The business to be conducted at the meeting will be to review the audited accounts for the year to 30 June 2012 and to vote on resolutions, including the re-election of directors
As per last year, the AGM will be broadcast as a live webcast, and you are encouraged to submit your vote using this proxy form rather than attend in person (to keep our costs down!). You are welcome to participate in the webcast and ask any questions live to the Chairman i.e. me Although of course you can ask questions at any time during the year using our forum
General guidance with regard to our AGMs can be found here
Below is my "Review of business" which is also included in the accounts:
If you have any questions on the accounts, no need to wait until the AGM - ask away!REVIEW OF BUSINESS
The year under review was the company's second year of operation. We made continuous improvements to
our cashback service, with a dual aim of generating the maximum amount of cashback for members whilst
also establishing a reputation as the most reliable and trustworthy cashback website. To date, imutual can
boast the following achievements:
- We have extended our range of cashback merchants to around 3,000.
- We have tracked and awarded cashback to imutual members over one million times.
- Only 1.3% of 'purchase' transactions failed to track automatically and required a claim.
- Virtually all claims have been resolved within our target period of 80 days, and only 25 such claims have
been rejected in over two years of imutual's operation. We also introduced an additional option for members
with rejected claims, unique to the cashback industry; they can appeal directly to members, who vote on
whether imutual should honour the claim even when the merchant has refused to pay, and imutual abides by
the outcome of the members' vote.
Our online discussion forum is central to our operations, giving members the opportunity to ask questions and
make suggestions, and to have company management respond to them directly, promptly and publicly. We
believe that operating an open forum, with members free to comment and criticise, places a healthy discipline
on management and also acts as a great advertisement to prospective members. We have been pleased to
see an increase in forum activity, from 8,350 posts in the previous period to 31,903 posts in 2011/12.
imutual's aim is to allow people to work together to save money and to this end, we introduced a "Post a deal"
facility early in 2012, enabling members to easily post and share deals and discounts that they have
discovered. Over 6,000 deals have already been posted by our members and we'll continue to develop our
technology to provide other ways for our members to save money.
Performance of the business
During the year, our revenues increased from £44,603 to £118,296, an increase of 265%. This represents a
small fraction of the potential revenues the company can achieve in the long term, but at this early stage for
imutual we are pleased to see such a significant increase in turnover.
We attracted a further 2,185 members to the website during the year. imutual's approach to recruitment has
been to rely on word-of-mouth recommendation rather than spend members' funds on advertising. We are
starting to see an increase in favourable commentary of imutual on third party websites and, together with
planned improvements to our site design and other initiatives such as tell-a-friend incentives, we hope to
recruit significantly more members in the year ahead.
As a unique "quasi-mutual" company whose shareholders are also its customers, our objective is not simply
to maximise profits. We aim to pay out the greatest possible cashback to our members subject to maintaining
a solid financial position, whilst minimising those overheads necessary to operate and develop the business.
Our administrative expenses for the year were £37,430, and the company recorded a loss after tax for the
year of £4,688 (versus a loss after tax of £26,072 in 2010/11). The administration expenses included
combined directors' salaries of £15,000 (vs £0 in 2010/11). We believe these results demonstrate a
significantly-improved financial performance whilst also demonstrating our commitment to pass on the highest
possible amount of our revenue as cashback to our members. In this latter respect, we compare favourably
with the UK's largest "100% cashback" company, whose most recent accounts show a gross profit of over
£5.5m and admin expenses of over £3m.
Financial position
We consider that our key financial performance indicators are those that communicate the financial
performance and strength of the company as a whole, these being turnover, gross margin and return on
capital employed.
The company reported a loss after tax of £4,688. Share capital in issue at the year end was £12,508 and
closing reserves were -£18,252. The amount of cash at bank has increased from £6,056 to £7,899. The
directors have demonstrated their commitment to the business by giving a written undertaking to provide
ongoing financial support for the company