The Warehouse Group Limited (WHS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Audio Gap] for the Warehouse Group. Before I hand you over to our Chair for the opening of the meeting, I'd like to cover a few points of housekeeping and safety. In the event of a fire or other emergency, if we need to evacuate the building, please follow the directions of our staff. The fire exits are located behind me through the main door to the left-hand side and at the very back of the room. The assembly point is on the lawn in the front of the building. Bathrooms are available through the main door and the foyer to my left. If you need voting forms, the team at Computershare will be able to help you at the end of the meeting. Finally, following today's meeting, the Board, management and team members look forward to you joining us for refreshments in the adjacent room. Thank you, and I now invite the Chair to open the meeting.

Thank you very much, Erin. [Foreign Language] Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you very much for joining us. My name is Joan Withers. I'm Chair of The Warehouse Group. And on behalf of your directors, the Group Chief Executive, our leadership team and, in fact, all of our team members I extend a very warm welcome to our Annual Shareholders Meeting, both to those of you here in the room today and to all of our shareholders who are joining us online. The notice convening today's meeting was circulated to shareholders on the 25th of October 2022, and a quorum is present. So I am pleased to declare the 2022 Annual Shareholders Meeting of The Warehouse Group open. And this is an auspicious occasion as just earlier this week, we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the very first Warehouse store being opened by Stephen Tindall back in 1982. After needing to hold our ASM online-only meeting last year due to the COVID-19 outbreak, we're absolutely delighted to be here with you in person. So today's meeting, as I said, is being held both in person and online via the Computershare online meetings platform that allow shareholders, proxies and guests who were not able to travel and attend the meeting in person, the ability to attend the meeting virtually. All of our online attendees can now see a live webcast of this event and can read the company documents that are associated with the meeting. In addition, shareholders and proxies have the ability to ask questions and to submit votes, and I'll outline the process for doing that later in the meeting. Now to the introductions. With me here today are our directors, and I'll go from this side, Tony Balfour, Dean Hamilton, John Journee, Caroline Rainsford, Julia Raue and Robbie Tindall. And unfortunately, we have Rachel Taulelei, not here live, but she's here virtually. Rachel has tested positive for COVID. And rather than bringing that into the room, she's joining us virtually. So cure Rachel and welcome. Also joining me up on the stage are our group Chief Executive Officer, Nick Grayston, who you know well; and our Group Chief Financial Officer, Jonathan Oram. Members of the leadership squad is seated in the audience and all of us will be available after the meeting for you to meet and to speak with. We also have with us here today our representatives from our auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and our company's legal advisers, Russell McVeagh. Welcome to you all. Now to the agenda. Before proceeding with the formal business, I'm going to run through the order of events for today's meeting. The agenda will start with the usual formalities and then I'll provide a recap of the financial year '22 annual results, the distributions we've made to shareholders and an update on our sustainability journey and the new building blocks and targets that we have announced. I'll also highlight the changes in our Board and in our governance during the year in review. Then Nick will provide some detail on our strategy and our financial performance, including an update on the first quarter of this current financial year, and he'll give some expectations for the remainder of FY '23. We'll then turn to the formal part of today's business. The resolutions today include the reelection of 3 directors and authorizing the setting of the auditor's fees. We'll cover each resolution in turn and invite you to submit your questions specific to those items, which we will respond to during the Q&A session for each of the resolutions. Voting will take place by way of poll. And I'll outline the process for the discussion and voting on the resolutions at that point in the agenda. Following the resolutions, we'll take questions from you on our financial and operational performance or other questions relating to the company. And I do ask that you wait to raise any of your questions of a general nature until that time. If you joined the meeting online, as I mentioned before, you'll be able to submit a question or a vote on the resolutions throughout the course of the meeting. So now we'll move on to the formal agenda. So proxies. Proxies have been received from 421 shareholders, representing 201,194,338 voting shares. This represents 58.01% of the voting shares in the company. The valid proxies we have received support the resolutions to be considered later in the meeting. I'll provide further details on proxies in respect of each resolution at that time. Now to the reference to the 2021 Annual Shareholders Meeting, I confirm that the minutes of the 2021 Annual Meeting, which was held on the 26th of November 2021 have been signed and confirmed by me as the chair of that meeting. Those minutes were posted on the company's website after they were approved and are available for review on the website. Our annual report -- the financial statements for the 52 weeks ended 31st of July 2022, together with the auditor's report are set out in the company's 2022 annual report, which was released to the NZX and made available on our website on the 28th of September 2022. If you like a hard copy of that annual report, please e-mail us at [email protected] to request a copy. Under the Companies Act 1993, there is no requirement to approve the financial statements or the auditor's reported annual meetings. However, we will be happy to answer any questions you may have during the Q&A at the end of the meeting. For those of you attending the meeting virtually, if you have a question to submit during the live meeting, please select the Q&A tab on the right-hand half of your screen at any time, type your question into the field and then press send. Your question will be submitted immediately. If you need any assistance, you can type your query and one of the Computershare team will assist via their chat function and reply to that query. Or alternatively, you can call Computershare on (0800) 650-034, that's (0800) 650-034. So please note that while you can submit questions from now on, I will not address them until the relevant time in the meeting. Please also note that your questions may be moderated or if we receive multiple questions on one topic, they may be amalgamated together. Finally, due to time constraints, we may not be able to answer all of your questions during the meeting. And if that happens, we will answer them in due course via e-mail. Voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business. And in order to provide all online attendees with enough time to vote, I'll shortly open the online voting for all of the resolutions. At that time, if you are eligible to vote at this meeting, you will be able to cast your vote under the vote tab. Once the voting has opened, the resolutions will allow votes to be submitted. So to vote, simply select your voting direction from the options shown on the screen. You can vote for all the resolutions at once or just by each resolution. Your vote has been cast when the tick appears. To change your vote, simply select change your vote, and you have the ability to change that vote, and up until the time I declare the voting closed. So I now declare voting open on all items of business. The resolutions will now be opened in the vote tab. Please submit your votes at any time, and I will give you a warning before I move to close the voting. Now I'm going to talk briefly about the annual results and the highlights of the year. And I have to say the financial year and review started once again with an enormous challenge. Just 2 weeks into that financial year, we were again back into COVID-19 lockdown for 84 days in Auckland and for at least 21 days throughout the rest of New Zealand, bringing yet another call on our team to adapt very quickly. Resilience, focus and agility have been hallmark themes for the group over the last 2 years. And I'd like to recognize and commend all of our 12,000 team members across The Warehouse Group for another incredible year in responding and serving our customers well through a very demanding period. Despite the disruption, our teams have continued to innovate, and we have never been more confident in our strategy to provide a personalized, integrated and frictionless shopping experience for our customers. A lot was thrown at us in FY '22, talked about the COVID-19 store closures and the other restrictions. There was disruption to our supply chain and increased ocean freight costs, which have had an impact on both sales and gross profit margin. Despite all of the challenges posed to us during the FY '22 year, apart from the record result that we had in FY '21, this year was our strongest performance in some 15 years. Sales were down 3.5% on the prior year, but strong against FY '20 and stronger still against the last comparable non-COVID-19 impacted year, which was FY '19. Online growth -- online sales saw exceptional growth, and it was up 39.8% on the prior year. And at that stage at the end of the financial year was making up 15.3% of total group sales. Our focus on gross margin, improved shipping and freight logistics and an improved mix of product sales saw -- during that financial year saw the gross profit performance improved from the first half, and it came in at $1.2 billion for the full year. On a gross profit margin basis, our full year 35.3% was down against FY '21, but did see the second half of the year recovered to 36.1% from 34.7% in the first half. One issue which has added complexity in our financial results this year was the decision by the International Reporting Interpretations Committee, which is called IFRIC for short, in April '21 to change the accounting rules for software as a service. IFRIC has determined that costs under cloud computing arrangements or SaaS, which is short for Software as a Service, can only be recognized as intangible assets if the activities create an intangible assets that the group controls. Costs that do not result in intangible assets are expensed as they are incurred. And due to The Warehouse Group being partway through a multiyear program to replace its core systems from being on-premise to a cloud-based architecture this accounting change is significant for The Warehouse Group and complicates comparisons. So on a comparable basis to prior year, so that's before unusual items and before that SaaS adjustment, the financial year '22 net profit after tax was $96.9 million compared to the very strong financial year '21 results, which saw comparable adjusted net profit after tax of $175.5 million. However, FY '22 was significantly above both FY '20 and FY '19, with the respected -- respective adjusted impact for those years coming in at $32.1 million and $74.1 million. So reported NPAT, which is prior to any adjustments for the year-end review came in at $89.3 million compared to $109.3 million in the prior year. Just on dividends, the group dividend policy is to distribute at least 70% of the group's full year adjusted net profit. Of course, at the discretion of the Board and subject to trading performance, market conditions and liquidity requirements. This dividend policy provides the group with flexibility to maintain a stable capital structure, allowing for capital expenditure to invest for future growth and for progressive and sustainable dividends. In accordance with that dividend policy at the time of the FY '22 annual results the Board announced a fully imputed final dividend of $0.10 per share. Along with the interim dividend of $0.10 per share, that brings the full dividend for the financial year $0.22 to $0.20 per share. The record date for that final dividend was 17th of November, and that will be paid on the second of December. As I also highlighted last year, capital management is an area of critical focus for the Board. As you are aware, our capital spend has been elevated in recent years as we've removed legacy systems and invested in systems and infrastructure to ensure the business has the ability to thrive in this era of omnichannel retail. Now to Board composition. We assess the composition of the Board on a regular basis to ensure that the Board retains the right mix of functional skills and experience, and we do publish our skills matrix every year in our annual report. We have a comprehensive director induction program, and we conduct regular independently facilitated board performance reviews. This year, we've had 2 notable movements. Will Easton resigned from the Board in May to focus on his other work commitments, and we thank Will most sincerely for his contribution to the group, which was incredibly valuable through a period of internal transformation and external disruption. And in August, we welcomed Caroline Rainsford as a full Director of the Board. Caroline was actually our future Director between August 2021 and August 2022, and her day job, she is the Country Director for Google New Zealand. Caroline is standing for reelection today, and she's going to address the meeting shortly. We are committed as the board to ongoing learning and we've been fortunate in the last 12 months to have access decisions with some of the most highly regarded governors, thinkers, innovators and retail experts around the world. And one of the areas where the Board has spent time observing and learning is in the area of sustainability. And I'd like to talk a little bit about our sustainability journey. About 18 months ago, we formed a dedicated Board Committee to provide oversight on environmental, social and sustainability issues as they impact the company and our country. New Zealanders increasingly expect that the businesses they interact with have a transparent and measurable commitment to sustainability. We want to take ambitious action to make sustainable living easy and affordable for everyone, and we'll do this through our 4 building blocks, which will each deliver specific outcomes. Firstly, increasing the number of products with at least one sustainable attributes such as sustainable production methods, materials or packaging and helping our suppliers reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions. Secondly, enabling sustainable living solutions that help our customers live a healthy, low-carbon lifestyle. Thirdly, providing circularity solutions that reduce the amount of post-consumer waste going to landfill. And fourthly, increasing the sustainability performance of our operations and decreasing our operational carbon emissions, both Scope 1 and Scope 2 to 0 by 2040. Each of these building blocks have short-term and long-term targets. They are supported by new data and resource capabilities that embeds sustainability outcomes in everything we do. This journey means The Warehouse is committed to new ambitions and we have initiatives underpinning each of these, which give us a high level of confidence that we will achieve 100% of our private label products and packaging to be sustainable or to have a circularity solution by 2035, have 2 million New Zealanders use our sustainable living solutions by 2035, enable 2.5 million customers to use our waste recycling or circular reuse solutions by 2030 and reach 0 emissions in our operational emissions against Scope 1 and Scope 2 by 2040 and target an 80% reduction of our Scope 3 emissions covering our upstream product suppliers and shipping and transportation by 2040. Our targets are ambitious. And for some aspects, we know that this will require technological solutions that currently do not exist. However, we do have strong foundations and sustainable initiatives and investments, and we're changing the shape of our business to achieve our goals. We are making good progress on our sustainability journey and I'm pleased to share that in financial year 2022, we diverted 73.4% of our operational waste from landfill. The group's Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions did increase very slightly by 0.3% last year, driven by an increase in store electricity usage during lockdowns when our stores were actually operating as fulfillment centers. We carried more than 35,000 products with at least one sustainable feature accounting for over $213 million in sales during the year. 98% of our passenger fleet are now electric vehicles, and we're on the path to a 100% EV passenger fleet this current financial year. Helping to do good remains a key value for us and is an intrinsic part of how we operate. Supporting our communities remains a top priority. And overall, we've helped raise $3.7 million for New Zealand charities this year and $79 million since 1982. We now have more than 800,000 members on our group loyalty program, Market Club, where we make a donation to a cause of our customers' choice every time one of them shops with us. Now I want to talk about our people. The health and safety of our people, our customers and our suppliers is of utmost priority, and we strive to promote a safety culture that supports the workplace where everyone gets home safely at the end of the day. This year has seen a significant increase in the number of retail store [ Ram-Rite ] particularly in Auckland and our business has been no exception. These events have been widely publicized in the media, and we are working with the New Zealand police to try to find solutions to the significant societal problem. Ram-Rite not only cause damage to our stores, resulting in financial loss through store repairs and loss of product, but they have a severe impact on the mental well-being of our people and their ability to feel safe at work. The New Zealand police has set up a dedicated retail squad, which we're working with on a very regular basis. And we're absolutely focused on deploying deterrents and mitigation measures in and around our stores such as increased boards, smoke cannons, extra cameras, extra security and we are also providing counseling and support for store members to ensure that they feel safe at work, particularly following incidents in the stores that they are employed in. And I just like, on behalf of the group, to pass on our deepest sympathy to the family of the victim of the tragedy in Sandringham and our thoughts are also with the Daryonus community as they grapple with the implications of the shocking event. We have worked hard to ensure that the warehouse group is an employer of choice for top talent, and we're very proud to continue to provide benefits to our team members that make it a world-class place to work. Our employee Net Promoter Score has never been higher with NPS scores up across the board, including in our stores, our distribution and fulfillment centers and in our store support office. Gender equity remains a core focus for us, and I'm very pleased to say that we have maintained 100% gender pay equity at group level and females actually hold 46.6% of our senior leadership roles. And as of August this year, we are now 50-50 gender split on our Board of Directors. This year, we expanded our parental leave policy to offer all permanent team members, 26 weeks, full pay, topping up the government's paid parental leave payments to 100% of a team member's salary or wage. The Warehouse Group has a strong history of giving back to its communities. And earlier this week, we announced our new here for good leave, which gives our team members 8 hours of paid time each financial year to volunteer in a way that is meaningful for them, recognizing the close connection that we have and the communities we operate in. So before I hand over to Nick Grayston, our group CEO, I just want to thank our customers across all of our 5 brands. So The Warehouse -- Warehouse Stationery nor leaning Torpedo 7 and TheMarket.com, thank you to all of you for continuing to choose us. Thank you to our team members for their hard work, their dedication and their ability and willingness to adapt and rise to the challenge of changing trading environment. I'd also like to pay a special tribute to my fellow Board members for their contribution this year. The support and energy have been exemplary as we help guide the warehouse group's ongoing retail transformation in tandem with our executive team and in dealing with the wider socioeconomic and geopolitical challenges we are now facing globally. And on behalf of the Board, I'd like to thank our group CEO, Nick and the outstanding executive leadership team he has working alongside him. The Board and executive working dynamic has moved forward again this year. And I know I speak for all of my fellow directors to say it is a privilege to work alongside Nick and his leadership squad in achieving the group's objectives. The purpose and the strength of any business has been truly tested over the last 2 years, and I'm very proud that the spirit of The Warehouse Group and our strong team and our focused team have continued to deliver for New Zealanders. Finally, I'd like to thank you our shareholders for your continued support and belief in the company. I'll now hand over to Nick to brief you on the strategy. Thank you.

Thank you, Joan, and good morning to everyone. The Warehouse Group has always been an organization that challenges the status quo to deliver the things that Kiwis need and that comes down to having a shared purpose to help Kiwis live better every day. I'm pleased to let you know about our updated vision, and that is to make sustainable living easy and affordable for everyone. It's a big bold ambition with many unknowns, but if not us, then who? And if not now, then when? Our foundations are strong, and we've been investing in and building our portfolio of sustainable products, reducing waste for ourselves and for our customers through robust recycling programs and packaging reduction and implementing various initiatives across the group to reduce our own emissions to 0 by 2040. We are committed to this and know it's what our customers want from us as well. Our values remain unchanged. They underpin our way of working, our culture and how we deliver on our strategic customer experiences. We go all in, we win for our customer, and we are here for good. We're focusing on 5 strategic customer experiences to achieve our objectives and to deliver on our long-term strategy. These are range and value, availability and fulfillment, sustainable and affordable loyalty and payments and customer service. We're continuing to build and deliver a modern integrated retail offering powered by a customer-centric ecosystem that enables easy and frictionless shopping experiences to create greater customer value. We have strong ecosystem foundations in place with an established physical footprint and market-leading digital assets. Our unique combination of local assets, global partnerships and our strong financial position means we can scale our business by investing in the right capabilities to serve our customers more holistically, creating greater customer value over time. We launched our group-wide membership program, Market Club, initially into The Warehouse and TheMarket.com. And this program now has more than 800,000 members since launch just over 12 months ago. We continue to invest in being sustainable and affordable in everything we do, and this vision underpins our ecosystem at every stage. Further improvements will make customer shopping journeys with our family of brands faster, easier and more personalized through unified data platforms and people, while remaining focused on the fundamentals of delivering exceptional value and new assortments with better customer fulfillment and payment options, both in store and online. While FY '21 was a record year in many respects. It's now recognized that the strong bounce back following the first New Zealand lockdown was an anomaly and that this was going to be a tough act to follow given the challenges and headwinds experienced in FY '22. Despite this, we are extremely pleased with the result. While the first half was the most challenging with a sales decline of 4.3% year-on-year, the second half saw disruptions ease, supply chains and networks become easier to navigate and our customers return to stores following long periods of store closures due to lockdowns. The second half saw a reduction in the decline of sales resulting in full year sales of $3.3 billion, down 3.5% compared to FY '21. Our focus on gross margin, improved shipping and freight logistics and improved mix of product sales also saw gross profit improve from the first half to $1.2 billion for the full year. While this was down 6.2% on FY '21, it was a significant improvement from the first half, which saw gross profit declined 8.5% compared to the FY '21 first half due to increased shipping costs, product mix and clearance activity required to clear unsold stock following COVID-19 lockdowns. As mentioned, all our brands were impacted by -- in FY '22 due to the 84 days store closures in the period, decreasing foot traffic across the group. The Warehouse sales were $1.7 billion, down 4.3%. Warehouse Stationery sales of $249.7 million, down 9.1%. The Noel Leeming sales were $1.1 billion, down 2.8% and Torpedo 7 sales were $171.5 million, bucking the trend increasing 8% from FY '21 due to 3 new stores and increased online participation, more than offsetting the decreased sales due to lockdown store closures. In the FY '22 year, online sales surged as our customers were living, working and schooling from home for a large period of time, particularly in Auckland. In particular, the warehouse online sales increased more than 60%, and Noel Leeming online sales increased 50%. Our digital transformation and increased online and app capability enabled our brands to pivot and still offer the customers the products they need in and out of lockdown. Click & Collect also proved to be hugely successful throughout this period with The Warehouse Click & Collect fulfillment increasing 86.8% and making up 45.9% of all of The Warehouse online sales. All other brands, Click & Collect fulfillment also increased around 40%. Our online marketplace TheMarket.com also grew in the financial year. Gross merchandise value being the total sales through the platform increased to $110 million in FY '22, driven by 390,000 active customers with 6,500 brands, 4.2 million products and increased customer spend of 14% year-on-year. The good news is that we've seen a reverse of most of these brand sales declines in the first quarter of the financial year with sales growth across most brands, and I will discuss this shortly. Capital expenditure increased in FY '22 as we increased our investment in core systems and infrastructure. As Joan mentioned, due to an IFRIC accounting policy change, cost incurred configure or customize software and cloud computing arrangements, what we call Software as a Service, can now only be capitalized and recognized as intangible assets if the activities create an intangible asset that the group controls. Costs that do not result in intangible assets are expensed through the P&L as they are incurred. FY '22 capital expenditure on a post-SaaS adjusted basis was $107.5 million versus $63.7 million in FY '21, an increase of 69%. The group's major investments included continued development of core systems including the enterprise resource planning, finance and inventory system, the RPFI, group order management system, GOMS, warehouse management system and master data management. Store development investment included the integration of 10 warehouse stationery stores into the warehouse stores, continuing on our successful store than a store program. The refurbishment of 3 the warehouse stores and the opening of 3 new Torpedo 7 stores. We expect capital expenditure in FY '23 to be in the range of $115 million to $135 million, and $145 million to $165 million on a comparable basis, pre the SaaS adjustment. We announced our first quarter sales results for the quarter ending 30th of October on the 11th of November, and we were pleased to report group sales of $764.7 million for the first quarter, up 21% on the same quarter in FY '22 and up 12% on the same quarter in FY '20, which was the last pre-COVID comparative period. Total group foot traffic increased 61% in FY '23 Q1 compared to the prior period, with group online sales decreasing 56% compared to FY '22 Q1. Extended lockdowns in FY '22 saw record high online sales when customers were unable to visit our stores. In this first quarter of this financial year, online sales represented nearly 11% of total group sales compared to an unusually high 30% in FY '22 Q1. The Warehouse delivered sales of $414.6 million, up 39% compared to FY '22 Q1 and up 12% compared to FY '20 Q1 pre-COVID. Customers continued their search for great value across our entire product range with grocery continuing to accelerate sales growth of 76.3% and homeware seeing growth of 32%. Warehouse Stationery had a strong quarter with sales of $56.9 million, an increase of 18% compared to FY '23 Q1. However, it decreased more than 9% compared to FY '20 Q1, which was pre-COVID. Small stores increased from 29 to 38 stores year-on-year. Noel Leeming recorded sales of $246.6 million, up 3% compared to FY '22 Q1 and up nearly 10% compared to FY '20 Q1 pre-COVID, with particular sales growth in Smart Home and white wear categories. Torpedo 7 recorded sales of $37.4 million, increasing 9% compared to FY '22 Q1 and sales growth of 57% compared to FY '20 Q1 pre-COVID with 3 new stores opening in the last 12 months in Petone, in [indiscernible] and taking total stores to 24. Our group loyalty program, Market Club, increased membership to 800,000 customers, up from 600,000 at year-end, delivering value to New Zealanders every day. The global economic environment continues to be volatile and unpredictable. Cost of living conditions continue to be challenging, and we expect to see New Zealanders continue to seek out great value across our brands as they manage their household budgets. We are pleased with the sales growth we have seen in the first quarter of this financial year. However, we do remain cautious as we approach our Q2 and our busiest time of the year. We believe we are well positioned as we move towards the Christmas and summer peak trading period with good levels of stock across all our brands despite ongoing supply chain constraints. And an update to our senior leadership team. Last month, we were pleased to announce the appointment of Anna Shipley to the role of Chief Corporate Affairs Officer. As we continue to work -- our work to help Kiwis live better every day, and bring to life our vision to make sustainable living easy and affordable for everyone. Our reputation and relationships with customers, communities, government and media and our team members is more important than ever. Since joining The Warehouse Group as Corporate Affairs lead in October 2021, Anna has made a significant difference to our business, and we're thrilled to have her join the leadership team. To conclude, we have never been more confident in our strategy and how we are tracking against it. We're investing in systems and infrastructure to deliver growth. We're building a group-wide membership program to award our customers every step of the way. We're investing in retail media further to unlock the value of our ever deeper customer relationships, and we're excited about growing our grocery offering. We are doing all of this in a measured and sustainable way to reduce our emissions in our own organization and beyond and to make sustainable living easy and affordable for everyone. I would like to thank you, as shareholders, for your continued support, and I hope you share my excitement in the year ahead. I'll now ask Joan to return to the lectern to conduct the formal part of today's business. Thank you, Joan.

Thank you very much, Nick. So we now come to the matters requiring resolutions, which are included in the notice of meeting. As I indicated, all voting at today's meeting will be by way of a poll, and a poll will be held for each of the resolutions. I'll explain the voting procedures again at the end of the discussion of all resolutions, we will invite questions for each resolution. So again, just to reiterate, if you have a question, please select the Q&A tab on the right half of your screen at any time. Type your question into the field and press send. Your question will be submitted immediately. If you have any questions on the annual report, or of a general nature, please feel free to submit these at any time, but we'll address these during the general Q&A session at the end of the meeting. So firstly, reelection of directors. We now move to the reelection of directors. These resolutions have the unanimous support of the Board. As set out on the Notice of Meeting, we have 3 directors who are eligible for reelection, myself, Julia Raue and Caroline Rainsford. All directors offer themselves up for reelection at this meeting. Proxy voting for these resolutions will be shown on the presentation screen. So we'll move to the first resolution, which is my reelection as a director. And for that purpose, I'm going to vacate the chair in favor of my fellow Director, Tony Balfour.

Thanks, Joan. We'll now move to the first resolution, which is the reelection of Joan as a Director of the company. Joan has been a Director and Chair of the Board since September 2016. Joan has been a professional director for over 20 years. And prior to that, spent 25 years in the media industry, holding several positions, including the CEO of the Radio Network and Fairfax Media. Her governance career is diverse and extensive. In addition to her Chair role at The Warehouse Group she is also a Director at ANZ, Origin Energy in Australia, in Sky TV here in New Zealand. Joan has previously held chair and directorship positions at companies like Mercury Energy, Television New Zealand and Auckland International Airport. And if that hasn't kept busy enough, Joan has also contributed enormously to social good within New Zealand. She is currently a trustee of the Sweet Louise Foundation and is a Chair of a Steering Committee working to increase the percentage of South Auckland Bari and Pacific Island students moving into the health care sector. She is also a co-founder on Being Bold, a group of senior business women working to help New Zealand fulfill their career potential. On a personal note, it's been an absolute pleasure and privilege working with Joan at the Warehouse. She is always incredibly constructive, yet challenging, positive, yet incredibly pragmatic, and her ability to consistently get the best out of the Board and the management team in my view, is second to none. We are very lucky to have her. I will now ask Joan to make a brief statement to the meeting. Joan?

Thank you, Tony, for those incredibly kind words. Fellow shareholders. It is an enormous privilege to have the opportunity to stand for reelection as a Director of the warehouse group this morning. As Tony said it 6 years since I was appointed as a Director and Chair. And over that period, the company has gone through enormous change and weathered significant challenges. A key part of my role as Chair has been to ensure that the Board is comprised of directors with the skills, expertise and experience to guide the group CEO and his leadership team and developing strategy and then overseeing the execution of those strategies. That can only be done even with the most perfectly curated set of directors -- it's a boardroom culture and working dynamic facilitates great discussion, debate and decision-making, and I think we have that. The Board has been significantly refreshed over the last few years, and I am delighted that we have been able to attract extremely high-caliber directors to join us. The working relationship with the executive leadership team has never been better. And we hope that the exposure our leadership team has to the Board, both as a collective and as individual directors, helps to bind those executives more closely to the company in an environment where there is literally a war for talent. And then our group CEO and his executive team, we have incredible talent. I'm energized by the opportunities we have in this dynamic environment, but also cognizant of the deteriorating economic conditions in front of us, which means it's not going to be easy. I am confident that we are better prepared than ever to face into those challenges. Succession planning is a critically important component in staying fit to face the future. I am signaling today that if I am reelected, that this will be my final term on the board. And I can tell you with shareholders, I am very confident that at this stage, I do step down we will have very high quality options to take over the chairmanship of this wonderful company. In the meantime, I thank you all for your support.

Thank you, Joan. Are there any questions on the reelection of Joan Withers as the Director of the company? Okay. I will now move that Joan Withers be reelected as a director of the company. The poll on the election for Joan will be conducted at the end of the full business. And now I'll pass back to Joan to continue the meeting.

Thank you very much, Tony. Now we move to the second resolution, which is the reelection of Julia Raue. Julia has been a Director of the Board of the Warehouse Group since September 2016. In fact, we joined on the same day. Julia has extensive digital customer data strategy and business transformation experience across a number of sectors, including airline, telecommunications, local government and not-for-profit in New Zealand and in Australia. She has a strong track record of delivering award-winning innovative customer-facing products and services. Julie has been a professional director for 7 years, holding governance roles across a range of sectors, including media, broadcasting, energy, retail, insurance, technology and health care. She has previously held director positions at TVNZ Limited and Z Energy Limited. Julia is our Chair of the Health, Safety and Well-being Committee and a member of the Audit and Risk Committee and the Environmental and Social Sustainability Committee. So I'll now ask Julia to come up and make a brief statement to the meeting. Julia?

Thank you, Joan. [Foreign Language] Good morning. I'm a proud and passionate New Zealander, born in Auckland and raised in West Auckland. Married to Simon, we have 3 children who are 24, 19 and 10 and I'm proud to say that all 5 of us are very regular customers across all of our Warehouse brands. As Joan said, I joined The Warehouse in September 2016, and I consider it a privilege to be a member of The Warehouse Group Board. I'm Chair of The Warehouse Board's Health, Safety and Well-being Committee. In the past 2 years have presented us with unprecedented events that have severely tested the health and well-being of our people. The health and safety of our people, our customers and our suppliers is a huge priority for our entire group. We promote a safety culture that supports a workplace where everyone gets home safely at the end of the day. And I'm really proud to say that the Board is incredibly impressed with what we, as an organization, have achieved acknowledging that there's more on the plan to deliver to support our deliberate move from a culture of compliance to one of care. I believe that the success and sustainability of New Zealand relies on great New Zealand organizations with exemplary leadership and execution. We are making sustainable living easy and affordable for everyone and investing further in the business to deliver continued benefits and exceptional value for all. We live in a time of exponential change and disruption at a global scale and this also provides us with significant opportunity. I'm a technologist at heart, and prior to moving into full-time governance as per my buyer spent 17 years with in New Zealand. And during that time, I had the privilege of leading teams to develop and deliver a number of innovative world-class products and services that drove revenue and loyalty and engage our customers and our people. Working with technology and in organizations who are delivering great experiences through transformation and innovation has always been my passion, and I'm excited at the opportunities that we can continue to deliver across the group that will bring value to our customers, to our organization and to you, our shareholders. I believe my skills and experience and technology and customer experience and the governance will support The Warehouse Group as we continue to achieve our objectives. And with your support, I will continue to be a proud member of The Warehouse Group Board. [Foreign Language] Thank you for your support, and have a great day.

Thank you very much, Julia. Are there any questions on the re-election of Julia Raue as a director? There appear to be none. I now move that Julia Raue be re-elected as a Director of the company. The poll on the re-election of Julia Raue will be conducted at the end of formal business. We now move to the third resolution, which is the re-election of Caroline Rainsford. As I said earlier, Caroline joined the Board as our future Director in August 2021 and was nominated by the Board as a full-time Director in August 2022. As a result, Caroline is standing for re-election this year. Caroline is currently the Country Manager for Google New Zealand, where she is responsible for driving the overall revenue and business strategy for New Zealand and in partnering with the government, policy teams and New Zealand business leaders. She is focused on helping New Zealand businesses grow and transform in the digital age. I'm now going to ask Caroline to come and make a brief statement to the meeting. Caroline?

Thank you, Joan. [Foreign Language] My name is Caroline Rainsford, and it's a pleasure to meet you all this morning. My journey with The Warehouse Group began at the very beginning of my career over 20 years ago, where I was a young sales rep selling televisions and home theater systems into the then Noel Leeming and Bond & Bond stores way prior to the acquisition by the group. Since then, I have remained connected to The Warehouse Group through my various executive roles across many countries around the world. And it is a great privilege to be speaking to you today and asking you further your support with my appointment to the Board of The Warehouse Group. My 20-year career has spanned many industries, consumer products, consumer and commercial finance, technology and digital sectors across New Zealand and Australia, the Middle East, Africa and Turkey. I have worked for world-leading organizations such as Philips Royal Electronics, GE Capital and Latitude Financial Services. As Joan said, I'm currently the Country Director for Google here in New Zealand. Since I started Google in 2017, I have had the great privilege of growing and transforming hundreds of wonderful New Zealand businesses, both here domestically in New Zealand and globally by benefiting from data and technology like AI and machine learning. As demand for digital skills grows and the digital gap widens, I also get to support a number of programs to support digital skills in New Zealand, very much in line with our government's digital future strategy. And I also get to support key sectors that I am passionate about such as education and public interest journalism. In addition to my role at Google, I am also the executive sponsor for women at Google and I sit as one of the directors on the diversity, inclusion and Equity Council of Google AU and NZD. In 2021, I also assumed the acting role as Country Director for Google in Australia. In August, I was delighted to be appointed as the Future Director for The Warehouse Group. The role cemented my passion for governance, and I will always be a huge advocate for the future director program in New Zealand co-founded by Sir Stephen Tindall. But most importantly, my year as Future Director on The Warehouse Group Board cemented my passion for the group's business and the enormous potential that we have in front of us. We are evolving as a company at pace to become a demand-led and customer-led organization. We are powered by incredibly rich data and have a deep understanding of the New Zealand consumer. We have a clear technology road map and ambitious sustainability agenda, and a slate of world-leading talent and leaders. In a world of economic uncertainty, I always tell my team at Google to assist the businesses that we choose to work with on how well they stay true to their purpose during periods like this. Those are the ones that will thrive during the next period. And since my early '20s, I have seen The Warehouse Group never waver from helping Kiwis live better every day. I am very excited to continue my journey with this wonderful company, and thank you for your support in doing so.

Thank you, Caroline. Are there any questions on the re-election of Caroline Rainsford as a director? There appear to be none. I now move that Caroline Rainsford be re-elected as a director of the company. The poll on the re-election of Caroline Rainsford will be conducted at the end of formal business. I now turn to the fourth and final resolution. PricewaterhouseCoopers continue in office in accordance with the provisions of Section 207T of the Companies Act 1993. A resolution, however, is required in respect of their remuneration. For the information of the shareholders and as disclosed in the annual report, the total fees paid to the PricewaterhouseCoopers in the financial year ending 31st of July 2022 was $928,000 of which $711,000 was in respect of auditing the annual financial statements of the group. Proxy voting in respect of this resolution is shown on the presentation screen. Are there any questions on the authorization of auditors' fees and expenses? No. I now move that the directors are authorized to fix the fees and expenses of PricewaterhouseCoopers as auditors for the ensuing year. The poll on authorizing the directors to fix the auditor's remuneration will be conducted at the end of the formal business. Now just a reminder on the voting procedure. All resolutions are ordinary resolutions, which will be passed if approved by a simple majority, which is more than 50% of the votes of shareholders entitled to vote and voting in person or by proxy or representative. Again, to vote, simply select your voting direction from the options shown on the screen. You can vote for all resolutions at once or by each resolution. Your vote has been cast when the tick appears. To change your vote, simply select change your vote and you have the ability to change that vote up until the time I declare voting closed. I'll remind you that you're voting on each separate resolution as detailed in the Notice of Meeting. If you hold a proxy on behalf of a shareholder, you will need to cast the shareholders' votes in order for them to be counted. The position with respect to discretionary proxies held by myself and my fellow directors is shown on the screen. I will act as any shareholders' proxy where that shareholder has completed the proxy form but has emitted the name of their proxy and for those shareholders whose named proxy is not in attendance. We intend to vote all discretionary proxies we have received in favor of these resolutions except where I or a fellow director is interested in the resolution, in which case we will abstain. Once all votes have been cast and voting is closed, they will be counted by the company's share registrar and scrutinized by the company's auditor. The results of today's meeting will be released to NZX on completion of the verification of voting. Okay. I'm now going to open up the meeting for general discussion. Any eligible shareholder or proxy holder attending the meeting in person or remotely is eligible to ask a question. If you're here in person, we welcome you to come up to the front of the room and use the standing microphones, which are top of each aisle. And a reminder, if you're joining the meeting online. And if you've got a question, please select the Q&A tab on the right half of your screen type the question into the field and then present and we'll get it immediately. So to open up the questions, are there any matters in respect of today's presentations, the annual report or of a general nature, anyone would like to raise? Would you like to come up to the microphone? If it's difficult as we've got one mic, if you. We got one roving mic. Thank you, Amber. Up here front here first. And if you could just let us know your name when you stand up, that would be great. Thank you.

[indiscernible]

Can we hear you at the back? No. Can you make sure the mic is on, Amber, before we would. All right.

I'll repeat. I've been a shareholder of The Warehouse for quite a few years. In addition to that, I've been as share -- and I'm shareholder of most big companies in New Zealand. As far as it comes, I have had no hesitation in saying that as a shareholder, I think we -- The Warehouse treats us the most miserably of any of the companies that I'm a shareholder in.

Very sorry to hear that. Why do you think that?

I can enumerate various extras that are given to shareholders by other companies with substantially more shareholders than The Warehouse has got. I'm prepared to enumerate those. It may take a while or I'll do it after the meeting with any of the directors who want to talk to me about it.

We're very happy to talk to you about that. But I thought what you're talking about in general terms is the sort of ancillary benefits that some companies offer shareholders. Is that what you're saying, discounts or...

No, I'm not talking about discounts or shopping or things like that. I'm talking about maybe shareholders days, where visits or arrive, I mean most -- all right, the most significant one and the one that I really think will never be beaten was by the New Zealand refinery. What happened for a whole day, they hired 5 couchers and took all the shareholders up to Marsden Point at 7:00 in the morning, served the breakfast on the coucher, morning say on arrival up there, lunch there, at around the refinery, which is the most dangerous working environment in New Zealand. So we were all outfitted with fireproof overall before we were taken around and then when we were getting on to the couchers to come back to Auckland, we were all given a goody bag, which had some refreshments like cakes and slices and some like that to eat on the bus on the way back. Now that is an exceptional one. I don't think anyone else will beat that. And that was organized by the directors. My criticism here is of you directors, you are the people that are responsible to look up to the shareholders. I mean, after all, we are the owners of the business. But I think you forget that at times.

I can assure you, we don't forget about that. And I think in terms of trying to make sure that we do the right thing by shareholders, delivering long-term shareholder value, we look carefully at the dividend payout every year to make sure that we're balancing the needs of the company, but you've made a fabulous point and the directors hate being called miserable. And this is a company that has a bylaw where everyone gets a bargain. So I'm definitely going to take that on Board and see what we can do, if it's something like Investor Days and treats and coming out to support office. We're currently in a state of chaos at support office because we're doing some refurbishment. And obviously, the last few years, we've been impinged by issues around COVID. But I promise you we'll have a chat after the meeting, but...

You had plenty of time in earlier years to do something but haven't done anything. And I believe that this -- that I can justify completely that my criticism in my view is fair and reasonable.

Look, we take it on board. I absolutely accept what you're saying, and we're taking it on board. So we're definitely who do you think is so much for raising it. Get hold your breath, but we'll be there. I promise.

Because you're going to take that wrong.

No, no. I just don't want you to faint. [ Carole. ]

[ Carole Vancam ] shareholder. First of all, the positive news, I have really been grateful to be able to shop online. Your service is excellent. Things have been delivered really fast and they've been up to expectation. In store shopping on the other hand is not such a happy report. 40 years ago, well, we didn't have online shopping, but it used to be fun to go to a Warehouse shop, store, and there were staff everywhere to help you and it was just a completely family friendly ambience. So my recent experience out at Sylvia Park was just the absolute opposite and you go to this great big empty warehouse, and honestly, your staff are safe out there because there aren't any. There was one person in the garden center watering plants and I think there might have been two at the self-checkout counter where people were struggling to use the self-checkout things that you've got there. There's nobody going through the store to pick up jumbled clothing where people have been rifling through it. It is just soul less. So with Christmas coming up, I'm really wondering if you could be doing much better than you might be very happy with the results you get, but possibly, you could do a lot better. If you made it more friendly for the grandmas, who are going to go in and shop for all the grandchildren and the large Polynesian families that I saw struggling at those checkouts. You could do better if you put more staff in your stores.

Thank you, [ Carole ]. Well, you and I had a chat before the meeting with Nick.

Yes. Sure. I'm happy to take it. And thank you very much for the feedback. We're always happy to get both shareholders and customers feedback. So I'm sorry, we disappointed you and we hate to do that. What I would say is that customer NPS or Net Promoter Score is way up. For the most part, we have -- we do satisfy our customers. But with the scale that we deal with, I'm sure that there will always be disappointments. But that's something we'll definitely take on board. We'll look at Sylvia Park specifically for Christmas, I'll tell you that we've hired in the region of 2,700 additional people to deal with the surge, we always have higher staff numbers at this time of the year. But again, very sorry to disappoint you, and we'll try harder.

Richard [indiscernible] shareholder. Okay. At the beginning of the 21st century, The Warehouse share price was $4.30. Now it's about $3.23, years later. Why is that?

Yes. I can't comment way back in history. But as you've probably seen, if you've read the annual report, we've actually outperformed the NZX in recent years. So it's been an incredibly turbulent time for the entire market. In terms of the specifics, as I mentioned, we are to where we are very, very conscious of growing long-term shareholder wealth. And we've had to make significant investments in terms of replacing legacy systems and investing in technology for the future. It is something that we're totally focused on. There's only so much we can do on a day-by-day, week-by-week basis. But as you'd appreciate, the whole market is in a very difficult situation, particularly as inflation and interest rates start to ramp up. But it is a focus for us. One thing I would comment on, Richard, is that we've gone back into the NZX 50 in the last just -- well, it's about 12 months ago is that we went back into NZX 50. So we're quite pleased in terms of getting back in there. And our relative share performance actually -- look to one of our key competitors this morning online, and we've sort of done better than them in the last 12 months, but your point is well made. And we know we've still got a lot of shareholders on the register who bought shares a long time ago, who are still underwater. Believe me, we are doing everything we can to get it back up where we believe it should be. Thank you very much. Got someone here. Are you able to come up to the front or...

[ Michael Bowden ], shareholder.

It's, Mike is it?

Yes. Just I'd like to congratulate The Warehouse on getting more involved in the grocery sector and making some very good offers on staples that save many families a lot of money, particularly in, for example, milk, butter, pasta, noodles, things like that. I've got a couple of young sons who drink enormous amounts of milk and $3 for 2 liters of milk is a considerable saving on, say, count down $3.91 for the same amount of milk. So thanks very much for all the savings that you're helping families make.

Thank you so much for the feedback.

Thank you for the feedback. Just to add to that, we feel very passionate that particularly at the moment, Kiwis do need the support for value. And we focus, for example, on making sure Kiwis going to have an affordable breakfast, $4 butter, especially delivering value through our Market Club. We are focused on extending that offer and driving better value. But we want to do it profitably. We've been heavily engaged with the Commerce Commission with their study on the duopoly. As recently as last week, I had a conversation with the government minister and we are engaged with the government who also are determined to make groceries more affordable for New Zealanders. So working with them, we need access to better cost prices candidly and supply chain in order to be able to make money, though we're not looking to make some of the profits that are being reported. We deliver value across our whole chain. And we want groceries to be another area where we help Kiwis live better every day for our purposes. So we very much want to drive that more. But thank you very much for the positive comments.

Another one down here. Are you able to come up to the front or... All right. Okay. We can give you this microphone.

My name is [ Robert Gray ], shareholder. A few things. People are talking about losing money on the shares. I think I paid about $5.50 for them in the late '90s, I've had these shares, I don't know, 20, 25 years. And you see all these empty seats here. I think it was even worse last time. Why do you have to have the shareholders' meeting on the same day as the Black Friday sales? I would -- maybe there would be more people here -- there's a lot of people that would be here, they are at shops, in the Christmas shopping.

Why do we have it on this day?

Actually, it's a very good question. We were just talking about it yesterday. It's probably the worst time of year for a retailer as well. We are looking at what would be the barriers to have it probably earlier and maybe end of October next year. We -- there is a question of the timing enables -- this time enables us to be able to talk about first quarter sales and give an update as I did. But we're looking at whether we can pull it forward. And I think it's a very good point. It's -- I know I'd rather be and it's no disrespect to shareholders but as a retailer, you want to be out in stores on Black Friday.

Yes. All I'm saying, end of October, there's so many meetings on we just wouldn't get here. At the time that the year is right, it's just the fact that it's on the Black Friday, you could have it last Friday, for example, you know.

Thanks for the feedback. We are reconsidering it. So we'll take that into consideration as well.

And I actually stopped shopping at The Warehouse when you close down the home entertainment thing business. I started to come back when $3 milk come in. I live in the middle of the city, and there's a branch in the Crowne Plaza building. And you go there, there is never any there anymore.

Never any milk?

I've been told [indiscernible] tell me to go to count down.

It has been extraordinary as Nick says, we're notorious for trying to deliver value. And obviously, the grocery offering has been incredibly well received by New Zealanders. And I think the sales were up -- was 76% in the first quarter. So you can imagine there are some logistics challenges, but we're very pleased with the reaction we've had.

Yes. And as we scale up, it's part of that is the supply issue I mentioned earlier. But we've been blown away by some of the reactions. When we went to $4 on butter, for example, that week we took 33% of the butter market in the whole of New Zealand in the limited stores we have. So there's clearly a need and a demand from key region. Frankly, we are struggling to keep those great deals in stock, some of the time.

It was the last time when we've done on a Friday. And I was told that we had no deliveries all week. The milk...

That would be unusual. Typically, groceries delivered 6 days of the week for the stores that need it, which store is that? And then we'll look into it.

Crowne Plaza building, the one in the center of City. It's been a month ago. The other thing is that where do you -- is the milk actually delivered to the individual stores? Or does it all go to your Warehouse?

It's delivered to the individual stores. Again, we'll look into that specific.

One of the $3 milk and base there are no suppliers at weekend. I guess you sell ordinary milk as well. And when milk, they seem to forget that they even had $3 milk.

We will look into that, but thank you, Robert.

I've tried to ask, we know what days it's delivered and they just don't know.

As we say, it's an emerging competency for us, so we're getting better at it.

If I knew what days, I go down in the morning and get some there. [indiscernible] full milk, which I don't like that.

You'd be a full milk man. We have one in over here.

My name is [ Justin Bake ], and I'm a shareholder. I'm also a mother of 3 children. So I'll start with the positives first. The Warehouse is usually the first port of call that I go to because the prices are usually the lowest looking for clothes. The children are growing quickly. They change sizes very quickly. So that's a really good positive. Okay. I'm glad you've got the groceries in there. I've looked at the floor, and I just want to know the country of origin. So I compare the prices of that like Robert's very concerned about the price of milk. And with so many families struggling in New Zealand, please keep the prices down. Okay. So where does the flower come from? Does anybody know?

I'm pretty sure that the origin of the weight that makes the flower is actually Australia.

Yes, I think you're right. We'll check and come back to you.

Well done, Amber.

So as a mother, concerned about what goes into my children. I'd like to see which country the product comes from. So if you could work on that. I find the refunds extremely good. Say, for example, I bought some school shoes for my child, and they didn't last as long as I'd like but I'm sick of buying the ultra-expensive ones for $200 because they see are changing so quickly in size. So I took the shoe back and it was exchanged. So I've had a really, really good positive experience with that. And this is often in the new market branch. Negatives at the Newmarket branch sometimes is practically no trolleys. I don't know if people coming in and stealing them, taking them away or they had to remove them because they were causing danger or something. I did say something to them. Does anybody know about -- when is the lack of trolleys?

Yes. I mean new market still is a bit unusual. We sold that store about 4 years ago, I believe. We tried various different ways of retaining that store. We have just got confirmation. We have another 3 years and have completed a refit. And so we're putting new trolleys in there. Ironically, we just got a trolley bags, 20 years ago. It's been missing for 20 years. And we got that one back this week, so that's one more. But we do assess every year trolleys, they do break. They do get stolen quite a lot, but we will go back and check that there's enough in new market.

I mean if someone desperate needs a trolley because that's the only way that you can get food to the family, I don't mind that ever.

Especially when you have kids.

Yes. Another negative point is this Halloween I, as a mom, steer my children away from that side of things. So I'm very disappointed that there's huge displays of Halloween costumes and paraphernalia and so on. That's a personal conviction of mine. I don't know how the shareholders feel about that. Have you had any feedback about all the Halloween? I saw a little bit of feedback online, comments were made that they didn't like it. Has Warehouse has any feedback on that?

Overwhelmingly positive. But it's certainly the Americanization of culture. It's a massive thing in the U.S.

We're not America and the prime and the community at the moment, I think parents would be very cautious about in their children dressed up and walking around.

Okay. In answer to your question, the feedback from customers has been overwhelmingly positive about it. But I accept that not everyone will like that. And that's how it is, and thank you for yours.

So in saying that, is there any way that the shareholders get any decision and what the Warehouse chooses to purchase to sell on to fellow kiwis?

The answer to that is, obviously, indirectly, the response we get to various categories guides what we are going to stock and to what level we're going to stock any particular good. But I think one good example where we did decide to discontinue with fireworks. So we proactively made a decision what 2 years ago to not stock fireworks, and that was a category that generated several million dollars a year for us. And I guess we're still brave because we'd obviously seen a decline over the years in terms of personal usage of fireworks, but I think that's been an area which has been supported. But even the Board of Directors, unless it's something really -- that's going to make a big reputational impact on the company, even the Board of Directors delegates to the group Chief Executive and his leadership team to make those category decisions because they're the experts. They're getting data on a daily basis on monitors that New Zealand consumers want and need. And that's what we're here to do is to respond to those wants and needs within the overarching purpose that we have of helping Kiwis live better every day. And that does guide some of the decisions we make in terms of some of the products and services we offer.

Yes. I mean it would be very hard to sort of have everyone's view and to range by democracy based on personal opinions. However, I would cite the example where we've had a shareholder feedback about being more sustainable and desire for us to be more sustainable. And that's one of the things, along with the fact that customer attitudes are changing that has caused us to drive so far into sustainability, and we've got a long way to go on that still. But that's an example of where shareholders have expressed a more generic preference.

I think we have a question online. We better go to that. Somebody like to read that out for us, please.

Absolutely. So our first question online is from [ Samuel Shing ]. He has asked, given ongoing Omicron impact to future staff sicknesses and rosters, will that be ongoing? Also disruptions in cost to imported products and inventory are those going to be shocking as well? What types of mitigations have you planned for these going forward, such as staffing and logistics?

That's a great question. And after the last 3 years, we've had who would bet against something like that happening again. And as we see on Omicron spiking. So I think there's several things on this. Firstly, retailers tend to be quite good at responding to things. It's a fast-moving environment and things change every day and as retailers, it's in our DNA. However, what has been thrown to us with COVID over the last few years has been exceptional. And I'm very, very pleased that we made the decision to go agile 2.25 years ago, because that's really enabled us to be able to respond to a lot of the changing dynamics. And we've just taken out our store management teams agile as well. And so that's already starting to allow us to be more dynamic. In addition, we would be foolish if we haven't planned ahead for disruptions. And so that does include things like hiring additional store labor to support our team at peak and also making that workforce more flexible. And we do and have recently been moving team members around as the different stores have struggled with that. In general terms, availability is much better this year than last, in fact, it's better than it has been for at least 3 years. But there are some challenges, specifically fast-moving goods, like grocery and consumables as pointed out before. We don't have any concerns about seasonal merchandise, which is most dangerous because as a short selling things like barbecues, outdoor furniture, Christmas presents, decorations and so forth. Some of the other mitigations we put into place, more continuity stock, better demand planning. That's part of the replenishment, that's part of the systems investment that we have. I'm making sure that we have enough volume in the bigger stores. So I'd never say never, but I'm personally extremely proud of how our team has responded to massive disruptions and to continue to deliver what our customers need while keeping our team and our customers safe. So let's hope we don't have another disruption like we've had, but if we do, we plan for it.

Okay. I thought we've exhausted. We got a question here. Yes. Please come up to the mic. Could you give us your name?

My name is [ Ian Cutcher ]. I'm a shareholder. They've opened up a Costco in Auckland. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about competing with Costco and their business model.

Yes, I'm happy to take that one as well. So firstly, we've known they've been coming for quite some time about 5 years, and it's surprising they've taken so long. You would write-off Costco at your peril. They're a formidable retailer with a very unique business model. They're a USD 200 billion business. They have a very strong private label business. Their business model is unique, as I'm sure you know, they actually make no money out of selling goods and all the money, the profit that they make comes from their membership program. And so we've been expecting them to come. I think that it certainly tested the theory about where the Kiwis would buy bulk grocery and bulk in a lot of other categories as well. And so we're very interested in that. We're looking and we're doing some tests at the moment about those bulk quantities. We have gotten some feedback from customers that people will resent having to pay $60 to go into a store. And we've actually benefited so far in the West Gate area from the increased traffic. There's quite a lot of frustration about the traffic management in that area that it's caused. But overall, we welcome competition because it makes us stronger, and it's a reality and we've been planning for that. But I think the positive is that it will continue to put pressure as they scale on bringing down the price of groceries, which is something we're also trying to do.

Okay. We've got one online. Jonathan, can you read that out for us, please?

Absolutely. We have a question from [ Chou Min Hung ]. The strength of The Warehouse Group is that it hangles everything from low-cost items to home appliances, furniture and household goods. Would you consider planning with the group to take advantage of these advantages to open a coffee shop in your store and allow people to order comfortably. TV and furniture also using the coffee shop prepared to be replaced, improve the atmosphere and unused items could be disposed at a discount. You could hold an event, make it a day and customers make and post them on YouTube.

Okay. Another one for me. I'm happy to take that one. So I'm happy to have you pointed out that we do offer great value, and we'll continue to do that. With regards to coffee shops specifically, we recently tested them in 2 stores in Pukekohe and Takanini. And we ran those tests for, I think, nearly a year. And the feedback was not positive from customers overall. It's obviously -- if there's a lot of considerations about selling food and drink for consumption immediately. And on balance, we decided not to go forward based on customer reaction. And at the end of the day, it's about whether the customers want what you -- is know what you want to do. And so we think it's a good offer, but not something that our customers wanted and we listen to our customers where we can.

[ Carl ], down the back. Do you want to come up, Carl?

Not a lot of supportive directors knows me really. I'm just basically, some feedback in regards to other issues raised. One that was brought up about the fact that The Warehouse staff used to do a conference to benefit their staff and whether there's any possibility of that being returned.

So we just had a staff conference, and we were very happy to bring it back. We had to suspend them during COVID. And I know we used to do regional ones. We opted to do a central one this time. And we got very positive feedback and it was great to have everyone back together again.

Yes. Also, in regards to the milk in our store, our reserve fridge, we actually put that out on the shops floor because we sell so much of it. But if you actually check on the app, you will actually see whether or not the stores have stock. So but that's a super concern.

So there is a good point around that. In April, the next phase of our ER PFI is going out, which is real-time inventory in the cloud. So those -- that inventory will be much more reliable. It's our inventory at the moment is batch processed. And so you can sell stuff before it's registered. So that will drive much more accurate app and internal inventory data.

Yes. And the fact that the app now tells most of the stores where the stock is in the store as well, which helps our customers who are trying to find [indiscernible]. And of course, the butter is now $5, but because, of course, we've got to try and make something from those money off of it.

The trick is to bring down the cost, which we're working assiduously on, but it was something that we did because we recognized them. So thank you for pointing that.

And I actually don't remember the others. That comes to a complete blame. Problem won't usually working evening, this is way too early in the morning for me. I paid $4.05 for the shares, but have also benefited from the dividends.

I also bought it for $4 as well. So I'm personally of...

That was $4.05 on discount at the time.

Okay. Thank you. Much appreciate it.

Another one online, Jonathan. Thank you.

This question comes from [ Christopher Harkin and Stephen Hart ]. Several Australian companies have been subjected to hacking or cyber crime with the private details of customers being released. This includes a telecommunications company and an insurance company. The warehouse has commented on transferring more information to the cloud and has increased its online sales. What steps does The Warehouse take to minimize risk of having its business interrupted from hacking or from cyber crime?

Yes. It's a very timely question, especially given in the last 2 board meetings, we've had dedicated sessions on cyber. But Jonathan, do you want to...

I'll kick it off by all means, and it's a very pertinent one. And we were recently and it's my second time there in the Microsoft Cyber Crime Center in Seattle. And one of the things you learn about cyber is that it is almost impossible even for sophisticated organizations like Microsoft or U.S. government to completely eliminate cyber crime. And so recognizing that it is going to happen, being aware that it has happened and how you respond is vital. It is a very complicated topic and one we take very seriously. Our efforts are in direct response to the multinational threats that we face. It's not like theft in a store. This is something that is truly international. And so it's everything from systems access control, ongoing penetration testing. So we test for our vulnerabilities what we call DDoS, which is a denial-of-service attack protection, information security, application security and everything else. We do have this audited by [ EY ], we have industry-leading checks and weapons, verifications and vulnerabilities that when we identify them, we solve them. We have a dedicated security team and multiple partners who focus exclusively on cybersecurity and that's all levels of the organization. But it is a massively concerning topic and one that we take very, very seriously.

And even at director level, it's something we pay enormous vigilance to, as you've seen, particularly in Australia, recently, the Optus issue that they had there at ANZ Bank in New Zealand. We had a DDoS attack about a year and a bit ago. So there are enormous learnings out of those events, which will go back and check and make sure that we are as protected as we possibly can be. And as Nick said, we've got EY doing assessments on a regular basis of our defense against attack. Dean is our Chair of Audit and Risk. Is there anything you want to add, Dean? Okay. I think we have exhausted all the questions now. So ladies and gentlemen, that sorry, we've got one more.

We have one more question for you, if you wouldn't mind. So we have a question from the New Zealand Shareholders Association. The question is, could you let us know where your moves into grocery might take the company, is the growth opportunity constrained by the fact that the stores are already filled with non-grocery products?

That's a great question.

Yes. Again, I'm happy to take that one. In summary, we're not constrained. We do believe very strongly in our ability to provide value. However, our strategy is not to be another new world or count down. We don't believe New Zealand needs that. But we are determined to give better value, essential groceries to New Zealand. I think more like Aldi or Lidl, we are committed to sort of great value and sourced in the right places, I'd hope, private label to supplement and compete with branded products. We are not space constrained by the other things we sell. We believe that there is the opportunity to be able to do that within our existing footprint and to make our stores more profitable at the same time. And so as I said before, there's a couple of things that the government is in the process of working out in terms of how they drive more competition. And from our point of view, it's about cost price and access to product and supply chain. And it's something that we feel very, very passionate about.

All right. Thank you, Nick. So ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our discussion on the items of business. In 1 minute, I'm going to close the voting. So please ensure that you've cast your vote on all resolutions. I'm now going to pause and allow you time to finalize those votes. So if someone could time 60 seconds, please. [Voting]

Voting is now closed. The results of these votes will be released to the stock exchange later today. So I now also declare the meeting closed at 11:39 a.m. And I do thank you all for your attendance, whether it's been in person or online today and, of course, your continued interest in the company. I hope you all stay safe and well, and I do wish your families a very happy and festive season and a prosperous new year. So thank you all for coming. And for those of you in the room, please join the directors and the leadership team to have some morning tea. Thank you.