SEEK Limited (SKLTF) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Well, good afternoon, shareholders, visitors and SEEK team members. Welcome to Seek's 2025 Annual General Meeting. I'm Graham Goldsmith, the Chairman of SEEK Limited, and thank you for your attendance today. Today, we are hosting this Annual General Meeting on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation. On behalf of the Board of SEEK, I would like to pay my respects to the traditional custodians, elders past and present and extend that respect to all aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples joining today's Annual General Meeting. I note that a quorum is present, and I declare the meeting open. Joining me on the stage today are nonexecutive Directors, Andrew Bassett; Jamal Ebrahim, Leigh Jasper, Rachael Powell, Michael Wachtel and Vanessa Wallace. Unfortunately, Linda Kristjanson is unable to join us today due to ill health. Also joining me on stage is our Managing Director and CEO, Ian Narev; and our Company Secretary, Rachel Agnew. We announced today that Greg Roebuck would soon be joining our Board as Chairman-elect. I will talk more about that shortly. Greg is also attending the meeting today in his capacity as a shareholder. Andrew Cronin from SEEK's auditors, PwC, is also in attendance. I would also like to acknowledge members of SEEK's executive leadership team, who are all here today. Kendra Banks, Chief Financial Officer; Peter Betas, Group Executive Commercial; Simon Lusted, Group Executive product; Kathleen McCudden, Group Executive People and Culture; Emma Shepherd, Group Executive, Corporate Strategy and Investments; Lisa Tobin, Group Executive Technology; and Grant Wright, Group Executive Artificial Intelligence. Before we commence the formal business of the meeting, I will outline the procedural aspects of this meeting. Shareholders, their attorneys, proxies and corporate representatives will have the opportunity to ask questions at this meeting. If your question is of a general nature, you may ask this following Ian's presentation. If your question relates to a particular resolution, please ask your question when we come to that item in the meeting. Attendees with pink or blue cards are welcome to ask questions. Make your way to the fixed microphones stationed in the room, identify yourself and state your name. To enable all shareholders a reasonable opportunity to ask questions, please keep your questions short and relevant to shareholders as a whole. I will answer your question or direct it to another director or appropriate person from SEEK to answer or to the external auditor who is also here to take your questions related to the audit. I will now explain the voting procedures. Voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all resolutions requiring a vote. Ms. Christina Piccolo of Computershare, SEEK's share registry, will act as returning officer. If you are an eligible shareholder, a representative or attorney of an eligible shareholder or a proxy for an eligible shareholder you are entitled to vote. For those attending today and intending to vote, you should have been issued with a pink voting card upon registration. If you are representing or you are a proxy for more than 1 shareholder, you will have been provided with a separate admission and voting card for each separate capacity in which you are attending the meeting. Relevant voting instructions are printed on the reverse of your pink card. If you have difficulty completing your voting card, please raise your hand and a representative from Computershare will assist you. Before placing your card in the ballot box, please ensure that you print your name and sign the bottom of the card. Before you leave the meeting room, please place your voting card in one of the ballot boxes located near the exit. Proxyholders are reminded that you must vote in accordance with the shareholders' directions. Any directed proxies that are not voted at the meeting will automatically default to me as Chairman and I will be required to vote those proxies as directed. We're entitled to do so. And subject to the voting restrictions that are set out in the notice of meeting, I intend to vote all undirected proxies in favor of items 2 to 5. We will show on screen the outcome of the proxies received prior to the meeting at the start of the questions on each resolution. I now formally open the poll on all items of business. You do not need to vote now. You can wait for the discussion on each item and then those as all polls will remain open until shortly after the end of the meeting. Before the formal business of the meeting, I'll make a brief address, which will be followed by a presentation from Ian. Fellow shareholders, it is my pleasure to address you today and provide some of the highlights of the past financial year. Before I speak about the highlights, I would like to comment on Chairman succession. Today, we announced the appointment of Greg Roebuck, who I introduced earlier to the Board. Greg will join the Board as a non-executive director and Chairman-elect from the 1st of January 2026. The with the intention that he becomes Chairman from the first of March 2026. At that point, I will retire after 13 years on the Board and even as your Chairman. As I indicated at the time I was reelected to the Board last year, we anticipated that I would not complete my 3-year term. Following a succession process overseen by the Board, I'm delighted that they have selected Greg as a non-executive director and as Chairman-elect. Greg has a wealth of valuable experience and I expect his background and passion will make him an exception Chairman. It has been a privilege to be a director and Chairman of SEEK. SEEK is a unique company and has been helping people live more fulfilling and productive working lives and organizations to succeed over 25 years. Along with this purpose and its strategy and foundations, SEEK is in a strong position to continue to be a market leader and deliver significant value to shareholders. Thank you to those of you here today and to all our other fellow shareholders, Board members, SEEK's executive leadership team and employees for your ongoing and support during my time as Chairman. I would now like to comment on Board succession. The Board continues to take a structured approach to Board and committee succession looking out over a 3-year planning period and taking into account various matters, including SEEK's strategy and operations, director tenure and the skills, diversity and experience desired for the Board and committees. Leigh Jasper and Linda Kristjanson are presenting themselves for reelection at this year's AGM. Both Leigh and Linda are independent non-executive directors, and continue to make significant contributions to Board deliberations and decisions. They are valued members of the Board and your Board unanimously supports the reelection of both Leigh and Linda. I will now turn to performance during the year ended June 2025. The business continued to perform strongly at an operational level. This follows the completion of platform unification in 2024, continued strengthening of our foundations and disciplined ongoing investment in growth in the core including in product and artificial intelligence. Our 2025 financial results were solid. And during the year, we paid a total dividend of $0.46 per share to shareholders, up $0.11 per share from 2024. We also strengthened our balance sheet and reduced our drawn debt. During the year, we continued to increase our placement share in ANZ and achieved our highest placement share in Asia in recent history. We achieved double-digit yield growth across APAC, which was driven by price and product innovation. Our total costs grew more slowly than revenue despite ongoing investment in SEEK's competitive foundations. In Ian's address, he will talk in more detail about the outcomes for 2025 and our present outlook for the remainder of 2026. As management communicated to investors in May this year, SEEK will focus on repeatedly delivering on 3 key strategic areas: increasing placement share to grow leadership position, achieving high single-digit yield growth. and creating operating leverage through maintaining mid- to high single-digit cost growth through the cycle with revenue growing faster than costs. Our strategic aspiration is to strengthen our market leadership position by executing well on these controllables. SEEK has a significant revenue opportunity across our marketplaces and will continue to spend required to both run the business and on growth investments. A large proportion of growth investments is in the core, for example, product, data services and AI. There was a smaller proportion directed towards adjacencies where it makes sense, such as our recent reacquisition of Sidekicker. Investments are considered under a return on investment framework, which supports the efficient allocation of capital and improved accountability for investment decisions. As a Board, we also continue to focus on overseeing the management of our key financial and nonfinancial risks, including cybersecurity, AI and data protection. SEEK holds an 83.8% interest in the SEEK Growth Fund, which provides shareholders with an economic exposure to high-growth investments and human capital management markets. Since its inception, SEEK has achieved a return on its investment of 32%, and the value of the fund has increased by 7% over the last year. SEEK has received a total distribution of $166 million from the fund to date, including $153 million in 2025, largely through the fund sell-down of a stake in Employment Hero and the sale of Sidekicker. In 2026, the fund will open a liquidity window and SEEK may request the fund manager to consider liquidity of part of our investment. The Board is considering what level of liquidity request would be likely to lead to maximizing the value of SEEK's investment in the fund. The fund will use its best efforts to satisfy any request from SEEK within 12 to 24 months, and we will update shareholders as appropriate. during 2026. Turning to our people. Our recent employee engagement surveys indicate that our employees remain highly engaged with very high participation rates in the survey. This year, there has also been an increase in overall engagement scores. I would like to thank SEEK's employees who, over the last few years have worked hard to position SEEK as a market leader. and congratulate them on the transformation of the business. This transformation includes unifying the marketplace platforms, moving to an APAC organizational structure and the rapid advance and use of AI and release of product to the market. The Board continues to focus on talent and succession at the CEO and executive leadership team level, including the development of our current executives and their potential successors. At the same time, SEEK remains committed to and has made positive progress on diversity and inclusion initiatives. This has included maintaining gender diversity of 50% of women in the workforce and taking actions to increase the number of members from underrepresented groups in technology roles. At the Board level, over 1/3 of our non-executive directors are women. I turn now to sustainability. SEEK has a long-term commitment to operating responsibly and pursuing our purpose, and this was again evident during 2025. Our approach to environmental, social and governance topics focuses on the areas that we can have the most impact and align most to SEEK and our stakeholders. On human rights, we continued our work and investment towards preventing exploitative recruitment and modern slavery on our platform. We also progressed our programs to address any modern slavery risks in our supply chains and supported smaller suppliers with understanding and managing their modern slavery obligations. SEEK's social impact is achieved through its purpose and by operating a marketplace that delivers high-quality job placements. SEEK's data and insights are provided to inform policymakers and customers on labor market trends. And we also continued our long-standing social impact investment, SEEK Volunteer, which connects volunteers with not-for-profit organizations. Execution of SEEK's First Nations Reconciliation Strategy progressed with enhanced workforce accessibility and cultural programs benefiting both employees and external stakeholders. During 2025, we also achieved our target to reach greenhouse gas emissions by 40% compared to 2022 levels, reflecting our focus on minimizing environmental impact and mitigating climate risks. Most of our Scope 3 emissions rely on third-party emission reductions. Following a science aligned review, we revised our emissions reduction targets to a further 50% reduction from 2025 levels by financial year 2030 and net zero by 2050. We continue to invest significantly in responsible and ethical use of data and AI with a focus on user trust. Your Board is proud of SEEK's commitment to sustainability. And I encourage you to read our already released 2025 sustainability report, climate statement and modern slavery statement. I will now comment on our executive remuneration structure. The main objective of SEEK's remuneration framework is to ensure close alignment between executive reward and long-term shareholder returns. To date, the executive remuneration structure including the changes we made to the wealth sharing plan in 2024 has served SEEK and our shareholders well. Since 2012, when the Wealth Sharing plan was first introduced, SEEK's share prices increased from $6.53 to $24 as of the 1st of July 2025. And our total shareholder return has grown 37% exceeding the ASX 100 growth of 266%. Over this time, the benefits received by executives are proportionate to or lower than the returns received by shareholders. During this period, 7 of the 11 Wealth Sharing Plans have vested and 4 have lapsed. SEEK executives, including the CEO, are also granted an equity right in place of a traditional short-term incentive. This ensures that more equity rather than cash is placed in the hands of executives to further align their reward with the shareholder experience. The Board will continue to review SEEK's executive remuneration framework and ensure it supports the sustainable growth of our business and the execution of our strategy and meets shareholder expectations. I will now comment on the executive leadership team. Last year, the accountabilities of the executive leadership team members were changed to reflect the change in organizational structure and expanded focus on the use of AI internally and externally. Your executive leadership team led by Ian have worked hard to deliver on the key priorities agreed with the Board for 2025, developing and applying a refined return on investment framework, strengthening of our internal control environment and developing our senior leadership capability. I would like to thank Ian his senior leadership group and the entire SEEK team together with the Board for their hard work, dedication, leadership and care for each other our candidates and hires and the communities in which we operate. Thank you.

Thank you, Graham. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for taking the time to join us this afternoon. Before I get into the facts and figures, I'll just start by saying what I think I say every year and what I mean every year, which is it's a real privilege to be leading this business. It's a particular privilege to be leading this team of people in the front row, which who care for the business, whose skill and just focus on the vision for SEEK and the long-term value creation if everybody is really exceptional, making my job a real pleasure. So I'd just like to echograms thanks to all of SEEK's people for the effort they put in. And in the financial year that finished for the 30th of June, pretty much on every dimension, the results paid real testimony to the efforts of the people. When I get to the end, just to cut to the punchline, I'll remind myself and my team and all of you, that's not good enough. We've got to get better and better. But by the same token, when we reflect on the year that was, the achievement of the business were very pleasing. Graham highlighted in his presentation that post the big investment that we made in unification we really simplified the business and realize that the core business that we've got started by Andrew, among others in 1997, has just got such potential that our main job is just to focus and deliver. And we simplify the goals of the business to these 3 that Graham outlined, grow placements, grow yield and achieve operating leverage. And as you will already know and I'll talk about in a minute, the delivery against all of those goals in the financial year was really pleasing. The thing I would add, which we've talked about a number of times, but I'd remind people is if you actually spoke to SEEK's people about the day-to-day experience they're having following the big investment that we made with the Board and shareholder support and the unification of the platform, it's hard to overstate how much that has reshaped the business. In terms of the speed and the quality of the product, we're able to deliver our responsiveness to customers in 8 countries on the push of a button. And right across our teams, there's a great deal of belief and excitement and encouragement from the benefits of that platform unification. As I said before, we did that show up in the business for FY '25, and I won't go through all these one on one, you can just read it for yourselves. But I would say that at the core of what we're here for, it's to help people find jobs and help companies find people. And so really, above everything else to be a successful business, we've got to be growing placement share. And a little while ago, despite having very strong positions, particularly in Australia, the broader leadership team, not just the executive leadership team at SEEK said leading is not good enough. We need to lead by more. And we set ourselves that aspiration, and it's being delivered. You're only as good as your last game, but we're talking about FY '25. And the placement share leadership in ANZ was the highest that we've had higher than prior comparative period, Asia was the highest in recent history. And pleasingly, as you go down, you can see the yield growth comes with it. The momentum in Asia comes with it, revenue growth, operating leverage and free cash flow growth. So right down the stack, as we would say in technology, the delivery in FY '25 and just the fact of what the business was able to produce were very strong. I won't go through the financial results in detail. Again, you'll know them. I'll just point out maybe a couple of things for people who are particularly interested in the numbers. First of all, this was the first year we made the differentiation between sales revenue and net revenue, and that as a result of the acquisition of Sidekick, which is a contingent labor business. Sidekick has a bunch of employees. It basically places them and companies receive the wages and then on pays the wages to the employees minus a bit of a margin. The net revenue reflects the revenue to SEEK once you've paid that off to the people who are actually the employees. So in order otherwise, the top line number would really distort SEEK revenue. So the net revenue one is really the thing to think about. You'll notice there's not much of a difference, why do you make such a fuss about it. As Sidekicker grows, that difference will become bigger. So for those of you focusing on the detail of those numbers, that's an important thing to know. The other thing I would remind people is that a while ago, when we were talking about operating leverage and the investment of the business, we made the commitment that we think about total costs. There's a lot of time and effort in companies get you capitalize do you expense our strong bias is to pay for stuff as it's done. So we capitalize because you should capitalize some things, but we always bias more towards expensing in the year. That means total expenditure is the number to look at. You can see that was down 2%. But actually, in the balancing, you can see the reflection of how we are biased towards operating expenditure. That's up 3% and CapEx was down $19 million. Do not take that as a sign we've been investing less in the business. Take that as a sign that we lean more towards expensing items as we pay for them rather than trying to capitalize them over the longer term. On the bigger investments in things like the Unified platform. As you would expect, we always have the appetite to take those through over time and capitalize them, but that is the exception, not the rule. Graham spoke about the SEEK Growth Fund performance. It hasn't been the easiest environment in general for venture capital. Andrew and his team have continued to do a job. We're very happy with. You can see the facts and figures here. Really, importantly, in this year and people often are thinking about to sort of see get money back out of the fund. We will see in the accounts, we received more than $150 million of capital return in the year. highlighted by the sell-down of a partial stake in Employment Hero. So that is the early signs of what the fund is committed to do, which is to realize assets and return money. At the same time, our #1 priority with a belief in Andrew and his team and the fund remains to optimize the value of the fund for all of you. And so we will remain patient and make sure that we're focused on delivering good cash back, but in a way which stands alongside the fund stated goal of getting the highest value we can out of the assets. Finally, in terms of the look back, and Graham again alluded to this, we like to think in the long term, but we also want to think in the very long term, and it's very important to us that we operate the business against all the metrics of sustainability that we know are important. Some of the highlights here, I'd probably call out 2. Number one, while we want to be good citizens on every aspect of sustainability, we realize that we have a very specific responsibility in relation to human rights and modern slavery. There is a significant amount of time and effort paid to making sure our platform is as safe as it can possibly be. We have a committee that I Chair that oversees that and we've continued to really invest to make sure that we can deliver on the #1 promise we have to people looking for a job is that we'll do everything we can to make sure it's a real job and a good job. And secondly, in this environment, the risks always of data security, cybersecurity are very high. Lisa Tobin, Liam Connolly and their team, we've got very high level of expertise there, but there is not an iota of complacency. Again, a group that meets especially to discuss this, which again, I Chair and regular discussions through the Risk and Audit Committee of the Board to make sure we're doing everything we can to mitigate what is a growing risk. When we now look forward and the big news is there's no news. When we deliver guidance as we did in August, we are inevitably face for the question usually, are you being conservative? Are you trying to be conservative what we keep saying to our investors is our job as a Board and as an executive leadership team is to be as accurate as we can be, not to try and set a low ball and exceed it or be too aspirational so in a normal world, you would expect the result that you've got here, which is our guidance remains unchanged. It's exactly what we thought it would be in August. Every month is a big month in economies, this still remains our best estimate. It could, of course, change. The one thing we have called out here just because we get questions on it because it's more public is about the volumes, people look at our sites and see what they can infer. So we have specifically said that year-to-date job ad volumes across APAC are largely in line with the original guidance just to make sure there is no doubt about that. Before I sign off, just one quick message off script, which is on behalf of the management team to -- and shareholders to pass a huge vote of thanks to Graham Goldsmith. The Chair-CEO job is a very difficult relationship. It's been shown over time. I can say on behalf of me and on the management team that judgment and wisdom that Graham has shown has been outstanding. It's got the best out of the executive team. And to say that -- maybe you don't want to hear me say that as a CEO because maybe I'm thinking he's being too easy on me and my team, which he certainly hasn't been. I say that actually as a shareholder of SEEK that I can tell you as shareholders that the business has been in really outstanding hands for the last 7 years under Graham and that the same degree of care that Graham showed has been placed into choosing a successor. So we're expecting the very big shoes to be filled, but I do want to acknowledge Graham and his last AGM. So thank you all very much again to return to where I started. This is at some levels ancient history. The team is probably as pleased as it could be about 2025, but we realize the only way to be able to deliver a similar message to you at the next AGM or the one after and the one after is to keep raising the standards. That's what we're doing. So a repeat of last year wouldn't be good enough. It's got to be better. And given the opportunities and challenges we've got ahead of us, that's a challenge that I relish and I know I speak on behalf of all the people at SEEK. So thank you, again, very much for your support.

Well, thank you very much, Ian, and I appreciate that certainly to ask for the off-script. Thanks. I now invite shareholders to ask any questions in relation to the presentations you've heard from me and Ian and about the company's operations or management generally? If you'd like to ask a question, please raise your pink blue card, move to the microphone. There's one on my right and one on my left. and state your name. Please.

My name is Mike Rabi from the Australian Shareholders' Association. And I've been monitoring SEEK for some years now. And this is -- it's a pleasure to do so as well. It's a great company. My first of all, congratulations I echo the CEO's point at Mr. Goldsmith for your tenure on the Board. We did actually say last year that we're going to ask how the succession plan was going and now we have it. So thank you very much for that. We found over the years that you were actually very fair to retail shareholders, which is not something we'd say about all companies. And although you didn't take our advice on as many matters as we'd like, you did give us a fair hearing. So that was probably your role, and we wish you well in your next appointment or appointments. My question -- my first question relates to Sidekicker. I'd be quite interested in where this fits into your 3 strategic pillars that you mentioned. It doesn't seem to quite fit in the way that you laid it out. And we also understand that casual employment is a sector which is growing pretty fast. There's obviously an opportunity in it. But with that comes, it's problems because the SEEK payroll system now needs to accommodate pay according to a large number of Australian awards in a wide range of businesses, which has proven very difficult for companies in this country, and let alone companies that have the same range of professions that they have to deal with. So we hear, for example, of wage theft in many sectors. Even our largest company in the country has basically been hit by same wage -- same job, some pay sort of claims. So I guess my question really is, have you done a deep dive into your systems to make sure that you can be thoroughly compliant and won't get trapped? And I will remind you that the biggest player in this Gamadeco is subject to a current very large lawsuit in the states, not in this territory because of national wage theft. And I guess on the added question to that is, will your auditor actually take a sample of some of the contracts as part of the company audit because that would make us feel comfortable.

Thanks very much, Mr. Robi, and again, appreciate your comments. It's -- I'm going to throw to Ian for the most of this, but a timely question. And in fact, in our Board meeting, earlier today, we were discussing exactly this issue and the work that was being done and is ongoing to make sure that we and SEEK shareholders can be comfortable. But Ian, you might like to talk about the rationale behind the acquisition?

If I talk about -- thank you for the question. If I talk about the strategic rationale and then a little bit about the risk profile you've identified, which is a very important question, I think the easiest way to think about this is probably at the core of what we do as a business, the key thing we want is to have all the jobs and all the candidates looking for jobs. You never quite get there. But the more you can build that 2-sided liquidity on the marketplace and particularly in light of the major changes in the technology and competitive world, the more important that becomes. The simplest way I would say this fits into our strategy is put yourself in the shoes of a hirer and the hirer as a vacancy and the hirer has a choice of ways they can fill the vacancy. And one way might be I'm going to find a new full-time person and the other one might be, I'm not sure I need a full-time person. I might want a person for a short time period or I might want a short shorter period on route to a full-time person, et cetera, et cetera. And that was a gap we just weren't filling. So you would expect it to show up in placement share because as we do the questions where did you get your last job, if you're now a contingent employee, you're more likely to say, I got it through SEEK or more broadly through side kicker, but that would count as well. And obviously, the intention is to do it profitably. So it shows up right through the P&L and we've got to execute well to do that, but that's very much front and center of the strategic rationale. Separately, obviously, we knew Sidekicker reasonably well because it came from SEEK although we don't control the fund in any way, we kept a close eye on the business through the time of the fund so -- and then we did significant due diligence on it. And probably the best answer to your question about where we alive to the risk is the fact that the person whom I ask to lead the integration of Sidekicker as Kathleen McCudden, who's our Head of People and Culture, and she has overall responsibility for the plan that's going to integrate Sidekicker and to SEEK. And that probably tells you in addition to the that I've got in Kathleen, it gives you a really good sense of where a lot of our focus lies. And in fact, the biggest question we had to ask ourselves beyond the strategic fit was to make sure that we were comfortable with the risk profile and actually, more importantly, because we think the work that Tom and his team have done has been very good. But understanding and SEEK's hands, we're just going to need to spend more money getting all these things up to the standard that we want to and that's factored into the business case. Your last question as to whether it formed part of the audit, I think will be an ongoing question, but we'll note it and let you know.

Thanks, Ian. I have further questions at this time.

Hello. My name is Peter Calero. My first SEEK AGM, I'd been to SEEK shareholder for 2 years. This year marks 10 years I've been a SEEK shareholder. So it's a significant event for me. I've got a couple of questions, first of all, about SEEK Ventures. Over the past decade, the return from what I understand is about 9.5 or thereabouts. For a venture company, are we satisfied with the rate of return?

So I think you're referring to the SEEK Growth Fund.

Yes, the growth fund.

Which was established just over 4 years ago. And so we sort of measure from that point. And from that point.

9.9 the IRR.

I think on the IRR is probably a little bit lower than that. It's 32% over that period in the 4 years and 7% in the last year. I think a lot of investments in that space, a lot of it goes to timing as well. And obviously, it's been a difficult market for exits as you'd be aware from the sort of lack of product in the IPO market. And so that does go to the timing of returns as well.

Okay. In the 10 years I've been a shareholder, the price of the shares has increased and I've done okay in the price increases, but the actual profits aren't a massive change from what they were 10 years ago. Hopefully, before the work we've done on integrating all the computer systems, we can now see some green shoots, some growth. I thought there were some green shoots this year, but hopefully, we will accelerate. Is that what we're looking for? And over the past 10 years, we have touch disappointed with where we are today compared to when I became a shareholder 10 years ago.

I think certainly, the as you rightly point out, the net profit has probably not reflected our belief in how the business has been restated. And part of that all goes to the sort of things because we've got the fund now, when the fund goes up and down, that goes through profit. We've had a couple of write-downs. We had the sale of Latin America. So all of those things impact on that as well. But if you look at the guidance that Ian just reiterated and you look at that net profit line, there is an expectation that if the rest of the line items are achieved, then that should advance materially this year. And I think also if you look at the rise in our dividend in 2025, which is really reflecting the cash coming into the business. And ultimately, the returns to shareholders are going to be about what cash we've got. There was a good increase in that, and that reflects also our confidence in the future.

Okay. And the last thing I want to say is not a question but a comment. And that's to you, Graham, well done on your time here, and I just want to wish you all the best for your future endeavors.

Thank you very much, Peter. Do we have further questions on this item?

So we might move on. fellow shareholders. The notice of meeting has been circulated and I will take it as read. There are 5 items of business listed in the notice of and Items 2 to 5 require a vote. So we'll now move to the first item of business. And item 1 is the consideration of the financial statements and reports. SEEK's financial statements for the year ended 30 June 2025, the director's report and the auditor's report were included in the 2025 annual report, and this is available on the SEEK website. This item of business is not subject to a vote. However, shareholders may ask questions or make comments in relation to the financial statements and reports. Shareholders may also ask questions of the company's external auditor on matters relating to the conduct of the audit and the auditor's report. Obviously, we've just had the opportunity to ask some questions but are there any further questions at this point. Without that, I'll move on to item 2. And item 2 on the notice of meeting is a resolution for the consideration and adoption of the remuneration report for the year ended 30 June 2025. The remuneration report is set out in SEEK's 2025 annual report and provides disclosure of director and executive remuneration. In my address earlier, I made comments about remuneration, which I do not intend to repeat at this point. The vote in relation to this item is of an advisory nature only and does not bind the company. However, the outcome of the vote and discussion on this item will be taken into consideration in determining future remuneration. policy. The proxies for this resolution are now displayed on the screen. Are there any questions on this item? Thank you. Item 3 of the notice of meeting concerns the reelection of directors. Leigh Jasper and Linda Kristjanson are both retiring from office by rotation and are eligible to stand for reelection in accordance with the constitution. The first of these resolutions relates to the reelection of Leigh Jasper as a director. Leigh was appointed to the Board as an Independent Nonexecutive Director in April 2019. The Leigh is Chairman of the Remuneration Committee and a member of the Nomination Committee. Full details of Leigh's experience and qualifications are included in the explanatory notes to the notice of meeting. The Board considerably to be independent and the directors other than we recommend that you vote in favor of his reelection. I will now invite Leigh to address the meeting.

Thank you, Graham. I appreciate the opportunity to speak as I stand for reelection to the Board of one of Australia's great technology companies. By way of background before joining the SEEK Board, I cofounded Aconex construction technology company that became the world's most widely used Internet collaboration platform for construction projects. I led Aconex global growth through its initial public offering in 2014, and then there's a listed company into acquisition by Oracle in 2018 for $1.6 billion. I'm currently the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Firmable, an AI-powered sales intelligence system. Chair of LaunchVic and Chair of venture capital funds, Glitch Capital and SecondQuarter Ventures. Over my time at the SEEK Board, I've been able to bring my experience in technology, including innovation and artificial intelligence, experience in venture capital investment and public company leadership to support the Board and the management team. As Graham mentioned, I am Chair of SEEK's Remuneration Committee and a member of the Nomination Committee. More than ever, I believe that SEEK has significant opportunity to leverage AI to develop new products and provide even more value to our customers, connecting hirers and job seekers more effectively. I think this positions us for strong, long-term sustainable revenue growth through the economic cycle. Thank you for this opportunity to make a few comments, and with your support, I look forward to serving shareholders on the SEEK Board.

Thanks, Leigh. The proxies for this resolution are now displayed on the screen. And we'll now move to any questions. Are there any questions on this item? Mike?

So Mike Robey again from the ASA. Look, we're very happy to have both the candidates for reelection this year, particularly with Leigh's experience in technology, I think it's going to do us well in the future. One of the issues we have with your reports, though, is the we think it's high time to publish a much more detailed skills matrix in its annual report. You did mention your succession process and really anything that shareholders can look at when they're trying to appraise new candidates is what's written in your reports. We can't find very much in the public domain. And I will remind you that APRA, which is our beloved financial regulator, has outlined what the financial sector is required to do in this, and it's much more onerous than anything that's done in the regular market. And that is that they require a matrix, Board skills on one axis and those have to be ones that future facing, the things that basically are going to enable us to succeed in the years to come. And then the names of the directors across the top and then each cell an audited degree of skill that, that particular director has in that area and not self appraised. We don't really buy the idea that you can actually sign your own homework. And that means and that's effectively what's going to be manager in all of the financial sector. And we believe that will percolate down through the rest of the ASX 100. I appreciate that you're probably not going to be here to do this. So this is really targeted to your successor, but we quite like to see a better Board metrics.

Okay. I acknowledge the comment, and we'll take that on Board. Obviously, we do show a skills matrix, which notifies or indicates the skills that we think are most relevant that we're looking for in directors. And what we don't do is identify individually which director has with skill set, but we do show how many have skills in that area. But I acknowledge your comments on the financial sector, and we'll take that on notice. Are there any other questions?

Okay. So we'll move to the next resolution, which relates to the reelection of Linda Kristjanson as a Director. Linda was appointed to the Board as a non-executive director in October 2020. She is a member of the Remuneration and Nomination Committees. Full details of Linda's experience and qualifications are included in the explanatory notes to the meeting. The Board considers Linda to be independent and the directors other than Linda recommend that you vote in favor of her reelection. In Linda's absence, I'm going to have to ask for your -- I'm not quite sure what the word is, but I'm going to pretend to be Linda because she has sent me some words that she would have communicated to you. I'm pleased to stand for reelection to the Board of SEEK -- I know I don't sound like her. We'll stop there. "I have served on the Board for the past 5 years, and I'm a member of the Remuneration Committee and Nominations Committee. SEEK's purpose to help individuals live more fulfilling and productive working lives and help organizations to succeed is a purpose that I'm proud to uphold. I've held senior executive and Board Director roles across a range of sectors, academic, industry and government. I'm currently Chair of the National Stroke Foundation and a non-executive director of Education Australia Limited, education Services Australia Limited and mineral exploration, CRC. I previously served as Chair of the Victorian Cancer Center and Non-executive Director of several technology and science companies, including AAR. Net, the company that operates Australia's academic and research IT network. I chaired Allscope for a decade, the company building geospatial and geoscience infrastructure for Australia. Let me offer some brief comments about SEEK and my contributions. SEEK has a clear long-term focus and is committed to delivering strong shareholder returns. The company is focused and alert to competition pressures, maintaining its lead share in all 10 geographies in which we operate. The company successfully completed its unification project in 2024. My experience in managing complex large-scale digital transformations and change processes has been valuable in monitoring the unification project and the process is needed to capture the value from this transformation. The executive leadership team is energized and working effectively as a high-performing unit. In my 5 years as Board Director, I have been impressed with SEEK's attention to workplace culture, noting an organization with clear processes to deliver on thoughtfully aligned sustainability goals, for example, fair work practices, climate change, modern slavery gender equity, culture diversity and ethical conduct. SEEK welcomes complementary expertise to help navigate competitive pressures, ever-changing policy settings and compliance and reporting requirements. I've appreciated the opportunity to contribute my experiences in governance, leadership, people management and risk mitigation and value the fulsome and open discussions at Board and committees as we actively engage to build value. Thank you for this opportunity to share my background and outline my intent to work on your behalf. I look forward to your support to serving shareholders on the SEEK Board." The proxy for this resolution are now shown on the screen. And we'll now move to any questions that are in relation to this item. Thank you. Let's move to Item 4. Item 4 seeks shareholder and approval in accordance with Rule 10.14 for the -- sorry, Listing Rule 10.14 for the grant of 1 equity right to the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Ian Narev. The proxies for this resolution are now displayed on the screen. The basis for calculation of and the terms of the equity right are set out in the explanatory notes to the notice of meeting. The explanatory notes also outlined Ian's total remuneration opportunity for fiscal year 2026. The directors other than Ian recommend that you vote in favor of this resolution. Now happy to take any questions on this item from the room. Are there any questions on this item?

Mike Rabi again from the ASA. As we've discussed over many years, Mr. Chairman. We have a problem with this particular element, and it may be the reason why you've got a significant against vote. In that, I think it's relatively easy to correct. Again, perhaps your success, I might pick this up. But effectively, this is a short-term incentive without a hurdle and pretty well every other ASX company has a similar structure, but they actually have a hurdle. You have to hit particular height before you can get it. And I'm convinced that you're not overly generous in the way you provide your remuneration report. It's just that this one kind of misses out. So that's my only comment.

Thanks very much. I think I would -- and we have obviously talked about the equity right and the part that, that forms of the total remuneration package previously. I think the vote of 82% in favor in proxies is the 5% ahead of last year. And so I'm leaving on the basis that I think I've convinced more people. Obviously, haven't convinced you yet. But we take your point.

So the resolution for item 4 is it for the purposes of ASX Listing Rule 10.14. Actually, so you read that we can move to item 5. Item 5 on the notice of meeting SEEK's shareholder approval in accordance with Listing Rule 10.14 for the grant of 225,680 Wealth Sharing Plan options. and 90,272 Wealth Sharing Plan rights to our Managing Director and CEO, Ian Narev, the proxy for this resolution are now displayed on the screen. The terms of the Wealth Sharing Plans options and rights are as set out in the explanatory notes to the Notice of Meeting. The directors other than Ian recommend that you vote in favor of this resolution. and I'm happy to take any questions on this item of business. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the formal items on the agenda. The poll will go shortly after conclusion of this meeting. So shareholders have a couple of minutes now to finalize their voting. Please place your voting card in a ballot box as you leave the room. The results of the poll will be announced to the ASX and published on our website after the votes have been counted and checked. Thank you for your continued support of SEEK and for your attendance at the meeting today. I now formally close the Annual General Meeting and invite those of you here in person to join the directors and management team for light refreshments outside. I do note a number of you that I spoke to earlier that complained about the coffee last year. And so you'll find we do have a coffee cart today. So hopefully, we will have achieved that objective. Thank you very much.