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 presentation, attendees will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted any time via the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Simply click Q and A, type your question and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company review all questions submitted and publish responses where appropriate to do so. These will be available via the Investor Meet company dashboard, and you'll be notified once they're ready for your review. I would also like

0:32 to remind you that this presentation is being recorded. I would now like to hand you over to John Bowden, CFO of VOLEX PLC. Good afternoon, John. Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is John Bowden, chief financial officer of VOLEX PLC. Welcome to this annual general meeting of your company, which I confirm is correct.

0:56 As I am present at the physical location of the meeting in Basingstoke today and Nat Rothschild is joining remotely, I will be acting as chair of the annual general meeting. We're going to turn our cameras off in a second to go through the presentation. I will now hand over to Nat Rothschild, Executive Chairman of VOLEX, to bring shareholders up to date on current developments.

1:24 Good afternoon to everyone attending today's Annual General Meeting. I'm pleased to report that the levels of customer demand we experienced in the second half of FY twenty twenty one have continued into the first quarter of FY twenty twenty two. Performance in consumer electricals remains very strong and electric vehicle revenues continue to grow, reflecting our leading position in this sector. Our medical and complex industrial technology customers are also experiencing a healthy recovery in areas where there had been reduced demand in FY twenty twenty one due to challenges imposed by the pandemic.

2:14 Deka, the leading European domestic appliance power cord supplier, which was acquired in February this year, has continued to trade well. Against this continued robust performance, we remained mindful of the potential impact on trading caused by supply chain shortages, material cost inflation and freight challenges, as well as the ongoing operational issues posed by the COVID-nineteen pandemic. We successfully passed through the copper price inflation experienced earlier in the year and our global supply chain and customer service teams remain focused on ensuring that we continue to meet our customers' expectations.

3:01 Cash flow in the first quarter has been robust, which, combined with our balance sheet strength, provides us with the financial flexibility to advance further opportunities from our acquisition pipeline. Overall, while still early in the year, the positive trends in the first quarter lead the board to expect to deliver full year underlying operating profit slightly ahead of current market expectations. 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 was mentioned is chairing the meeting today from our offices in Basingstoke Dean Moore, our senior independent director

3:54 Amelia Murillo, sir Peter Westmacott, and Jeffrey Jackson, our independent nonexecutive directors and Christian Bedford, our new group general counsel and company secretary.

4:13 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 hand back to John Bowden for the formal business of this annual general meeting. Thank you, Nat. The notice of AGM was sent to you on the 06/29/2021.

5:02 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 nine are ordinary resolutions and require a simple majority of the votes to be cast in their favor. Resolutions 10 to 12 are special resolutions and require at least three quarters of the votes to be cast in their favor. To date, all of the resolutions set out to 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.

5:59 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. 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.

6:50 I now propose the resolutions are set out in the notice of meeting which, together with the proxy results received are shown on the slides. I declare the poll open.

7:06 The poll count for the resolutions put to the meeting today will be conducted by Link, our registrars, and we 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 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. Sorry, John. Go ahead. Questions?

7:58 Yes. And we will now take questions. So we did receive one question before the meeting, and the question was, are VOLEX experiencing any issues with increased shipping costs or with semiconductor shortages in Asia? So I'd like to answer that question and say that we have experienced that shipping costs have increased, and we are passing on these additional costs to customers where possible. In respect of shortages, this is something we're very aware of. It affects us in two ways, either directly in our supply chain or indirectly where customer demand is delayed because our customers are short of components. We are very lucky that we have an excellent supply chain team based around the globe but with particular expertise in China where a lot of the components originate.

8:50 In our factories, we are continually managing capacity, and this has allowed us to continue to meet our customers' expectations. So that concludes the twenty twenty one Annual General Meeting of VOLEX, and the meeting is now closed. Thank you for joining. And if you have any feedback on today's meeting, please do let us know. Thank you very much indeed. Now that, and thank you to the team for updating attendees today. Could I please ask attendees not to close the session? As Nat said, you'll be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that management can better understand your views and expectations.

9:37 This will only take a few moments to complete and be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of VLX PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's AGM broadcast. That concludes the session. Thank you and good afternoon.