Lendlease Group (LLC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to the 2023 Lendlease Annual General Meeting. My name is Michael Ullmer, and I am the Chairman of Lendlease Group. It's wonderful to be hosting this year's meeting here in my hometown of Melbourne. The meeting is being held on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. They are the traditional custodians of this land, and on behalf of the Board, we extend our respects to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples joining today's meeting. Securityholders attending virtually may be joining us from other ancestral lands, and we pay our respects to the traditional custodians of those lands and their elders, past and present. For those who have joined online, our team has worked hard to ensure you have a smooth experience. However, should you have any technical difficulties, please contact Computershare, their details are on the meeting platform. In addition, a recording of the meeting will be available on our website following the meeting. For people in the room, in the event of a fire or other safety incident should the alarm sound, please follow the instructions of the safety wardens. If there is a need to adjourn the meeting, we will provide updates via the ASX platform and on our website. It is now my pleasure to introduce your Board of Directors. On my far right is Robert Welanetz, Chair of our Nominations Committee and standing for reelection today. Margaret Lui appointed in September 2022 and standing for reelection today; Elizabeth Proust, Chair of the People and Culture Committee and standing for reelection today. Wendy Lee, our Company Secretary. On my left, Tony Lombardo, Global Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director; Nicola Wakefield Evans, Chair of our Sustainability Committee; Philip Coffey, Chair of our Risk Committee, standing for reelection today; Barbara Knoflach appointed in September of this year and standing for election today. Nicholas Collishaw and David Craig, Chair of our Audit Committee. Members of Lendlease's leadership team are either here in person or joining the meeting virtually. Eileen Hoggett and Paul Rogers from KPMG, the group's auditor are also here and available to answer any questions relating to the audit of the group's financial statements. Barry Azzopartadi from our share registry, Computershare, is in attendance and will act as returning officer. I now confirm that a quorum is present and formally declare the meeting open. Before we begin, our company Secretary, Wendy Lee, will outline the procedure for asking questions and voting. Wendy?

Thank you, Chairman. First, I will outline the procedures for those attending the meeting virtually and then the procedures for those attending the meeting in person. As this is a meeting of securityholders, only Lendlease securityholders and proxyholders are entitled to speak and vote at the meeting. For those attending the meeting virtually, today's meeting is being held by the Computershare meeting platform. Attendees can watch a live webcast of the meeting and securityholders and proxyholders also have the ability to ask questions and submit votes online. Online attendees can submit questions at any time on the meeting platform. To submit a question in writing, select the Q&A icon on your screen. Select the topic your question relates to, then type your question in the text box and hit the send button. As Q&A has been enabled, securityholders and proxy holders are encouraged to begin submitting their questions now. You do not need to wait until we get to the relevant item of business to ask a question. However, your question won't be addressed until the appropriate time in the meeting. Please also note that your questions may be moderated or if we receive multiple questions on the topic, amalgamated together. To ask a verbal question on the telephone, please follow the instructions written below the broadcast in the meeting platform. If you're eligible to vote, press the vote icon on the meeting platform once voting opens, and all resolutions will be activated with voting options. To cast your vote, select one of the options. There is no need to hit submit or enter button as the vote is automatically recorded. You will receive a vote confirmation notification on your screen. If you require assistance, please refer to the contacts listed on the meeting platform. For those attending the meeting in person, you can ask your question by approaching the microphone the attendant showing your attendance card and providing your name. When the Chairman asks for questions on an item, please wait for the microphone attendant to introduce you. If you are eligible to vote, you can scan the QR code on your attendance card with your mobile device at any time after the Chairman opens the voting. This will take you to an online voting page. To cast your vote, simply select one of the options. There is no need to hit a submit or enter button as the vote is automatically recorded. You will receive a vote confirmation notification on your screen. If you do not have a mobile device, you may complete the voting items on the reverse side of the attendance card. Voting cards will be collected from you by Computershare representative at the conclusion of the meeting. You can change your vote up until the time the Chairman declares voting closed. If you require assistance in the room, please make your way to a Computershare representative. The Chairman will provide a reasonable opportunity to ask questions or make comments. But as a guide, we ask that you limit your questions or comments to a couple at a time so that the Chairman has an opportunity to take questions from as many securityholders as possible. I will now hand back to the Chairman.

Thank you, Wendy. I now declare voting open on all items of business. So please submit your votes at any time. Before commencing the formal business of the meeting, Tony and I will briefly address the challenges and achievements of the past year and the outlook ahead. The past 12-month period has been a challenging one for global property markets. Persistently high inflation has necessitated moves by central banks to keep interest rates higher for longer. Combined with ongoing geopolitical instability, the environment for securing capital for our development projects remains subdued. Our disappointing financial performance for the 2023 financial year reflects this. The Board and I acknowledge that securityholder expectations were not met and understand the frustration felt. Let me assure you that the Board and executive leadership team are focused on delivering the underlying drivers of sustained performance, continuing to execute on the strategy and see Lendlease thrive into the future. Simplifying the business, and restoring the group's return on equity to the target range of 8% to 10% from FY '24 remains apart from health and safety, our most important objective. Despite the challenging environment, your company has the right strategy in place with our pivot to becoming an investment-led company, repositioning Lendlease to achieve more sustainable performance and ultimately, more sustainable returns for securityholders. We now are into our third year of our 5-year turnaround plan, reset, create and then thrive. Spearheaded by Tony since he assumed his leadership of Lendlease in mid-2021. While we still have more work to do, much has been achieved in the past 12 months to put the group in good shape, to weather the current difficult operating environment and to take full advantage of opportunities on the horizon as markets continue to improve. In investments, we continue to grow our funds under management to deliver more recurring income while deploying funds into new products with a growth of 22% since financial year 2021. In development, we accelerated the realization of projects in our pipeline that support our funds under management growth with good visibility of more than $8 billion of completions in financial year 2024. And in construction, our focus is on projects that carry less risk and generate more predictable returns maintaining discipline and execution excellence in the face of inflationary and global supply chain pressures. Unfortunately, provisions relating to activities from prior periods and the retrospective industry-wide action taken by the U.K. government to extend the warranty period for completed residential buildings to 30 years contributed to a substantial statutory loss and a modest core operating profit for financial year 2023. The distributions for the full year was stable at $0.16 per security, including a final distribution of $0.11 per security, representing a payout ratio of 43% of core operating earnings. This is within our portfolio management framework target range of 30% to 50%. The Board believes that this strikes the right balance at this time between returns to securityholders and Lendlease's expected capital requirements. The 2023 financial year saw our health and safety focus expand to incorporate physical product and psychological safety at all stages of the property life cycle from investment decisions to operations and maintenance. The 3 Ps, as we call them, refer to physical safety, being the risk of incidents from the work activities we oversee, product safety or the risk of failure from products we provide and psychological safety being the risk of a culture that inhibits respect for all. This expanded remit reflects our steadfast yet ever-evolving commitment to the welfare of our people, our subcontractors and the communities in which we operate, a founding principle of Lendlease. Across all our operations, where Lendlease was responsible for the control of health and safety outcomes, there were no fatalities recorded in financial year '23. However, tragically, on the 1 Java Street project in New York, where work was not under our operational control, there was a subcontractor fatality. We remain committed to working with our third-party contractors to improve overall industry safety and we extend our sincere condolences to the family and colleagues of the man who lost his life. Despite this tragic loss, during the 93 million hours worked across our operations, in financial year '23, we continue to improve our performance against key safety metrics. This includes our critical incident frequency rate and lost time injury frequency rate both of which improved on the high benchmarks set in 2022. Beyond the incredible offices, homes, infrastructure and public spaces we deliver for our customers and communities, we are dedicated to ensuring our places create shared value and deliver industry-leading sustainability outcomes. Our leadership position on environmental and social outcomes is not just the right thing to do. It's also that makes good business sense, derisking our projects and boosting the long-term sustainability of our business, our industry and the products we create. A significant part of this is striving to eliminate the use of fossil fuels guided by our Mission Zero target of net zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2025 and absolute zero Scope 1, 2 and 3 by 2040. In February, we received validation from the Science Based Targets initiative that our carbon reduction targets are consistent with global efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. As we work towards fossil fuel construction -- fossil-free fuel construction, we are increasing our use of electric construction equipment and using renewable diesel as a transition fuel where available. In addition, funding support was secured from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority for the geothermal heat exchange system at 1 Java Street, an all-electric building that will have the largest geothermal residential system in New York State. We also continue to be a leader in innovative, sustainable financing in Australia, with 73% or $3.7 billion of the group's total financing facilities being green or sustainability-linked. And since launching our $250 million social value target in 2020, we have created more than $180 million of social value through the work of our shared value partnerships. These partnerships focus on creating measurable social value by addressing the needs of communities. We also continue to action commitments to First Nations peoples detailed in our Elevate Reconciliation Plan or RAP. Our RAP outlines our businesses impact on First Nations people and the communities where we operate. How we address the closing of the gap policy objectives and identifying new opportunities to support First Nations peoples self-determination. We're among only 18 organizations in Australia with an Elevate RAP, and we look forward to strengthening our commitment. In line with this commitment, Lendlease has supported constitutional recognition for Australia's First Nations people for many years, and we took a strong position of support for the establishment of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Regardless of the position we hold and continue to hold, the democratic process was followed and the referendum amendment was ultimately defeated. To our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees and those on whose lands we build and operate, we want to assure you that Lendlease remains fully committed to listening to your voices on matters that concern you and your community. Across Lendlease, we are privileged to work with First Nations customers, suppliers, partners, colleagues and community organizations every day. And we will continue to walk alongside First Nations people supporting their connection to country, culture and community in the places we invest, develop, build and operate. Our remuneration outcomes for our senior executives, the group did not meet our performance targets for certain financial measures, including operating profit. As a result, notwithstanding the on or above target of performance across funds management margin and the nonfinancial key performance indicators of safety, sustainability, customer and people, the Short Term Award scorecard outcomes were significantly below target. Further, the Board exercised discretion to reduce the scorecard outcomes, resulting in reduced bonus awards to the global executive team. For example, the global CEO, Tony, was awarded a bonus of just 32% of his maximum potential. For the financial year '24, Short Term Award scorecard has refined to place further emphasis on financial metrics. And our long-term award framework has been amended to replace the funds under management growth measure with an investment return on investment capital measure, providing even closer alignment to securityholder outcomes. We note the votes cast ahead of today's meeting and the recommendations of poxy advisors may result in a vote against our financial year '23 remuneration report. We recognize and respect our securityholders' feedback. Lendlease adopts a disciplined and structured approach to Board diversity, renewal and succession planning. In line with our Board's skills matrix and feedback from investors, we've continued to focus on appointing directors with skills in our core segments of investments, development and construction. To this end, we are pleased to welcome today 2 excellent international additions to the Board, Margaret Lui, based in Singapore, and Barbara Knoflach, based in Frankfurt, Germany. As I mentioned in opening, both are standing for election as Independent Nonexecutive Directors today. Margaret is the Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of Azalea Asset Management, which oversees a USD 10 billion portfolio. Margaret's extensive investment management and international business experience makes her an outstanding addition to the Board, and we are delighted to have attracted someone of her caliber. Barbara has significant real estate asset management, investment strategy and finance experience gained over an international career spanning 35 years. As one of Europe's leading real estate professionals, Barbara stands to bring both deep executive experience and relevant sector insights to the Lendlease Board and the broader group. Standing for reelection today are Philip Coffey, Elizabeth Proust and Robert Welanetz, all of whom have the unanimous support of the Board. Their diverse skills and experience make for robust quality Board deliberations. Notwithstanding the external market challenges and inflationary pressures through financial year '23, the business continued to execute on the Reset, Create and then Thrive turnaround plan and has a clear pathway to achieve our financial year 2026 goals as well as monitoring and responding to ongoing external risks, the Board will continue working with the executive leadership team to further simplify our business, recycle capital and rebalance the portfolio toward investments, leading to more sustainable earnings. In this regard, I reiterate the Board's disappointment with the company's financial performance and our determination to improve securityholder returns. Finally, I would like to thank my Board colleagues and the entire Lendlease team for their ongoing dedication to repositioning the organization for a sustainable future growth. I will now hand over to Tony. Tony?

Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. I also acknowledge Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation and pay my respects to their elders past and present. Echoing the Chairman's earlier remarks, I welcome those attending our meeting in person as well as those joining online via the telephone. The past 12 months have been challenging for the real estate industry. The ongoing instability from inflationary and interest rate pressures, the disruption of global supply chain and the residual impacts of the pandemic on our industry has had a negative effect on the markets in which we operate. To put it simply, the global markets have slowed dramatically. Against this backdrop, we disappointingly reported a statutory loss after tax of $232 million for the 2023 financial year. While the slowing market made transactions harder to get away and impacted valuations, a significant driver of the statutory loss related to the government -- U.K. government's retrospective legislation, which has the effect of applying today's standards to buildings completed 30 years ago. Core operating profit of $257 million was down from the prior year, with improved development earnings offset by lower contributions from investments and construction. I want to be clear, this is not a result that I or my leadership team aimed to deliver. And while we cannot control the markets or historical issues, what we are doing is focusing all our efforts on underlying drivers of sustained performance. We are resolute that our 5-year turnaround plan, Reset, Create, Thrive is the right strategy to restore profitability and deliver greater earnings certainty through our transition of being investment led. The current phase in our turnaround Create further simplifies the group's operations undertaking strategic capital recycling, deepening our relationship with global capital partners and customers and puts Lendlease in the best position to make the most of shifting conditions as we move through this challenging cycle. We started our turnaround with a commitment to reduce our cost base and streamline our operations and refocus on the highest value work, following more than $170 million of annual pretax savings achieved in FY '23. Additional cost-saving initiatives were announced in July 2023 this year but early indications show global markets were not recovering. To create a permanently leaner operating model with shared resources, particularly across our international market, we commenced a workforce reduction of 740 roles. We expect to be more than 90% complete on this optimization plan by the calendar year end with balance expected across the next 6 months. We expect these difficult but necessary actions will deliver further pretax cost savings of more than $150 million per annum, with around $60 million to be realized in FY '24. Despite the workforce reductions, we remain committed to investing further in learning and development to drive deeper engagement with our people and support high-performance outcomes. Driving stronger engagement across all markets is a guiding principle across my leadership team. While our engagement scores have improved this financial year, we still have more to do. I'm confident that the engagement of our people will improve as we simplify the business and refocus the group. We'll continue to transform and simplify Lendlease operations as we progress a number of capital recycling initiatives. The processes to exit the Retirement Living operation in Australia introduced a capital partner into our Retirement Living project, Ardor Gardens in China and realizing the value we created in our Australian communities projects are all progressing, and we'll update the market when appropriate. Consistent with our ongoing focus to manage our balance sheet and maintain flexibility, we completed several transactions during financial year '23, including further monetizing our U.S. Military Housing Asset Management income stream completing $600 million in PLLACes transactions on residential towers at Barangaroo and conducting a partial bond buyback and introducing a majority capital partner for the One Circular Quay development. In FY '23, we successfully grew funds under management by 9% to $48.3 billion, with more than $6 billion of future secured FUM in production, and more than $4 billion of committed third-party capital to invest. The high-quality sustainable product created from our development pipeline is anticipated to remain the predominant growth driver of funds under management, which is targeted to grow to $70 billion by FY '26. Challenging housing conditions in many of the cities in which we operate, combined with our global capability has Lendlease ideally positioned to maximize the strong growth potential to the global build to rent or multifamily asset class. Building on our success in the U.S. and the U.K., where we've developed a portfolio of more than 2,000 apartments for rent. We have applied our strong offshore capabilities to Australia, by launching 2 new build-to-rent projects in Brisbane and Melbourne with partners QuadReal and Daiwa House, respectively. In development, we commenced $7.7 billion of projects alongside our investment partners. These commencements take our work in progress to $22.9 billion, provide the ideal platform as markets recover. While the Development segment operates on a capital-efficient model, we see further scope to make our capital work harder in the future. This involves bringing investment partners into the development process earlier, including from day 1 when we secure new projects. Consequently, we expect to reduce the capital allocation to development over time. We remain on track to achieve development completions of $8 billion in FY '24. Projects close to completion include TRX in Malaysia where the retail mall is set to open in December and is currently 95% leased. Closer to home residents 1 and 2 within our One Sydney Harbor project at 98% and 95% sold by value. Residents 1 will see settlements from February '24, and expected to contribute more than $900 million in net cash proceeds. Residents 2 follow settlements and net cash proceeds commencing in July 2024. Across both towers, we expect net cash proceeds of $1.4 billion within the next 9-month period. We are reviewing our overall development pipeline to balance the short-term, medium-term and long-dated projects in our portfolio that drive the greater securityholder value. This includes assessing where we can accelerate or extract value from projects to reduce the capital required in the current economic cycle, especially for long-dated projects. This thinking in part drove our decision with Google to mutually end our development agreements in the San Francisco Bay Area. In Construction, our capability continues to play a critical role in the securing of new work and the delivery of our urban projects and critical government infrastructure, including for long-term partners such as the Australian Department of Defense. We have a strong book of repeat customers in the Construction segment and all markets where we operate. As an example in the U.K., our Construction team converted approximately 750 of new work with external clients in the past 4 weeks, more than half this work is with repeat customers. We have reduced risks within our business through construction portfolio changes, and we'll no longer build apartments for sale for third parties or bid on external projects less than [ 115 ] value except in unique circumstances. The end goal of our turnaround plan is for Lendlease to be a leading international real estate asset creator and manager that delivers sustainable returns for our securityholders. While markets remain challenging, I'm confident the strategic direction and actions we're taking now to simplify our business positions Lendlease well for when the markets recover. The drivers of performance include our work in production, the progress on capital recycling and our expected completions make me confident we're on track to achieve our core FY '24 target of 8% to 10%, albeit at the lower end of our range. With capital recycling transactions pending, and contracted cash settlements from the completing [ towers ], we continue to expect gearing to be around the midpoint of 10% to 20% range for FY '24. We'll provide the market with a further strategy update in earlier calendar year 2024. Thank you for your continued support. I'll now hand back to the Chairman.

Thank you, Tony. I will now turn to the formal business of the meeting. Each resolution and supporting information is outlined in the Notice of Meeting as well as consideration of the financial statements, the business before us today includes 5 resolutions. The Board recommends that securityholders vote in favor of all resolutions, and I intend to vote all undirected proxies that I hold as Chairman in favor of each resolution. As stated in the Notice of Meeting, a poll has been called on all resolutions. We will work through each resolution in order, and I will provide you with a summary of the proxies received for each resolution as we progress. As this is a hybrid meeting, I'll invite questions on each item first from the people in the room, then through the Computershare meeting platform and finally, from the telephone before moving to the next item. Now prior to today's meeting, we received several questions in advance, including a number on our support for an indigenous Voice to Parliament and another regarding financial exposure to indebted property groups in China, particularly Evergrande and Country Garden. I've addressed the former question around the voice earlier today. And on the latter, I can confirm that Lendlease has no exposure associated with these companies. So the first item of formal business is to consider and receive the financial statements and the directors' report and auditor's report For financial year 2023. General questions relating to the management of Lendlease may be asked during this item. If you are attending the meeting virtually and have questions about reports or on the management of Lendlease, please submit your questions via the meeting platform. For those securityholders attending the meeting in person, please make your way to the fixed microphone in the middle of the room here and make yourself known to the attendant, Mina, by showing your attendance card. So are there any questions from the room? I think, Mina, you've may scared everyone. Okay. Well, if there are no questions in the room, I will now turn to questions from the Computershare meeting platform, which Wendy is going to coordinate. So Wendy are there any online questions?

Chairman, I'm just checking that. Thank you. Yes, Chairman, the following question has been received from the ASA. Could LLC provide an update on progress with recovery from other parties and the adequacy of provisions for the 30-year warranty period mandated by the U.K. government?

Thank you, Wendy, and thank you to the Australian Shareholders' Association for that question. As Tony mentioned in his address, we were the subject of an unexpected and, I think, very poor decision by the U.K. government to introduce retrospective legislation that impacted all property developers in the U.K. by extending the warranty period on residential buildings by -- to 30 years and also applying the current day standards to what is expected. So quite a dramatic change, and that led to a provision of $295 million that we had to take in our financial accounts, which was the prime driver of our statutory loss. The provision we took there was a gross provision. So that is our estimate based on all the information we currently have of what we think it will cost in order to remediate buildings that we built. And in fact, they are not buildings that we build, they're buildings that we acquired through a business we acquired in the mid-2000s. And with respect to that, as I say, it's the gross -- the estimate of the gross cost, that provision does not make any allowance for recoveries from third parties because it's very early in the piece, and we have to do a building-by-building review. There are around 50 to 60 buildings involved. And the potential avenues of recovery will be for the people who actually constructed the buildings. As I say, that was not Lendlease. There may be some opportunities under insurance, and there may be some opportunities under the supply chain of various contractors who worked on those buildings. So that is work that is underway .We are pursuing all those avenues very vigorously, but it is a very detailed process. We're going back, obviously, a long way in time. And so we will work very hard to get appropriate recoveries where appropriate and where we can, and we will continue to keep the market updated on progress at each half and full year accounts. Wendy?

Thank you, Chairman. The following question has been received from a securityholder. How much did you spend supporting the voice, and why did you not ask your shareholders what they wanted you to do with the funds?

Thank you, Wendy. And that is a very topical question that's being asked at lot of AGMs currently. So in terms of our support for the voice, we provided $200,000 to the campaign for the yes vote in the referendum. The background behind that in terms of why we would do that is that Lendlease has a long history of taking very seriously our engagement with the community as part of our overall sustainability objectives. And as I mentioned in my opening address, we see that as good business. It's part of the DNA in Lendlease and it's one of the reasons that we are recognized globally as one of the leading developers of urban places, places where communities can grow and thrive. And one of the ways we do that is to work really hard, very early on the piece with the communities that are impacted by our developments to ensure that what we're bringing is something that's going to add real value. A critical piece in that is for us here in Australia, where we operate across the whole country in both cities and in rural and regional areas is engagement with indigenous peoples. And it is a key part of what our clients expect us to do. And particularly when we're doing, say, with governments, it's a key part of what our own people would expect us to do. And as I mentioned in my address, we have a whole range of suppliers, people within the organization who feel very strongly around the disadvantage of indigenous peoples. The other observation I would make is, as I referred to my in address, we've had a Reconciliation Action Plan at Lendlease for over a decade. That is publicly available. When the Uluru statement came out in 2018, Lendlease was one of the organizations that supported the proposal for a Voice to Parliament. We have an Elevate Reconciliation Action Plan and 1 of only 18 out of about 3,000 companies in Australia that have Reconciliation Action Plans. And indeed, for the last 5 years that I as Chair have been going around and meeting with key stakeholders twice a year. I've only heard positive comments about what has been in our Reconciliation Action Plan. So I feel very confident that what we were doing was consistent with Lendlease values. It's in the best interest of the company, and it has been well flagged for a number of years to the market. Thank you. That is not my mother, by the way. Wendy, any more questions?

Thank you, Chairman. Yes, the following question has been received from the ASA. Could Lendlease comment on the low margins and risks in the construction business and its place in an investments-led business?

Thank you, Wendy, and thank you again to the Australian Shareholders' Association. In terms of construction globally, that is a low-margin business. And typically, if you look at our portfolio management framework, our objective is to receive a margin of between 2% and 3% on the revenue in that business. So the critical thing to do, as Tony indicated in his address, is ensure that we're tackling construction projects in a way that minimizes the risk in order to ensure that we do deliver that 2% to 3% margin. And I should say, by the way, in some of the jurisdictions we operate, margins can be even more competitive in that. So you can ask a legitimate question as the Australian Shareholders Association has done as to, well, why be in that business? The reason we're in that business is we are confident that it is a critical component of our ability to win major development opportunities around the world. And we have very strong evidence, recently, for example, in the last year, we won a major redevelopment opportunity in Singapore where -- and we were up against one of the best players in Singapore, a local player. And we revised afterwards that there were probably 2 key differentiating points that we brought to the table. One was our approach to sustainability, which aligned very closely with the client. And the second was the fact that we have our own construction capability, which gave them confidence that the development would be delivered on time and on budget. As Tony mentioned, one of the things we're doing in terms of bringing down the risk profile in this area is restricting the amount of we're doing for external clients and concentrating our work on what we do on our own internal pipeline on our own internal developments. Wendy?

Yes. Thank you, Chairman. The following question has been received from a securityholder. Considering most Australians and presumably, Lendlease shareholders, staff and customers opposed the Voice referendum and the potential deleterious effects that it could have had on the social, economic and governance well-being of the nation and company. What specific risk and/or cost/benefit analyses were undertaken prior to committing the company's reputation to supporting the referendum?

So I've already answered, I think, quite fully the rationale behind Lendlease's support for the Voice. What I'd add to that is with respect to communications with our own people, we were very deliberate in going down a track of providing information, which allowed our people to make an informed choice. And that information included an equal balance between the reasons for voting yes, and the reasons for voting no, because at the end of the day, it's up to every Australian to exercise their democratic vote to vote in whatever way they feel appropriate. The suggestion that we're talking about the vast majority here, we're talking about a 60-40 vote. I think that what that means is that if out of 1 in 5 of the people who voted yes, decided to vote no, it would have actually been a much closer outcome and possibly could have gone either way. But at the end of the day, it is very clear the way it landed. But I can assure you, we, as a Board, had very close engagement with management. And as I've mentioned already, we've been over a decade in being very formally involved through a Reconciliation Action Plan in our position with First Nations people. And since the statement in 2018, we have been very public, both externally and internally on our position. And I would suggest knowing that Lendlease people as well as I do I suspect it may have been a much closer outcome than the questioner suggests in terms of the feelings of our own people. Wendy?

Yes, Chair. Just checking with the team if there are any further questions. Yes. The following question has been received from the ASA. Could Lendlease provide an update on the divestiture of its Australian communities and retirement businesses and its China-based retirement business?

So thank you again for that question from the Australian Securities Shareholders' Association. In terms of the recycling activities, as we call them by Tony. So essentially, what we're talking about here is businesses within the Lendlease Group that are no longer core to our main strategy, and therefore, looking to realize value by disposal of those businesses and then taking that capital that we received back and deploying that into our core business of investments and development supported by construction. And we've publicly announced 3 initiatives that are underway. One is our Australian Communities business. So that is the business that builds -- develops the broadacre land typically in outer suburban regions. And then they -- those land is sold off in blocks for residential house building. So we are well advanced in negotiations for the disposal of projects within that Communities business and something that we will announce to the market once that's reached the next stage, hopefully, a satisfactory conclusion. With respect to our Retirement Living business, so that's the various retirement places around the country, which were rebounded recently from Lendlease to Keyton. That business, we have progressively sold down our stake. So a number of years back, we owned 100%. We initially sold 25% to a Dutch pension fund. We subsequently sold another 25% and then a further 25% to Aware Super here in Australia. So they own 50%. And then we have 25% left, which we currently own. And we also operate those villages on behalf of the whole venture. And we currently are in discussion around the sale of our final 25% so that we will exit that business. All of the -- I mentioned we operate the business, the retirement villages, all of that management has been moved into a separate subsidiary. So we are capable now of having a clean sale on that. We are discussing with a number of parties that final 25%. And again, we would update the market when appropriate. And then the final reference from the Australian Shareholders' Association is to our retirement living venture that we have in Shanghai. That has gone extremely well. It's taken the retirement living product that's available in Shanghai or China generally to a whole new level, very much the superior product that you would see here in Australia. And we, again, are in extensive discussions with parties in China around bringing capital into that venture to reduce the amount that we have invested. So on each one of those, very well advanced in very positive negotiations. But of course, we have to wait to see if things finally land and as they do, we would update the market. Wendy?

Chairman, there are no other online questions relating to this item.

Okay. Thank you, Wendy. So let's move to questions from the telephone. Are there any questions from securityholders who have telephoned into the meeting?

There are no phone questions at this time.

Okay. That's been a good discussion on a range of issues. So I really appreciate receiving those questions. I will now bring questions on Item 1, which is a nonvoting item, to a close and we'll move to the next item of business. So the first 5 resolutions relate to the election in the case of new directors, and the reelection relating to existing directors that have been set out in the notice. The experience and profiles for the directors standing for election and reelection were included in the Notice of Meeting. Prior to seeking election or reelection, all directors have confirmed that they would continue to have sufficient time to properly fulfill their director duties of Lendlease Group. So turning to agenda Item 2A, relating to the election of Ann Soo Chan, who we also know as Margaret Lui as a Director. Margaret's experience and skills are outlined in the Notice of Meeting, and I would ask Margaret to say a few words. So Margaret?

Thank you, Chairman. Good morning, I'm Margaret Lui. It is an honor and privilege to serve on the Board of Lendlease. Lendlease is an iconic Australian company. It is well known in Singapore where I come from, with a deep history when Lendlease started building the first of our public housing. Indeed, Lendlease will be celebrating its 50th anniversary this coming Monday. Besides the strong brand name globally, I accepted the invitation to join the Board because of the values that Lendlease has possessed including the commitment to governance and sustainability. My career has always been in making investments globally in [ wide-reaching ] sectors. Currently, I'm the CEO of an asset management company specializing in private equity. I've also been a director in the past 30 years, in many companies, including listed entities. These are major corporations in various businesses, including the Mass Rapid Transit company in Singapore, aviation companies and real estate companies as well. In most of these Boards, as the major shareholder representative.my role has been focused on restructuring and business transformation. I will leverage on these experiences to contribute to the business, strategic and governance aspects as a Director of Lendlease. Lendlease has a great Board with a broad mix of experience and skills. And I will act further to the diversity in not just business, but also inclusiveness perspectives to the Board and committees. I have forward planned the Lendlease calendar and have committed to devote the time necessary to act as an elected shareholder representative. I thank you in anticipation of your support.

Thank you, Margaret. We will now take questions relating to the election of Margaret as a director. So firstly, are there any questions from securityholders attending in person? Again, please make your way to the microphone in the center when Mina will introduce you. So there are no questions from the room. So let's now turn to questions received from the Computershare meeting platform. So Wendy, are there any online questions?

Chairman, there are no other online questions relating to this item.

In that case, let's move to questions from the telephone. Are there any questions from securityholders who telephoned into the meeting?

There are no phone questions at this time.

This is no great surprise to me because Margaret is such a fantastic candidate. So as there are no questions, I will show the proxy position up on the screen now. If you have not already voted, please select one of the voting options for this resolution. So we have the numbers up on the screen. As voting on all items were not closed until after the end of the last item. The final results of all resolutions will be lodged on the ASX following the conclusion of the meeting. But congratulations, Margaret. I see you have been comprehensively elected to the Board. So we now turn to agenda Item 2b relating to the election of Barbara Knoflach as a Director. Barbara's experience and skills are outlined in the Notice of Meeting, and I will ask Barbara to say a few words now. So Barbara?

Thank you, Chairman. I'm very pleased to be here. My background is similar like Margaret's in real estate, asset and investment management as well as in finance. I have worked more than 35 years in the industry, and I have invested in real estate in more than 20 countries around the world on behalf of private and institutional investors, who entrusted me over the time, more than EUR 50 billion. After 20 years of being an Executive CEO, I changed 3 years ago to the Nonexecutive side of the Board. My nationality is Austrian, so not Australia, but Austin. I'm living in Frankfurt, Germany. That's my home base. And I definitely like traveling and I'm willing to spend the time needed for the Board to work here in Australia. Like in Singapore, Lendlease is an iconic brand in Europe. My motivation to be here is to help to bring back the share price back up. Lendlease creates great places and I can't see a reason why it shouldn't be able to also create great returns. I offer myself for election to this Board and promise to bring in all my expertise and to work hard in the very best interest of all of you. Thank you.

Thank you, Barbara. Well, see. We will now take questions relating to the election of Barbara as a Director. So are there any questions in the room? No. And if there are no questions in the room, Wendy, let's turn to questions received from the Computershare meeting platform.

Sure. Chairman, there are no online questions relating to this item.

Thank you. So are there any questions on the telephone?

There are no phone questions at this time.

So if there are no questions, I will show the proxy position. Again, if you have not already voted, please select one of the voting options for this resolution. And again, as we can see, Barbara, you've been comprehensively elected. So congratulations. Turning now to agenda Item 2C relating to the reelection of Phil Coffey as a director. Phil's skills, experience and qualifications are also set out in the Notice of Meeting. And I'll invite Phil to say a few words.

Thanks, Michael, and good morning, all. As Michael mentioned, my name is Phil Coffey, and I offer myself for reelection. I've been on the Lendlease Board for nearly 7 years now. That's been a period of almost constant change and challenge with major structural changes, including our exit of the Engineering and Services business, and the sell-down of Retirement Living. We're dealing with the operating and market constraints from the COVID conditions and the subsequent impact on property segments, especially retail and office, and most recently, the rapid change in inflation and long-term interest rates and the consequential impact on property valuations and capital investment appetite. Whilst you're a company with the Board's oversight has looked to work through these challenges in a methodical and secure way and with urgency, the long-term nature of much of our activities means some changes take time, and there has been legacy impacts such that our financial results have been substandard. I'm very disappointed in the performance of the security price and the experience of our securityholders. For my part, I've endeavored to bring my experience and expertise in global markets, investments and investor strategies and dealing with highly uncertain economic circumstances to support company strategic decisions. I've also looked to bring my experience to support executives dealing with these stresses. As Chair of the Risk Committee, I've looked to focus our committee on identifying the major issues likely to impact our group and its portfolio of activities and their risk versus returns. We're also very focused on enterprise-wide risks such as cyber, supply chain compliance and insurance. I believe our risk appetite framework, which was extensively reviewed this year is a comprehensive guide for decisions across the company. We're still dealing with a number of very consequential challenges, but Lendlease has a broad and strong portfolio of businesses and a team of high-quality and diverse executives. And with your support, I will continue to work hard to assist our successful navigation of those challenges and the realization of opportunities we have.

Thank you, Phil. We will now take questions relating to the reelection of Phil as a Director. So for securityholders in the room who would like to ask a question, again, please make your way to Mina in the center here. If there are no questions in the room, Wendy, we go to online questions. Are there any?

Chairman, there are no online questions relating to this item.

So we will go to questions from the telephone. Are there any questions from securityholders who have telephoned into the meeting?

There are no phone questions at this time.

Okay. So if there are no questions, I will show the proxy position. The proxy position is set out on the screen. Again, if you have not already voted, please select one of the voting options for this resolution. Meanwhile, we now turn to agenda Item 2D, relating to the reelection of Elizabeth Proust as a Director. Again, Elizabeth skills, experience and qualifications are set out in the Notice of Meeting, and I'll ask Elizabeth to say a few words.

Thank you, Chairman. Good morning, everyone. It's also a pleasure to be meeting in my hometown. I seek your support for my reelection to the Lendlease Board. I was first elected to the Board in 2018. I'm the Chair, as the Chairman said earlier, of the People and Culture Committee and a member of the Risk, Nominations and Sustainability Committees. I have a background in government as a senior public servant in this state and as the former CEO of the City of Melbourne. I've also held senior roles in banking and in the oil industry. It's been a privilege to serve on this Board for the last 5 years. But as both the Chairman and Phil Coffey have said, I acknowledge that we have underperformed and know that the financial results and consequent share price are not acceptable to you. Let me say a little about my work as Chair of the People and Culture Committee. As that Chair, I work closely with the Head of People and Culture at Lendlease, Deborah Yates, and with her team on key issues for such as the training and development of our people, identification and retention of our talent, the graduate program, the engagement of our people across all our regions as well as, of course, their remuneration. Why do I mention these? It's because we are a long-term business and the recruitment and development of our leaders at all levels of the organization is vital to that long-term business and success. And all of these issues are key to the successful turnaround of Lendlease into our future. Thank you. I look forward to your support.

Thank you, Elizabeth. We will now take questions relating to the reelection of Elizabeth as a Director. Are there any questions from securityholders attending in person? There are no questions from the people in the room. Wendy? Are there any questions from Computershare meeting platform?

Chairman, there are no online questions relating to this item.

And so let's move to questions from the telephone. Are there any questions there, please?

There are no phone questions at this time.

Thank you. So if there are no questions, I will show the proxy position, which is now set out on the screen. And again, if you've not already voted, please select one of the voting options for this resolution. Before turning to the final resolution in this section, I'd like to make some comments on the reelection of Phil Coffey and Elizabeth Proust. I recognize that there has been a sizable protest vote against Phil and Elizabeth's reelection. All proxy advisers and the Australian Shareholders' Association recommended voting for the reelection of Phil and Elizabeth. And from the Board's perspective, we judge their performance by what we observe. And all I can say is that both Phil and Elizabeth are fantastic contributors and outstanding Nonexecutive Directors. In meeting with key stakeholders ahead of today's meeting, as I do as part of the normal course and leading up to the AGM, I was delighted at the overall positive feedback we received on both Phil and Elizabeth. However, I acknowledge the desire of some shareholders, securityholders to send a message in terms of Board accountability for our disappointing financial performance. And we as a Board, fully understand, receive and accept that message. So now I will turn to agenda Item 2E relating to the reelection of Robert or as we know him, Bob Welanetz as a Director. Bob's skills, experience and qualifications are set out in the Notice of the Meeting, and I would invite Bob to say a few words.

Thank you, Chair. And it's not like me to say a few words, so bear with me, please. And I know you've been through a number of overviews on these biographies. As Michael mentioned, my name is Bob Welanetz, and I've been a Nonexecutive Director on the Lendlease Board since March of 2020. The first 2 years of my engagement were all online. And I can tell you with the time difference and everything else, that requires a fair commitment. I also serve on the Risk Committee, People and Culture Committee, Sustainability Committees and Chair of the Nominations Committee. And I take a lot of pride not only in working with the directors that you see on the stage, but also take great pride in the new directors that we've discovered to help support and really bear down on the challenges of this organization in conjunction with a very high-caliber management team and CEO. I am based in the United States, and I am up for reelection as of this Annual General Meeting. I believe that I'm duly qualified by background to be reelected for another 3-year term. Given my 40-year plus experience in multisector global real estate, comprised largely of leadership roles in organizations that are doing business all over the globe in mainly investment and development organizations. And I have, in the past, in the mid-'90s, been an executive with Lendlease. So I'm a former employee as well. My diverse professional background has included delivering large-scale real estate projects like many on this stage, that are involved in real estate in a number of countries around the world, 47 countries to be exact in my background, most of which are markets that Lendlease is currently active. This experience allows me to add knowledge and perspective to the Board and management as we seek high-quality risk-adjusted investment development and construction outcomes on behalf of shareholders. I believe also that my C-suite experience as an executive for preeminent real estate firms also adds value to Lendlease as we move to optimize its business strategy and reengineer the organization structure to deliver top-tier performance. My passion and commitment to Lendlease's agenda is my top professional priority. My pledge to you, the shareholders and investors is to do everything in my power to support the Lendlease organization to achieve our full potential of the firm and to deliver exemplary results in as expeditious manner as markets, geopolitical and macroeconomic conditions allow. I would appreciate your support of all of us and your vote to enable me to continue to work as a Nonexecutive Director for another term with the Lendlease Board and to drive improved performance and organizational excellence. Thank you.

Thank you, Bob. We will now take questions relating to the reelection of Bob as a director. Are there any questions from securityholders in the room attending in person? No. So Wendy, are there any questions on the Computershare meeting platform?

Chairman, there are no online questions relating to this item.

Thank you. And are there any questions from the telephone?

There are no phone questions at this time.

Thank you. So as there are no questions, I will show the proxy position. That will be set out on the screen behind me. Again, if you have not already voted, please select one of the voting options for this resolution. Thank you. So we now move on to agenda Item 3, which relates to consideration of the 2023 remuneration report, which can be found in our annual report and on the company's website. The remuneration report describes our executive remuneration arrangements and explains how performance has been linked to reward outcomes for our key management personnel at Lendlease this year. Our approach to remuneration recognizes the need to balance rewards for performance on both financial and nonfinancial measures to highly capable executives and balance that with the returns to securityholders. The executive reward strategy has been calibrated to reflect the long-dated nature of our business, recognizing that the investment decisions we make today have an impact on earnings for many years into the future. Our fixed remuneration is set with reference to roles in other organizations of similar size, scale and/or complexity as well as to industry peers and recognizes the high caliber of the people we have and we need to run this organization. Our executive remuneration package has a significant equity component. For example, in financial year '23, 65% of the short-term awards were financial and 85% of those were funded at 0 because of our poor results. The Board then applied a further 15% downward discretion given the group's natural performance. So as a result of that, our CEO, Tony received a short-term award outcome of just 32% of maximum that was possible. And the short-term award outcomes for other key management personnel range from between 25% to 46% maximum. Now in measuring performance, the Board needs to recognize what has been delivered in our core business, notwithstanding the challenging environment and Tony stepped you through that in his address. And also the steps that have been taken to simplify the business that both Tony and I have referred to already. So I'll now turn to questions on this item. Are there any questions from securityholders in the room? No. So if there are no questions in the room, Wendy, are there any questions on the Computershare meeting platform?

Chairman, there are no online questions relating to this item.

So if there are no questions online, are there any questions on the telephone?

There are no phone questions at this time.

Thank you. So if there are no questions, I will show the proxy position, which will be on the screen behind me. If you have not already voted, please select one of the voting options for this resolution. Now as you will see from the position of votes we've had ahead of the meeting, we have received what is called a first strike being no votes in excess of 25%. The Board believes that the remuneration outcomes for executives appropriately reflected the performance of the group and are aligned to the experience of our securityholders and that's particularly given the very high proportion of equity that is in our packages for executives, and therefore, their experience shares the challenging and disappointing performance of our stock. In discussions with key stakeholders in the lead up to the AGM, it appears to me that the strike relates more to our depressed security price, and I can understand that, then to concerns with the structure of our executive remuneration scheme. We take this feedback very seriously, and I will be having follow-up discussions with our key stakeholders to ensure that we take their concerns fully into account as we move forward. So our last item of business today is agenda Item 4, which relates to the approval of the allocation of performance rights to our CEO, Tony and securityholder approval is being sought to allocate performance rights and a long-term award to Tony under Lendlease's Executive Reward strategy. Lendlease Group uses Performance Rights to create alignment, as I've mentioned, between Tony and you, our securityholders, and to provide Tony with the full benefits of ownership of securities such as distributions and voting rights, but only when those performance rights vest, and that vesting is determined based on meeting the relevant performance hurdles. The full details are set out in the Notice of Meeting. So I'll now turn to the room to see if there are any questions on this agenda item. So if there are no questions in the room, Wendy, are there any questions on the Computershare meeting platform?

Chairman, there are no online questions relating to this item.

So if there are no questions online, are there any questions on the telephone?

There are no phone questions at this time.

So if there are no questions, I will show the proxy position on the screen. If you have not already voted, again, please select one of the voting options for this resolution. If you are in the room and not voting online via the QR code and instead have completed the reverse side of your color attendance card. These will now be collected by Computershare representatives in the room. So Barry is here to take any cards from everyone in the room. And whilst that's happening, I am pleased to note the support for Tony's long-term award, well done, Tony. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the formal items of business for today's meeting. As I mentioned at the beginning, the poll will remain open for another 10 minutes to allow Computershare to gather all the online and the paper votes from those in the room. We will announce the results of the poll to the ASX later today and would also make the results available on the company's website. So in closing, thank you for your commitment and support throughout the year, and thank you for attending today, either in person or virtually. Now for those of you who are here in the room, we will be delighted to join you shortly for light refreshments behind us in the foyer. I declare the meeting closed, subject to the conclusion of the poll. So thank you, everyone.