Volex plc (VLX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Volex plc Annual General Meeting. [Operator Instructions] I'd now like to hand over to Chairman, Nat Rothschild. Good afternoon.

Thank you, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Volex plc's 2024 Annual General Meeting. My name is Nat Rothschild, Executive Chairman of Volex, and I will be chairing the Annual General Meeting from our offices in Basingstoke, which I confirm is quorumed. Before we move to the items of business, I'm pleased to provide a brief update on trading in the first quarter of FY 2025 as announced this morning, which has remained in line with management's expectations with the positive momentum outlined at the group's FY 2024 results continuing into the new financial year. As anticipated, the group has delivered an encouraging start to the new financial year with year-on-year constant currency organic revenue growth of 9%, driven by particularly strong performances in the EV and data center sectors. Murat Ticaret is trading well year-to-date in its first full year of ownership, supplementing strong year-on-year organic growth in the off-highway market. The group has continued to make targeted capital and operational investments to enhance capacity and capability in key locations. This includes the completion of the site expansions in Mexico, India and Indonesia with further expansion in Turkey due to complete in the coming months. This additional capacity allows the group to support a range of customers who are reconfiguring their supply chains to localize production and mitigate risk. The group's encouraging performance in the first quarter, combined with the ongoing investment plans, improving market backdrop in key sectors and the continued integration of Murat Ticaret gives the Board confidence in Volex's ability to make further progress against this strategy during the year and deliver on its expectations. I'd now like to move on to introducing the directors and officers of the company joining us today. So opposite me in the boardroom in Basingstoke, Jon Boaden, Chief Financial Officer. On the call today, from Turkey, Sir Peter Westmacott, our Senior Independent Nonexecutive Director; and Amelia Murillo; Jeffrey Jackson; and John Wilson, our Independent Nonexecutive Directors. And finally, in the conference from here in Basingstoke, Chris Bedford, our Group General Counsel and Company Secretary. Today's AGM is an opportunity for shareholders to express their views and to ask questions of the Board. We, as your Board, are committed to open dialogue with our shareholders and are pleased to have the opportunity during the meeting to engage with you. As mentioned in the Notice of Meeting, shareholders can submit written questions during the meeting, which the Board will endeavor to answer. We ask that your questions relate solely to the items of business before the meeting. I will now move on to the formal business of this Annual General Meeting. The notice of AGM was sent to you on the 3rd of July 2024. I propose to take the Notice of Annual General Meeting or AGM as read. I will move on to the items of business before the Annual General Meeting, considering and, if thought fit, passing the resolutions, details of which are set out in the Notice of Meeting. Resolutions 1 to 10 are ordinary resolutions and require a simple majority of the votes to be cast in their favor. Resolutions 11 to 13 are special resolutions and require at least 3/4 of the votes to be cast in their favor. Today, all of the resolutions set out in the Notice of AGM will be taken on a poll. This is in line with current corporate governance guidelines. On a poll, votes may be given by members present in person by representatives of corporate shareholders who are present and by persons present as proxy for a shareholder. On a poll, each member presents in person, by corporate governance representative or by proxy, is entitled to 1 vote for every share held by them or the shareholder whom they represent as the case may be. A person entitled to more than one vote need not to use all of their votes or cast all votes they use in the same way. Many shareholders have already sent in a proxy appointing me as Chair of the meeting to vote on their behalf. I will vote as they have instructed me. If they have given me discretion as to how to vote, I shall be voting in favor of the resolution concerned on their behalf. All shareholders, proxies and corporate representatives here today have received a poll card. I now propose the resolutions as set out in the Notice of meeting, which, together with the proxy results received, are shown on the slides, and I declare the poll open. The poll count for the resolutions put to the meeting today will be conducted by Link, our registrars, and will be combined with the proxy votes already submitted. When those present in person have completed their poll card, they will find a ballot box at the exit of the room into which they can deposit their completed poll card. The ballot box will remain in place for 5 minutes only after the close of the meeting upon which the ballot box will be closed in order for the poll count to commence. The final results will be announced at the London Stock Exchange as soon as practical following the conclusion of this meeting and will also appear on our website. That concludes the formal business of the meeting, and we will now take questions.

Good. Thank you, Nat. So the first question I had is that it was announced last week that Nat was considering becoming Chairman of Tennor International, how will this affect his roll at Volex?

So the answer is not at all. I've been involved in Volex, as a shareholder, since 2008, and I've been the Executive Chairman since 2015. I remain completely committed to this business. I enjoy it, and I have a substantial part of my net worth in this business, and it is my primary focus in my business life. It will remain that way. And I think the main point is that Tennor is an investment company. They make investments. Volex is as an operating company, where I am the Senior Executive supported by an incredibly talented group of people. And I look forward to working with my colleagues to make this a bigger and better business in the months and years ahead.

Thank you. There are 2 other questions, but they don't relate to the business of the meeting. And given that it's quite recently that we did the full year announcement and we answered a lot of questions on business performance at that point. The only thing I would seek to reiterate is that we published an announcement this morning on Q1 trading performance where, as Nat mentioned, we talked about organic revenue growth of 9% and the Board's confidence in our ability to deliver our expectations for the year. So it's great we made such a strong start to the first quarter of the year as evidenced by that announcement that we made this morning. There's no other questions in the room. There's no other questions in relation to the business of the meeting online either. So with that, I'll hand back to Nat to close the meeting.

Thanks, Jon. Well, that concludes Volex's 2024 Annual General Meeting, and the meeting is now closed. So thank you for joining us. And if you have any feedback on today's meeting, please do let us know.

That's great. Nat, Jon, Chris, thank you ever so much for your time this afternoon. Can I please ask attendees not to close their session as we'll now automatically redirect you for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the Board can better understand your views and expectations. So it will take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the Board of Volex plc, I would like to thank you for attending today's Annual General Meeting and enjoy the rest of your day.