Seeka Limited ($SEK)

Welcome, everybody. Welcome to Seeka's Annual General Meeting for the year. My name is Mark Dewdney. I'm the Chairman of Seeka. It's a great pleasure and privilege to be able to welcome you all here today. Before we start the meeting proceedings, I would just like to invite our Kaumatua, Turi Ngatai to step up and welcome everybody with mihi and to set the tone for what I'm sure is going to be a wonderful meeting today. So Turi, thank you.

[Foreign Language] I will translate. To all gathered here at the Annual General Meeting of the Seeka shareholders, to the [Foreign Language], the council, to the Chairman, Mark Dewdney, a big welcome and acknowledgment to all shareholders who have come here. An acknowledgment to the great one who looks after us all. To those who have passed from the beginning of the year to those who tragically passed at Mauao and at Papamoa. We acknowledge them, and not only them, but all those who've lost loved ones over the past year since we've last gathered. We acknowledge them, them to them, we cross the veil to the living and to all of us, a welcome. My prayer, this afternoon, "Cease the winds to the west, Cease the winds that come from the south. Let only the breeze come across the land. And the dawn of a red-tipped light -- the light of the -- that signals the dawn of a bright brilliant day. We can only hope [Foreign Language].

Thank you, Turi, and I sincerely hope, as I know many in this room will that -- your prayer for the strong winds to stop will come to fruition. So look, again, welcome, everybody, and thank you for taking your time today to join our Annual General Meeting. I just want to acknowledge everybody who is here in the room and also acknowledge everybody who is online from wherever you may be. I hope you're all safe and I hope you enjoy today's proceedings. I'd like to make a couple of apologies. We have apologies from Fred and Ann Hutchings. Fred Chairman, as you all know, it was only a year ago that Fred was here giving or leading his last AGM and passing the baton to me. It's -- the year has gone very, very quickly. But I know Fred and Ann would have loved to be here, but a very close friend of [ Fred's ] has recently passed away, and they're down with the family of the friend as they should be in Wellington this week. And Chris Jensen, the Chair of the Seeka Growers, is an apology. Chris has got a good reason. He's harvesting his kiwifruit today, and it's [indiscernible] coming in here. So he's out making sure that, that job is going well. And we have an apology from Neil Craig and Sheryl Tebbutt. Are there any other apologies from anybody in the room?

Malcolm Cartwright.

Malcolm Cartwright, if we could record that. Thank you. Come on in. I'd also like to welcome either in the room or online some of our key business partners. Harmos Horton Lusk, I think, [ Amy ] from Harmos Horton Lusk is with us. Thank you for joining us today. Tompkins Wake were planning to come. I'm not sure we've got anybody from there, but they're a key partner of ours. Our banking syndicate, Westpac New Zealand, Rabobank, ASB, BNZ, and Westpac Australia. Melissa -- Melissa with us. She was talking of coming, but no. But I recognize them. Yasin from our auditor, Grant Thornton. Thank you for coming. And we have received proxies from the New Zealand Shareholders' Association. So again, I would like to just recognize them. For those in the room, can we just make sure that mobile phones are off, please? Nothing worse than a mobile phone beeping when someone's giving their presentations. And in the very rare event that we have an alarm or something go wrong, just make your way out the 2 doors to the front, make your way over to the car park and there will be Seeka representatives there that will just take control of the situation. I doubt that, that will come into being. Nicola has confirmed that the Notice of Meeting has been sent to all eligible shareholders and that we obviously have a quorum, so I will declare the meeting open. Let me quickly introduce your Board, my fellow directors. Hayden Cartwright. On the screen, you'll see the committees that those directors are involved. Hayden will talk later on. He's up for reelection. So he'll be making a specific address. Cecilia Tarrant, also up for reelection, you'll hear from Cecilia later on. Hayley Gourley. Hayley down the end there. Sharon Cresswell, Ratahi Cross and Stewart Moss, who need no introduction, I'm sure, to many. We've received proxies. I've received as the Chair of the meeting just under 12 million proxies. 1 million were received for NZ Shareholders' Association. And Michael is holding at 234,000. I voted my proxies for all of the resolutions and the New Zealand Shareholders' Association has also voted their proxies for the resolutions. And Michael, I'm assuming you will be doing the same. So that's just bringing everyone up to speed there. Let me just cover at a very high level, just as a recap to bring everybody back to why we are here and what our results were. Our business is about connecting sustainable produce to the world. And we have several strengths to our business. We are a grower ourselves from time to time on orchards we own, but primarily on orchards that we lease or manage or have various share arrangements with the owners. Our job is to ensure we grow the best possible fruit that we can on the orchards that we are in control of and that we provide these volumes into our packhouses. The volumes growing on our own orchards underpin a reasonably significant portion of the overall volumes that we process in our post-harvest service. This is still the core of our business. Packing, processing, storing and arranging transportation out to the market. We are a major supplier to Zespri and a significant part of the Zespri on overall supply chain in New Zealand. We -- through our SeekaFresh business, grow, import, store and sell a variety of fruit products that we sell on our own account under our own name in a lot of cases. It's a key part of our business and a business that's growing really nicely. As you know, we have a stand-alone operation in Australia, fully integrated orchard through the market. Kiwifruit being the key kind of product that we grow there and the key part of the future that we see for our Australian business, but supported by a range of other products, nashi, pears, jujube and other things. It's a growing business, and it's a business that we believe is really strategic for the future of Seeka as an integrated produce company. And as you'll see at the bottom, our basket of produce continues to grow and one of our most recent additions was the avocado oil that we have launched under the Luvo brand, still working on getting distribution through mainstream retail in New Zealand. But once you see it the -- please make sure you buy it and tell all your friends to buy it. It's a wonderful product. Isn't it, Jim? Yes, my wife raves on it. What do we need to do to ensure success? First and foremost, stay focused on excellence throughout all of our existing businesses, great people, highly efficient packing, operations and excellent support, services, focused on quality, focused on productivity, focused on cost. And we have delivered really well in all of those areas over the last 12 months. Michael will take us through that in more detail. I won't talk much about the financial performance other than to say it was excellent in all respects. And I'll cover the -- just the key highlights in the next slide. In our post-harvest operation, we run a sophisticated array of packing houses and chilling storage facilities through the country, and we're continually looking at optimizing that. I think the really exciting initiative for us over the last 12 months has been the introduction of Reemoon as a packing line partner, very sophisticated and coming on stream really well. The Board had a meeting at Huka Pak this morning and whilst the line wasn't running at full capacity, we could see that it was really, really good. And then in general, just providing excellence in terms of service to all of the parties who work with us, including many of you in the room today who are our grower partners. Financial highlights. Revenue up 7%. Increased kiwifruit volumes, SeekaFresh up, Australian volumes up, flowing through to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, up 26% on the prior year to $96 million, which take tax off -- well, once you take the depreciation, the interest and the amortization of it comes down to a profit before tax of $47.5 million. That was up 60% on the year before. The earnings of $0.76 per share were up -- up from $0.51. That allowed us to pay $0.30 in total dividends for the earnings that came from last year. That was up 200%, and we've paid $0.25 as you will have just seen. Total assets were up 10% to $605 million, and our net tangible asset packing per share is $6.31. We had a great year, and that is an absolute credit to everybody who works within this business from Michael right through all of his teams here and right through all the teams that support the business throughout New Zealand and Australia and everywhere else. It's humbling to be able to stand up as the Chair of a business that has performed as well as it has and be able to share those results with you as shareholders. We're very, very proud of our team, very happy with what we have achieved. So on that note, I will hand over to Michael and Michael can take us right through all of the detail. After that, we'll do the formal resolutions and have Q&A. Thanks, Michael.

Thanks, Mark. Welcome, everybody. Look, let me start by saying that last year was one out of the box while we can take a lot of credit for the performance we've had in the company, in fact, it was a remarkable growing season. Fruit delivered to the -- and the pack houses was just tremendous. The volumes were great. Quality was excellent. And we managed to do a great job with it. We should deliver a great crop, then we've got the benefit to work with it, and the team did a very good job. And we delivered a superior product to the market on average 4x better quality than the average of the rest. And that's something that we take some pride out of, but it started with us receiving fantastic fruit from our gross right across the board. I would notice that there aren't many growers actually in the room like normally there be heaps, but they are, they are picking at the moment, getting us a whole lot more fruit because we've probably got 40,000 bins lined up on the schedule now for harvest. Thankfully they're there and not here. There'll be more grog for you that are here as a result the drink bill will go down. And so hopefully, we'll see some upside in the budget when we look at the expenditure of this meeting later on. As Mark said, so the material is really easy to work for me. It's good as a lot better than it was 2 or 3 years ago. Companies fought its way back. Profit is up, debt is down, dividends are up. So lots of ticks right across the board and exciting returns and performance for our customers. Revenue of $440 million is up 7%. EBITDA, earnings before interest tax, depreciation and amortization, a surrogate for cash flow at $96 million is up 26%. Our profit before tax up 60%. And at the top end of the range, we had told the market to prepare itself of a profit between $44 million and $48 million. We upgraded at 4 or 5x during the year. It's everything we had. Every wind we faced was at our back. And so we're pleased to do that. Our profit after tax at $32 million, actually up 265% on the recorded number the year before. To remind you, there was a deferred tax adjustment that went through the year before because the government removed the tax deductibility of depreciation on nonresidential buildings. And so that's on the strict number, it's up 265%. If we took that deferred tax adjustment out, up 50%. We'll take it nonetheless. Our return on capital employed at 14.5%. Half the companies in New Zealand would be happy to have that number. And our asset backing this year at $6.31. So yes, a lot to smile about. A lot to fix, a lot to concentrate on, a lot to focus on, but actually lot to be satisfied with those numbers. In terms of the bank debt at $100.3 million, I think the most important thing there is it's down $72 million on 24 months earlier. So we've actually corrected the debt. And at the same time, we've continued to invest. We've invested in critical program maintenance, plant rooms, switchboards and automation right across the company. We have and we are building and have an array of highly automated pack houses. There's more to do there, highly automated local pack houses, close to where the fruit has grown. And so we're pretty happy about that. We've got a 5 bank funding syndicate Westpac New Zealand, Westpac Corporation Australia, ASB, BNZ and Rabobank, which is hitting back into banking renewal at the moment. So we're happy with that. The last of the Northland Orchards was sold last year, I think it was $3.5 million. The leverage ratio, which is a key banking covenant, as calculated by the bank, 1.3:1. So that's a debt-to-EBITDA ratio in case you don't know that. And look, a couple of years ago, it was 12%. So we roll back with a normal long-term covenants. EPS, $0.76 as earnings per share. We paid $0.30 last calendar year, $0.05 of that actually strictly belonged to the year before. It was a hangover. And of course, we paid $0.25 since. So well above the 50% of EPS paid out to shareholders. Our EPS was $0.76. We paid out $0.50 and the attitude of the Board really -- if you weren't going to do it after a profit year, when are you going to do it? We've got the debt down. Shareholders didn't receive dividends through the harder years, deserve to earn more through if we have a good one, so long as the company is in great shape, and it is and it is a great shape even after that dividend. So excellent, happy about that. If I run through the business segments that we've got, of course, our Orcharding business led by Barry Penellum, who's here in the room, I can see him sitting behind [ Peter ]. Really, providing our foundation of fruit to put into our post-harvest engine, occupancy to put into our hotel for fruit, if you think about it that way. So leased -- long-term lease managed orchards and associated services, packing, pruning, thinning, girdling, pollination, all of those work is done by him. 40% of the fruit that we pack, we've got our hands on some way or another. Our 19 million Class 1 kiwifruit trays, we do grow avocados as well. $10.3 million EBITDA is up 66%, also assisted by excellent returns from Zespri. So yes, pretty good performance from the team. Around $76 million in assets. It includes an array of orchards where we have invested with landowners to develop orchards on top of the land. Sometimes in conjunction with the government or in conjunction with [ EV ] or both, the 65 heat is being developed -- in development at the moment up in the [indiscernible] region. And so we've got money invested in that and more orchards in our own right. So that means there's a pipeline of more fruit to come through in the future when those orchards get to full production. In terms of our post-harvest business, it's led by Paul Crone. He's the General Manager and that leads that for us. He's here somewhere as well. I'm sure. Put your hands up, Paul. There he is, sitting behind Barry and Jim. Packed 47.1 million Class 1 trays of kiwifruit, not quite at capacity, but more space, it's up 10%. We also stored some fruit for one of our competitors at OPAC because we had some space to store for them. If you got to think about it at the end of the day, there's a grower at the end of it. So storing the fruit helps them out. $105 million in EBITDA before interest tax depreciation and amortization. Segment assets are just under $400 million. We've got a lot of automation underway and being used in that part of the business. We've got the new Reemoon machines, 2 in Northland, 1 of which is the citrus front end at Orangewood, one of which is a fully integrated machine at Waipapa Road, Kerikeri. And we've also enlightened the piece, purchased and commissioned a machine for Huka Pak. We only placed the order for that on the 1st of September. It was being installed on site on the 7th of December. It has been run now, and it's running to the top end of what we might have ever expected that machine to do with the configuration that we've got there. So really, really remarkable. We're very happy to have partnered with Reemoon there. And so -- and that may give you an insight to what we might do in the future. We are increasingly using our assets beyond kiwifruit. We pack pears, as we pack citrus, we're packing avocados. We pack kiwiberry and although the numbers are another part of our business, we are constantly looking for more contract packing where we can use our plant longer and earn a return for them because it's really got no fixed cost. No incremental investment, and we're doing a lot more the -- and those assets are being used outside the fruit season. So yes, that business set a strong year. But really, because we've got provided with $47.1 million, generally excellent quality fruit to put through our infrastructure. So a great occupancy in the home too. In terms of our retail services business, it's led by both Kate Bryant, who's here, I can see here. Second right behind Hilary and Jim Smith, right here behind Yasin Mohammed, our Audit Manager, would a partner, sorry. So 2 parts of that business, really one part of SeekaFresh, whole market, retail services and export business based in Auckland, and Jim Smith running the Delicious Nutritious Food Company, the DNFC, which we named solely, so I could get tongue-tided when I -- she had describe it to you. $3.2 million in EBITDA, up 24%. We've got great growth in that business. It's got momentum. It doesn't have a lot of assets. If you think about it, $12.6 million in total assets. We pack our kiwiberry there. Kiwiberry is probably the more profitable category for a grower that we handle, but it's tricky. But when we get it right, and generally, we have for the last 5 or 6 years has been an excellent return. And of course, we're working with partners -- partners with the Freshmax around the avocado marketing business. We joined market alongside Freshmax. Effectively, they've got markets for sizes of fruit that we don't have markets for, and we've got markets for sizes of -- that they don't have markets for. So by collaborating and working together, we can get in October return for growth. Last year, we are #1 in terms of avocado returns to growers, but still not high enough. Needs to go up again. Outlook for avocado is actually interesting enough is quite positive in the year we're heading into because it's a very low yielding year in Australia. So we're anticipating it being a slightly better year. During the year, we took corporate action. Is that the right way to put it to firstly make the assets of the previous Olivado business available by pushing them into liquidation -- deservedly so. And then we went and purchased those assets, and Jim Smith has led the introduction of new brand, Luvo. It's taking waste avocados to turn into a high-value avocado oil for marketing. It has had a very positive previous history. We intend to reinstate that as we go -- it will take little bit of time to get it's momentum, but marketing avocado oil and actually manufacturing, bottling and marketing, but also marketing all of oil macadamia or coconut oils, primarily for culinary purposes. You see some of you guys getting carried away before. So that business has gone pretty well. And it's a small part of what we do, but it adds some excitement to the business other than just wrapping [ carbon ] around fruit. In terms of Australia, it's led by John van Popering, really a fully integrated business. Actually quite integrated with what we do here in New Zealand as well because we sell Australia and kiwifruit, and then we go and sell the same customers in New Zealand kiwifruit. We're selling them the same customers New Zealand avocado. So we're selling on New Zealand kiwiberry. We're selling them all sorts of produce we grow in Australia. So actually, we've got a continuing presence in store in Australia actually branded every day of the year. So it's actually quite useful to us in terms of our retail space in Australia. And of course -- that part of our business, $4.7 million EBITDA is up 448%, really improved here initial yields, and great demand for Australian-grown kiwifruit. We've got more orchards to come into production there over the next 2 or 3 years. It's EBITDA $4.78 million in assets. The return looks low, but you have to note that we've got significant investments, and orchards and development that will come on stream in the next 2 or 3 or 4 years. It's a different environment over there. We've just gone through a very hot growing period 9 days in a row over 40, and no rain between November and February. And when I say no rain, I mean 0, none. So it's been a bit challenging in terms of the current growing season. But a lot of excitement of the new varieties, look very, very exciting, particularly those that will grow and do well in that environment. So just in terms of an update where we are at the moment, disparate are forecasting 20 million trays, kiwifruit in the harvest this year, around 83 million trays pack to date. We are forecasting somewhere between 45 million and 47 million trays, slightly down in last year, so the same growing year. Currently, we packed around 18 million trays and in a packing to estimate. Normally, at this time of the year we might expect to be packing behind estimate. So we're packing at estimate at the moment. Whatever happens next, we'll know when we've done it, but truly, we've just been through a storm, so we'll see when we get there. It's a different year with this very unsettled. I don't need to tell you. We haven't had any damage to sites from the last cyclone. We did put an elude out to all of our sites to please hunker down, check drains, check gutters, put material that might fly around away. So actually well prepared. So no damage at all to site. We have had some orchards that suppliers have damaged in the orchards with artificial shoulders go down, trees down and things like that. And while that might be an issue for those few, which is generally I can think we can say the industry has got away with it. Any marking to fruit might show up another week or so. Weather is now a key factor in our harvest. And we are -- whilst safety will dictate, we are maximizing every opportunity we have to harvest when we get that opportunity. That is the game we're following every canopy, filling every line to get going. We're pretty happy how that new technology is running for us in terms of those sites. And so that's -- we're reasonably focused at the moment. The international fuel situation is a matter that we've dealt with. Proactively, we went to transport operators and put in place a fuel adjustment factor, which is referred to as a FAF. Our teams are looking at what's happening with the pricing of fuel every week and then talking to our transport operators and inviting us to bill us an increase each week based on the formula of what we've seen the week before, which is a fair and sensible way to do it, and we've had no negative feedback from our transport operators. In fact, they've been quite complementary that we proactively have gone to them and them not necessarily need to come to us. So team has done a good job in doing that. But of course, the cost is going to be paid by someone. And those instances for bin transport that's going to be passed back to growers. But in a number of cases, we have to absorb some costs, cost of transport for RSE workers, cost of fuel, where we are the picker. So there will be some impact to us. But look, it's not a significant number. Automation projects have commissioned wells, I keep saying to you. We are developing or have developed or in the process of developing. One of those statements is right, an array of highly lined local pack houses, available to pack our growers fruit when they need it packed into cold storage and to put it into the market. We conventionally handle all of our fruit, controlled atmosphere storage for us as a backup a contingency plan, not a requirement. We haven't needed to do it for the last 3 or 4 years, and we don't think we're going to need to do it this year either, by the way. And we can say with some certainty and able to prove it that our fruit quality in the market is much better than the average. In terms of Australia, it's been a hot year. We are midway through harvest over the year 2. The market is electric, where the fruit is going out as fast as we can pick it, pack it and dispatch it. It's an incredible market at the moment, and we're pretty excited by the pricing and the returns that we're getting, but the volumes are down because it's hot, Hayward, Green Key, if we does most of, it's growing after Christmas, and that's coincided when the heats come on site, the growth rate slow down. So we'll work through that when we understand more about what that means. But Australia is a smaller part of our business compared to the New Zealand business components, particularly in our post-harvest business. Now SeekaFresh wholesale markets business has gone well. The banana category, which you may not know, but we're bringing in 7 or 8 containers of bananas a week, every single week has gone very well. We've got good customer response, good demand and good pricing. Margins have gone well in that business, and under Kate's stewardship along with Aaron Leslie in Auckland, that business continues to build momentum, albeit off a small base, but they're doing really tremendously well. Good customer demand really from our retail customers. So that's the update for me, and I'll hand you back -- we've got a video. We're going to show you a video use to stay there for a minute longer, Mark. This is a little bit of video. So you haven't been to see oil packing equipment here it comes. You don't have to push it again. So this is Huka Pak. This is a camera grading going through. We're actually -- it's excellent really. It's going across the presize. In the background, you can see the Class II grade for both the MAF machine and the Reemoon, just a few grading tables here. There was 12 or 14 grading tables there before over 30 people standing then. Now there's something like 6 coming through onto the size itself, running up onto the size and then down and going into the parking stations. Next year, those arms will be gone. We have automated packing there. But because we placed the order late, we didn't put that in place this year, we couldn't get it done. This is as a normal trade prep boxes going under the machine across to the other side to get freight put into it. And so most of these arms next year will be gone and be replaced with highly automated packing. So just for the moment, that is picking SunGold organic fruit for this spring, and the sizing going to be stacked. Then, of course, we've got our Northland installation. This video is courtesy of Reemoon. This is the in feed. You can see the bins going in and across and getting tipped on the traditional bin tip. Then, of course, we've got the robot doing exactly the same thing bin by bin, actually tipping the fruit onto the infeed automatically less moving parts, 40 bins a minute. Bags been inserted into boxes, no humans there. Thankfully, it's working. I wouldn't want a video to go when it's not. Box is going through, getting label to -- so it's barcoded, and then pushed under the machine for tray prep, no people. So this is a completely automated packaging infeed. The boxes are coming and [ cab ] was coming in flat. First being put into the box is going down, getting closed and automatically coming down to the stacking station. No humans. And so -- in that site, they normally 105 to 110 people now running at less than 60. And in this regional where it's hard to get people to turn up to work, particularly in night shifts, automation like that, we are actually reducing. The requirement for people actually is very good. But of course, we've got more volume coming in Northland, we're going to need 4 shifts to run there. So there's still the same number of jobs. In fact, there might be more, but we're handling a lot -- we're intending to handle a lot more volume in that region as those orchards and production come on stream. We've invested ahead of the volume that we know is coming. So that's a little bit of insight to some of the automation we talked about an array of highly automated local pack houses, including here in, Te Puke, that's what we're talking about. Mark, back to you.

Thanks, Michael. That was a fantastic overview. And as videos are very cool, don't they even call a when you there. Seeing them in person. We'll have opportunities for questions about any aspects of the business at the end of the formal proceedings, which I will take us into now. So we've got 3 resolutions to put to the meeting this year. They were outlined in the Notice of Meeting. For each resolution, I will introduce it and there will be an opportunity for questions from shareholders in the room or online. For good order, can you please ensure that any questions on the resolutions are focused on the resolution. There will be opportunities at the end for general questions on any other aspects. But please just focus on the resolution at the time that it has been discussed. We'll have a poll on each of the resolutions. Shareholders in the room should have received voting cards on arrival. If you haven't registered and haven't got a card and wish to vote, please just make your way back out to the desk outside the door and the team there will assist you with your cards. And then please vote as and when you're ready and then hand those back at the end of the meeting. For those online, you'll be able to cast your vote using the electronic voting card that was received when your online registration was validated. So you'll need to vote, you'll need to click on "Get the Voting Card" within the online meeting platform. You'll be asked to into your shareholder or proxy number to validate that. And then please mark your voting card in the way you wish by voting for, against or abstain against each resolution on the card. And then once you've chosen this is for people online, pre submit vote and that will be your vote. Voting will remain open until 5 minutes after the conclusion of the meeting and the results of each of the resolutions will be posted on the NZX a little bit later on. Again, each resolution that was set out in the notice of meeting as an ordinary resolution and as such, needs to be approved by a simple majority of the votes cast by the shareholders who are entitled to vote and who do. And then the outcome of the proxy votes will be displayed for your information after the voting, but I basically told you that at the start. So moving to Resolution #1. Resolution #1 is the election of Hayden Cartwright and the matter here is to consider and if thought fit pass the following as an ordinary resolution that Hayden Cartwright be reelected as a director. The board unanimously supports and recommends Hayden for reelection. So I'll invite Hayden up and at the end of Hayden's address, opportunity to ask him any questions that anybody wishes. Thanks, Hayden.

Thank you, Mark. [Foreign Language] Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Hayden Cartwright. I've had the privilege of serving on the Seeka Board for the past 3 years. I'm seeking your support for reelection. I'm an engineer by background with many years in the oil and gas industry before moving back to my roots here in kiwifruit 5 years ago. While the sectors differ, the fundamentals are the same. Discipline, safety, efficiency and a focus on long-term value. I believe my engineering perspective complements the strong and diverse capability on this Board. It's about bringing a practical problem-solving approach to complex challenges and ensuring we make sound, well-informed decisions. Importantly, I believe this board works very well together and that cohesion is a real strength. Over the past 3 years, I've focused on contributing to operational performance, risk management and strategy. Importantly, we've returned to dividends for shareholders. Reflecting the resilience and the discipline of this business. At the same time, we have returned to delivering excellence for our growers. Their success is critical to Seeka's success and strong execution and service is the cornerstone of this business. Looking ahead, we face an environment that continues to evolve, whether through market conditions, climate or increasing expectations. I believe my background and experience position me well to help this Board navigate this, focusing on shareholder returns with outstanding outcomes for growers. If reelected, my commitment is to keep driving progress, ensuring Seeka remains resilient, forward thinking, and well positioned for growth. I'll continue to listen, to challenge constructively and to support management and my fellow directors making well-informed decisions for our shareholders, growers and the community. [Foreign Language]

Thank you, Hayden. Are there any questions that anybody would like to ask Hayden at this point? Nothing online. Well done, Hayden. Okay. Second resolution, same thing, but for Cecilia Tarrant. Cecilia is retiring by rotation and is standing for reelection. The Board, again, supports unanimously and recommends Cecilia's reappointment as a Director. And Cecilia, just to invite you up to say a few words. Thank you.

[Foreign Language] Thank you, Mark. I am very pleased to be speaking to you today. This is the third and final time that I will stand for reelection. Over the past 9 years, it has been a privilege and a pleasure to serve on this Board. I am seeking reelection for a further term because I believe that I have a good mix of experience and independence, which means I can make a strong contribution to the Board in this final term. I continue as a professional director to serve on a number of other boards, which provide me with both perspectives and experience that I'm able to bring to the board table here. I am very proud of what the company with the direction of the Board has achieved since my last election in 2023. The company has weathered the storms, both figuratively and increasingly now literally. I am proud too of the work of the Sustainability Committee which I Chair. As I've said to you in the past, sustainability is not simply about the environment, although it is an important part, particularly with the increasingly volatile weather conditions we are all having to deal with. A number of actions have been taken to reduce Seeka's carbon footprint, which also have positive economic impacts. My priority remains delivering sustainable value for shareholders and acting in the best interest of all our stakeholders, which in turn will produce the highest value for our shareholders. Mark and Michael have reviewed for us the stellar results achieved by the company over the past year. I would like to add my congratulations to Michael and his management team and all the people of Seeka including our growers who have been part of producing these results. I believe my experience combined with my energy and enthusiasm for Seeka and its business make me well placed to contribute in this final term. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my fellow directors, both past and present, and Michael and his management team for their support. Thank you for listening to me, and I respectfully ask for your support of my election. [Foreign Language]

Thank you, Cecilia. We just lost the video, but you have a crack at that and we'll carry on. Are there any questions that anybody would like to ask Cecilia, either in the room or online? Nothing online? Fantastic. And look, I would just like to add personally that Cecilia and Hayden, the great directors, they do a fantastic job for you guys as shareholders. I really enjoy working with them both. And they bring great perspectives and contribute really well around the Board table. So it's a pleasure working with you both. Resolution #3, standard annual resolution regarding the appointment and the remuneration of our auditors, and I'll just read the resolution. It's to record the reappointment of Grant Thornton as auditor of the company and to authorize the directors to fix the remuneration and expenses of the auditor for the coming year. So they will be automatically reappointed under the Company's Act and then the resolution authorizes us to fix the fees. That is the third resolution. Right. So to finish up, we'll go to general business. So I'll open up, Michael, do you want to run this section because I assume that the majority of questions will come for you. If there are any specific questions regarding governance or the Board or questions of me as Chair, I am more than happy to take those. So we'll kind of tag team. But are there any questions? And for questions, if you could put your hand up, a microphone will be given to you. If you could state your name and then ask your question clearly into the microphone. So questions? Ratahi? Well, you can ask any question.

It's more of a statement. I'm not talking as a director. I'm talking as a long-time grower, Ratahi Cross, Ngai Tukairangi Trust. I just want to talk about just briefly, I've got the headache that we had since Gabriel and we were now as growers. And I guess every other grower here would feel the same way. It is really, really amazing to hear the recovery, the success of Seeka. Very, very proud of this company. That's ours. And very, very grateful for you guys, management team over in that corner, especially you're youthful. I've seen a lot of faces have gone, and you're there and you're doing the business. And as a grower, I'm grateful for what you have done for us. It's been excellent exciting result. Thank you, Michael.

Thank you, Ratahi. Really well put and received. Are there other questions? Nic, do we have question online?

Yes. We've got 3 questions here from -- from [ Ian Yingling ]. So Ian firstly asks which says, hello, congratulations, everyone, on the excellent year. Was Zespri's aspirations for additional growth? How will Seeka support this? And are there any areas where Seeka is intending or planning to grow the business?

I can feel that anvil sort of just above my head, waiting to fall. Well, you all know that Zespri have announced, which rather surprisingly quite ambitious growth plans for the industry. And so the question is really what is our response to that? I think the attitude of the company, perhaps the board and management is that we will invest where we can see that we can make appropriate returns for the risk and the money that we showed on behalf of shareholders. And so if we can see that there is a return for you, our shareholders and taking capacity beyond where it is today, and we can justify that and those returns to the Board, and we will take those investment decisions and cases to the Board to support that kind of growth. And if we can't see that, then it would be responsible for us and we won't. And so I think we're kind of excited, whole lot more varieties coming, a whole lot more orchards coming. And if we can see a way for us to support our growers and in particular, our shareholders by investing your money in those kind of investments to make you an adequate return, we will.

Thank you. Ian also asks, are you able to give any idea of the impact to revenue to Australia due to the whether they're having over there?

It's too early for us to do that funny enough. We know that the volumes of kiwifruit will be down. We expect it. And because the size profile is smaller. The reason why we're waiving a little bit is because we are a mid harvest. We're not through yet. We're anticipating what we've got to happen next. And funny enough, in Australia, we make more money at a small-sized fruit than we do out of big. We're adding value to that fruit. We're palletizing it. We're prepacking it, and we're seeing it off to the market at the rate of somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 pallets a day. We've actually got no fruit in store. It has been harvested, packed and dispatched daily down to stock of 0. And so we can't quite work out at the moment, what we've got in front of us, so we can't quite work out the revenue. It's just -- we just know that we've got a volume reduction at the moment for anticipating it.

Finally, Ian is asking about the Luva brand and our expectations of that. Are we looking to have it available in certain markets across New Zealand and Australia?

It's been retailed now and some retailers like the banana have got it in various stores and we've got it pushed out to retail. You can also go to luvo.co.nz -- luvooil.co.nz. I'm scared to actually say that to the growers and shareholders in front of me, it's luvooil.co.nz. And order it online, I can see someone's blushing. But I can assure you it's for culinary purposes unless you want to turn green.

There are no further questions on line.

Well done, Michael. And I said earlier that my wife really loves the Luva oil, but so far, she's only cooked with it. Look, let me just also reinforce Michael's answer to the first question from the Board's perspective, our view would be absolutely the same. Any decisions to invest more capital in processing as indeed within anything will need to be business case based. And, justified based on returns for shareholders. Thank you, Mick. Another question.

Yes. I've got a question from [ Kevin Asko ]. So Kevin says, are you able to comment on the current capacity percentage of packhouses? And to what maximum level of fruit could you pack based on the mix of kiwifruit?

Well, it's kind of not my place to comment on other companies other than ourselves, I would just start there. As I said, we conventionally packed fruit for rather than put into CA although we've got some CA capacity. The capacity number itself actually isn't an easy number to calculate because it actually depends upon shipping volumes in and volumes out. And when you get fruit coming in and when it goes out as to when you're actually full. And of course, when you are full, funny enough, you can slow your packing down, so you live fruit out, so you can put fruit back and again and turn it over. And so the number, if you listen to pool, it's a different number than when you listen to me, but it's probably between 48 million and 52 million to 53 million trays, depending upon the shipping season and how that all plays out. We were not at capacity last year, and we did store a reasonable amount of fruit for a competitor on a commercial basis, and that was at 47.1. And we were slowing down last year.

No more. Okay, we've one in the room.

I do have a question or comment to start with, firstly, and that is to simply offer my congratulations to the Board and the Chief Executive for doing a fantastic job. And for giving me such a pleasure this morning when I opened up my bank account. But I am interested in the fact that Seeka has reduced its debt enormously over the past 2 years. I think the figure that I probably noted down is $72 million over the past 24 months. Now I guess the question is, does Seeka sort of continue to go with that kind of momentum? And if it does, the debt will be clear by, my estimation, in another 3 or 4 years and as a shareholder, I'm looking kind of forward to getting all that money. That's...

That's the question, okay. So that's -- I think it's more of an observation. But yes, look, we have -- it was important for the business to reduce its debt levels. And as Michael outlined, the company focused on that while focusing on ensuring that it could grow capacity within the boundaries of its existing capital footprint. And that's been successfully delivered. Now the question of future levels of debt really start with the strategy. The company has a strategy to grow and diversify and increase earnings and resilience of earnings over a series of initiatives. And some of those initiatives may well require us to invest a lot of capital, and we're working on those plans at the moment through Michael and his teams. Any decision to invest capital will need to be based on commercial returns. And that will include returns on capital and ability to pay down any debt that might come as part of the capital expansion program. So it's -- you would not say that we will continue to just pay down debt as we have and get to zero. We run sort of metrics within the business of the amount of debt that we are comfortable having relative to the amount of cash earnings that we are generating. And that sits in kind of a range of 1, 1.5-ish in normal times, and then it varies depending on where we are in the investment cycle. So we would not say our target is not to get to 0 debt. Our target is to continue to deliver on our strategy, invest where it makes commercial sense and run a balance sheet that's resilient and able to handle shocks if and as they occur. So that would be kind of my view. Michael, do you want to add?

I might make one other comment, if I might, being a shareholder, too. The company has thankfully had a reasonably strong recovery in its share price as well as paying dividends, reflective of its performance, debt and dividends, I think. Perhaps one thing that we could tell you is that we're knocking on the door ANZ 50, and which would be quite a positive thing for the business. And we would have thought that 2 years ago or 3 years ago, we would get him. We actually if it was done today, if Standard & Poor's did it today, we would be in. And so the next review date or 20th of June. And so we may or may not get in there, but we're right on the doorstep, which is -- if you think about life, that's quite remarkable for where this company has come from.

Nothing else online, Nic? Are there any other questions in the room? No, I think that's done. Just a couple of final observations. It was kind of 16 months ago that Fred Hutchings reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in being considered as a director on the Board of Seeka, and I was delighted to have the opportunity to join this company as a director and get involved in the kiwifruit industry, which I'd always observed from the outside and my other sort of industry or agricultural roles and when Fred retired at the AGM last year and direct disaster if was willing to take on the chair role. I was again very, very delighted to be able to have the opportunity to play that role in this business a year in, I'm really, really loving it. I think this is such a great business and the strategy that we have put together in the business that Michael, his teams, directors before us have put together, and has a lot of very unique strength. I think our regional -- our regional footprint relative to a number of competitors is a huge advantage for us. The fact that we have a number of operating sites gives us resilience, which I think will, over time, prove to be a real unique competitive advantage and also a really important security aspect. We are looking to diversify our business beyond core kiwifruit packing, processing and storing. We understand, as everyone does, cyclicality and volatility and so being able to diversify sensibly, we'll protect the business and we'll make it gain more resilient for shareholders. I think all of those things are good. Mostly though, I've been really impressed with the people who work for this business from Michael right through his teams and right through the business. We have a wonderful group of people. They are committed. They're passionate. You walk around, you meet them. They love what they're doing and they're very good at it. And businesses -- all businesses have lots of assets, but in my experience, the most valuable asset, any business has other people that work in the business, and we truly have a great team. And I hope that tonight as you get an opportunity to spend time with some of the staff you have the chance to get to know them a little better and to thank them for the roles that they are playing. But I would just like to recognize each and every member of the Seeka team at the end of today's AGM. Right. That finishes the meeting. Again, thank you for coming. If you haven't voted, you've got 5 minutes. And if you have voted, then the bar is open. [Voting]

And we'll just finish up again with Turi Ngatai to reflect on our meeting today and to close it for us. Thank you.

[Foreign Language] The family of Seeka inside this room, online. It's been a great year. It's been a lot of money. It's been a lot of happiness. May the grace of the great one, the spirit in the love of the great one be with us all as we enjoy fellowship of one another. Have a great evening. May all the food and the other stuff we're about to imbibe in, may we enjoy it all. And don't forget, get home safely.