Trifast (LSE:TRI) — Annual General Meeting

0:00 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the TRIFAST PLC Annual General Meeting. Throughout this recorded meeting, attendees online will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and could be submitted at any time just using the Q and A tab on the right hand corner of your screen. Please simply type in your questions at any time and press send. I'd now like to hand over to company secretary, Christopher Morgan. Good afternoon.

0:20 Yeah. So thank you, Mark, and good afternoon, everyone who joins us here today in the room and also on our online platform, and welcome to the twenty twenty four annual general meeting of TRIFAST PLC. My name is Christopher Morgan, as Mark indicated, and I'm the company secretary. Before we start the formal business of the meeting, some housekeeping points. If you could have your mobile phones on mute, please. We are not expecting a fire drill, but if you for those of you are in the room and are attending our UK National Distribution Centre, if you do hear the fire alarm sound, please make your way through the doors here and follow the lit up exit signs, and that will take you outside to a a building where a roll call will be taken.

1:15 For those of you joining us on Investor Meet platform, please ensure, obviously, that you are aware of your safety aspects of wherever you are located today. I can confirm that this meeting is recorded and will be uploaded to our website following the meeting. And if I can now pass over to our chair, Serena Le. Good afternoon, and welcome shareholders and guests to our annual general meeting twenty twenty four. May I take the opportunity first to introduce board members. On my right hand side here, Ian Perceval, our CEO, and then, Kate Ferguson, our CFO, our independent nonexecutive directors.

2:01 We have Clive Watson, our senior independent director. We have Louis Espergey, who's our independent non executive director, chairs the responsible business. Laura White, who chairs our remuneration committee, and our non executive director, Nick Mills. As a team, one of our key objectives is to improve the sustainability, the financial sustainability of the business and make TRIFAST more resilient, stronger, more efficient, and create value for all our stakeholders. The one TR strategy that Ian and the executive leadership team have developed under the recover, rebuild resilience framework is aimed at achieving just those objectives.

2:51 As you'll have read in our annual report, we've started the transformation journey, and the year being reported upon has been one where we've faced both internal and external challenges, but also we've been able to celebrate success. Part of the success that I refer to is reflected in where we're standing today or sitting today, in fact. And on behalf of my on behalf of the board and my colleagues, we welcome shareholders and guests to our National Distribution Center, 75,000 Square foot facility here in The Midlands, which has enabled us to consolidate all of TRI UK's operations and gives us the ability to focus on the drive to improve productivity and returns whilst creating a single center of excellence for our customers both now and in the future.

3:44 Before we start the formal business of today, I would like very much congratulate Kate Ferguson on her appointment to the board as CFO with effective of today. Kate is already a tremendous asset to us as a board, having been acting CFO since February, and her diligence gives us the data and the confidence to be able to navigate this journey we have ahead of us. This morning, many of you will have read our trading update, which I shall now read out. We are pleased to report that trading in the first four months of the current financial year has been in line with the Board's expectations. Our objectives delivering margin improvement year on year together with enhanced cash generation through working capital improvements are also on track.

4:34 Whilst economic and geopolitical challenges remain, we are committed to the execution of our four key strategic initiatives, those at margin improvement, focus growth, organizational effectiveness and operational efficiency, all of which will enable us to maintain the positive momentum as we look to make progress on our recover, rebuild resilience journey. As a Board, we are driven by the need to deliver against our midterm strategic growth drivers and the significant opportunity that exists to return performance to historic levels, whilst rebuilding our employee value proposition. TRIFAST has a proud heritage and is fortunate to be able to call on a number of talented teams as it looks to the next chapter of its growth and success story.

5:25 The group expects to release its results for the six months ending 09/30/2024 in November 2024. And let me now formally welcome everybody to this year's annual general meeting. I have pleasure in declaring the meeting open, and unless anybody objects, I propose that the notice of the meeting convening the meeting to be taken as read. Thank you. If anyone would like a tour of the building at the end, please do let us know because we have made arrangements for this. And as Christopher mentioned earlier, we're also live streaming the AGM via investor meet company in order that the AGM is accessible to as many shareholders as possible, and I welcome all of you that are online with us today, and thank you for joining.

6:18 Now onto the formal business of the AGM. I will read each resolution for shareholders in the room to vote. And unless anyone has any specific questions about the specific resolution, I propose that we leave the questions until the end.

6:35 So on to the resolutions. Resolution one, to consider the company's annual report directors and auditors for the year ending 03/31/2024. Resolution two, to approve the directors' remuneration report as contained in the annual report. Resolution three, to approve the director's remuneration policy.

7:09 Resolution four, to approve a final dividend of 1.2 p. We will now move on to the resolutions to reelect and elect the directors.

7:28 Resolution five is to reelect Clive Watson as a director. Resolution six, Louis Apjersey. And now I shall pass you over to Clive Watson to propose resolution seven. Resolution seven is to elect Serena Lang as a director. Resolution eight is to elect Ian Percival as a director. Resolution nine is to elect Laura White as a director, and resolution 10 is to elect Nicholas Mills as a director.

8:11 Moving on to, ordinary resolutions. Resolution 11 is to appoint BDO as auditor of the company. Resolution 12 is to authorize the directors to fix the remuneration of the auditor, and resolution 13 is to allow directors' authority to allot shares. Moving on to the special resolutions now. Resolution 14, to allow the director's authority for the dissapplication of preemption rights. Resolution 15, to allow the director's authority for dissapplication of preemption rights for an acquisition or capital investment. And resolution 16 to authorize the company to make market purchase of its own shares.

9:03 And also resolution 17 that a general meeting other than an annual general meeting may be called on not less than fourteen clear days notice. And finally, those resolutions relating to the shared plan rules. Resolution 18 to approve the executive turnaround plan. Resolution 19, to approve the equity incentive plan. And lastly, Resolution 20, to approve the safe as you earn plan.

9:42 The final results of the meeting will be available on our website later today. And that concludes the formal business of our twenty twenty four Annual General Meeting. So thank you for that. Thank you, Chair. If we can now move to Q and A for any of the directors here today. We've had no questions submitted in advance of the meeting. So if I am happy to take any questions from the room first And, obviously, through the investor meet platform, they can be presented as well. But if I can take any questions that may exist in the room.

10:30 Yes. I've got a couple of few at a time or Well, why not? Yes. Let's do that. Yeah. By that, I mean, do you want to have both other people have a go? No. No. Please. Okay. I I read that the new ERP system is complete now and installed. I just wondered, is that bedding in? What else?

10:51 Perhaps, Ian, if you Yes. Thank thank you for the question. That's correct. So the ERP implementation program, we completed successfully at the end of last financial year, so at the end of March. And actually, we had already begun seeing some of the benefits in terms of data availability. One example I would call out is the improved availability on stock allows us to drive the working capital improvement, manage stock more efficiently, which ultimately is helping us generate cash. So we're already seeing benefits coming through from the system. Clearly, more to come. So Yeah. Go ahead, please. I could see from the information boards outside, you you work closely with your customers. I just wondered what collaboration you had with other companies that supply parts because at the interface between your products and other people's products, that's quite important that they actually meet up and work well together.

11:57 So I noticed again from the the areas you like to promote products, say, a company like does the wiring. And I just wondered, do they do the connections at either end, or do you do you collaborate with somebody like that over the fixing some fasteners at each? David, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get because I know you're gonna have a a visit afterwards. I'm gonna get the team to take you through that question if I can because it's operational rather than relation to today's resolutions and and and just help answer that question as you go around. But is that okay? Yeah. That's fine. Yeah. Great. Great. And on I wasn't sure how many patents you had on your products and what kind of approach you have to it, if you have any enforcement of of those patents?

12:52 Do want to answer that? Yeah. So, yes, we do have patents on some of our products. And clearly, as you've called out, the focus on our engineering, particularly the application engineering work that we do with our customers. Through that, we we continue to develop patents and, of course, we protect our our development so that we return the full value for the company and for our shareholders. So on the enforcement side of that? So we we of as of today, we haven't had to have any specific enforcement actions. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions in the room? Oh, if I can move then to the investor meet company platform and answer to you if there's any questions there.

13:48 There are no questions, Chris, for online currently. That's fine. Okay. Soon, I'll pass over to you. Good. Well, excellent. Well, on that basis, thank you all for joining us online today. And for those of you here today, thank you for making the journey up. There are some refreshments here at the back of the room and some lunch. And as I said, anyone that would like to take a tour, please ask Christopher and he'll make sure that gets organized. So we're very much. That's great. Thank thank you to the board of, TRIFAST. Could I please ask attendees not to close the session as we now automatically redirect you for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the board can better understand your views and expectations.

14:34 So take a couple of moments complete. I'm sure you'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the board of TRIFAST PLC, I'd like to thank you for attending today's annual general meeting. Good afternoon to you all.