Essensys (LSE:ESYS) — AGM Proceedings

0:00 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the ESSENSYS PLC Annual General Meeting Proceedings. They're ready for your review. I'd also like

0:32 to remind you that this meeting is being recorded. I'd now like to hand over to John Lee, Chairman of ESSENSYS. Good morning, sir. Thanks, Mark. For those of you who are interested in our most recent financial results, the results presentation given on the 10/20/2021 is available to view via the Investor Meet company platform and on the company's website. Now the focus of this meeting is the company's annual general meeting. Looks like most of the registered attendees are now joined via the platform as we'll begin. I'm now pleased to open the twenty twenty one annual general meeting for ESSENSYS PLC. In the room with me, I have Mark Furness, CEO, Alan Pepper, the CFO.

1:17 Charles Butler and Elizabeth Sender are both nonexecs. And joining remotely is Alexandra Noti, who's the other nonexecutive director. I'll soon move to conducting the formal business of the AGM, and we'll open the poll voting for those in the room with us here. Following that, the directors will be available for q and a session, shareholders and will be given the opportunity to submit questions in advance to the AGM. As we heard at the start, questions can also be submitted to our team at any time during the meeting. After the q and a session, the poll will be closed, and the meeting will conclude. The results will be announced via RNS after the meeting. Now for the formal business of the meeting.

2:04 Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and thank you for joining us today. As you know, today's meeting was called by a notice of annual general meeting dated the 11/08/2021. That notice explained the various resolutions that were proposed, and today's meeting has been called to consider and, if thought fit, pass those resolutions. For this meeting, in line with good governance practice, all resolutions will be voted on by poll. This will ensure that the voting wishes of shareholders who couldn't join us in person today are are also counted. The terms of the resolutions are set out in full in the notice. So unless anyone objects, I intend to take those as read. I'll now propose the resolutions to the meeting and then open the poll.

2:55 I'll now propose the 11 resolutions. First, ordinary resolution relates to the accounts. First one, to receive the report of directors and the financial statements for the year ended 07/31/2021, and to approve the report of directors' remuneration for the year ending 07/31/2021. Resolutions three to eight propose reelecting the directors. That is Mark Furness, Jonathan Lee, Alan Pepper, Charles Butler, Alexandra Noting, and Elizabeth Sander. Resolution nine to reappoint BDO LLP as auditors. Resolution 10 seeks to authorize the directors to determine the audit fees.

3:45 Our last ordinary resolution, number 11, seeks to authorize directors to allot equity securities up to the limits outlined in the notice. I also proposed two special resolutions. Resolution 12 seeks to authorize directors to disapply preemption rights in certain circumstances, and the final resolution of 13 seeks to authorize the company to make market purchases. And with that, I'll now declare the poll open. And we don't have any shareholders in the room, so I'll now hand it back to Mark to assist with any q and a's. Okay.

4:40 Right. Shall we get this out? Sure. Mark, we're handing back to you too. Perfect. So I'll take the q and a. Yep. No problem at all. We've just got one question that's come in online. Can you see that on the right hand corner of your screen if you're happy?

4:59 I will proceed. The question from Alastair L reads as follows. If IWG proceeds with its plans to split, in the board's view, what will the implications be for ESSENSYS? Thanks, Mark. Thanks for the question, Alastair. What primarily it shows is that the the importance of technology for the delivery of flexible workspaces and the critical elements of it in terms of its value for landlords and for operators of those spaces. So we're actually quite pleased that with I w IGBT statements, they are referencing how important that technology is, and we've seen similar statements recently from WeWork as well.

5:47 So for us, it's a validation of the market opportunity. It's certainly a validation of the the importance of technology like ESSENSYS, and we're actually quite excited that their marketing forms is educating our audience even further.

6:05 That's great. Thank you very much indeed, Mark. I'll just leave the the questions questions open for a few minutes. Just to remind investors, should you have any questions, just please simply type in the question on the Q and A tab on the right hand corner of your screen. You'll see a box at the bottom that says ask a question. Just simply type in your question and press send. And perhaps I'll leave that open for a minute before maybe handing back to you, John. Okay. Thank you. Yep. There are no further questions that have been submitted. If any do come in, obviously, we'll make those available to the company after the meeting anyway.

6:56 Just one more just coming in from Margaret Elle, if I may. Thank you, Margaret, for your question. Can we have an update, please, on The US progress with the greater sales resource?

7:08 With the greater sales resource. Yeah. Thanks, Mark, and thanks, Margaret, for the question. As we've discussed our recent full year results, we've made really good progress in terms of the recruitment of new sales people as part of our fundraise earlier this year. It was really about expansion across The US market in terms of our go to market activities in North America. And we've made really good progress under Jeremy and the team, team, primarily with some regional hires around the East Coast and West Coast, so sales leadership on the East Coast Of The US and on the West Coast. And so we're pleased with the progress so far. Obviously, we'll be expanding that further throughout the year.

7:55 And as we've spoken about previously, the the market opportunity is is significant for us in The US. So it's really important that we push hard across that territory in the months and years to come. That's great. Thank you very much indeed, Mark. Well, look, that as I said, there are no further questions. If any do come in, I'll present them back to the company. So thank you to the investors attendees for sending their questions. John, perhaps I could just hand back to you just to formally close, and then I'll redirect investors to give their thoughts and expectations. Thanks very much, Mark. So as all the poll cards are now being collected, I now declare the poll is closed. It'll take a short time to collect the results of the poll, and the detailed voting figures will be released via RNS and published

8:37 on the company's website as soon as reasonably practical. So that concludes the business of this Annual General Meeting. Therefore, the AGM closed. Thanks very much for joining us today, and appreciate your time and your questions. I hand you now back to Mark. Thank you very much indeed, John. Thank you to the Board of ESSENSYS for your attendance and proceedings today. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the Board of ESSENSYS PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's Annual General Meeting, and that now concludes today's session. Good morning to you all.