Volex (LSE:VLX) — Annual General Meeting

0:01 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the VOLEX PLC Annual General Meeting Broadcast. Throughout this recorded meeting, attendees will be in listen only mode. I'd now like to hand over to the Chairman of today's meeting, John Bowden. Good afternoon, sir. Thank you, Mark. Well, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the VOLEX PLC twenty twenty three annual general meeting. I'm John Bowden, chief financial officer of the company. And as I'm present in the physical location of the meeting in Basingstoke today and Nat Rothschild, our executive chairman, is joining remotely, I will be acting as chair of the annual general meeting, which I can confirm is correct. I will now hand over to Nat to bring shareholders up to date on current developments.

0:49 Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome. Before we move to the items of business, I'm pleased to provide a brief update on trading in the first quarter of the twenty twenty four financial year ending 06/30/2023. Trading continues to remain in line with management expectations, and and I'm pleased to report the continuation of the positive trading momentum experienced in the prior year with year on year constant currency organic growth of 6.5% recorded during the period. VOLEX is a robust and highly diversified business. Investment in vertical integration, continuous improvement initiatives, and a favorable mix across a highly diversified product portfolio is resulting in sustained margins despite a challenging macroeconomic backdrop.

1:47 Customer demand is healthy, and improved supply chain conditions are accelerating order delivery turnaround improvements in lead times across manufacturing resulting in a normalization of inventory levels for some customers. VOLEX's strong positioning and competitive proposition is developing a number of new customer project wins, validating management's focus on attractive markets with strong structural growth characteristics. This includes increasing demand for VOLEX's next generation of high speed cables for data centers due to the growing market for artificial intelligence applications as well as a range of solutions for the growing EV market. Competition clearance is in process for the recently announced acquisition of Murat Tajarat.

2:39 Integration planning is well advanced, and the acquisition is expected to complete in two to three months' time, presenting VOLEX with an exciting additional growth opportunity to the organic growth potential that exists across the wider business. Overall, trading for the first quarter is in line with the board's expectations and coupled with the encouraging trends in the first quarter gives the board confidence that the business will continue to make further progress in the year. I would now like to move on to introducing the directors and officers of the company joining us today. John Bowden, chief financial officer, who, as mentioned, is chairing the meeting today from Basingstadt Dean Moore, our senior independent director Emilia Murillo, sir Peter Westmacott, and Jeffrey Jackson, our independent nonexecutive directors, and Christian Bedford, our group general counsel and company secretary.

3:51 To today's AGM is an 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 we ask that your questions relate solely to the items of business before the meeting. I now hand back to John Bowden for the formal business of this annual general meeting.

4:35 So the notice of AGM was sent to you on the 06/27/2023, and I propose to take the notice of annual general meeting 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 one to seven are ordinary resolutions and require a simple majority of the votes to be cast in their favor. Resolutions eight to 10 are special resolutions and require at least three quarters of the votes to be cast in their favor. Today, all resolutions set out in the notice of AGM will be taken on a poll.

5:25 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 present in person by corporate representative or by proxy is entitled to one 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 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.

6:11 I will vote as they have instructed me. If they have given me discretion as to how to vote, I should 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 resolution to set out in the notice of meeting, which together with the proxy results received are shown here, shown on the slides. I declare the poll open. The poll count for the resolutions to be put to the meeting today will be conducted by Link, our registrars, and would 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 to their completed poll card.

7:02 The ballot box will remain in place for five 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 practicable 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.

7:38 So as Matt mentioned, we will take questions in relation we we're happy to take questions in relation to the business of the the meeting. We haven't had any questions that are specific to the business of the meeting or the resolutions that have been passed. There was one pre submitted question that we we had, which I'm happy to to answer, And that was in relation to the unification of charging standards that's occurring in North America whereby certain OEMs are adopting a single standard and the questions about whether we're affected by that. So my answer would be that we're experts in the major charging standards globally.

8:28 We're familiar with all of the charging standards that are extant in North America, and we have significant know how and manufacturing experience of those standards. And we believe that the unification that's happening in North America is a great opportunity for us given our our capabilities in the electric vehicle charging market. So we see that as a as a positive development both for us as manufacturers, but also for consumers because it will simplify the charging ecosystem in North America.

9:03 So that was the the only question that was pre submitted, and I confirm there's no other questions that have been submitted in relation to the the business of the meeting. So I'll now hand back to Nat to close the close the meeting. Thanks, John. That concludes VOLEX's twenty twenty three annual general meeting, and the meeting is now closed. Thank you for joining us. And if you have any feedback on today's meeting, please do let us know. That's great, Nat. John and to the board of VLX, thank you very much for your time and presenting your AGM to investors today. That now concludes today's session and good afternoon to you all.