Volex (LSE:VLX) — Annual General Meeting

0:01 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the VOLEX PLC Annual General Meeting. Throughout this recorded meeting, attendees will be in listen in only mode, those, of course, that are online. Questions can be submitted at any time using the Q and A tab

0:19 The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives today. However, the company will review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. I'd now like to hand over, if I may, to John Bowden. Good afternoon, sir. Thank you, Mark. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the VOLEX PLC's twenty twenty two Annual General Meeting. My name is John Bowden, Chief Financial Officer of the company.

0:43 As I am present in the physical location of the meeting in Basingstoke today and Nat Rothschild, Executive Chairman of VOLEX is joining remotely, I will be acting as Chair of the Annual General Meeting, which I confirm is quorum. I will now hand over to Nat to bring shareholders up to date on current developments. Good afternoon all, and welcome. Before we move to the item of business, I'm pleased to provide a brief update on trading in the first quarter of f y twenty three as announced this morning, which has seen continued momentum across the group in line with manage management's expectations and our new five year plan. I'm pleased to report a continuation on the outlook stated in the company's full year results in June with revenues growing organically by 4.9%, reflecting positive customer demand and our ability to deliver deliver against the backdrop of a challenging supply chain environment.

1:47 High levels of utilization have also been maintained across each region with higher inventory levels than the previous year in order to support the timely delivery of complex products to customers. Our acquisitions made during FY 2022 are integrating well, and VOLEX continues to develop a strong acquisition pipeline to drive growth. In parallel, VOLEX's diverse end markets continue to support its long term strategic plans and affords the group a high degree of resilience. Revenues continue to grow in electric vehicles resulting from the investment we have made to enhance our capabilities and enable us to support a range of products for our EV customers.

2:35 Revenues in consumer electricals continue to grow, reflecting increasing market share through selling activity as well as the delivery of new customer projects. In medical, demand from customers remains robust, and revenues are ahead of the previous year despite challenges due to the limited availability of components. Demand in our core complex industrial technology periods as customers accelerate their technology replacement programs. To maintain momentum and deliver sustainable organic and acquisitive growth, we continue to focus on diversification, vertical integration, and realizing cross selling opportunities across the business.

3:28 Overall, while it is still early in the year, the encouraging encouraging trends in the first quarter leads the board to expect delivery of full year underlying operating profit in line with current market expectations.

3:47 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, mentioned, is chairing the meeting today from Basingstoke, Dean Moore,

4:11 and then nonexecutive directors and Christian Bedford, our group general counsel and company secretary. 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 I now hand back to John Bowden for the formal business of this annual general meeting.

5:02 Thank you, Nat. So the notice of AGM was sent to you on the 07/11/2022. 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 10 are ordinary resolutions and require a simple majority of the votes to be cast in their favor. Resolutions 11 to 13 are special resolutions and require at least three quarters of the votes to be cast in favor. Today, all of the resolutions set out in the notice of AGM will be taken on a poll.

5:49 This is in line with current corporate guidance 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.

6:37 I will vote as they have instructed me. If they have given me discretion as to how to vote, I shall 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 resolutions as set out in the notice of meeting which, together with the proxy results received, are shown on the slides. I declare the poll open.

7:07 The poll counts for the resolutions put to the meeting today will be conducted by Link, our registrars, and 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 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.

7:54 We will now take any questions from those joining us today.

8:00 I have a considerable number of questions. They don't apply to the actual vote and the directors. I'm not questioning any of the members of the board regarding their membership. As chief financial officer, you will not wish to deal with these after the meeting. So I'd be more than happy to deal with that. Because that's what RS and and twenty thirty others do. Because I can go on I have been known to go for an hour. Kinetic is even longer. That's that would, I think, work for

8:35 us as a board if we can do that, and we can take questions. And nobody else will have the answers except you in this particular case, I think. K. Perfect. Well, I'd be more than happy to do that. So we did have some pre submitted questions on the investor meet company platform. So some of the questions I believe have been addressed in our trading update that Nat has just provided. There was so there's a question on supply chain, which we've discussed in the updates that we issued this morning. There was a a question around EPS growth, and is this something that management team are focused on? It's absolutely one of the measures that we we look at and is a key performance measure as it's set out in our in our annual financial statements.

9:42 And there was also a question around our treatment of presentation of net debt. So we present net debt both including leases and excluding leases. And the reason that we do that is because there was a change in accounting standards a couple of years ago where operating leases came on balance sheet, so are required to shown as a liability. For the purposes of our financial covenants with our banks, that's on a basis excluding those leases. So for that reason, we use both of those measures within our business to to understand our net debt position. So that answers the questions that were pre submitted prior to the meeting. I'll now hand over to Nat.

10:35 Thank you very much, John. Now closed. You for joining us. Sorry, Nat. You just dropped out for a second. Could you repeat that last sentence? Sure. That concludes VLX's twenty twenty two 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. Thank you very much indeed to the board from VOLEX for your attendance at today's Annual General Meeting. Can I please ask attendees not to close this session as we'll now automatically redirect you for the opportunity to provide feedback in order the board can better understand your views and expectations?

11:31 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 VOLEX PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's annual general meeting. May I wish you all a very pleasant afternoon?