Charter Hall Social Infrastructure REIT (CQE.AX) Earnings Call Transcript

Good afternoon. On behalf of the Board of Directors, it's my pleasure to welcome you all to this extraordinary general meeting of unitholders of the Charter Hall Social Infrastructure REIT or CQE as it's known on the ASX. My name is Grant Hodgetts, and I'm the non-Executive Chairman of CQE's Board of Directors. And it is now 2:30 p.m. and as the necessary quorum is present, I declare the meeting properly constituted and open. CQE has been monitoring the advice of government health authorities regarding the ongoing risks from the COVID-19 disease outbreak. In light, with the social distancing requirements of the Australian and Victorian governments that are currently in place and given the temporary changes in legislation that allow the convening of online, rather than face-to-face meetings, the Board has decided in the interest of the health and safety of unitholders, staff and all other stakeholders to hold this EGM as a virtual meeting. As advised in the notice of meeting, unitholders will still be able to participate in the meeting via the online platform. The agenda items on your screen now. Before we commence the formal part of proceedings, I would like to introduce you to my fellow Board members and then spend a few moments on both the voting process that we will apply today and how unitholders can ask questions if they would like to do so. To the Board and I'd like to welcome Michael Johnstone; Kate Melrose; and Sean McMahon. Also today -- present with us today are Travis Butcher, the Fund Manager for CQE; Mark Bryant, the company's secretary for both Charter Hall Social Infrastructure REIT and also the Charter Hall Group; and Scott Martin, who is the Head of Finance for CQE. I'd like to take a few moments to explain the voting procedure that we will use today. When I open the poll, the voting icon will appear on the navigation bar. Once you click on this, the resolution will appear on your screen. Select one of the options to cast your vote. If you change your mind, please select another option. You can change your vote as many times as you wish, up until the close of the poll. Your vote will have been submitted when the voting option icon changes color as there is no submit button. You can vote at any time during the proceedings, until I declare the voting closed. I will close the voting after the resolution has been considered, and I will give you a clear prompt later in the meeting to warn you of the close in voting. Please note that only unitholders, proxy holders or unitholder representatives may vote today. We will also take the opportunity for questions and discussion. You can start submitting questions now using the online meeting platform, which we will address later in the proceedings. If you wish to ask a question, please click on the message icon located at the bottom of your screen, if viewing from a phone, or the top of your screen if viewing from your laptop. Type your message into the question, ask a question box and click the arrow button to the right-hand side of that message box. This afternoon, we will consider the formal business of the meeting and 1 resolution for your consideration. So I move now to Item 1 in the notice of meeting, which is the ratification of the institutional placement. The resolution is an ordinary resolution, and the text of it is displayed on the screen. There are some voting exclusions that apply and these were outlined in the notice of meeting. I now put the resolution for the ratification of the institutional placement to the meeting. Voting on the resolution is open. So please vote via the online portal. The proxy results are displayed on the screen. As per the notice of meeting, the resolution will be conducted by way of a poll. If you haven't voted already, please vote via the online portal and voting will close in 2 minutes time. So we'll just wait for the 2 minutes. We'll come back. [Voting]

I believe that we must be getting close to the 2 minutes being up. So please, if you haven't voted as yet, please do so now. [Voting]

Now I was to be getting some guidance as to when 2 minutes was up.

2 minutes is up.

Okay. Thank you. All right. So the voting portal has now closed. The results of today's resolution will be announced on the ASX and the Charter Hall Social Infrastructure website later today. As we currently are in a blackout period, subject to CQE's financials being announced on the 11th of August, I'm not answering any questions in relation to CQE's current performance or operations. But I'll now open the meeting to questions from unitholders and ask whether there are any questions that you would like me to answer.

Mr. Chairman, there are no questions.

All right. With that being the case, I'd like to thank everyone for their attendance and their participation today. As there's no other business to be considered, I thank you for your attendance and now declare the formal business of the meeting closed and I say farewell. Thank you very much, everyone.