Xero Limited (XRO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Kia ora, and good morning from Auckland, New Zealand, and welcome to Xero's 2024 Annual Meeting. I'm David Thodey, and I'm the Chair of Xero's Board. Firstly, thank you for attending today's meeting. We are broadcasting from our Auckland office. I hope you enjoyed the videos that we just played, which highlighted some of our Xero Business Beautiful Fund (sic) [ Xero Beautiful Business Fund ] winners from last year. They're just amazing. We'll talk a bit about them a little bit later. Now the procedures for today's virtual meeting are intended to provide you the same opportunity to participate as you would at a physical meeting. This includes asking questions and voting using an electronic Voting Card. I'm going to discuss that process shortly. Now in the unlikely event that we experience technical issues that impact the meeting, I will assess the situation and the circumstances and then we'll communicate further with you. Now if that's not possible, you -- we did e-mail instructions on how and when to rejoin the meeting. Now I'm informed by our Company Secretary that a quorum is present, and I now declare the meeting formally open. Firstly, I'd like to introduce the Board and members of Xero's executive leadership team. So joining me from Auckland, our directors, Mark Cross and Susan Peterson. And then from Xero's executive leadership team, we have our Chief Executive Officer, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy; our Chief Financial Officer, Kirsty Godfrey-Billy; and our Company Secretary, Damien Coleman. As we are a global Board, joining us online from the U.S. are Directors, Steven Aldrich, Anjali Joshi and Brian McAndrews. And then from the U.K., and I understand it's just on midnight, Dale Murray, and she's looking pretty good. Okay. Also, we have Simon O'Connor from our auditor, Ernst & Young, is present and available to answer any relevant questions directed to him. Xero's General Manager of Corporate Communications, Kate McLaughlin, will read out written questions submitted by shareholders through the online meeting platform. Okay. So let's now turn to the agenda and order of events for today. Firstly, I'm going to say a few words, then we will hear from our CEO, Sukhinder, then we'll turn to the formal business of the meeting as set out in the Notice of Meeting. After that, there will be an opportunity for any general shareholder questions before I then close the meeting. But before I give my address, I do want to outline a little bit more about using the online platform. So this is the administration. Voting on the resolutions will be conducted by poll, and that poll is now open. Please vote by using the electronic voting card you should receive after clicking Get a Voting Card button, and shareholders can submit written questions during the meeting by clicking on Ask a Question button. Now I do encourage you to submit any questions as soon as possible, including questions about any of the resolutions. Now if you have any issues using the platform, please check the virtual meeting online guide, which you can access through the Downloads section at the bottom of your screen or from Xero's website. Or if you need to, please contact the phone line that is indicated on this slide. Shareholders can also ask questions by telephone. [Operator Instructions] So I hope you've got all that detail now. Okay. So let's now move to my formal address. Xero delivered a pleasing operating result in financial year '24 with a balance between strong revenue growth and significantly improved profitability. This was reflected by Xero achieving a greater than Rule of 40 outcome for the financial year. Now Rule of 40 is a common metric used by high-growth technology companies as an indicator of their ability to generate profitable revenue growth. It comprises a sum of the constant currency revenue growth and free cash flow margin, which for Xero came in at 41%, a very strong result. Xero's results demonstrate our momentum, our ability to execute towards our future aspirations and above all, the trust accountants and bookkeepers and our small business customers place in our platform to complete critical business tasks. There continues to be significant opportunity to introduce the benefits of cloud accounting to new customers while increasing the use of our platform by existing customers. Now in the markets where Xero operates, small businesses face a changing operating environment that is impacted by interest rate pressures, productivity challenges, persistent inflation around the world and other macro environment and geopolitical influences. Now this is reflected in our Xero Small Business Insights program, which is anonymized and aggregated customer data to monitor how small businesses are really performing. We call it XSBI, and that data shows lower sales than a year ago in the 5 markets where we monitor. That's Australia, U.K., U.S., Canada and New Zealand. However, there are signs that the U.S. and Canada may return to positive sales growth soon, along with improvements in job numbers, particularly in Australia and New Zealand, which is encouraging. It's inspiring to see how well our customers are navigating this environment while continuing to meet the needs of their own customers. We believe this reinforces Xero's role as a critical tool that helps small businesses run more efficiently and effectively within these changing environments and also highlights the benefits of digitizing the small business economy. So related to that is we continue to work closely with governments in regions where we operate. And we continue to advocate for them, so that governments support small business digitization, also simplify government approvals and engagements and also automate the tax system. We believe this has enormous economic value. This is going to help address the late payments issues faced by many small businesses and improved productivity to strengthen this critical backbone of all these economies where we operate. Xero also continues to back small businesses directly, and we strive to deliver on our purpose through the Xero Beautiful Business Fund that I mentioned earlier on. In 2024, we were again offering funding support to small businesses in 4 wonderful categories: innovating for environmental sustainability; trailblazing with technology; strengthening their communities; and, of course, upskilling for the future. And they were just wonderful winners. So I would encourage anyone who's operating a small business, please enter and I'm going to look forward to seeing who the winners are this year. Turning to '24. Sukhinder, working with the Board, welcomed several new leaders to our executive and senior leadership teams. These new leaders have proven capabilities to lead our global portfolio of businesses and complement our existing tenured and deeply experienced team. With the leadership team in place, we moved to developing our '25 to '27 strategy, which we call Winning on Purpose and which we announced at Xero's inaugural Investor Day in February '24. We see an opportunity to capture the largely untapped addressable market -- total addressable market of around about $100 billion present in this 3 x 3 strategy, and Sukhinder will talk a little bit more about that. This is deeply anchored in our purpose to make life better for people in small business, their advisers and communities around the world. This clarity and focus of this strategy underpins our ability to execute and capture the significant opportunity which we believe is ahead of us. Now a key pillar of this strategy is evolving Xero's culture to enable people to thrive and increase their impact. Now core to this is driving a performance-focused approach, while maintaining our very strong purpose-led culture. The Board played an active role in this work as we seek to nurture Xero's special culture while introducing more of a performance focus to support the business' evolution as we grow. Now as you know, building and maintaining trust is at the heart of our business and many businesses, and is the foundation of the many ways we create long-term value for our stakeholders. Importantly, Xero processes a significant amount of personal and customer data, and we really do take a rigorous approach to managing security through multiple layers of data protection, robust cybersecurity management processes and, of course, educating our people. This is very important to us. While we're excited about new technologies that are emerging, including the upcoming launch of our generative AI tool JAX, J-A-X, we strive to use these new tools in ways that are secure, safe and maintain our focus on being a trusted platform. We will continue to carefully consider how we use GenAI as a technology both for customers but also internally. So now let me turn to ESG. As you will understand, it's very important that Xero grows in a sustainable way, and the Board understands the importance of upholding high standards of governance to create long-term value for all our stakeholders. We remain committed to building a socially responsible and sustainable business. So on climate, in line with the global shift towards standardized climate disclosures, we are very committed to providing comparable, consistent and transparent information about the impacts of climate change on our business. We are also streamlining Xero's practices to be more socially responsible. So in 2024 following the reshaping of our business and after an external review of our carbon emissions reduction processes and targets, we expanded our Scope 3 emissions boundary. In the year ahead, we will rebase our targets at our full year '24 footprint with our expanded boundary. This will be reflected in our '25 climate reporting. We also recognize we have a responsibility to help small businesses become more sustainable themselves. We're helping our customers transition to a net-zero economy by providing third-party applications in the Xero App Store, and that will also be through providing education and other tools. Xero has an inclusive work environment, and we believe strongly in diversity, inclusion and belonging are all critical to attracting top talent and helping people thrive. We introduced a new diversity target in 2024, and that is to have 10% of our workforce identify within underrepresented racial and ethnic groups globally, and that target is by the end of '27 -- financial year '27. So after ESG, let me now turn to the Board. We remain committed to continuing to improve our practices to support Xero's governance and the delivery of its purpose and strategy. There have been no changes to the composition of the Board since our last annual meeting. The Board recognizes the importance of having a diverse mix of skills, knowledge, experience, gender and independence to help fulfill its role in leading a global SaaS business. The Board's mix of skills and experiences outlined in our Board skills matrix in our annual report. In 2024, the Board implemented several changes following a review coming out of '23 to strengthen its oversight. And of course, we wanted to increase strategic focus and also our capability. The Nominations Committee was changed to Nominations and Governance Committee and the committee's charter was updated to reflect its expanded remit to assist the Board in relation to our corporate governance practices. The Board will continue to evaluate our practices as our business, the governance landscape and stakeholder expectations continue to evolve. So I'd like to acknowledge and thank my fellow directors for their incredible commitment, time and effort in the work of stewarding Xero as it grows into a global company with a clear vision and purpose that has digitally disrupted the accounting software industry. So we're pleased with the year of '24 and the performance that we've delivered. The Board continues to work closely with Sukhinder and the leadership team to oversee the execution of the '25-'27 strategy, to deliver on our purpose and drive disciplined customer-focused growth. On behalf of the Board, I'd like to thank Sukhinder and the Xero leadership team for another year of strong performance. We are also immensely grateful for the dedication and passion shown daily by all of Xero's people. Our people are fundamental to Xero success, and we want to support them to do the very best work of their lives. I'd also like to thank you, our shareholders, for your ongoing support. So that brings me to the end of my address. Let me now hand over to Sukhinder before we commence the formal process of the meeting. Over to you, Sukhinder.

Thanks, David, and good morning from Auckland. It's great to be joining you all for our annual meeting. Today, I'm going to summarize Xero's 2024 financial year results and themes as well as briefly discuss our strategic priorities. Then to finish, I'll touch on Xero's outlook. Now we're really proud of our FY '24 result. In particular, it shows you we're capable of executing towards our future aspirations. Xero has continued its strong track record of revenue growth, and at the same time, we've meaningfully delivered an increase in profitability, and that's led to us achieving a greater than 40% Rule of 40 outcome. Revenue grew 22% to $1.714 million or 21% in constant currency terms. Adjusted EBITDA of $527 million, increased by $225 million or 75% on the previous year. Together, the strong operating results and improved free cash flow generation resulted in a Rule of 40 outcome of 41%. Moving to the next slide. Xero is a macro resilient business that consistently delivers strong top line growth. In full year '24, we saw growth balance between subscribers and ARPU, with subscriber growth of 11% year-on-year and ARPU growth of 14%. Subscriber additions were 419,000 in the year. Price changes across both our Business Edition and Partner Edition products were a key driver of ARPU, increasing 14% or 10% on a constant currency basis. Moving to the next slide. I'll now spend a few minutes talking through our bottom line outcomes. The chart on the left shows the meaningful change in adjusted EBITDA year-on-year, up 75%. This contributed to a strong free cash flow margin of 20%. The increase here reflects the benefits of the restructuring we completed late in fiscal year '23. You can see in the chart on the far right that adding this to revenue growth, where we use the 21% constant currency metric resulted in that Rule of 40 outcome we talked about of 41%. This neatly shows how we've shifted to delivering profitability without moving away from adding value for customers and generating strong revenue growth. Now moving to our strategy. As you know, our vision and purpose are constants at Xero. Successfully delivering on these is key to achieving our aspiration, which I'll cover in a few moments. Our fiscal year '25 to '27 strategy, which we announced at our Investor Day in February, has 4 key pillars. First, win the 3 x 3. Building a winning go-to-market playbook or GTM playbook for Xero's next chapter is the second key pillar. Winning the future, which is about focused bets and innovation is the third key pillar. And lastly, unleashing Xero and Xeros to Win is the fourth key pillar of the strategy. Now each of these pillars have tactics underneath them, and you can see that on this slide. For those of you who missed our Investor Day, I encourage you to watch the recording, which can be found on our Investor Center where we discuss each of these tactics in detail. We started making moves against these tactics already, which I'll recap on the next slide. Now to support winning the 3 x 3. That is the 3 most important jobs in the 3 most important markets. We established a partnership with Deputy, to embed time and scheduling into our core product in Australia as one example. As part of this, we also shared that we're exiting Planday in Australia, and we'll focus the Planday business in Europe and the U.K. We've launched simplified product packages in Australia and New Zealand and the U.K. over the past several months as well. This supports our GTM playbook strategic pillar to make it easier for customers to choose the right plan for them and their level of complexity. As part of our focused bets for the future and growing other markets efficiently, we've restructured our Canadian sales team. This reflects us rightsizing that market for the current cloud accounting backdrop. We're also retiring Xero Go in the U.K. as we evolve our mobile efforts and focus on our primary customer segments. And finally, under that fourth pillar, as part of continuing to unleash Xeros to Win, Diya Jolly was promoted in April to our Chief Product and Technology Officer. Diya's leadership across these teams is improving their ways of working, particularly how our engineering and product functions operate together as we continue to evolve our capabilities, improve product delivery and importantly, velocity. The improvement in product velocity was a key theme at our recent Xerocons in London and Nashville as well. What you see here is we're focused on continuing to enhance our products to deliver value to our customers and support the 3 x 3 focus. Some of the more recent developments include, in the U.K., we've deepened our solutions for U.K. accountants and bookkeepers through new partnership tax capabilities. We've also enhanced core practice management by better connecting tax compliance with practice management to enable accountants and bookkeepers to manage workflows and improve job tracking and prioritization. In the U.K. at Xerocon, we also announced a new Xero Payroll feature, Payroll Manager, which will help save accountants and bookkeepers time by providing a consolidated view of client pay runs, making it quicker and simpler to identify clients whose payroll needs attention. Moving on, in the U.S., we have also significantly improved our core accounting offering by doing the following. First, extending our direct bank feeds coverage to over 700 banks versus only 20, 18 months ago by working in partnership with aggregators. We've also enhanced our bank reconciliation process to better align with the U.S. practice of closing out the period by reconciling to a bank statement at the end of the period. Thirdly, we've worked on expanding sales tax reporting, enabling businesses to automatically generate reports for each filing period to eliminate manual processes. And lastly, we've continued to progress our offering in partnership with BILL to provide an integrated bill pay solution on Xero, with our beta to be released in the near future. Another key theme at our recent Xerocons was to update accountants and bookkeepers about new products that will come out across all our regions. This includes announcing the beta for Just Ask Xero, which is our generative AI business companion, which we believe will make it easier than ever for small businesses and their advisers to access business-critical information and manage their financial tasks on the go. We also announced that Xero is bringing Tap to Pay to the U.K., U.S. and Australia to further enhance our mobile offering. Building on this momentum will continue to be a key focus area throughout fiscal year '25 as we invest in product capabilities. Let's move on to our outlook statement. There are no changes to the outlook we provided with our FY '24 results announcements. In FY '25, total operating expenses as a percentage of revenue is expected to be around 73%. And compared to FY '24, product design and development costs as a percentage of revenue is expected to be higher. We also continue to expect to remove between 125,000 and 175,000 long idle subscriptions in the first half of fiscal year '25. I'd refer you to our existing disclosures from the fiscal year '24 results for any further detail. Of course, in addition to these shorter-term considerations, we continue to pursue our aspirations. Our aspiration is to be a world-class global SaaS business from a very strong position today. As we shared with you in February, we believe we have the opportunity to double the size of the business and deliver Rule of 40 or greater performance. And we'll focus on high-quality growth, which has a balance between subscriber growth and ARPU expansion. As I said before, these aspirations are powerful, and they're purposeful, and we will continue to pursue them aggressively over the short, medium and long term. Before I conclude, like David, I want to acknowledge everyone who plays an important role in our journey. In particular, our Xero team, the people across the world who continue to work hard to deliver results for our customers and partners are deeply appreciated. I'd also like to thank David and the Board for their support and hard work and to you, our shareholders, thank you again for your ongoing support. I'll now hand back to David for the formal business of today's meeting.

Thanks, Sukhinder. Really appreciate that update. Okay. Well, now we'll move to the resolutions, and voting for all 4 resolutions is now open and will remain open for 5 minutes after the close of the meeting. Our Company Secretary has confirmed that the Notice of Meeting has been sent to all shareholders and other persons entitled to receive it within the notice period. The matters requiring consideration today are outlined in detail in the Notice of Meeting and the notice will be taken as read. Xero's financial year '24 financial statements, together with the auditor's report, are in our annual report, which is available on our website. All 4 of today's resolutions are ordinary resolutions. This means that to pass, they require more than 50% of votes cast by shareholders entitled to vote and voting on the resolution. Resolution 4 is a nonbinding advisory resolution. Xero's share registry provider, Link Market Services, will conduct the voting by way of poll and Julie Stokes of Link will act as returning officer. Votes will be counted after the end of the meeting and results published on the ASX and Xero's website. Shareholders or their proxyholder can cast their vote using the electronic voting card received after validating online registration. To validate registration, you'll be asked to enter your security holder reference number, that's the SRN or your holder identification number, your HIN, plus postcode if you're in Australia or country if you're outside of Australia. To then cast your vote, click the Edit Card button. The proxy votes that have been submitted prior to the meeting will be set out on the slide shown for each resolution. Now for some context, the current number of Xero shares on issue is approximately 151 million shares. Shareholders have appointed the Chair of today's meeting, that's me, as proxy for approximately 108 million shares voting either for, against or with discretion for all resolutions. As indicated on the proxy form and in the Notice of Meeting, my intention as Chair is to vote all discretionary or undirected proxies held by me in favor of each resolution. Shareholders can submit written questions via the online portal during the meeting by clicking Ask a Question button as I went through before or by using the teleconference facility. Now to ensure questions reach us in time, look, I do ask you please submit them now so that we've got them ready. Again, any general shareholder questions submitted prior to or during the meeting will be addressed after the formal business is completed. I will endeavor to address as many relevant questions raised during the course of the meeting as possible. Okay. I think that's all the administration. Let's now turn to the first resolution, which relates to the authorization of the Board to fix remuneration of Xero's auditor, Ernst & Young. If not already submitted, I'd like to invite shareholders to submit any questions regarding this resolution. And now I will pause for a moment to allow time to receive them from you should there be any questions. Are there any questions from telephone participants to Resolution 1?

There are no questions on the phone line.

Okay. Thank you, operator. I'm now happy to take questions from shareholders who have written to us by the online platform. Kate, are there any questions regarding Resolution 1?

No written questions have been received, David.

Okay. Well, thank you. As we haven't received any questions, we have nothing more to do on this resolution, and we'll move on to Resolution 2. We now turn to the election and reelection of directors. Resolution 2 concerns the reelection of Steven Aldrich as a Director of Xero. Xero (sic) [ Steven ] has been on the Board since October 2020, and he retires at this meeting and offers himself for reelection. The Board, other than Steven, of course, recommends that Steven to you as a Xero Director and unanimously supports his reelection. He has been a big contributor to the Board. So let me now ask Steven to say a few words about himself. Over to you, Steven?

Thank you so much, David. I was at home in Silicon Valley when I was seeking to be elected to the Board back in 2021. Today, I'm seeking your support for my reelection from a hotel room in Boston. We are truly in a world that makes serving on a global company Board possible. Thank you for this opportunity. I'd like to address today how I got here, why I'm here and what I believe I can continue to contribute as a Director of your company. I was selected to the Board after a global search, started as a Director in October of 2020 and was elected by you in August of 2021. The same reasons that I wanted to join the Board of Xero at that time apply today. I love Xero's focus on small business success, and I continue to be impressed with the people around this table. It's been an exciting time to be a Board member at Xero, and we still have a huge opportunity ahead of us. Now what can I bring to the Xero Board? I've had close to 30 years of experience building products and growing technology companies focused on consumers and small businesses. I was on the leadership teams at Intuit and at GoDaddy for nearly 20 years combined, including as the Chief Product Officer at GoDaddy for 3 years. These experiences enable me to support and challenge Xero's management in assessing the customer experience, product strategy and decisions about growth. I serve on another public board and several private boards in the U.S., building a base of experience to tackle issues facing boards today, and I am active in the start-up community where I see new innovations taking shape. I have served as a member of Xero's People and Remuneration Committee for my first 3 years on the Board and have recently joined the Audit and Risk Management Committee. In my first term on the Board, we've added tremendous talent into the company, including the Board's recruitment and hiring of our CEO, Sukhinder. We also played an active role in shaping Xero's FY '25 to '27 strategy, Winning on Purpose. I have the driving capacity to continue to be a high-performing Director of Xero on your behalf. My efforts as a Director are aligned with your expectations as owners, for Xero to be the most insightful and trusted small business platform and to see Xero create value short and long term for our shareholders as the business delivers on our aspirations. With your support, I look forward to working with my fellow directors and all of the Xero team to achieve these objectives. Thank you. Back to you, David.

Thanks, Steven. Now I'd like to invite shareholders to submit any questions regarding this resolution. Once again, I'm going to pause for a moment to receive your questions, and we'll start with the telephone first. Operator, are there any questions from telephone participants regarding Resolution #2?

There are no questions on the phone line.

Okay. Well, thank you, Operator. I will now take questions from shareholders who may have submitted some written questions via the online platform. So on Resolution 2, are there any questions at all, Kate?

Thank. Thanks, David. There are no questions.

Okay. No questions today. Well, okay. Well, as we haven't received any questions, we will move on to the next resolution. But thank you, Steven, for that great update. Okay. Well, the next resolution, Resolution 3 concerns the reelection of Dale Murray, who as we said, is in London. Dale, who has been on the Board since 2018, retires at this meeting and offers herself for reelection. And again, the Board, other than Dale, recommends Dale too, as a Xero Director and unanimously supports her election. She has been a tremendous contributor to the Board. So let me now throw to Dale to say a few words.

Thank you very much, David. Hello, everyone, and thank you for the opportunity to discuss my credentials for reelection as an Independent Director of Xero. As David explained, I have been a Director here since April 2018 and a member of the Audit and Risk Management Committee during this entire time. I have also served on the Nominations Committee. I do live in the U.K., and I help influence Xero's growth in this very important market where cloud penetration for small business software continues to offer us tremendous opportunity. Alongside my role on the Xero Board, I sit on some other international boards and through them, track a range of geographies and industries, including technology, private equity and small business platforms. I am a Nonexecutive Director at LendInvest Plc and Jupiter Fund Management Plc, both listed companies in the U.K. and Lightspeed Commerce and the Cranemere Group in North America. All have seen the opportunity of technology to serve their customers in very competitive marketplaces. Prior to my Board work, I was a technology entrepreneur. I was Co-Founder and CEO at the British Mobile phone pioneer, Omega Logic. I have been an active investor in tech companies and have served on other boards of companies managing growth and scale. Additionally, my past work on U.K. government boards and advisory groups has also given me insight into the regulatory environment in the U.K. For my services to business, I was made Commander of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. I thoroughly enjoy my role as an Independent Director at Xero, and I'm proud of our progress since I joined the Board in 2018. The company and leadership have evolved and matured significantly over this time. The way in which I support and challenge management remains rooted in my belief that our owners and employees deserve the best governance, strategic insight and execution accountability. As Steven mentioned, over the past 18 months, the Board has focused on a successful CEO transition, and we're now helping Sukhinder and the leadership team shape Xero's new strategy. I also use the Xero software many times each week as a business owner. Each time I receive an alert about a new product feature, I feel extremely satisfied that our Xero teams are continuing to build on our world-class customer experience and, in turn, make my life better as a business owner. Being able to work with people who deeply care about doing the best work of their lives for our customers is an absolute privilege. Thank you for your consideration. And with your support, I look forward to continuing to serve on the Board. I remain committed to doing my very best to see Xero realize the next chapter of all of our exciting opportunities ahead. Thank you. I'll now pass back to David.

Thank you, Dale, and I can personally testify that Dale is a very active user of Xero. So I'd like to now invite shareholders to submit any questions regarding this resolution. Once again, I'm going to pause for a moment to receive any questions. And firstly, we'll take calls from the -- from telephone. So operator, are there any questions at all regarding Resolution 3?

There are no questions on the phone line.

Okay. Well, thank you, Operator. Okay. Any written questions at all, Kate, from the online portal?

No, David. No written questions have been received.

Okay. Well, as we haven't received any questions, we'll now move to the next resolution, which is the last resolution. Now just to restate, Resolution 4 is a nonbinding advisory resolution to adopt Xero's remuneration report. The remuneration report can be found on Pages 109, 129 of the final year '24 annual report. The resolution has been put forward voluntarily as a matter of good governance, which we feel very strong about. While the result of the resolution will not bind Xero or the Board or have other legal consequences, the voting result will be considered by the Board when setting future remuneration strategy and in the following year's remuneration report. The Board does not consider making a recommendation on this resolution to be appropriate, given each director has an interest in the matter. So they have not participated. Xero has voluntarily put a voting exclusion in place relating to this resolution in that votes will be disregarded if they are cast by a director, including me, the CEO, the CFO and closely related parties. There are some limited exceptions to this exclusion, which have been set out in the explanatory notes to the Notice of Meeting that has been provided to shareholders. So what I'm going to do now is ask Susan, who is the Chair of the People and Remuneration Committee, to make some comments in relation to Xero's remuneration agreements and our remuneration report. And I should say she does an outstanding job as Chair of that committee. So Susan, over to you.

Thank you, David. And as Sukhinder has said, Xero has delivered a strong operating result in full year '24. And this has been a year we have made significant changes to better enable our strategy. The delivery of a greater than 40% Rule of 40 outcome and strong shareholder returns has been enabled by the high-quality talent we've been able to attract. Our approach to remuneration has been a critical enabler in attracting this high-quality talent. As we look ahead to build on our full year '24 performance and the delivery of our strategy, we have continued to evolve our remuneration approach. These changes better enable us to attract, retain and reward the talent we need to pursue our aspiration of becoming an even higher performing global SaaS company. So today, I'd like to share with you some of the key features and principles within our evolved approach. We have 3 remuneration principles that apply to every Xero and every role right across Xero and they guide our remuneration decisions and outcomes in all ways. These 3 elements are performance, scope and criticality of role and the location of the individual. And we have seen these principles applied in the past year as we've strengthened the link between performance and pay, we've improved role clarity and provide clearer career pathways and development for our people. This has included investments in developing global leadership capability programs and evolving our performance management and developmental framework to foster a more performance-focused culture. The application of these principles has also been an important factor in Xero being able to attract the necessary global talent to deliver our strategy, again, to become an even higher performing global SaaS company. Recruiting and retaining leading global talent is absolutely and completely critical to the successful execution of our strategy. Some of our key hires are necessarily in the -- come from the U.S. where a significant proportion of the world's leading tech talent resides. To support this, it's important we respect the realities of the remuneration structures of the markets where we compete for talent. This is reflected in the peer groups that we have provided for benchmarking remuneration, comprising technology companies listed in the U.S. or on the ASX with similar size and reach globally to Xero. The U.S. peer group is a key comparator for global talent, reflecting market practice for the caliber of talent that Xero needs to deliver on in order to deliver our global strategic ambitions. But we're also very conscious of balancing the need to meet local market demands with ASX best practice for remuneration construction. And this can be seen in the remuneration structure for Xero's leadership team, which has 3 key elements. The first thing, fixed remuneration. The second component being a short-term incentive, which is completely at risk and linked to performance. The performance is assessed through 70% financial and 30% nonfinancial metrics, alongside an individual performance modifier. The STI is split equally between cash and 1-year deferred shares. Now it needs to be noted that STI deferral is not market practice in the U.S. However, we include it at Xero to ensure that all of our executives, regardless of location, are rewarded for good long-term decision-making and good conduct. This is an important mechanism for Xero and for you as our shareholders. The third component is our long-term incentive and equity comprising an at-risk performance-based component. This is based on operating revenue growth, free cash flow margin and relative total shareholder return, and we base this on the EMCLOUD Index, and this comes over a 3-year period. And there is a service-based component, which is commonplace, and we need to emphasize this -- this is a commonplace and required in order to be competitive in the U.S. tech industry. The Board retains discretion to claw back or to not award any part of the LTI and LTA should the circumstances justify it and again, this is an important piece to emphasize. The majority of our CEO's long-term incentive is performance assessed and 80% of your total remuneration is equity based to ensure alignment with long-term value creation for our shareholders. We consider this to be very important as we seek to align Sukhinder's reward to both the successful delivery of our full year '25 to '27 strategy and performance for our shareholders. Now for those of you who would like more detail on the structure, key performance metrics and the quantum of executive remuneration, please refer to our remuneration report, which can be found in our annual report. We continue to improve and evolve our remuneration reporting each year. And this comes in part based on feedback from you as our shareholders. This year, you'll see that we've added new disclosures, including detail on our peers for benchmarking and additional color on performance against short-term incentive targets. Through our remuneration report, we aim to provide a good understanding of the work we do to support our culture and performance and to clearly connect our reward and recognition frameworks with the successful execution of our strategy. However, we need to emphasize our report is not intended to fully replicate the statutory disclosure requirements of an Australian domiciled company's remuneration report. These requirements do not apply to Xero as we are a New Zealand-domiciled company. We make these disclosures willingly and voluntarily. Our commitment to continually evolve our approach is reflected in the inclusion of Resolution 4 at today's meeting. This provides you as our shareholders with the opportunity to vote on an advisory resolution to adopt the full year '24 remuneration report. As David said, while this resolution will not bind Xero or the Board or have any other legal consequences, we still see it as a very important way to obtain your feedback on how we're going with our remuneration governance and our practices. The voting outcome and comments will be considered by the Board when setting future remuneration strategy and in the following year's remuneration report. And we would very much welcome engagement with you as our shareholders throughout the year and the role that it plays in helping us understand your perspectives. And it's pleasing to know that the majority of our long-term investors are very supportive of our remuneration approach and transition to a performance of purpose culture, recognizing our need to adopt pay practices that may not fully reflect the traditional ASX structure. On behalf of all the Board, we really thank you for your full and frank engagement. It is also been pleasing to have 3 out of the 4 major proxy firms recommend votes for Resolution 4 in support of our remuneration approach. While we welcome all feedback and acknowledge that 1 proxy adviser recommended against supporting Resolution 4, it is very important to understand that the analysis in their report is explicitly based on an Australian benchmark policy. This compares an ASX-based peer group only. And it is clear that this is a key driver of their recommendation against supporting Resolution 4. I would like to emphasize very clearly that we believe that if we follow this approach of benchmarking solely against peers based on where the company is listed rather than the global talent pool in which we operate in, we would not be able to attract the talent to support the execution of our strategy. And by extension, we will inhibit our ability to deliver long-term shareholder value. Our approach is to compare our CEO remuneration against a peer group which represents both Australian and U.S. geographies, reflecting the third principle of our remuneration approach to pay based on the geographic location of our people. We adopt this approach deliberately because, as we know Xero's 3 x 3 strategy is purposefully global and demands both performance and talent across all of these markets if we are to be successful. It's critical that Xero can remain adaptable and competitive in the compensation and use relevant global benchmarking given this reality. It's pleasing to hear in our conversations with long-term active investors that they agree with us in this regard. We acknowledge the CEO structure, of her pay is not -- does not completely align with what you would expect to see in either an Australian or a U.S.-based CEO. However, we believe our hybrid approach is necessary to attract a senior leader of Sukhinder's caliber from the tech industry in the U.S. and we've endeavored to balance those characteristics that are most important to a U.S.-based executive while retaining key features ASX best practice. This includes ensuring the majority of long-term incentives and short-term incentives are tied to performance hurdles. It also includes deferring equity of 50% of granted short-term incentives, which is not apparent in the U.S. market. And the third piece, we're obtaining 100% Board discretion for any vesting of short-term and long-term incentives. This also includes good conduct in the mailer's provisions. These elements reflect the Board's ongoing commitment to balance the needs of all of our stakeholders as we incentivize long-term shareholder value creation. The feedback provided through engagement with our active long-term shareholders provides us with confidence in this remuneration approach. And finally, I'd like to thank and acknowledge my fellow directors on the People and Remuneration Committee for their commitment and support. It's been a huge year. I'd like to thank you as our shareholders as you've willingly leaned into these conversations to help us to be successful. And finally, to all of our Xeros, for their dedication throughout the year. I feel hugely grateful to be working with you all, and I'll now hand back to David.

Thanks, Susan. And I mean I think from just listening to Susan, you can see how much work has gone into thinking through remuneration. But it's consistent with our aspiration as a global company, global talent and paying for performance. So thanks, Susan, that's been great. So now I'd like to invite shareholders submit any questions regarding this resolution. Once again, I'm going to pause for a moment to see if your questions -- and will firstly go to the telephone. Are there any questions at all, Operator, on Resolution 4?

There are no questions on the phone line.

Okay. Well, thank you, Operator. Let me now go to whether -- to inquire whether there's any submitted written questions by the online platform. Kate, any questions?

Thanks, David. No questions have been received.

Okay. Well, thanks, Susan, again. That's been a really good, I think, summary of where we're at. So as we've received no questions, we will now move on and we will remind you to please cast your votes on these resolutions between 1 to 4. So I'd now like to take the time to address any general questions that have been asked by shareholders, and this is the general business section.

So firstly, to you, Operator, are there any questions on the line?

There are no questions on the phone line.

Okay. Well, Kate, have you got any questions here from the platform?

Thanks, David. We do have a pre-submitted question from Marc Randall, who asks what is the forecast for your company's share price in the next 12 months, FY '25?

Well, thank you for the question, Marc. We do not provide guidance in relation to Xero's share price. Our job working with Sukhinder is to focus on delivering on the business and execution. So that's what we're doing. So -- but thank you for your question. Next question, Kate?

Thanks, David. The next question comes from Aaron Whittaker, a pre-submitted question. He asks, we've seen large tech companies remove their entire DEI teams. For example, Microsoft, John Deere. Will your DEI actions be scaled back or completely removed? Instead of hiring people based on physical appearances or sexual preferences or woke tokenism, will you hire the best talent for the role? I want the best return on my investments, nothing else.

Well, I want to make it very clear, diversity, inclusion and creating a great culture is fundamental to who we are because we want the best talent and the best people irrespective of gender, race, et cetera. So we want a world-class team, and we believe we have that. So that's our position very clearly. Any other questions, Kate?

Thanks, David. No further questions have been received.

Okay. Well, since there's no more questions, I'd just like to ask if there's any more questions, I'll just pause for a moment. Please feel free to send them in, and I'm going to pause for a moment. And if any more questions come on, Kate, just let me know. Okay. Operator, are there any outstanding questions on the line?

There are no questions on the phone line.

Okay. Well, I just do want to thank all our shareholders for the questions, or at least the two questions we got. And that brings us to the end of Xero's 2024 Annual Meeting. Before I formally close the meeting, a quick reminder that if you are intending to vote on the formal business of the meeting, you should finalize and submit your votes now. Voting will close in 5 minutes' time. As mentioned earlier, the results of the voting will be released on the ASX once the votes have been counted after this meeting. So it just leaves me to thank you all for our shareholders for attending this annual meeting today. We really do appreciate your support and look forward to keeping in touch. So I now declare the meeting closed. Thank you very much.