eagers and some of these numbers are quite staggering, particularly for long-term shareholders to a business that has $18.7 billion in revenue, $987 million in adjusted EBITDA, so just under $1 billion in EBITDA and $672 million in profit before tax based on 2025 numbers. It establishes a large-scale offshore platform. It delivers immediate earnings growth, geographic diversification and a pipeline of accretive opportunities for us to review. It's incredibly exciting, and we could not be happier with our Canadian partners, Pat and Daniel Priestner and the CanadaOne team. They are absolutely brilliant. Of equal significance, but perhaps slightly underappreciated in the market is our partnership with Mitsubishi Corporation. And this partnership extends well beyond capital. Now I'm going to go off script for a moment here because, most people that I've spoken to have struggled to understand exactly who we're talking about when we say we're in business with Mitsubishi Corporation. That's not surprising. Mitsubishi Corporation was borne out of the Mitsubishi Shipping Company back in 1870. Mitsubishi Corporation, I think, was founded in 1917. Mitsubishi Corporation is the largest Japanese integrated trading house. So for those that are aware of trading houses in Japan, think of Mitsui, Toyota Tsusho, Sumitomo. Mitsubishi Corporation is the largest of those. Most recently, I checked their market capitalization runs at about AUD 175 billion. After the Master Trust of Japan, the largest shareholder in Mitsubishi Corporation is Warren Buffett through Berkshire Hathaway. To say, Mitsubishi Corporation is a blue-chip company is not doing them justice. They have long been a top 100 in the Fortune 500 Global Index in usually top 50. So if you stop and put that into context, this is an organization that came knocking on Eagers' door. We did not pursue an investment with Mitsubishi Corporation. They knocked on our door and said, "We've been looking at Eagers for the last 2 years. We want to invest in Eagers in easyauto, and we want to create a strategic partnership with the organization." Now for long-term shareholders, please see that as an enormous feather in the cap of the company and something you should feel very, very proud of. I'll go one step further. 10 years ago, Mitsubishi Corporation stopped investing in parent public companies because simply, they determined that they weren't a fund manager. They focused on investing in operating companies. They changed that 10-year-old mandate to invest in Eagers. So at the top level, at the global CEO level, Mitsubishi Corporation has that confidence in Eagers Automotive. I'm incredibly proud that they are our partners going forward. Having them as a strategic partner materially enhances our access to global expertise, strategic relationships and future opportunity and reinforces Eagers' position as a true global automotive player. Their investment, Mitsubishi Corporation took 20% in easyauto, and that's an incredibly strong validation of that particular platform. Easyauto123 itself continues to rapidly scale, delivering margins ahead of global benchmarks. And again, please stop on that for a moment. This is a young company scaling rapidly but it's scaling while delivering global benchmark margins. That is very rare and very valuable. Through to the end of April 2026 at an underlying profit before tax level, easyauto123 is trading up 40% on the same period last year, which was also a record. We're continuing to expand our footprint, and we've increased the size of our flagship Hendra store, and people here in the room will be, I hope, aware of our Hendra store out near the airport to more than 29,000 square meters under roof. So that's 7 acres under roof, making it a truly landmark operation in Brisbane. And to demonstrate to those, and it must only be a few people in this room who haven't actually been out there, why easyauto123 is quite often seen as the Bunnings of used cars, we wanted to share a brief fly-through of this Hendra facility now. So your true sense of this particular facility. [Presentation]

It's an incredible facility and incredible operation. And again, off script, but something that I noticed as I watch that again, which personally, I'm incredibly proud of. I know our team are very proud of. And hopefully, as a shareholder, you should be proud of as well. It's something that we announced last year that we do through easyauto and that is our Cars4good scheme. And every month, since we announced at our AGM last year, we gave away a car to someone in need in our community. And the way we do that is we go around the individual stores every month. We ask our team members to find someone or to nominate a person, a family, even an organization in desperate need of mobility in their community, and we give them a car. We don't loan them a car. We give them a car. And I really would like to think, and I know our team think the same that easyauto was eventually known as the company that gives away cars to people in need. I think it's an incredibly worthy part of that business model as we build it. Mitsubishi Corporation's strategic equity investment and easyauto123 underscores the strength of the platform and the opportunity ahead. It also probably provides some context as to why Pat Priestner, the owner of -- or the founder and major shareholder of CanadaOne was so adamant that part of the consideration for CanadaOne included a 5% equity stake in easyauto123. So the shareholding of easyauto123 now is 20% Mitsubishi Corporation, 5% Pat Priestner in CanadaOne and 75% Eagers. Now taken together, Mitsubishi Corporation and Pat Priestner, you get a pretty strong endorsement from external parties that are industry experts on the quality of this business and the long-term growth potential both here in Canada and possibly in other markets beyond that. The Australian and New Zealand market remains highly competitive, and it continues to evolve rapidly. Low barriers to entry for new OEMs to enter the Australian market is driving increased participation from new manufacturers. Ongoing macroeconomic pressures is contributing to heightened competition, while it's fair to say consumer sentiment remains fragile, particularly following the recent federal budget. For these reasons, we will continue to operate the business with caution. In this environment, our approach remains deliberate and selective, and we're focused on sustaining our strong operational performance, which we have, deploying capital where returns are compelling and strengthening our key OEM partnerships. Recent activity in 2026, including the acquisition of the 2 Metro Audi dealerships that our Chairman mentioned reflect this approach. These Audi dealerships are high-quality assets, and it's an attractive point in the Audi product cycle. It further strengthens our position in the premium segment in a brand that we are currently underway with. We only have 1 Audi dealership in Newcastle before investing in these two. We have also entered into a non-binding term sheet for a strategic 17.5% investment in Karmo. Now Karmo is Australia's largest car subscription platform, and it expands our participation in this emerging mobility model. Karmo's digital-first model provides access to new customer segments, and they have more than 3,000 vehicles on their fleet under active subscription. So it positions Eagers at the forefront of this emerging shift in vehicles usage while also benefiting our franchise new car businesses. So as vehicles are put on subscription, we can drive volume in our new car business because they count as a sale as it goes on to subscription and also providing retail-ready inventory as these vehicles come off subscription, which is a key enabler and accelerator for us to scale our easyauto business. This investment is low risk, but with significant strategic optionality and material upside. We've also formed a unique joint venture with Grand Motors Group or GMG. This business represents Toyota on the Gold Coast. I know Dr. Porter is very happy that we've invested on the Gold Coast. We're very underweight in that geographic region. So it's great to finally get on the Gold Coast in a meaningful way. It's very nice to do it with the market leader, Toyota. We also have BMW and MINI as part of GMG Group on the North Shore of Sydney. Mazda, Kia, Subaru and soon-to-be BYD in Ryde, New South Wales. Our 49% investment in GMG alongside the major shareholder, Greg Scott and his equity dealer partners create synergy benefits for both parties. GMG benefits from Eagers' scale, our back-end operations, think about our parts facility, our predelivery facilities, our storage facilities, benefits from our administrative functions, our proprietary technology we've developed and our general operating advantages. So GMG is a smaller family-owned business gets to access Eagers' scale. We benefit because we're 49% of that. We benefit because we help fractionalize our cost base further. For Eagers, we also gain access to a growth platform for franchise new car business into markets that we weren't previously represented. And importantly and critically, we get the opportunity to expand our easyauto123 platform via this JV. This is a very deliberate and strategic structure that we've created. And it highlights how automotive retail is changing in Australia. We're proud to be entering this partnership with Greg Scott and his dealer partners. Turning to the outlook now. We're very mindful of external uncertainty, but the underlying performance of our business is strong. Across Australia and New Zealand, year-to-date through the end of April 2026, turnover is up by 5% or about $200 million on the same period last year. Our order intake of cars is at record ever levels. The orders taken through the first 4 months have exceeded deliveries. So the number of cars we've sold versus the number of cars we've actually delivered to customers is 29% higher. This is due to supply constraints, which have impacted the timing of deliveries and continue to impact the time deliveries, possibly right through the half year and may push some of these deliveries into the second half. Because of these supply constraints, our order bank has grown by 70% since December 2025. Our CanadaOne Auto investment is tracking to expectations with multiple growth opportunities under review. Easyauto continues to grow, delivered a record first 4 months with a 40% year-on-year increase, and we remain disciplined around capital deployment. May and June are our 2 biggest trading months of the year. It delivers somewhere between 20% and 25% of our annual profit in these 2 months alone. Given our strong order bank, we will do our very best to maximize deliveries ahead of June 30, irrespective of trading conditions. However, supply and the ability to deliver out of this order bank by June 30 does create some near-term uncertainty leading into the half year. Despite this uncertainty, we still expect to report an underlying profit before tax, in line with or slightly ahead of the first half of 2025 across Australia and New Zealand. In addition, 2 months of trading contribution from Canada will be added to this result, and we will deliver at a consolidated level, our record first half and a record half in general for the company. Looking to the second half, we're positive. We expect an uplift in delivery supported by improved supply through our large partnership with Toyota. Toyota has been severely supply constrained in the first half of this year. Our substantial order bank and continued demand for new energy vehicles will further underpin second half performance. We'll also have a full half of CanadaOne contributions and a full half of our recent Australian acquisitions. So in summary, strong leading indicators including record order right, a material order bank and improving supply over the second half give us confidence in delivering growth in both turnover and earnings and positioning the group for a record in 2026. Before I close today, I want to summarize what we see as Eagers Automotive in 2026. We believe we are a company that is disciplined in the allocation of capital. We have clear structural advantages in our industry and an operating model that exceeds our peers. Increasingly, we are becoming a diversified platform with multiple growth options. Eagers is uniquely positioned in our industry. We're uniquely positioned to perform through cycles to capture opportunity and change, and I think the last few years have demonstrated that. And ultimately, to compound value over the long term, and this company does take a long-term view. Like our Chairman, I also wanted to acknowledge the incredible contribution from David Blackhall, who retires today. Since 2019, David has made an outstanding contribution to our business. David brings deep industry expertise. He has incredibly strong relationships all through our industry and provides valuable insights, all of which have served shareholders exceptionally well during his tenure. Personally, I'm very grateful for the wisdom and expertise he shared with me over the many years on the Board, but I've known David for probably going on 15, 20 years now. So thank you, David. We wish David all the very best for the future thanking for his efforts. And fortunately, we stay deeply connected with David, he remains the Chairman of the peak body in the industry, the AADA. Thank you, David. I also want to acknowledge the incredible efforts of all of the great people that make up Eagers Automotive. We are a big, big business. The progress we make as a company is entirely dependent on their continued efforts and expertise. It's an absolute privilege to be able to get up here and report their results, particularly when their results are so incredibly fantastic. It's what sets us apart, and I want any Eagers employees listening to know that this company never takes your efforts for granted. Thank you to everyone and the Eagers team. In closing, and as always, we remain incredibly engaged and positive about what the future holds for your company. Inside of Eagers, we aspire to be what we refer to as our preferred business. What that means is we want to be a preferred business partner, a preferred supplier, a preferred employer and a positive contributor to the communities that we operate in. We know that if we deliver on this, we'll also be a preferred place for shareholders to invest. Thank you for your attention and your interest today, and of course, for your continued support.

Thank you, Keith. Shareholders, we can now move to today's formal business. Details of all proxy and direct votes received prior to this meeting on all agenda items should now be showing on your screen. Everyone can see that. Some very strong support we've had from shareholders. I'm sure you could note that. Our 2025 annual report and notice of Annual General Meeting were made available to all shareholders on the 24th of April 2026, and will now be taken as read. I remind shareholders that questions on agenda items will be addressed during discussion on the relevant item of business before the voting closes. General questions can be addressed later in the meeting. The first item of business is to receive our financial reports for 2025, which were included in the annual report starting at Page 63. The Corporations Act requires the financial reports put to the meeting each year. If there are any questions on the financial reports, we will address them now. Now is also the time for our auditor to answer any questions on the audit, the auditor's report, our accounting policies and auditor independence. Are there any questions from shareholders here in the room? Lightly there, David? If there's no questions from the shareholders in person, I'd ask James Couper, are there any questions online from shareholders?

No online questions, Chair.

No online. There are no further questions. We can move to the next item of business. Next item of business is agenda item #2. 4 directors today are up for reelection, and their details will now be displayed on your screens. Additionally, information on each director is available in the notice of meeting and in the annual report. Agenda Item 2(a), first up, as this item involves my re-election, I'll pass control of the meeting to Greg Duncan for his -- for this item of business. Greg is Chair of the Remuneration and Nomination Committee at Eagers. Thanks, Greg. Do you want to come up here? Or are you happy there, we should give him -- give Greg a mic.

Thank you, Chair. As Tim mentioned, it is my pleasure to put this item of business to the meeting. Tim was last elected to the Board of Directors at the AGM in 2023, having been initially appointed in February 2011. As an independent non-executive director, Tim chairs the Board of Eagers and is a member of the Remuneration and Nomination Committee. Further information on Tim can be found in the Notice of Meeting. The Board and shareholders -- sorry, the Board and shareholders drive enormous benefit from Tim's corporate and commercial expertise. In accordance with our constitution, Tim retires this meeting and offers himself for re-election. Our directors fully support and recommend Tim's re-election today. Details of the votes received prior to this meeting should be showing now on the screen. If you have any questions, please raise your hand, wait for the microphone, state your name and ask your questions.

Steve Mabb. I'm representing Australian Shareholders' Association today. I think we've got about $16 million worth of direct shares we're voting as well as many other retail shareholders are representing. Just wanted to say thank you, Tim and Greg for a very productive discussion prior to the meeting. It was very helpful for us to understand a bit more about the business. I've got 2 questions for you here, Tim. So first of all, just relating to the Board in general. I know we discussed this in our meeting prior, but it would be very helpful going forward to have a more robust skills matrix of the directors that would allow us to firstly see the skills that you're expecting the Board to bring to the table and then also what each of the directors are individually bringing. We know we get buyers and things like that, but voting on directors is one of the few things that shareholders get to do, and it's a very important role for Engage shareholders. So I would really appreciate in the future if that was a possibility. And then my second question is for you specifically on this resolution. We don't currently consider you an independent chair because of your long tenure and significant shareholding, and we're happy to support you as non-independent chair. So certainly happy to vote in favor today. But at some point in time, you may want to retire. So the question here is more around Board succession. Who do you see on the Board that could potentially slip into the chair role in the future? Is that something that you and the Board are actively discussing in the future?

Thank you, Steve. And certainly, Denis Stark and myself appreciated meeting with you prior to the meeting. And I appreciate certainly your support for the resolutions today. On the skills matrix, you made a very good point. It's one thing to put bios in the annual report. And I guess that's what companies do. But I think we've made a note of focusing on the skills that each director brings. And certainly, in addition to the buyer, when I look across the table there, some of the skills that the directors have and it would not be obvious to shareholders. So we will take that on board. And hopefully, in our annual report next year, we'll have a more focused skills matrix. Board succession, probably we've been a little quiet on that in the last 12 months. Can I just say it is a focus of the Board? And there has been some turnover of directors really in the last 5 or 6 years but been a pretty busy year and we may not have spent as much time thinking about director changes or whatever or what we could do. Certainly, as we've noted, David Blackhall is retiring, and Dan Ryan retired a year ago. And certainly, there's an opportunity for some variance in the Board going forward. So you can be assured that it is front and center for directors to focus on, and we will do that. In relation to my longevity, I would be -- I'm sort of humble that shareholders give me a 94% vote. Can I just say I consider that the opportunity to be on the Board of Eagers and certainly chair, I consider myself to be very fortunate and lucky. But I would agree I'm certainly closer to the end of my tenure rather than the start. So in terms of if I'm reelected, if the Board and shareholders are happy with that, I'll certainly be around. But you can be assured that we're thinking about what goes forward. As for possibly other directors who are here and could be Chair of the company, plenty of choice. So I don't think shareholders should be in any -- have any concern about what's ahead. Maybe any questions online, is it Greg? Is there -- is there anything?

Chair, there are no questions online.

Okay. That's good. Okay. Thank you very much, and thanks, Greg. Thank you, shareholders. The next item of business 2(b) is the re-election of Marcus Birrell, and details of Marcus' background are up on the screen right now. Marcus was last reelected to the Board at our AGM in 2023, having initially been appointed in 2016. As an independent non-executive director, Mr. Birrell is a member of the Audit and Risk Committee. Marcus has extensive automotive industry experience. Certainly, he has considerable international experience, including international logistics, shipping and structuring and cross-border transactions. Further information on Marcus, I won't go through the long list of CV. It can be found in the Notice of Meeting, but suffice to say the Eagers Directors fully support Marcus' re-election today. Details of the votes received prior to this meeting should now be showing on your screen. Can I just ask shareholders who here in the room if they've got any questions in relation to that, please raise your hand? Steve?

Thanks, Tim. So question here possibly for Marcus, and Michelle. There's quite a number of related party businesses here with Marcus and Michelle. So the question from us here would just be how do you as the Chair and possibly the Audit and Risk Committee, maybe our auditors make sure that we're paying fair market value to shareholders for those various other business relationships that Mr. Birrell brings to the business?

Having Marcus and Michelle on the Board is without question advantageous to shareholders given their backgrounds, their deep automotive and other experience across areas such as property, and I've already made comment in relation to Marcus. We think some of the independence checks are somewhat overdone and rigorous. I should point out in Marcus' situation, the -- we regard -- we understand the independence rule. So Marcus is not independent. But can I just point out that we lease some properties from Marcus, not many? We leased some properties from Michelle. The history of that is Michelle and Michelle's family were the largest shareholders with Automotive Holdings Group, and we merged a very big company in the West, and we lease some properties which are essential. Marcus has some $60 million of investment in Eagers in relation to leasing properties from Marcus or Michelle or her family, all leases that we enter into and we -- how many leases do we have? We must have couple of hundred somewhere across the group. Just 500, okay. All leases are treated exactly the same way. When there is time for a rent renewal, we get independent advice. We do not have any direct dealings with Marcus and Michelle other than is the independent advice as to, we have sought and that could be through a JLL or whatever. I think we've used JLL a little extensively in the past. So we regard the level of independence is very rigorous. Sorry. So no more questions here. Any questions online?

Chair, we have one question online from Mr. Stephen Mayne. Repeating what happened when Marcus was elected last time in 2023, Marcus Birrell received the largest vote against from proxies. Who was responsible for the 18.5% vote against Marcus' re-election? Was it driven by recommendations from proxy advisers because Marcus is not classified as independent? The second part of the question, and apologies, Marcus, I'll read it out as it's been requested, could Marcus, please confirm how old he is and whether this will be his last term on the Board, having served since Eagers bought his business in 2016?

Like firstly, I can't answer for Marcus' age, I'll let him have a go at that. But is the question and is the question to Marcus. Yes. Can I just make comment about Marcus I for one would be -- I'll let Marcus answers the question, but I for one, as with other Board members, be extremely disappointed if Marcus didn't want to go again if reelected this time. His deep experience in the industry, his international connections go way beyond automotive into logistics, shipping, cross-border. You don't find people like that very easily that have the credentials that Marcus had. So I for one, and I'm sure there's other Board members would be very disappointed if he didn't go again. Can I just point out also Stephen Mayne? Thanks for your question. But we're 82% in favor of Marcus' re-election, a pretty good number, and when a director, given the rules that [indiscernible] and we've just discussed it with Stephen with Shareholders' Association, when they have rules around independence and just decide some, a couple of fund managers just voted against him on the basis of independence, a lot of fund managers and the great majority of fund managers who own shares voted for Marcus, 82% came from shareholders. So I think that should be noted. But I guess to be fair to Stephen Mayne's question. Marcus, did you want to add anything around your age or...

I'm not sure why he wants to know my age. I guess you must have some concern with my useful and experience. But I'm 66 years of age, and I've been in the car game for 48 years. So I haven't given any thought at not standing again, so I haven't even considered it. And as far as the 18-odd percent people who haven't bought it for me, no one shared with me why they haven't rated for me, I guess, sadly, not enough people know me. So that's what to know me to love me if they knew me, they might vote for me. So I can't comment further.

I'm sure when we get the skills matrix in next year's annual report, Marcus, you'll get more votes, but that's fine. It's certainly supportive. Yes, Keith.

Sorry, Tim. And not to drag this out, I want to point out something also when it comes to someone like Marcus Birrell and 48 years industry experience. When we did our largest ever investment into Canada last year, I think it's been well reported that Nick Politis, our major shareholder, who probably has more than 48 years experience, I shouldn't say that, but was part of the process. Now that was incredibly valuable for the executive team to be able to rely on Nick's incredible depth of experience around which markets we should expand into. Should we go to U.K., should we go to Canada, should we go to U.S. and which group and which brand should we invest with? I think you can all acknowledge how valuable that was. Before the Board was asked to confirm us doing the deal, the executives and the Board determined that we needed to send Marcus to Canada as well as another independent view of this investment. Marcus not only came to Canada with us to, I guess, confirm that it was the right acquisition. I'll repeat what Marcus said, Marcus said, "I was 25, I'd be packing my bags and moving to Canada myself." But his knowledge, his relationships, his international experience is incredibly valuable. And with respect to an independent director, taking independent director with the executive to Canada to look at that business would not have added a lot of value. Certainly, not the value that Marcus has brought. And final comment to that is, as part of the operational and management of the Canadian investment, we will have an operational Board that includes Marcus.

Marcus also serves on the audit and risk committee. Okay. So is that any more questions from the floor here or online? Thank you. The votes are there. So thank you on that. We'll move to the next item of business, which is re-election for Sophie Moore. In accordance with the constitutio, Sophie retires by rotation, being eligible offers herself for re-election. Sophie was initially appointed as a director in March 2017 and was last reelected to the Board in 2023. Details of Sophie's background are now up on the screen. I should mention she commenced with the company 2015 and has executive responsibility across all things financial. Can I also point out -- and again, we probably some of it's picked up in that, but Sophie has extensive public company experience in finance and in mergers and acquisitions, and that has been very important to this group since Sophie joined us back in 2015. We are, I believe, indeed, fortunate to have someone of Sophie's financial expertise on our Board. Certainly, Eagers' directors recommend her re-election today. You can see the votes for Sophie. Again, a couple of fund managers get a little bit funny about independence, but in the main 87%. So are there any questions that anyone would like to raise? Nothing here. So, James?

No online questions, Chair.

Thank you. On that, could we then move to the next item of business, which is the re-election of Michelle Prater. Michelle was last reelected to the Board at our AGM in 2023, and she and her family are substantial shareholders in the company. Michelle is a resident of Perth in Western Australia, an extremely important part of Eagers' national footprint, and she brings a wealth of automotive and industry and commercial property experience to the Board and is Executive Chair of APPL Group since 2004. Further details about Michelle can be found in the Notice of Meeting, and directors are very much in favor of her re-election today. Details of votes, 92% support Michelle. That's on the screen. Are there any questions here that anyone, shareholders in the floor would like to ask? Nothing here. James, is there anything?

No online questions, Chair.

No online questions. Thank you very much. That brings us then to thank you to the shareholders. That's the election of 4 directors. We value your support. We just moved to the remuneration report. It is Item 3, where we seek shareholder approval of our rem report as set out in the annual report starting on Page 36. Although this vote is advisory only, it is an important agenda item and the Board is always keen for shareholders to support this area. Support has been very positive, as you can see from the votes lodged before the meeting. And I should point out that none of those votes are by directors or key management personnel. Directors and key management personnel are not allowed to vote. So we're 90% on all those shareholders who did vote in excess of 117 million shares. I invite any questions on this agenda item from shareholders who are here in the room. We've got nothing? Sorry.

Sorry, Tim, just a quick one. I also wanted to say thank you for putting the proxies up at the start of the meeting. That was very helpful to see how the voting have been coming in. I really got a lot out of Keith's presentation earlier as well. Thank you for the plain English update on the business and what you're doing. This isn't a typical remuneration report that we see from large companies, but we're happy to support it this year based on our engagement with you. One of the little things we would request going forward is to consider on the LTI, the long-term incentive, potentially adding a second measure that isn't just about total shareholder return or the share price going up. There's potentially an element of moral hazard in our view to that. And also, some of it is not in your control. If we get to the end of the vesting period and the markets having a tantrum, potentially all the great work that the C-suite have done may not be as rewarding for them as it might have been if there was another business metric tied to your long-term incentives. So while most shareholders are happy when the share price is going up, and that's a good thing, and we don't have a problem with that. We'd also like to see something around the business performance. You can decide whatever the metrics are, of course, that you think are important. But is it return capital? Is it return on equity? Is it earnings per share growth? We know you've got a few things in the STI, but yes, with your long-term incentive, we think it will be beneficial for the management to have a second metric in that it's tied to business performance and not just the short-term fluctuations of other shareholders that are driving your share price up and down. So up to you, but that would be our request for the future rem structure.

I think when we met, we noted your comments, we'll give it some thought, but it's a pretty stringent LTI that we've got. It's really all about share price performance and the outcome for the company totally aligned with shareholders. And its an LTI where the executive is required to repay 100% of the loan, and he is required to do that during the term. Part of his STI goes to repayment of the loan. So the reward certainly falls, which is very much aligned with shareholders. It falls if and when the share price achieves the uplift, the outcome for Keith or the senior executive, its share price performance, and that's in the long term. I should also mention that there's a vesting period that you pack up and leave, you don't get your LTI even if you've done a really good job. And so we think it's pretty tough. And whether we need to uplift that, I'm not sure your suggestion was uplifting the toughness of it. It might have made it a little easier for them. So maybe we have to think about whether that's correct or not.

Yes. Maybe I didn't make it clear. We're not concerned about the toughness. What we're concerned about is bad luck. So if Keith and his team does a wonderful job, and we have an unlucky time in the share market that particular year, potentially no LTI is received. So it's more about the bad luck aspect here of share price going down, which isn't necessarily new at that point in time. So that a bit of concern. If Keith is a great CEO, we don't want to lose him. We'd like him to stay for the long term and not just purely be tied to sentiment on the market, I suppose.

I get that. But I guess all shareholders are susceptible to sentiment and, maybe I'll let Keith say a few words about his LTI, if he wants to. But all shareholders are susceptible to sentiment. And quite frankly, the idea is that it becomes the senior management become long-term shareholders. And over the longer term, if the company performs, then the share price will do better and the dividends will be better.

Thank you, Stephen. My father taught me never to talk about what you are paid. It's bad taste, so I'm not going to start today. However, I do, I think I understand what you're saying there, and I appreciate it, and I think the other executives that are in the same boat appreciate it as well. Two quick comments. It is quite a tough metric is LTI. We bought shares. Those that participate on market at the same price that anyone else could have on the day. And we have a loan that we need to repay to the company. Your point is exactly right. The share plans are quite often looked at in an interesting way by the outside world. Quite often, there is adverse effects around when share plans vest and what the share price is on that day. And a, is the reward fair? It might be too generous. It might be unfair, but it also creates unintended consequences when you get executives being distressed sellers. I think the point you are making, if I'm right, and we can certainly take it off-line is that perhaps there's an extra metric that allows executives to still get shares if they would hit another hurdle and it's not just you miss out. So it's almost I think what you're saying, Stephen, is the loan may be perhaps taken into account if another metric is hit. But anyway, we'll take that offline. Yes. Thank you. So I appreciate the message you're saying. I don't think the message was making it harder. I just want to be clear on that. And let me put that in the minutes, please. Thank you.

I just thought I'd give you something to think about. Okay. I think that's it. No further questions or comments?

No online questions, Chair.

Could we move then to Item 4, which is renewal of proportional takeover provisions in the constitution? This calls for shareholders by a special resolution to approve the renewal of the proportional takeover provisions of the constitution for 3 years. Detailed summary of the motions included in the Notice of Meeting. If the resolution is approved, shareholders will be able to collectively decide whether any subsequent proportional takeover bid is acceptable in principle and appropriately priced. It's a mechanism to protect shareholders. This will reduce the risk of control company changing hands without payment of an adequate control premium for your shares. Will also reduce the risk of you being left as part of a minority interest in the company should proportional bid be made. The Board, therefore, unanimously recommends shareholders approve the motion. And you can see from those in favor, 99.63%. Do any shareholders here have a question in relation to that? If not, we'll move to James Couper for anything online.

No online questions, Chair.

Thank you. Could we move please to Item 5, which is placement of shares to Mitsubishi Corporation? Item 5 seeks shareholder approval for the ratification of the 2.77 million shares that Eagers placed to Mitsubishi under the strategic placement agreement. Keith referred to that. That was their investment that they made into Eagers, and we are asking shareholders to ratify that if we could. Details of the votes received prior to the meeting should be now shown on the screen. So shareholders have any questions here from the floor given strong support we've had in the vote? Nothing here? If not, is there anything with you, James?

I have one online question chair from Mr. Stephen Mayne. The question is, unless we are planning another big institutional placement, did we really need to put this resolution given that we have an automatic 15% placement capacity every 12 months? What is the purpose of refreshing the maximum 15% capacity early?

A few questions in that. Yes, I agree. It can be done annually October. We're having an Annual General Meeting, and we thought it would be sensible to put it to shareholders to let them consider it. It would have rolled over and will roll over automatically. If it wasn't approved in October this year. So we're talking about October. Last year, we placed shares to Mitsubishi that would restrict our placement capacity rolling through to the next October, we're about to go to June. So it's not far to October. But the simple answer is we are not planning any institutional placement at all at this point in time. So is that enough for you, Stephen?

No further questions on this item, Chair.

Thank you. The next item is Item 6, and it seeks shareholder approval and ratification of the issue of 21.429 million exchangeable shares as part of the consideration for CanadaOne Auto, as you would remember, which was all part of the time when we raised capital, $1 billion acquisition that was made up of shares and cash and the issuance of shares to PAT present, the vendor for CanadaOne were in the form of exchangeable shares, which he can exchange those exchangeable notes, which he can exchange for shares at any point in time. So a detailed summary of that motion is set out in the Notice of Meeting. So are there any questions anyone would like to ask in relation to it? Anything from the floor here? Nothing? Anything online?

No online questions, Chair.

Thank you very much. And thank you to all shareholders for very positive support around the resolutions. I think that just about is all the items of business, isn't it Denis? Yes. Okay. As there are no further questions then for anything in relation to those items of business. Can we just move to the closure of voting? We get to vote for anyone who would like to vote. Just before we close voting, I'll just briefly pause the meeting that would allow shareholders a final opportunity to submit your votes if you haven't already done so. Computershare allows you to have some very colorful boxes in which you can lodge your vote. We'll just hold the meeting for a minute. [Voting]

That's it. Nothing more. Thanks, Lewis. I'll now close voting. The votes will be tallied and released to the stock exchange as soon as possible after the meeting. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's formal business. However, before we close the meeting, are there any general questions from shareholders that they'd like to ask of any of the directors? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of things I would just like to thank the Board for the pricing of the rights issue. It made it very effective for shareholders and obviously, to encourage everybody to join in. A couple of things to ask you. You talked about the profit going up from '24 to '25, but from '23 to '25, it was actually down 20% in those periods. So hopefully, we're on the right track there. You have an investment in Peter Warren Group in Sydney, not anymore? That's gone?

No.

I thought you had a holding at one stage you said -- my apologies. The return on equity with this increased business that we've got, I hope that we keep the return on equity up. And the other thing that I was going to ask you was the possibility of a dividend reinvestment plan, which gives you capital there at a quite a good rate where you're not passing the money out. And with bank loans at probably 3 or 4x the dividend rate, that might be a way to raise capital and give some of your smaller investors the opportunity to increase the holding maybe at a very slight discount or a market price, whatever. But it is something maybe to consider that would benefit some of the smaller shareholders. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your comments and noted about return on equity, and we'll certainly be pushing hard in that direction in relation to the DRP. Certainly, it's on the agenda. We have -- we used to have a DRP. And for many years, we didn't. We ceased that. We just didn't want to issue shares. We've been doing a lot of things in the last 12 months or so, and there may well be the opportunity to have a DRP. So it's on the agenda to be looked at.

Can I just add to that, Chairman? Firstly, thank you for the comments and questions, all very sensible and certainly on the radar. A couple of comments around in 2023. Our profit has come back from 2023, as you rightly pointed out. One thing that we can't escape is that we do operate in an industry that is cyclical. And if you look at the returns on the industry back in '22, '23, particularly in very tight supply period with COVID, the returns were extraordinarily high across the industry. So it's a little bit misleading, but it shows the overall trend. What we look at as a long-term company is the long-term growth. And to that point, I just did want to point out we hold, ultimately, long term, we want to grow earnings per share. And over the last 10 years, we've grown earnings per share at 8.6% compound over the last 10 years and dividends have grown by 8.7%. So we're proud of that, and that's something we'll focus on the long term, but your point is well made. And certainly, the DRP is also something that we've considered as well as we grow the company. So thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions. Yes. David?

David Goffard, shareholder. Just had 3 quick questions for Keith if that's okay. The first one was on your last slide, about the multi-growth platform business, there's a column for overseas markets, so ex Australia, New Zealand and Canada. So any commentary on that would be good. Second question is, I imagine the tailwinds from BYD at the moment are quite strong. So any sort of commentary -- I know obviously hesitant to talk about single OEMs, but any sort of commentary about BYD in the car market would be good. And then thirdly, on CanadaOne, obviously, a large acquisition, it sort of -- it's 8 months now from actually the acquisition was announced. So just how you're feeling about the acquisition. And then in particular, just any commentary about when it was announced, one of the highlights or potential highlights of the acquisition was the ability to increase its market share through bolt-on acquisitions. So any sort of commentary about sort of pipeline for potential bolt-on acquisitions to increase the market share? And I don't need detailed replies, so I appreciate these 3 questions there.

No problem, David. The good questions, very much on our radar. Overseas markets, as you point out there, there's opportunities in these markets beyond just Canada. We will focus on any North American, so U.S. or Canada. Any opportunities that are in that market that makes sense that's on strategy in brands that we see as high return, reasonable risk. We will do that with the CanadaOne partners. They're up there. They are -- to quote Nick, "the best operator he has ever seen." And we are exceptionally happy and fortunate to be in partnership with this group up there. So we're very reliant on them. They're looking for opportunities up there. It helps take -- it helps avoid the tyranny of distance of us trying to jump on a plane and going over there and pretending we're experts in North America because we're not. So the opportunity is over there in that North American market. Mitsubishi Corporation have brought a number of opportunities to us in other markets. And they've got big state in India, for instance, through Asia. We've looked at a couple of markets through the Asia Pacific region. We'll be very careful. And we are very conscious that we're spending shareholders' money. We take that very seriously. So this company is -- and I made the comment in my speech, we don't value scale in itself. Scale is something that provides value if we use it properly. So we're not going to run out there and spend money in markets all around the world to say we're a global company and including myself and other executives can spend their lives on playing. It is not what we're going to do. We'll be very careful. But the opportunities are existing. As this industry changes globally, there is rationalization, there's consolidation, and it's evolving. What that is doing is it's shrinking the world, and it's changing how brands go to market in different geographic regions. There's an awful lot of opportunity, but we just got to pick the right opportunity. In terms of BYD and new energy vehicles, in general, start of this year has been exceptionally strong, even removing the hyper period around the fuel crisis and when there was talk of fuel rationing, et cetera. Our order right compared to the same period last year, same brands is up by 1/3. It's huge. And it is reflecting what we have seen as a transition to moving plug-in vehicles to the masses. To be fair, one of the comments we've made many times is up until this year, making cars, making plug-in vehicles cheaper did not sell you more plug-in cars, which sounds counterintuitive, and it sounds a little illogical. The reason is that up until now before more mass adoptions, plug-in vehicles represented a risky purchase. They represented some quite often brands that were less than well-known. There was concerns about residual value. There was concern about battery life. There was concern about infrastructure. And as you move an electric vehicle to a lower price, you move it into a different demographic. Now that demographic might rent a property, so they don't have a charging station at home. They might have a job where they don't get a car park at work where they can plug in their vehicle. And they certainly don't want to be the first of their friends and family to buy a plug-in car and have all of their other friends and families saying, you're crazy. The fuel crisis changed that. And suddenly, there was a tipping point. I don't know what the exact dollar per liter was, but all of a sudden, people said, I need to take that $150 worth of fuel cost out of my weekly budget. Interest rates are going up, my mortgage, my rent, whatever it is, my cost of living is going up, hang the residual, hang the risk, I need that price out. Now we're very fortunate in BYD. BYD is still the dominant new energy vehicle globally. We talk about it. It's very similar to the Toyota of China, and it's -- we're very fortunate to have a position where we're selling more than 80% of all BYDs in Australia. They also have incredible supply capability, and they will be able to supply cars more easily than perhaps a lot of the other brands in the marketplace at the moment. So that's a fortunate position with that specific brand, but it's not just BYD. Everyone that has the right priced new energy vehicle, which is a car that can be plugged in, is doing well in that segment at the moment. So we're very positive and very fortunate with that. The CanadaOne pipeline is -- we're in Canada in 10 days' time, the business is performing to expectation. Pleasingly, in some respects, we've looked at multiple opportunities, and there is a couple of significant opportunities that's on the agenda when we go up there to speak to them. In some ways, I'm pleased that we didn't do an acquisition during the closing of the transaction, but we spoke about a lot. So what we've actually determined over the last 10 months is how they approach growth and how we approach growth. And the beautiful thing is, they've said, we're not going to pursue this unless Eagers want to support it, and we say we're not going to do it unless you co-invest with this new recommended, which is a nice way to be aligned on growth going forward.

Thank you are we done? Thank you. There's no further questions. I declare the meeting closed -- sorry there is a question.

Sorry, Chair, we have 2 final questions online. The first one is from Dr. Alan Porter. Congratulations, Keith and your staff on achieving the successful merger with CanadaOne. You have increased the size of the combined business turnover by about 44%. I don't need to remind you of the tyranny of distance, approximately 15,000 kilometers and 19 hours flight time which will mean the integration will not be easy other than electronically. Would you please inform me what measures do you plan or have taken to manage the combined entity to successfully consummate the marriage between Eagers and CanadaOne?

Can I just drop in there? If I close the meeting of shareholders here happy and certainly, directors and management are very happy to take further questions, but I'm just conscious of the fact that Nick's got to go. So if -- no. They weren't -- I could get a lot of the directors to retire early if we board a plane, I think we'd all be gone. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you for the question, Dr. Porter, and thank you for your ongoing support. You don't need to remind us of the tyranny of distance. So James and I have proven that you can do a day trip to Vancouver, though. We took off at 9:00 a.m. out of Brisbane. We landed at 9:00 a.m. Vancouver time because of time difference, and we're on a Thursday and we flew out at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday from Vancouver. So that was the shortest visit that we did last year in what was a very busy year. But your points are entirely valid. The way we approach that investment is the way we approach every investment, and it's threefold. The first thing that we need to do is to make sure that the money that we've invested your money, shareholders' money is protected. That's step one. The second step is we need to make sure that investment grows, and we need to make sure that the business over there is operating as well as it possibly can. And then the third thing is we need to then think about how we grow that investment over time. So 3 steps to that. And the reason I outlined those 3 steps is the way we have structured the deal with our counterparties, our partners over there, largely, largely, not totally deals with a lot of those things. Pat Priestner invested in Eagers. He is now the second largest shareholder in Eagers behind Nick. So he took $383 million worth of script and Eagers as part of this deal. And something that I have said publicly, but I'm not sure if everyone here has heard. When he took that script, he said, "I want as much as possible in Eagers," and he said, "I know, you'll need to lock me up on that script." How long do you need to lock me up for. This is a 70-year-old man, he said, "I'm happy to be locked up for 10 years." Now that is unheard of. But that shows the commitment he's got to Eagers. The second thing is that as he grows and as we grow in Canada, he's investing alongside us. He wants to maintain his 35% shareholding in CanadaOne as he goes. A couple of very large-scale acquisitions we're looking at the moment. He's co-investing with us. He is putting his hand into his own pocket. So that is a great vote of confidence. And the fact that he will be investing alongside us means that we've got the best bar none in Canada co-investing. So he won't be spending Eagers' money willy nilly. He doesn't want to be diluted. He wants to co-invest and he also be making sure that everything he does supports his equity shareholding in Eagers. So the structure of the deal is critical, even the 5% has got in easyauto. He did that because he sees a huge opportunity to roll easyauto into the Canadian market, where there's no scale used car player. Coming back to what we need to do in integration. The one thing that takes up the most in an integration, particularly in a business we buy in Australia is we actually take it over and we start operating it. And that's actually the hard part. It's when Edward goes in and we roll out our IT system, and we put our management in and we start running the business day to day. We are not running CanadaOne. We've got a partner over there, and we very deliberately invested alongside the best partner in Canada. And one of the great things that happened in the very drawn out process of closing this deal as we spoke to every OEM that Pat and CanadaOne in partnership with. And bar none, bar none, was staggering. They all said, he's our best partner in Canada, don't mark it up. Incredibly, Pat's 70 years old, his son is 42. Daniel Priestner, incredibly impressive, really impressive. He's the COO over there, Edward and the CEO in regular contact, to be fair. Edward has probably learned more from Ryan, then Ryan's learned from us at this stage because we just haven't gone over there to sort of show them we've done. But the thing that will be most important is really going to fall on the functional areas, the finance, the legal, the compliance, the people, any risk areas on day 1. So that's protecting our investment. Optimizing our investment will be very much 2-way streets. One of the reasons with Pat did the deal was the first comment I said is we're not looking to run this business from Brisbane because that would be a recipe for disaster. And I'll probably finish there because I can keep going on this. But the real concern I would have if I was a shareholder of Eagers, if you heard the person in my role and the executive saying, we're going to run up from Brisbane, and we're going to send all these executives over once a week to tell them what to do. And that's not going to be the case. So we are very comfortable with our partners, but it will be a very careful watching base. It's our biggest investment. We are not going to make a meal of it.

I think you had one more question.

We do, Chair, final question today online from Mr. Stephen Mayne. Thank you to David Blackhall for his 6 years of service on our Board. It is always helpful for investors to have access to some exit perspectives from retiring independent directors. In his final contribution as an Eagers' Director, could David please comment on what he regards as the best 2 decisions Eagers made during his time on the Board. And does he have any regrets?

Well, thank you, Stephen. What a question. I won't keep you long. The 2 standouts are easy to pick, and there's a long, long greatest hits reel that Keith could run, but there are 2 absolute standouts from my point of view. The first was the merger with AHG, that was a scaling merger that unlocked so many other opportunities. But there's one thing that was happening there that we didn't really get our heads around until we got inside. And my colleague, Greg and I were both independent directors on that Board. Once that merger happened, and Martin and Keith and the team got hold of easyauto123, which was an AHG property and scaled it properly and turned it into the powerhouse it is today. That was transformative. And that business is a massive, massive profit earner now and going forward. And I think I might saying, Keith, we'll just continue to scale that asset, and it will be positive as far as I can see. So that was number one. The second one was the CanadaOne acquisition or investment. I'll give you just a little moment when the Penny dropped for me on this because, as an independent director, you're sitting in the boardroom, they bring CanadaOne opportunity into the boardroom and you say, why Canada all the global opportunities in the world, why Canada? Now I've known Nick Politis, I first met him when he was living in a rented house in St Ives in 1976. So we go back away. And it's been an interesting journey watching Nick and I haven't participated with his journey as much as I'd like to, but there you go. Anyway, there's a classic moment in the Board, where the opportunity has been brought in, and Nick made the statement, "these people, Pat Priestner, his son and the team in CanadaOne are the best automotive people I've ever met in my long career." Now when Nick Politis said that, I listened and thought that's why Canada. And that was the second outstanding acquisition. In terms of regrets, I won't sing the Frank Sinatra song. No regrets, and it's been a wonderful, wonderful 6 years, and thanks, Keith and the team for everything I've experienced.

Thank you, David, and well said and all the best, and that's a good note to leave it on. Thank you, shareholders, for your participation today and certainly, your support. Please join us outside for a cup of tea or whatever. And if you've got further questions, by all means, don't miss the executives or directors who will be outside. Thank you.