SkyCity Entertainment Group Limited (SKC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Foreign Language] Let us pray. [Foreign Language] Just to quickly translate, to open our -- open your hui with a karakia and a prayer, and secondly to support your gathering today, on behalf of our elders who were here at the very beginning, the turning of the soil for this big tower we call Sky Tower. So we've come to support and follow in their footsteps to help you in your hui today, your AGM. And therefore, on their behalf, we say [Foreign Language]. Have a good hui. Kia ora. [Presentation]

Loosely translated, all of us who are gathered alongside us, the people from [Foreign Language]

Thank you, Marama, Monique and Wyllis, for your warm welcome. Marama here is a trustee of the SKYCITY Auckland Community Trust and Chair of the Ngati Whatua Orakei Trust. And together with Monique and Wyllis, they've spoken about the whenua of the land that the SKYCITY Auckland precinct sits on and the importance of this whenua to Ngati Whatua Orakei. Kia ora [Foreign Language] Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Rob Campbell, the Chair of SKYCITY, and it is my pleasure to welcome shareholders to the 2020 SKYCITY Annual Meeting. The video that played at the start of this meeting depicts a variety of images of the Sky Tower from various locations around Auckland and people's responses and connections with this iconic landmark and whenua, which has formed part of the Auckland skyline since 1997, particularly meaningful in the context of the current COVID-19 environment and all of its uncertainties. Thank you for joining us online today for our first virtual annual meeting. Instructions on how to participate virtually are set out in the Virtual Meeting Guide previously sent to shareholders. Moving to the order of business for today. I declare the 26th Annual Meeting of SKYCITY open and confirm that the meeting has been duly convened with a quorum present. Shareholders can view the presentations today, ask questions and vote on the resolutions to be put to shareholders on their selected devices. Audio will stream through your selected device. So please ensure that the volume control on your headphones or device is turned up. Questions can be submitted at any time. [Operator Instructions] Please note that while you can submit questions from now, I will not address them until a relevant time in the meeting. Please also note that your questions may be moderated or, if we receive multiple questions on one topic, amalgamated together. Due to time constraints, we may not be able to answer all of your questions within the meeting. Voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business. In order to provide you with enough time to vote, I will shortly open voting for all resolutions. At that time, if you are eligible to vote at this meeting, a polling icon will appear on your device. Select this icon to bring up the list of resolutions and your voting options. To cast your vote, simply select one of the options. There is no need to hit a submit or send or enter button as vote is automatically recorded. You have the ability to change your vote up until the time I declare voting closed. I now declare voting open on all items of business. The polling icon will soon appear on your device if you are eligible to vote at the meeting. Please submit your votes at any time. I will give a warning before I move to close voting. Finally, in the event you experience any technological issues today, a recording of today's meeting will also be available on the company's website following the meeting. The minutes of the 2019 SKYCITY Annual Meeting held on 18 October last year have been posted on the company's website and are held by the company secretary. These minutes are available for inspection by any shareholder should they wish to do so. I will now introduce the SKYCITY Board and management in attendance. Due to ongoing international border restrictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, our Australian-based directors, Deputy Chair Bruce Carter and Director Jennifer Owen, join this meeting today from Adelaide and Sydney, respectively. In attendance with me today at SKYCITY Auckland are, to my left, Graeme Stephens, SKYCITY's Chief Executive Officer; next to him, Directors Sue Suckling and Murray Jordan; and Jo Wong, SKYCITY's General Counsel and Company Secretary. Also in attendance in the room but off-camera are Rob Hamilton, SKYCITY's Chief Financial Officer; Michael Ahearne, SKYCITY's Chief Operating Officer; and Richard Day, our lead audit partner from PricewaterhouseCoopers. The business of the meeting today is as set out in the Notice of Meeting. First, I will present my Chair's address. SKYCITY's Chief Executive Officer, Graeme Stephens, will then summarize SKYCITY's performance during the past financial year and provide an update on current trading. My address and the Chief Executive Officer's address have been prerecorded to ensure sound and picture quality. These addresses will then be followed by a video presentation showcasing the SKYCITY properties and the highlights across the business over the past financial year. Bruce Carter will then briefly summarize the activity of the Board's Audit and Risk Committee and the Adelaide Subcommittee, which he also chairs over the past financial year. A general question-and-answer session will then follow on matters relating to the management and operations of the company. We will then move to the 5 previously notified resolutions for consideration by the meeting, including any questions and discussion in respect of those resolutions. Turning now to my address and the Chief Executive Officer's address. This has been a challenging year for SKYCITY. Our annual report and Graeme Stephens' comments today summarize the events, our responses and the measured outcomes for the business. In the opening of this meeting, I simply want to make some brief comments about SKYCITY and our prospects. We are a gambling and entertainment business. Every dollar of revenue we make comes from a discretionary decision to spend by our customers. There's always another location they can choose to spend that, be it physical or virtual, even where we have a local monopoly for land-based casino play. I draw 2 conclusions from this, both about people. One, we will not succeed unless we offer quality and variety to customers, experiences they want to have at the time, form, price and safety they expect. So we must pay constant attention to each of these and be enthused and motivated people who share those goals and expectations. Two, we have to pay equal attention to the people who fund, supply, review and regulate our activity. These may be called stakeholders or simply our community, but together, they are the reason why we're here. They all have claims, rights and expectations on us. The Board and management do not make decisions in a vacuum or on a screen or spreadsheet. We make them in the context of all of this incredible range of people in which no single part can take dominance or the whole can fail. For investors in our shares, I think that this holistic view is well recognized. In all of my conversations with you, I hear this and I believe that the expectations which you have are that we will responsibly manage these broad interests and provide to you as a group, first, careful allocation and management of the capital which you provide to protect and grow its value over time; and second, an income flow from net capital, which is reliable and consistent with cash returns from comparable shares. We have not always been able to meet these expectations. There have been past capital allocations which have had substantial negative outcomes. It is an ever-present focus of the Board that these must not be repeated. Dividend returns have been a stronger feature, but recent events have disrupted that for the present and it's a very strong objective to return to that positive reliability as soon as we are able. We are not yet out of the pandemic economy. My expectation is that elements of social distancing, travel restriction, and enhanced safety and health procedures will form an ongoing part of our operating environment. We are substantially adapting our business model to reflect the conditions we face, not a return to the past. We're confident that with skill, care and adaptability, our core business model will meet the investor expectations I've described, but it will not happen quickly or easily. Your Board, management and staff are excited about the challenge.

Hi, everyone. What an incredibly challenging year it's been since we were addressing at last year's AGM. Little did we know that about a week later, the Convention Centre would go up in fire and we'd have to close the property down for the first time in its history. And at the time, we could hardly expect to be closing it 2 more times in the next few months, but that's the year we've had. It started off fairly well, first quarter to the end of September. We were well on track for a record across the group. The fire came, obviously stopped Auckland in its tracks. It took us a little while to get the business back up on its feet, but we were going really well again by Jan, Feb and then we all know what came next with the COVID pandemic hitting New Zealand as it's done right across the world, in our case lockdown fast and properly and shut down for a period of time, within which we had to really think hard about what business we were going to need to address the likely market that we were going to open to, if and when open. A lot of strategizing between the executive and the Board and it led to some major strategic decisions. We had to restructure the business from an employee point of view, and we said goodbye to about 25% of the workforce. And that included salaried people, 200 salaried people, 700 waged people right across the board, an enormous strategic decision to position the business as a smaller, domestically focused business when it were -- when it would reopen. And at that point, we didn't even know when that would be. So we restructured, downsized it. We also had to recapitalize it. We had to preserve existing debt facilities and raised new debt facilities and in the process had to raise extra equity. And I'd like to extend my thanks to all shareholders for the support that we got during the equity raise. We're really happy with where we came out, the mix of debt and equity, and we completed that equity raise at the end of June. By that time, we were open again initially in restricted trading conditions. And probably worth noting that SKYCITY was one of the first casinos in the world to reopen. And the health and safety, social distancing protocols were created by the team here at SKYCITY and have been adopted by the rest of the world. So an interesting aspect to the industry to find ourselves leading but we did and led well. So we opened into restricted conditions. Fortunately, New Zealand has really performed extremely well on a global stage, and we were able to move to unrestricted conditions for July and going into August. And our business came back really strongly. We were really pleased with the resilience shown, the way our customers came back. And thank you to all of our customers out there. The business got back up on its feet pretty rapidly and was building a bit of momentum when the second lockdown occurred here in New Zealand. And maybe as an observation, the second lockdown alone cost us $20 million of cost and lost opportunity here in Auckland. And the first lockdown, perhaps stating the obvious, we ran at a loss. The time we were closed created a loss for the second half of the year. Fortunately, we had things like wage subsidies to help us through. And a big thank you to the New Zealand government for the assistance given to big corporates. It certainly enabled us to keep hundreds of people on our payroll for longer than we would otherwise have been able to. And hundreds of those have got jobs today because we could sustain them through to a point where we reopened. Very pleased to say that we are back at Level 1 now post the second lockdown and our business has remained resilient. Hamilton, Queenstown, not subject to the same restrictions as Auckland, have continued to trade really well. And we're in a position where I think we can now -- we've addressed the big issues that had to be done, the restructuring, the recapitalization. And we're in a good position to sustain what we still expect lies ahead of us. We don't, for a minute, think we are through the COVID crisis. We have provided, with our balance sheet raise, sufficient liquidity to sustain 1 or 2 further lockdowns. We don't believe the international business is coming back to New Zealand for at least a year or so ahead. We are hopeful international borders will reopen at some point in the year ahead, but it's really only 2022 that we expect to be back up at full strength. So we provided for a situation with this further downside. We know the business is resilient. We've done the major restructure we have to, and we feel well positioned to ride out what lies ahead of us in a smaller, domestically focused world. In Adelaide, we were also forced to lock down and then reopen with restricted conditions and have had similar experiences in Adelaide with our domestic business coming back quite strongly. Adelaide is challenged by the fact that it is still and has been a construction site for some time now. But that is a story that's nearing end now, and we're getting very excited about what's happening in Adelaide. More of that shortly. Turning now to some of the strategic initiatives in the year gone by. Let's start with the online business, the online casino business we launched in August of 2019. And at the time of launch, our plan was to try and break even in its first year. With the lockdown, clearly, everyone had to go online for entertainment. And our online casino business benefited significantly from that, a lot of people signing up to date, about 25,000 customers active as at 30 September, and the business is profitable, well above any expectation we had. It's becoming a meaningful business for us. We continue to work really closely with the regulator in New Zealand. And our objective is a medium- to long-term objective to be regulated in both online and land-based in New Zealand, so really good momentum with that particular strategy. The other big strategy here in New Zealand is the Convention Centre, and it took a little while post the fire to get going and clean the site up. That is now nearly behind us, a lot of the deconstruction work done and plans coming together to start rebuilding it. It looks like we can expect to get the hotel, the Horizon Hotel, at some point in 2021 and the Convention Centre at some point in 2023, working constructively with Fletchers and starting to feel more positive about the fact that the rebuild is about to commence. On a really positive note, in Adelaide, across the Tasman, the Adelaide expansion now near complete, literally weeks away from completion and weeks away from opening. And it's really exciting to have that project come together. The new expansion, looking exactly like it was meant to, a marvelous piece of architecture around a riverfront. And the old heritage building also had a lot of love and a lot of refurbishment inside. So the 2 complement each other really well. We've been able to attract top talent as we get into the preopening phase. We're all just really excited that by the end of this year, we'll be up and running and trading in a project that's been promised for some years. So really good to get that one to the finish line of construction, the start line of operation. Elsewhere, in our strategic world back in Auckland, we've moved ahead with some smaller but important initiatives to refurbish our VIP gaming spaces, Level 8 and Level 9 here in Auckland. And we've got some exciting developments on the main gaming floor, new bar, new food court. We think these developments which we pushed ahead with during lockdown, while the casino was closed anyway, we were able to continue some construction. And we did so knowing that we would want our customers to return to new entertainment facilities, to be surprised and delighted by what we've managed to create during the lockdown. And that's now coming to reality. Not too many months away, Weta and the All Blacks will open, and that's another great reason to come visit us here in Auckland. In Hamilton, just down the road, we had advanced plans for development in Hamilton; and in Queenstown similarly have plans to invest further into Queenstown. In the situation we are now, with the uncertainty still ahead of us with COVID, those big investment plans just on hold, we're going to take a breath and evaluate the world we're in for the next year or 2. And at some point in the future, we'd like to see us moving ahead with investment into both Hamilton and Queenstown. Clearly, at an AGM, there's a necessary focus on a year gone by and the profit made in that year. But we put a huge amount of emphasis at SKYCITY on our social license to operate and looking at the medium and long term to make sure we're in business and continue to generate annual profit. We look at our sustainability framework in a few different pillars. First and foremost, our customers, it's the most important thing to any business. And when it comes to our customers, we are most focused on not causing harm to our customers. Given the fact we're in the casino industry, we're acutely aware of the potential to cause harm. And I'm very pleased that we've made great strides in the year gone by to implement technology, facial recognition, new algorithms, mechanisms to know if people have played for too long. We've really upped our game with technology and are an even safer place for our customers to come and visit. We've also worked on our customer experience strategies, our CRM systems. And those are systems that will start to produce results in a year or 2 from now, work in progress. Outside of our customers, we also have a strong focus on our people. Without our people, we are nothing. People -- our customers come to us to give us the most valuable thing that they have, their leisure time, and they will only keep returning if they have a great experience when they visit. And it's our people that interface with them that provide that experience. Enormous amount of focus on them in a year where we've had to restructure and say goodbye to 25% of the workforce. So rebuilding culture is getting a lot of attention and making sure that we address mental health issues in an environment where everybody is dealing with uncertainty. We're acutely aware of that. Everyone has been negatively impacted. We feel fortunate that we're in a business that is resilient, has position for the future, and we can give our staff the assurance that they're working for a place where they can expect to have a job. And that's a fundamental start to mental health and well-being, which is going to be a real focus for us in the year ahead. The communities around us, again, very aware of the fact that people are battling in our communities more so than usual, small businesses and individuals. So trying to do what we can there. We have realigned the Community Trust in the year gone by, and we have a much sharper focus on creating pathways to employment at SKYCITY. And we're a business that still employs thousands and can take everyone from school leavers to graduates, and we can offer anyone joining us a lifetime career. So lots of different disciplines and skills, real focus to create pathways to employment and address an urgent need in New Zealand. So that -- we're getting some real traction with the Community Trust focused. Outside of that, what we've learned during COVID is people can work from home, workplace flexibility being upweighted so that we don't just return to old habits when we reopen, and some good progress in workplace flexibility. Gender pay gap has narrowed in the year gone by. And a real focus on getting greater representation of women in more senior roles. We have a workforce that's fairly evenly split, male, female. We need to increase representation of women in our more senior roles. Outside of our communities and, in fact, ideally within our communities are our suppliers, another real focus for us and sourcing ethically, sourcing locally, getting some real momentum into strategies that are going to benefit suppliers that are closer to home and clearly make sure that we source ethically. And then the pillar that we got a lot of traction on last year, and we've kept that momentum up, is in the environmental space. We went carbon-neutral in New Zealand in FY '19. And we went ahead and went neutral across the group, including Adelaide at FY '20. That's a commitment made that we followed through on. And we've also got some really nice ideas coming out of the Green Fund we created, where our staff have contributed some meaningful opportunities to reduce our carbon footprint, so upping our game as we all need to in the environmental space. And then we have introduced a pillar, which was absent, a sixth pillar. And through the lockdown, we realized just how important it is to stay open and be profitable. So we've introduced a pillar to recognize our shareholders and essentially the fact that we need to be in business and open and profitable before we can do anything on the other 5 pillars, so a new pillar recognizing the very basic need to be in business, open and sustainable and profitable and cash positive, lessons learned in the year gone by. In closing and looking at the 9 months ahead of us to get to the end of financial year '21. Objective #1, operationally, is just to stay open. We're in a great environment to achieve that. New Zealand and South Australia are really doing well. And we are grateful for the chance to operate in those environments. And we know that while we're open, we are profitable and cash positive. So that's our primary objective. We won't be spending a lot of capital. I can't see us making any large investment decisions to just get through this period and position ourselves for a future beyond that. That being said, there are some of the large projects still to complete, Adelaide the obvious one. And getting that up and running and starting to deliver on targets will be a significant focus, in particular second half of this financial year, completing some of the projects underway in Auckland and getting the NZICC into rebuild mode. That will be a real focus there. Keeping the online business going and growing and working closely with our regulator on that front will clearly be an ongoing focus for us. And when I think about the likely outcome for the year financially, what we have guided to is we are hopeful that we will exceed what we achieved in FY '20. And if we're able to stay open, I think we can do that with a degree of some confidence. That being said, we are definitely going to be significantly below FY '19. I think it will be FY '22 before we have any realistic prospect of achieving where we were in FY '19. As regards dividends, unfortunately, we're not able to pay a dividend at the end of FY '20 in the circumstances. And we will not be paying an interim dividend at the end of calendar 2020, our half year. But if we are able to stay open and trade, we are anticipating an ability to pay a final dividend at the end of FY '21. We're reviewing our dividend policy. We understand how important it is to our shareholders. And if the environment is conducive towards it and we've been able to trade, I think -- we're hopeful we'll be in a position to pay a dividend at the end of FY '21. Finally, a huge thank you to all the staff at SKYCITY. Every single one of you has worked unbelievably hard through incredibly trying times. No doubt huge uncertainty at home, but you've pitched up to work with all the passion that you would normally bring to work and worked so much harder than we could ever have anticipated at the beginning of the year. We would not be in the position we're in without that effort, and a huge thank you from me. Also to the Board. The Board has stepped up, and I can't recall how many Board meetings we've had but significantly more than any other year in the history of SKYCITY, no doubt. And my huge thanks for the support, the encouragement and the wisdom. When we needed to make big decisions, you were there for us. Thank you very much. And lastly, our shareholders. Without you, obviously, we would be in a very different place. You stepped up when we asked you to. You all came in on the entitlement offer. I'm cognizant that you haven't had a dividend. Hopefully, we can get you one of those in a year or so from now and some capital appreciation beyond that. Thank you so much for your support in an incredibly challenging time. Thanks.

Thank you, Graeme. The video presentation showcasing SKYCITY properties and highlights across the business over the past financial year will now play, followed by Bruce Carter's summary of the activities of the Board's Audit and Risk Committee and the Adelaide Subcommittee over the past financial year. [Presentation]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Bruce Carter. I am the Deputy Chair of the SKYCITY Board, Chair of the Board's Audit and Risk Committee and Chair of the Board's Adelaide Subcommittee. The Audit and Risk Committee has responsibility for oversight of the company's financial statements and external result presentations, its internal control environment and risk management programs and for its relationships with its internal and external auditors. Over the past financial year, the committee oversaw the preparation of a complex set of financial statements, which were significantly impacted by the fire at the Convention Centre, the Auckland park -- car park concession transaction, the impairment of the Adelaide casino license and COVID-19. We've provided extensive additional disclosures in our financial statements on these matters and presented normalized results to assist investor understanding of SKYCITY's underlying operational performance. The committee also oversaw the successful implementation of a new funding plan in June, July 2020, including a $230 million equity raising, the extension of our bank facilities and $160 million in additional bank facilities. We have only recently drawn down on the bank facilities and currently have about $0.5 billion of available liquidity. The committee and Board have a strong focus on risk management. Directors regularly review the top risk profile, risk appetite and risk culture dashboard. SKYCITY's top risks are highlighted in the 2020 Annual Report and include related risks operating in a highly regulated industry and economic and business volatility. We're very mindful of the Crown inquiry in New South Wales and the additional risks in the VIP gaming business. The Board has significant scrutiny of the risks inherent in VIP gaming. We believe SKYCITY takes a far more conservative approach than our peers. There continues to be increased regulatory focus on land-based casino operators and on SKYCITY's social license to operate, including host responsibility and laundering obligations. We have regular and robust dialogue with our regulators through which SKYCITY is always challenged to do better, and we welcome that dialogue. The Adelaide Subcommittee was formally established to oversee the Adelaide casino and hotel development. The expansion will transform SKYCITY Adelaide into a world-class, integrated entertainment hub on the Festival Plaza food court near the Adelaide Oval. Despite COVID-19, excellent progress has been made on the project during the year. We expect to open the new facilities in a staged manner from late November 2020, reflecting customer demand with a focus initially on local and interstate customers given the expected ongoing international border closures. The significant master planning works for the existing business within the Railway Station building remain on track to complete in time for the expansion opening. We still expect to deliver the project in line with its $330 million budget. As previously flagged to the market, we have booked our $150 million impairment of SKYCITY Adelaide's carrying value due to revised time frame to achieve long-term potential earnings post expansion exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19. This is a noncash item which reduces the intangible asset value via a casino license and does not impact debt covenant calculations. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Bruce. In the Notice of Meeting, we invited shareholders to submit questions prior to the Annual Meeting. No questions were received by the deadline. I now open the meeting for questions and comments from shareholders or from anyone who's been appointed as a proxy or a corporate representative. I will either answer your question myself or redirect it to a Board member or to the Chief Executive Officer as may be appropriate. Turning now to the questions raised about the operations and management of the business. Are there any questions?

Yes, Chair. We've received one question from a shareholder. Why is SKYCITY's online casino business operated through a Maltese-based subsidiary?

While it is possible to gamble online in New Zealand and while it is legally possible for that facility to be made available, current New Zealand law does not allow for the operation of an online casino out of New Zealand. We believe that in the future, there will be a regulated online casino business in New Zealand, and we regard it as critical to our business and critical to responsible online gambling that we hold a role in that. We've been in discussion with the regulatory authorities for some time about these issues. One step is to operate as other offshore casino operators do in offering product to New Zealand consumers but offering it at the standard that New Zealand would expect and operating according to the host responsibility, harm minimization and taxation impacts that New Zealanders would expect. So in the meantime, we have to do that from an offshore jurisdiction. We're in close consultation with the relevant authorities about it, and we very much hope that in the relatively near future, there will be a regulated online casino industry in New Zealand in which we can participate. So it's an output of things changing in the world, gaming industry, things changing in technology and the regulatory system not having yet caught up with it. That creates the need to operate in this way in the meantime. Are there any other questions?

None at this stage, Chair.

Thank you. Before we move to the 5 formal resolutions set out in the Notice of Meeting, I will briefly outline today's voting procedures. Voting will be by way of poll, and you will need to complete your voting directions online. To vote, simply click on the polling icon on your device, and the list of the resolutions and your voting options will appear. Then press for, against or abstain for each resolution. There's no need to hit a submit or enter button as your vote is automatically recorded. You have the ability to change your vote up until the time I declare voting closed. Persons attending the meeting who are not shareholders, proxy holders or corporate representatives of a shareholder may not vote on today's resolutions. Many shareholders who are not attending this meeting have already voted by proxy. 544 million proxy votes, representing approximately 72% of the shares on issue, were received prior to the cutoff for proxy voting at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, 14 October. We now move to the 5 formal resolutions to be considered by the meeting. The first 4 items of business concern reelection of directors. In accordance with the requirements of the NZX listing rules, Sue Suckling, Jennifer Owen, Murray Jordan and myself, retire at this meeting and, being eligible, offer ourselves for reelection. Again, to ensure sound and picture quality, Sue Suckling, Jennifer Owen and Murray Jordan's reelection addresses have been prerecorded. For resolution 1, which is the reelection of myself as a director, it's appropriate for me to hand over the chairing of the meeting to Director Sue Suckling. I now invite Sue to chair the meeting in respect of the resolution.

Thank you, Rob. It's my pleasure to introduce and move resolution 1 to reelect Rob Campbell as a director of the company. Rob was appointed to the SKYCITY Board in June 2017 and elected by shareholders at the annual meeting in that year. Rob was appointed as Chair of the SKYCITY Board on January 2018. The Board considers Rob to be an independent director and is unanimous in recommending that shareholders vote in favor of his reelection. I now invite Rob to address the meeting.

Thank you for this opportunity. I've already set out my views about SKYCITY and how we must operate in my opening comments, and I won't repeat those now. I'll just state that I am fully committed as a director for ensuring recovery from events such as the fire and pandemic. SKYCITY has not always been a good investor of the capital it's had available, and I'm committed to ongoing skill and rigor in choosing and delivering projects which grow value. SKYCITY will continue to be a leader in responsible gaming and entertainment wherever we operate. I'm excited and honored to have the opportunity to continue. Thank you.

Thanks, Rob. I move that the meeting reelect Rob Campbell as a director. Are there any questions?

No questions received.

I have moved the resolution. So I now put the resolution. Shareholders should select their voting direction online for resolution 1. I now pass the meeting back to Rob for the remaining resolutions.

Thank you, Sue. It's my pleasure to move resolution 2 to reelect Sue Suckling as a director of the company. Sue was appointed to the SKYCITY Board in May 2011, elected by shareholders at the Annual Meeting in that year and then reelected at the 2014 and 2017 annual meetings. The Board considers Sue to be an independent director and unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of her reelection. Sue's prerecorded reelection address will now play in which she also, as Chair of the Board's Sustainability Committee, summarizes the activities of that committee over the past financial year.

Kia ora [Foreign Language]. I'm Sue Suckling. I was appointed to the Board in May 2011, and I'm currently Chair of the Board's Sustainability Committee. I'm pleased to be standing for reelection this year as a director because I'm passionate about our business. I bring my strategic technology and innovation and sustainability experience to the Board to complement the skills mix of my colleagues. With your support, I will continue to bring energy and challenge to the governance of the company on behalf of the shareholders. I'd now like to briefly highlight some key achievements during this past year for the Sustainability Committee. The full report on progress against our sustainability pillars is available in the annual report. Firstly, our sustainability pillars. This year, we updated SKYCITY's sustainability strategy to add a sixth pillar incorporating financial performance alongside social and environmental performance. Our new additional shareholders pillar recognizes that SKYCITY must create value for its shareholders while maintaining its social license to operate. Despite the challenges presented by COVID-19, SKYCITY's sustainability strategy remains relevant, and we have retained our firm commitment to advancing each of the pillars of our sustainability framework. Following are just a few highlights from our 5 pillars. Firstly, our customer pillar. Our customers' pillar focuses on how SKYCITY ensures it is a responsible host, providing leading harm minimization programs at each of our properties and continuing to invest in the latest technology to keep our customers safe. During the year, we deployed facial recognition technology across all of SKYCITY's land-based casinos to assist in identifying excluded customers. This technology supplements our on-the-ground resource and has proven very successful in increasing the robustness of our host responsibility programs. Our communities pillar. Through our communities pillar, the committees oversaw a review of the SKYCITY Community Trusts in New Zealand, which has achieved a much stronger alignment with SKYCITY's corporate sustainability strategy. Our peoples pillar. During the early part of the year, we continued to make strong progress with Project Nikau and welcomed our 50th unskilled young person into employment and a promising career path with SKYCITY. Project Nikau offers employment, training and a career path to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Our environment pillar. A significant achievement under our environment pillar was the announcement that SKYCITY's New Zealand and Australian properties had achieved carbon-neutrality for the FY '20 operations. So while we are proud of the progress made to date, SKYCITY is committed to finding new ways to improve and expand on these key strategic pillars. Thank you. [Foreign Language]

Thank you, Sue. I now move that the meeting reelect Sue Suckling as a director. Are there any questions?

No questions received.

I've now moved -- I've moved the resolution. So I'll now put the resolution. Shareholders should select their voting direction online for resolution 2. I will now move to resolution 3, which is to reelect Jennifer Owen as a director of the company. Jennifer was appointed to the SKYCITY Board in December 2016 and elected by shareholders at the 2017 Annual Meeting. The Board considers Jennifer to be an independent director and unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of her reelection. Jennifer's prerecorded reelection address will now play.

I am Jennifer Owen. I was appointed to the Board in December 2016. I'm standing for reelection as a director because I possess deep knowledge of the gambling industry in Australia and a wide network of industry contacts, having been involved in research and analysis of the industry for 25 years since 1996. From 2012, I've worked as an independent consultant to the industry but only in circumstances which do not conflict with my SKYCITY role. My knowledge of the gaming and wagering businesses is called upon by industry participants, and I am a regular contributor to industry conferences. Most recently, in May 2019, I was invited to speak in Las Vegas at the International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking on the topic of U.S. sports betting and the Australian experience in this realm. I'm a chartered accountant with over 30 years in financial markets. I possess strong financial literacy, deep knowledge of the goals of investors, and I'm also a business owner in Sydney, Australia. I sit on the People and Culture, Audit and Risk Committees and the Adelaide Redevelopment Subcommittee. It is clear that 2020 was a challenging year for SKYCITY. The People and Culture Committee had responsibility for assessing the appropriate workforce size for the needs of the business in the near and medium term given the pandemic and its effect on society and economy. This process required ensuring each affected employee was treated with dignity and respect and received a fair financial payout. In addition, this committee worked with the senior executive team to ensure the physical and mental health of the team, firstly, given the NZICC fire; and then the pandemic and enormous dislocation it provided to the normal way of life and our business. My personal businesses have employed over 100 people during my ownership, and this has assisted in understanding the workplace challenges posed and the need to resolve each appropriately. On the Audit and Risk Committee, the major focus this year was the capital needs of the business given the property closures enforced by the pandemic and the funding of our 2 major projects, the Adelaide hotel and the NZICC. This committee worked with the senior executive to examine our capital structure and seek solutions that provided certainty of funding, upheld our investment-grade credit rating and minimized dilution to existing shareholders of any capital raising. Successful outcomes were achieved on all the above metrics. My extensive experience in financial markets enable me to contribute effectively to this process. Thank you.

Thank you, Jennifer. I now move that the meeting reelect Jennifer Owen as a director. Are there any questions?

No questions received.

I have moved the resolution. So I now put the resolution. Shareholders should select their voting direction online for resolution 3. I now move to resolution 4 to reelect Murray Jordan as a director of the company. Murray was appointed to the SKYCITY Board of Directors in December 2016 and elected by shareholders at the 2017 Annual Meeting. The Board considers Murray to be an independent director and unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of the reelection. Murray's prerecorded reelection address will now play in which he also, as Chair of the Board's People and Culture Committee and the New Zealand International Convention Centre Subcommittee, summarizes the activities of those committees over the past financial year.

Hello, my name is Murray Jordan. I was appointed to the Board in December 2016, and I'm currently Chair of the Board's People and Culture Committee and the Chair of the Board's New Zealand International Convention Centre Subcommittee. I am standing for reelection as a director because I believe I add value to SKYCITY and always act in the company's best interests. I utilized my executive and governance experience to efficiently manage our way through COVID-19. I lead the People and Culture and NZICC Committees in a positive and value-enhancing manner. The People and Culture Committee oversees the management of the human resources activities of the company, the senior management structure, senior executive performance, remuneration and incentivization and succession planning. As Chair of the People and Culture Committee, one of the most challenging aspects of the year has been the decision to reduce our New Zealand workforce by 25% in April 2020. The decision was made to ensure the long-term sustainability of the business, but the impact on our people was significant. We took every opportunity to mitigate the impacts of the restructuring by offering voluntary redundancy in the first instance and providing comprehensive support to those leaving SKYCITY, including redundancy compensation. Similarly, our Australian employees have also been impacted through long periods of stand-down and reduced hours. This year has required our remuneration decisions also to be taken in the context of a global pandemic, and I believe the committee has shown a very appropriate restraint in these decisions. Both directors and senior executives took reductions in remuneration for the final quarter of the 2020 financial year. Salaries across the group have been frozen for the current financial year, and the company is not seeking shareholder approval to increase the director fee pool at the annual meeting, and no short-term incentives are being paid to employees. I also chair the New Zealand International Convention Centre Subcommittee, which is established to efficiently and effectively make strategic decisions in relation to the New Zealand International Convention Centre and Horizon Hotel project. The development will intensify visitation to the SKYCITY Auckland site and support the wider business strategy and will be an important asset for New Zealand. As Chair of the subcommittee, we've had to work through some very difficult issues on the project during the course of the last financial year, not the least the fire event. On 22 October 2019, a year ago, a significant fire broke out on the roof of the Convention Centre, which burned for 3 consecutive days, took 10 days to fully extinguish and significantly impacted the city of Auckland. The construction phase was well advanced, and the building was almost entirely closed down at the time of the fire. The impacts of the fire in the building are extensive. Over the past 12 months, the focus has been on deconstruction and debris removal as well as damage assessment and reinstatement scoping activities. The intention is that reinstatement rebuild works will commence imminently. The Hobson Street air bridge is scheduled to be installed later this month, a great milestone for the project. We do have appropriate project insurance, which is responding to the reinstatement of the Convention Centre and Horizon Hotel. We currently expect the hotel to be completed by late 2021 and the Convention Centre to be completed around mid-2023. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Murray. I now move that the meeting reelect Murray Jordan as a director. Are there any questions?

No questions received.

I have moved the resolution. So I now put the resolution. Shareholders should select their voting directions online for resolution 4. I now move to resolution 5 concerning the setting of the remuneration of the auditor. PricewaterhouseCoopers is the auditor of SKYCITY, and that firm has indicated its willingness to continue as an auditor of the company. I move that the directors be authorized to fix the auditor's remuneration. Are there any questions?

No questions received.

I have moved the resolution. So I now put the resolution. Shareholders should select their voting direction online for resolution 5. Thank you for your attendance to the resolutions. That concludes our discussion on the items of business. Voting will shortly close. Please ensure that you have cast your vote on all resolutions. I'll now pause briefly to allow you time to finalize your votes before voting closes. [Voting]

Okay. I think even someone as old and digitally incompetent as me has probably managed to vote by now. So I declare the voting closed. All votes will be counted by the company's share registrar, Computershare, and scrutinized by the company's auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the results will be advised to the New Zealand and Australian Stock Exchanges later today. Thank you for attending the 2020 SKYCITY Annual Meeting in these unusual circumstances. I'd now like to invite Marama, Monique and Wyllis to formally close the meeting today with my personal appreciation for their attendance here today and the support which Ngati Whatua has provided to SKYCITY since we were first established on your whenua. Thank you.

[Foreign Language] Well done, and congratulations for everything that you've achieved this year. And I hope that as the Maori says [Foreign Language], to infinity and beyond, we hope that you achieve the things you set out ahead of you. As part of our closing karakia [Foreign Language] a song and a short karakia. [Presentation]

With love and faith and peace, we can all strive together as one. [Foreign Language] Kia ora.