Livestock Improvement Corporation Limited (LIC.NZ) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to LIC's Annual Meeting. I'm Murray King, Chairman of LIC. Thank you for joining us today virtually. Before we start the proceedings, I have a small number of housekeeping matters to attend to. If you've not already voted, voting has now reopened and will remain open until we close this meeting. The vote, you'll -- to vote, you'll need your shareholder number provided by Link Market Services. You can vote using the online platform, please click on the Get a Voting Card button and enter your shareholder number. There are 6 resolutions to be considered today, a poll will be held on each one. All shareholders can vote on all resolutions. All resolutions are ordinary resolutions and require 50% approval. Results will be announced soon after the conclusion of the meeting. If anyone has any items of general business or questions they'd like to ask, please send them by the Ask a Question function. There's a button there now or at any time throughout the meeting. These will be collected by the team and answered in the general business section towards the end of the meeting. Now we may take a few moments to just collect those questions before we conduct general business. Given the uncertainty that COVID-19 has created and the need to protect our staff and business, this is a fully virtual meeting. I understand that these meeting formats can cause some complications with voting and asking questions. So before we officially begin the meeting, I'd like to cover a few points regarding using the online platform. If you have any issues during the meeting, please call the number at the top of the screen and someone will be able to help you. To ask questions using the online platform, please click on the Ask a Question button. You will then need to enter your shareholder number. It's worth noting that your questions will only be visible to myself and the team who will be moderating and are answering the questions. To vote using the online platform, please click on the Get a Voting Card button. You will then need to enter your shareholder number. Voting remains fully confidential. So no one on the call will see your vote. I would just like to reiterate, if you have any issues asking questions or voting, please call the 0800 phone number on the screen now. Welcome again to LIC's Annual Meeting. Welcome to fellow shareholders, the Shareholder Reference Group, Ian Brown and the Honoraria Committee, LIC's auditors, lawyers, bankers and advisers. I'd like to introduce Wayne McNee and LIC's 8 directors who are joining us today. Those directors from South Taranaki, Ben Dickie, Dr. Alison Watters from Manawatu; Gray Baldwin, South Waikato; Matt Ross, North Otago; our 3 independent directors, Sophie Haslem, Tim Gibson, Candace Kinser and from Northland, Director Ken Hames. The notice of meeting has been circulated to all shareholders and has taken as read. Required quorum of 25 as stated in the constitution is present, so the meeting can continue. As Chairman, I hold proxies 506,786. I have apologies from Mark Benns, Shareholder Reference Group; Michelle Oldham-Smith of the Shareholder Reference Group; Shirley Trumper from the Honoraria Committee; Bruce Murphy from the Shareholder Reference Group; David Jensen, primary shareholder. So at this time, I'll call for any further apologies. Are there any further apologies? Okay, I haven't received any further apologies. So I'll move those apologies be accepted. Do you want to have a seconder, please?

I'm happy to second those apologies, Murray.

Thanks, Matt Ross. Look, I realize this is a really busy time for farmers, probably the busiest time of the year, both this time of day and the day. So I really do thank you for your attendance. Okay, so here's the agenda for today's meeting. I'll just briefly run through those. So Wayne McNee will speak about our new sustainability report in a moment. I'll cover off the financial overview, the business highlights and our outlook. We'll turn to Wayne, who will speak about our refined strategy, research and development and financial details. We'll then move to an update on the Chief Executive recruitment process, the Honoraria report, the voting resolutions and we'll conclude with general business. So this year, LIC has released its first sustainability report. We're members of the Climate Leaders Coalition, the Aotearoa Circle, and the Sustainable Business Council, the SBS. When we joined the SBS, members are required to introduce annual reporting practices, which outline progress on environmental, social, governance and economic issues. This report meets those requirements from a business perspective, but it's also an opportunity to demonstrate how we are responding to sustainability challenges facing our farmers and the New Zealand dairy industry. I'll now pass over to Wayne, who will take us through the report.

Thank you, Murray and [Foreign Language]. As a farmer-owned cooperative and world leader in pasture-based dairy genetics and herd management, we have a critical role to play in helping New Zealand's dairy farmers meet their sustainability goals. We exist to deliver superior genetics -- sorry, we exist to lower superior genetics and technological innovation to help our shareholders sustainably farm a profitable animal. So sustainability is baked into our purpose. While many industries only recently began responding to climate challenges, LIC and its farmer shareholders began work over 30 years ago to improve genetic gain within the herd using genomics. The purpose of this report is to demonstrate to our shareholders our commitment to them when it comes to sustainability in addition to meeting our annual reporting requirements as a member of the Sustainable Business Council. I can have the next slide, please. This is LIC's first sustainability report and represents information about our environment, social and economic performance for the year ended the 31st of May 2021. The report features key highlights in these 3 areas. And we've made great progress on our sustainability journey, especially over the last 4 years. So some of the highlights on this slide. There was record milk production in 2019, 2020 with decreasing cow numbers. LIC had a 1.87% reduction in its CO2 emissions, which was a further reduction on the year before. We launched our indexes to rank artificial breading bulls on their environmental efficiency HoofPrint and BeefPrint indexes, and we're working on a world-leading methane research program, investigating a link between methane emissions and bulls and their genetics and there's more on that later. Next slide. All aspects of the report are important and measuring our performance from a social perspective is a new feature of our reporting. As shown on this slide, our organizational health index of 70 is just at the top of the second quartile of all the company's McKinsey has surveyed worldwide, almost 1,000 companies, and this has been consistent for the last couple of years despite COVID. Our total reportable incident rate of 3.49, reduced from 4.5 a year before. That's a measure of our health and safety performance. And that has continued -- that's a continued downward trend. And we have 840 full-time employees and over 1,900 seasonal employees who live and work in their communities and contribute to those communities. The economic section of the sustainability report helps explain how we're delivering value to our farmer shareholders by investing in initiatives to help them breed the most profitable and sustainable animals. And Murray will speak to the economic highlights and the financial review later in this meeting. We know that environmental and regulatory considerations are front of mind for our farmers. And we hope this report will become a useful place to find out what LIC is doing each year to help the industry meet new challenges head on. Each year, LIC will report back to you on how it is progressing and going about delivering on that commitment. We're committed to open and transparent reporting on sustainability and LIC will further develop the framework over time. The report is now available on LIC's website and was also e-mailed to all shareholders on the 6th of October. I encourage you to read it. And I'll now hand back to you, Murray.

Thanks, Wayne. I will now give an overview of the full year result and some business highlights from the year. We're proud to present another strong result for the fourth consecutive year. This result is in line with our market guidance and accredit to our shareholders for your support of significant initiatives in the last 5 years to transform LIC into a modern progressive cooperative. These initiatives have delivered the benefits we said they would, including focused investment in the business and a better return for our farmers. There are some specific numbers I'd like to cover. Total revenue was $249 million, an increase of 3.4% from the $240.9 million last year. This is from continuing operations only, so it excludes the sale of the LICA business. Net profit after tax was $22.9 million, up 31% from the previous year. Underlying earnings of $22.3 million. This is down fractionally just under 2% from the $22.7 million last year after a one-off tax benefit. Total assets equaled $382 million, small increase from the prior year and a dividend of $17.8 million or $0.1251 per share, representing 80% of underlying earnings. We've seen good growth across core business areas this year, but particularly in our premium genetics range where young genomically selected bulls are used to fast track genetic gain and deliver more value on farm through increased profitability and efficiency, including improved environmental efficiency. That value combined with a solid dividend makes this result a win-win for our farmers. It also means we can continue our work to invest in products, services and technology that drive long-term and sustainable customer value. LIC's premium genetics range accounted for almost half of the co-ops total artificial breeding inseminations. More than doubled 3 years ago, this is predominantly from the Forward Pack and A2 bull teams. It also includes sexed semen which experienced significant growth with triple the number of straws sold on the previous year. The number of dairy cows made it to sexed semen is set to double again this year to around 200,000 straws, up from 110,000 last year -- 110,000 that is as farmers look to capitalize on the technology. To meet the increasing demand, LIC now houses the world's largest fresh, sexed semen sorting facility in partnership with Sexing Technologies at our Hamilton headquarters. This growth will have a significant impact on farm in the spring and deliver a huge amount of value to our farmers with more high-quality heifer replacements and fewer bobby calves. We're expecting this to be even greater next year. Meanwhile, the number of traditionally daughter-proven bulls used for AB continued to decline, now down 40% from 3 years ago. This shift reflects farmers growing confidence in LIC's proprietary genomic work and a willingness to adopt new tools and solutions to help meet sustainability goals. I want to talk now just about the divestment of LICA. So in June this year, LIC announced that it had entered into an agreement to divest its Automation business, LICA to MSD Animal Health for an amount of $38.1 million and subject to a working capital adjustment. The LIC Automation product portfolio joined Allflex Livestock Intelligence, a business unit of MSD Animal Health, which is manufacturing facilities in Palmerston North. The transaction included the following: continued migration on to new generation Protrack systems for customers with legacy technology as well as associated software development; LIC to continue providing service and support to customers through the transition; ongoing interaction between Protrack operating systems and LIC's herd management system, MINDA; access to data generated by the automation technology for LIC, to continue to support the co-op's research and development activities; and the data includes any future data generated by online milk meters if these are launched in New Zealand by any of MSD's businesses. The divestment of the Automation business is in line with LIC's refined strategy and will allow the co-op to sharpen its focus and play to its strengths, delivering world-leading pasture-based dairy genetics and herd management for our farmers. Last year, LIC's shareholders voted down a proposal from the Board for LIC to purchase a stake in Israeli agritech company, Afimilk, which included a potential subsequent transaction for Afimilk to purchase LIC Automation. We were aiming to access data from Afimilk as a result of that transaction but have secured that access through the transaction with MSD from a New Zealand perspective. We know automation delivers a lot of value on farm, but despite significant efforts by our people, the automation business itself has seldom be profitable, partly due to reducing cow numbers in New Zealand and limited traction in international markets. This divestment will allow us to focus on delivering value to our farmer shareholders. With the increased capital, it will provide an importantly, ongoing access to key data from the automation and sensor technology to support core LIC business in the future. We're pleased that MSD Animal Health has chosen to acquire this technology for the Allflex Livestock Intelligence business unit. We're confident this is the best way forward for the technology for our farmers who have invested in the systems and for the wider co-op shareholder base. The Board is considering all options for the use of those funds from the divestment of LICA. Next slide. Thank you. With respect to the outlook, the co-op will be firmly guided by its primary focus of delivering value for farmer shareholders and delivering on our 3 commitments to farmers: operational excellence, faster genetic improvement and software reliability and performance, which I'll cover more in detail shortly. LIC expects underlying earnings in the 2021/'22 financial year to be in the range of $19 million to $25 million. Of course, that's subject to milk price and climate volatility or nothing untoward. If we talk or focus on our 3 commitments, when we released our refined strategy in April, we also made 3 commitments to our shareholders. We'll be guided by our primary focus of delivering value for our farmer shareholders, and these 3 commitments are operational excellence. We commit to getting the basics right and delivering for you on time every time. Faster genetic improvement, we commit to having your back when it comes to helping you meet the environmental challenges you face in particular, animal efficiency and nitrogen and methane mitigation. Software reliability and performance, we're committed to being better at delivering our software to you. We renew our commitment to continuous improvement in transparency around delivery and new features. We'd like to thank shareholders for the constructive engagement and positive feedback on the strategy and in particular, for the commitments that we have made in the key areas. We'll be reporting back on how we're delivering against our commitments, and we'll be in touch with shareholders shortly to confirm how our performance will be measured. Finally, thank you to our staff and shareholders for their hard work and continued support over the past year. We look forward to working together and delivering another great result next year. I'll now hand back to Wayne, who will speak about our refined strategy, genomics, research and development and cover the finances in detail. Wayne?

Thank you, Murray. So in April this year, we announced our refined strategy. Driving value for our farmer shareholders is the heart of the strategy, will drive value, innovate and deliver a positive impact for customers and shareholders. We're focused on helping farmers optimize value from their livestock by enabling them to produce the most sustainable and efficient animals and the highest value products. We'll drive that value through a focus on 4 key areas: our farmers, animals, data and digital and innovation. The purpose of genomics -- moving on to genomics, now the purpose of genomics and animal evaluation is to help predict the future that enables elite young bulls to be used in artificial breeding, effectively fast tracking you to gain to breed a more sustainable animal. Increasing genetic gain through breeding the best quality heifer cows has become an even more valued aspect of a dairy farmers' seasonal focus. And genomics is one of the critical technologies to help farmers breed more productive and climate-friendly cows. LIC's investment of more than $78 million over 3 decades into genomic science and genome sequencing technology is now generating markedly increased productivity in health traits for dairy cows and better returns for dairy farmers. Genomic bulls are selected using a combination of DNA and ancestry information to predict their future performance, which enables access to the elite genetics at a younger age. LIC genomic science is also about identifying desirable traits of a cow from its genetic code and breeding for them to generate increased productivity in health traits. As Murray said earlier, farmers are adopting genomically selected size now to get ahead of the curve. It shows growing confidence in LIC's proprietary genomic work and farmers' willingness to adopt new tools and solutions to help them meet their sustainability goals. The co-op invested $17.1 million in R&D last year, up 15.4% from the previous year, which reaffirms LIC's position as one of the biggest investors in R&D in the primary sector. We invested $10 million in new gene match software and a new alumina platform. This technology enables LIC to obtain more information from an animal's DNA and do all our own parentage testing in the genomic evaluations, provided new and larger scale services to farmer shareholders. We also invested in partnership with DairyNZ and MPI in the Resilient Dairy program, which is looking for improved ways of identifying health traits into the future and new ways of measuring disease in dairy cows and next-generation genomics, a program with MB, which is looking at how we get further advances in our genomic work into the future. I can have the next slide, please. The Methane Research project we're working on with CRV is another key area of R&D that has created a lot of interest over the past year. When announced in May a promising pilot trial face measured the feed intact and methane emissions from 20 young bulls that have just been completed. Let's take a look at that announcement when hosted the Minister of Agriculture, Damian O'Connor. [Presentation]

The research has now progressed to a much larger study where operations have scaled up to collect measurements from 300 young bulls, the full intake from LIC and CRV's Sire Proving Schemes. If this genetic link is confirmed, farmers will ultimately be able to breathe low methane emitting cows from low methane emitting bulls. This slide outlines our capital approvals during the year, I'll just run through a few of them for you. We're obviously spending more money on computers, et cetera. MINDA projects was a key capital spend and ongoing spend. This is on MINDA LIVE and the road map. That was LICA product development before we divested the business. You can see spending there on software and server upgrades and investment in the wash line for the existing facility in Christchurch as well as the usual herd testing cows analyzer robot replacements, et cetera. Brooding improvements, which include quite significant farm improvements, including a Chudleigh Farm, where the methane trial was operated vehicles and actually quite a bit of money spent this year on PPE for COVID protections, which I'll come on to a bit more later. And as Murray mentioned, total revenue from continuing operations, excluding Automation, was $249 million and overall revenue continuing and discontinued operations was $266.4 million for the year. This is another record revenue for LIC and a result that shows farmer confidence in LIC's products and services. This slide is a slide we include in our annual meeting each year. I'd like to focus this year on genetic merit at $292 million. Improvement of the dairy here generates the majority of this value based on the increase in breeding worth over time. High generic is more than just milk production traits. These animals need to be well balanced with good fertility, animal health, confirmation, longevity as well as their milk fat and protein production relative to their live ones. So as we couldn't have a meeting without talking about COVID-19, it's critical that we continue to deliver our important services to customers despite COVID-19 and in the safest possible manner. M. bovis actually took out LIC a lot when it comes to protecting our national herd. And throughout this year, we've undertaken ongoing contingency planning to ensure business continuity relating to COVID-19 and that we have the correct protections around peak season, which we're coming into right now. We're in a fortunate position where the majority of our services are deemed essential, and we can, therefore, continue to operate during heightened COVID-19 alert levels under strict safety protocols. Our key priorities as we head into our peak operational period are keeping you safe, our shareholders, our staff and our business operating. So we can continue to deliver our products and services to you in this critical time on farm. I'd like to thank all of the staff who are working to ensure LIC can continue to deliver our essential services to our customers at such a critical time of the season. Next slide, thanks. So this is my ninth and last AGM as Chief Executive of LIC, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to make a few final comments. LIC is a great company, the DNA of the New Zealand dairy industry. I came to LIC from my role as Director General of MPI after I did the merger of MoAF, the Ministry of Fisheries and the Food Safety Authority. I wanted to move to the private sector after 18 years in the state sector. I wanted to work in the dairy industry. And as in my view, it is the engine room of the New Zealand economy. It was then, it is now, and it will be for many years to come. Other sectors come and go, the dairy industry leads the way. I'm proud of the contribution I've made at LIC and the contribution LIC makes to the New Zealand dairy industry. LIC has transformed over the past 10 years into a modern progressive cooperative. I'm particularly proud of the ongoing investment in LIC makes into R&D and the benefits that this brings to the sector. Over 6% of revenue, the highest percentage of any established company in the New Zealand food and fiber sectors. Being a cooperative helps LIC have a long-term focus, investing in science, which may not pay back for a decade or more, like our research into genomics, low methane emitting cows and heat-tolerant cows. We've also invested in our people with significant investments in leadership development and skills training across LIC. I leave LIC with a strong balance sheet and a company in great shape. I'd like to thank the directors I've worked with over the years. We haven't always agreed on everything, but that is as it should be. Directors are appointed by the shareholders to set strategy, and management's job is to deliver the strategy and to be held account for that delivery. Thanks also to the whole team at LIC, a great bunch of passionate people who work hard to deliver a complex range of products and services to our farmer shareholders. And lastly, thanks to Murray. He's been my Chair throughout. It's been a pleasure working with you. And on that, I will hand back to you.

Thanks, Wayne. So as Wayne said he finishes his term with LIC at the end of November, so the Board is progressing with a selection of a successor and is in the final stages of that selection. An announcement will be made shortly. But note should be made that the restrictions imposed by COVID have meant that this has become a more protracted process. At this time, I really want to acknowledge formally Wayne's significant contribution to LIC over the last 8.5 years and highlight some significant achievements. Anyone visiting Newstead headquarters will know it's quite different to when Wayne arrived. It has been fully refurbished to a modern, efficient and user-friendly workspace. In addition to this, there's been significant investment in the farms and the facilities around the country. There's been refinement, stability and improvement to the technology components of LIC with significant investment having been made. Wayne's helped progress the genomic selection and its accuracy of that technology. He's helped developed and cultured strong relationships with our business -- sorry, with other businesses critical to LIC, both nationally and internationally. He's managed to open doors and strike up relationships with organizations, which previously had been very difficult for us. He's led the business transformation known as PACE -- the PACE project and the impressive Organizational Health Index, as mentioned before, in the top of the second quartile, which is world-class. Wayne's assisted with a share structure refinement as part of the capital structure work we did a number of years ago, and he's represented LIC and helped elevate awareness of the business and its unique role in the New Zealand dairy industry for involvement in such things as the New Zealand Sustainability Business Council and Agricultural Leaders Health and Safety Action Group. Most importantly, he's raised the limit of risk management and awareness to a new level, which has assisted in the recent management of the M. Bovis and COVID-19 incursions and make no mistake, there's a significant amount of leadership required to make sure that we are able to achieve seamless delivery of our products and services through the busy period we're in now. Throughout this time, Wayne has executed his duties to a high standard, setting strong expectations and operating to a little extreme professionalism and turn that level of expectation is disseminated throughout the business and the financial results. We wish Wayne all the very best in his future endeavors. I'll now invite Ian Brown to present the Honoraria report. Welcome, Ian.

Thank you, and I apologies for the delay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. In accordance with Clause 21.2 of the LIC Constitution, the Honoraria Committee that's made up between 2 and 4 former shareholders who are elected by shareholders. The current committee members Shirley Trumper, Paul Todd, Scott Montgomerie and myself. The role of the committee is to consider and recommend to shareholders the form and amount of the remuneration of directors and Shareholder Reference Group members. The committee met formally on 3 occasions in order to performance role this year. And in addition to its normal role, particular focus was placed on how the newly formed Shareholder Reference Group would implement its function. In arriving at its recommendation, the Honoraria Committee takes into consideration the analysis of data sourced from annual reports and director fee surveys compiled by both Strategic Pay and the New Zealand Institute of Directors, consultation with the Board and Shareholder Reference Group as well as the committee's own knowledge and judgment of the wider LLC operating environment. The Honoraria Committee acknowledges the importance of LIC maintaining a high caliber of directors on its Board and members of the Shareholder Reference Group. The committee acknowledges that last year, an increase of 5.18% for the Board's share and 4.6% for directors would have been recommended to shareholders and had not been for the uncertainty of the impact of COVID-19 on the company at that time. The Honoraria Committee felt it appropriate to include in this year's recommendation to shareholders the increase that was put on hold last year for both the Board and the Shareholder Reference Group. Prior to last year, the previous 2 years, the Honoraria Committee have recommended that the Honoraria for the Board increased slightly each year recognizing the time and commitment required as a director of LIC and to maintain relative parity with similar organizations. Last year's governance review resulted in the size of the Board reducing by 1 elected member and the Board being given the flexibility to appoint a director should a need arise. The recommended remuneration poll reflects provision for that appointed director position if required. The committee has continued its recommendation of a maximum $60,000 poll being made available to the Board, specifically to compensate directors for issued duties, skills and roles this committee chairs. This year, the Board used approximately $45,000 of that total poll. The proposed remuneration for the Board this year is the Chair, $182,500; directors, $60,000, poll for additional $60,000 and a provision for an extra appointed director if required $60,000. So the Honoraria Committee recommends for this year a further increase of 6.19% for directors, 1.92% for the Chair and an overall increase to the base Honoraria of the Board resulting in total remuneration of $782,500. The Shareholders' Reference Group, shareholders voted in last year's AGM to change from the Shareholder Council with 21 members to the Shareholder Reference Group to 12 members, 8 of whom are elected and 4 appointed. The role of the Shareholder Reference Group differs from the act of the Board and that it is an independent body of shareholders is purposes to work collaboratively with the Board and LIC management to promote the interest of shareholders and assist the company to deliver on its purpose and mission. There are few organizations that have a body similar to the Shareholder Reference Group given its unique role. And as such, the Honoraria Committee has few organizations, which can use a direct comparison. The Honoraria Committee had a particular focus this year to understand the change in role, skill sets and workload required of the Shareholder Reference Group and acknowledge the increased workload of the Shareholder Reference Group members. Given this, the Honoraria Committee recommends an adjustment to remuneration of the Shareholder Reference Group to ensure fair recognition of the economics of the role and the time away from numerous home. The amount paid to the previous members of the Shareholder Council, including the Deputy Chair have not increased since 2013. The Chair receiving small increases in 2017 and 2018. Last year, an increase of 8.3% for the Chair, 11.11% to the Deputy Chair and 31.11% for Shareholders' counselors would have been recommended, but due to the uncertainty around the impact of COVID-19, the recommendation was not opined. This year, the committee recognizes an increase from current remuneration rates of 7.69% for the Chair, 60% for the Deputy Chair and 71.43% for the Shareholder Reference Group members. This increase reflects the change in growth and involved in workload of Shareholder Reference Group members and the lack of an increase since 2013. So the proposed remuneration for Shareholder Reference Group members are: Chair $85,000; Deputy Chair $16,000; and each of the other Shareholder Reference Group members $12,000. So the committee recommends an increase to the current level of Shareholder Reference Group remuneration to a total pool of $171,000. And we recommend maintaining the daily allowance at $320. I would like to close by thanking Melanie Tonkin for her knowledge, effort and support as Secretary of the Honoraria Committee. And I would also like to acknowledge the contribution of Paul Todd, who retires from the committee after 8 years' service at the completion of this AGM. Paul brought a wealth of industry and governance experience and knowledge to the committee. And I'm sure I speak for all committee members an appreciation of Paul's sound and fool-free reflective comments in committee discussions. The committee wishes Paul all the very best for the future. Thank you, and I'll return to you, Mr. Chairman.

Great. Thanks, Ian. We'll now move to the resolutions of the meeting. So we have Resolution 1, which is the approval of directors remuneration to receive and consider the Honoraria Committee's recommendation and if thought fit to resolve by way of ordinary resolution to approve that remuneration. So -- I so move that resolution. Can I have a seconder, please?

I'll second that, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Scott Montgomerie. I now ask that those participating, please make your vote. While you're doing that, we'll move to Resolution 2. Resolution 2 is to approve the LIC Shareholder Reference Group remuneration as outlined by the Chair of the Committee. So that is to approve the total remuneration of all Shareholder Reference Group members being increased from $134,000 to $171,000. And I so move that resolution. Can I please have a seconder?

I'll second that as well, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Scott Montgomerie. Please mark your vote or make your vote. Resolution #3 is to appoint KPMG as our external auditor to consider a full fit to resolve by way of ordinary resolution to reappoint the chartered accountancy partnership of KPMG as the auditor until the conclusion of the company's next annual meeting and the directors be authorized to fix its remuneration and also move that resolution and ask for a seconder, please.

Happy to seconder that resolution, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Seconded, Ben Dickie. If you would please make your vote now. We then move to Resolution 4 to ratify the reappointment of Candace Kinser as an appointed Director to consider and thought fit to resolve by way of ordinary resolution to ratify the reappointment of Candace as an appointed Director for a term expiring at the conclusion of the third annual meeting, which is approximately 3 years. And so also move that resolution and ask for a seconder, please.

Very happy to seconder.

Thank you. Seconded, Ken Hames. I'll ask you if you're participating to please make your vote now. We move to Resolution 5, which is the appointment of Gordon Glentworth to the Honoraria Committee to consider and thought fit by way of -- to results by way of ordinary resolution to approve the appointment of Gordon to the Honoraria Committee with effect from the conclusion of this annual meeting. And I so move that resolution and ask for a seconder please?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll be happy to second that resolution.

Thank you, Gray. Seconded, Gray Baldwin. So if you'd please make your vote. Now moving to Resolution 6 to reappoint Ian Brown to the Honoraria Committee to consider and thought fit to resolve by way of ordinary resolution to approve the reappointment of Ian to the Honoraria Committee with effect from the conclusion of this annual meeting. And I so move that resolution and ask for a seconder, please.

Thank you, Chair. I'm more than happy to second that resolution.

Thank you. Seconded, Alison Watters. Please, mark your vote now. We'll now just take a short break to review questions, and we will resume shortly. If you haven't sent your questions yet, you're still able to do so by way of a question button. And if you're having any trouble making this work, there's the help line there will help number there, 0800-200-220, they will be able to assist. And while we're collecting questions, we'll play a short video which you may have already seen, which was run at field days earlier this year. [Presentation]

Okay. So we now enter the general business section. So do we have any questions there? Can we have the first question, please, Mike?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two questions here address to yourself as Chair, and Wayne, 2 questions relating to technology and specifically to MINDA. The first question is I hear MINDA can now connect with collar. Is that for all collar brands?

Can you answer that, please, Wayne?

Yes. Thanks, Murray. Yes, we've just announced that we have invited all leading collar suppliers to integrate with MINDA, and we do hope to have agreements in place with the leading collar brands in the near future. That will include Afimilk, CowManager and GEA CowScout. But all collar providers are welcome to integrate with MINDA.

The second question that we have here, again, technology question relating to MINDA. How many farmers use MINDA LIVE now? Are there still many that use MINDA Pro?

Wayne?

Yes. Thanks, Murray. So about 70% of farmers now use only MINDA LIVE. About 2% of farmers use only MINDA Pro, which means it's about 28% of farmers who are still using both MINDA LIVE and MINDA Pro. We're working with farmers to encourage them to use MINDA LIVE and as we move towards the retirement of MINDA Pro at the end of May 2022.

Thanks, Wayne. Do we have further questions there, Mike?

Mr. Chairman, that brings us to the end of the questions that we have here. Thank you very much.

We might just wait for a moment or 2, just in case any come through. It's always a little bit difficult in this format to get your questions done if you're a slow typer. So just wait for a moment or 2. Any further questions there, Mike?

Mr. Chairman, nothing received at this stage. No.

Okay. What I'd suggest that it's time to draw the meeting to a close. But I would remind shareholders that directors are available to talk at any time throughout the year. So if you do have a question, you didn't have the opportunity to have it raised or answered here today, please contact directors or management for that matter, and we'll certainly follow up. So thank you to you all for attending this annual meeting, virtual as it might be and for your support over the last year to help achieve a great result that we've shared here today. And finally, I just wish you all well for the season ahead. Thank you.