Board Matters

Issue 5 - November 2006

News from the Board

This newsletter is part of a series of regular updates from the Board of B&E Ltd designed to provide you with information on the activities of the Board. I hope that you find this update interesting as well as informative. I would welcome your feedback.

Nigel Harris

Chairman

Annual General Meeting

Our annual general meeting was held on Tuesday 31^st October.

At this meeting our annual financial report was adopted, existing Directors John Bonney and Bruce Walker were returned unopposed and the Directors’ remuneration for 2006/07 was fixed.  

Annual Results

In early October we released our annual results for last financial year.

For the eighth successive year, an increase in after tax profit was achieved.  This year’s after tax profit of $2.44 Million was an increase of 12% over the previous financial year.

This excellent result was achieved through an overall growth in loans of 12%, an increase in non interest revenue and by containing operating costs.  Achieving profit growth is important for B&E because we retain the profit as capital in underpinning our growth and to improve the products and services that we offer to our customers.

Overall asset growth for the year was also strong with total assets rising by $32 million to $392 million. During the past four years B&E’s total assets have nearly doubled and since the end of June, the total assets of the company have now grown to above $400 million. Whilst loan approvals for the year were comparable to last year at $117 million, the overall loan book grew strongly through improved retention of existing business.

Policy Reviews

The Board has a robust process for ensuring that its corporate policies are reviewed on a regular basis, with all policies being reviewed at least once annually.

Policies that have been reviewed in recent months include:

• Accounting

• Service Contracts

• Credit Risk

APRA Standards on Governance and Responsible Persons (Fit and Proper)

New standards for how Financial Institutions are governed and for Responsible Persons of Financial Institutions are now in force.

The Governance standard requires that the Board have in place governance practices that promote good governance.

The Fit and Proper standards require that responsible persons have the skills, experience and knowledge needed to deliver sound and prudent management and that the interests of members are managed and overseen competently by honest and trustworthy individuals. Responsible persons for B&E are defined as the Directors, Board Advisor, the Executives and the External Auditor.  The standard requires an assessment of responsible persons at least annually.

All of the changes necessary to amend our constitution and policies have now been completed. 

The assessment of our existing responsible persons against the new Fit and Proper Standards is currently in progress and will be completed by year end.

Members’ Report

In October we published our first concise annual report, which we called the Members’ Report.  The Members’ Report summarises the performance of the company in a plain English and easy to digest form.

While we still produce and make available a detailed annual report the feedback we have received from most members is that they prefer the concise report. 

If you are interested the Members’ Report is available for viewing in our Annual report section of our website. You can view the report by clicking here.