I welcome you on behalf of the Supervisory Board and the Managing Board of Euronext N. V. For our 6th Annual General Meeting as a listed company. Because of the COVID-nineteen crisis, we are holding this general meeting without you, our shareholders, present and without our board members and nominees for appointment. The only person with me in the meeting room are the company's Corporate Secretary, Paul Terneser and our notary, Mrs.
Corin Holdinga and 2 technicians of our subsidiary company webcast as we are webcasting this meeting: Mr. Stephane Bousschnard, our CEO and Mr. Bernard Ruedersch, the lead partner of Ernst and Young, our external accountant for the 2019 accounts, will participate this meeting by video and phone, respectively. Euronext is an international company, and its corporate language is English. Therefore, this general meeting will be conducted in English as announced in the convocation to this meeting.
In accordance with the articles of association, this general meeting is held in Amsterdam, this being the municipality where the company has its seat. All shareholders have been called to attend this annual general meeting by the management board and the supervisory board by means of a convening notice published on the 2nd April 2020 on Euronext website, including the agenda and the explanatory notes der Ito. This announcement explained the procedure for shareholders who wish to attend the meeting, provide instructions or grant a power of attorney. On May 7, 2020, the announcement on our website was changed in order to take into account new Dutch legislation with regard the holding of general meetings. Shareholders have been given the opportunity to ask questions before the meeting via an e mail address of the corporate secretary.
I will come back to those at a later moment. No requests have been received from the shareholders regarding the additional proposals to the agenda of this general meeting. In accordance with corporate governance recommendation, the draft minutes of this meeting will be made available to shareholders within 3 months of the meeting by publication on the website. Giving shareholders the opportunity to comment on these minutes during 3 subsequent months. Having taken into account all that has been expressed before, I conclude that this Annual General Meeting has been convened in accordance with all the applicable rules and the articles of associations of Euronext NV and that the general meeting may decide on all items that are placed on the agenda.
Before we proceed, I will now inform you how many shares are represented at this meeting in person or by proxy and how many votes can be jointly cast. We have issued shares, 70,000,000 shares, and the shares with voting rights are 96 69,565,125 shares. And represented shares are 55,000,000,200,027, 370 Shares, and as a percentage of the issued capital presented or represented is 79.38%. So that means that the absolute majority of the votes is 27,000,000 600,013,687 shares. And the qualified majority, in case there is a qualified majority needed, and that's 75%, the number of shares is 41,000,000,400,000,200,000,520 shares.
I would like now, on the agenda item 2, to ask Mr. Stefan Bouchnard, the CEO and Chairman of the Managing Board, to present the report of the Managing Board on the financial year 2019 and also the Q1 of 2020. As mentioned, Mr. Boujnard joins this meeting remotely from Paris. Stephane, please go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning, everybody. Let us start on Slide 3 with a quick overview of the Euronext Group at the end of 2019. Euronext delivered a solid performance over 2019. Euronext generated more than €679,000,000 of euros in revenue, of which half was non volume related.
This performance translated into 58.8 percent EBITDA margin and an adjusted EPS of €3.90 per share. Financially, the group remained strong and healthy with Euronext generating 254,000,000 of net operating cash flows in 2019, converting 64% of its EBITDA into cash. This cash generation translated into a sound financial position reflected by a net leverage of 1.5 times at the end of the year. And from a market perspective, today, Euronext is valued at more than €5,900,000,000 as we speak in the market. On the operating front, you will next enter into its new strategic cycle in 2019.
We released a new strategic plan, Let's Grow Together. In October, we completed the deployment of our proprietary trading platform across all the asset classes, including derivative markets. These outcomes were achieved thanks to the commitment of 1,000 more than 1,000 of employees who make Euronext a successful enterprise, including a number of whom of those who have joined the group through our recent acquisitions. Going into more details on the 2019 performance on Slide 4. So as I said, Euronext reported a strong performance throughout the year with double digit growth in EBITDA and revenue and adjusted EPS.
Revenue increased in 2019 by €64,000,000 up 10.4 percent to €679,100,000 So this strong performance reflects solid core business dynamics with a diversified strategy for diversifying our revenues that continue to pay off with non volume related revenue, representing now for 50% of the group revenue. And this is thanks to our strengthened custody and settlement business. And these non volume related revenues covered in 2019 122 percent of our operating costs that year. Our core business proved its resilience against declining volumes in 2019 that were partially offset by strong organic performance on our listing and advanced data business. Corporate services did very well with double digit growth and the listing business, so we're improving market conditions during the second half of 2019.
And the indices part of Advanced Data Services also did very well. And finally, also first VPS contributed €57,100,000,000 or a little bit more than 6 months of consolidation in 2019. At the same time, we continue to deliver strong disciplined cost as we outperform our 2019 cost guidance. This translated into group EBITDA growing faster than revenue by 12.8% in 2019 to almost €400,000,000 leading to a combined EBITDA margin of 58.8%, again 2.8 points higher than the previous year. And on a like for like basis, EBITDA margin even reached more than 60%.
So finally, as announced to our investors, we told that we expect non recurring costs related to the integration of Oskar burst EPS and internal digitalization project to impact our cost base. But as a result and before the delivery of the first synergies in 2021, we expect operating cost excluding the NII, to temporary increase mid single digit in 2020 compared to annualized second half of twenty nineteen cost base. So overall, this strong operating performance over the year resulted in a good performance in adjusted EPS at €3.90 per share. And on a reported basis, 2019 net income was up 2.8% at €222,000,000 So lastly, in accordance with the Euronec dividend policy, a dividend of €1.59 per share is proposed for your approval today. This represents a 5% increase from last year despite various non recurring costs in 2019.
Moving to Slide 5. 2019 was a major transformation year for Euronext, reaching major strategic, financial and operating milestones. As I said, we released our strategic plan, let's grow together 2022. We finalized the development of OPTIC, Euronext cash and derivative platforms. We completed our largest acquisitions since the IPO in 2014.
All in all, Euronext entered into a new strategic cycle in 2019, and we've made progress on innovation and sustainable finance, which is now at the earth of our strategy. Will Euronext will pursue the development of innovative solutions. We are committed to build the leading pan European market infrastructure, and we are committed to pursue growth strategy through high value added kind of acquisitions. Lastly, as I said, we completed the deployment of the OPTIC trading platform. Euronext Dublin cash market smoothly migrated to the optic trading platform early 2019.
Derivative markets for the group migrated in late 2019. And the last milestone will be reached this year with the planned migration of those diverse markets to Optic Trading Platform in the course of the 2nd part of the year in the course of end of Q3, beginning of Q4. We continue to diversify our revenue profile with success. We expanded our federal model with the post rate franchise, with the acquisition of Postgres and BBS. We entered into new asset class with the power trading and the acquisition of No Pool.
We invested in innovative solutions such as tokenization platform with token and fund data with OPC VM 360. And overall, our disciplined capital deployment is bearing fruits as we will continue to deploy our disciplined M and A strategy. Moving to Slide 7, we outline the Q1 2020 results that we released yesterday. So Euronext reported a very strong Q1 with notable revenue growth across all our business lines. Revenue increased during this quarter by €84,200,000 up 55.2 percent to €236,800,000 compared to Q1 2019.
So this strong performance reflects both high trading volumes across all asset class, but also the contribution of the consolidation of Oslo VPS and NOPOL, non volume related revenue accounting for 44% of the group revenue. So thanks to our continued cost discipline, EBITDA grew faster than revenue. And group EBITDA grew by 68.1 percent in Q1 to €150,000,000 is translated into an EBITDA margin of 63.4%, which is 4.9. Higher than last year's Q1. But on a like for like basis, EBITDA margin reached for last quarter 66.7%.
And in addition, we achieved the targeted €8,000,000 run rate cost synergies in Ireland for Euronext Dublin 2 years after completion of the acquisition, but 1 year ahead of the initial target. So in this context, we have confirmed to our investors our cost guidance for the year as I previously mentioned. So overall, this dynamic performance over the quarter resulted in a 65.3% increase in adjusted EPS at €1.44 per share on a reported basis. And our Q1 2020 net income was up 71.3 percent at €96,100,000 So this performance is not only the result of increased trading volumes, the strong performance reflects what has been the trademark of the Euronext Group over the past 5 years, which is rigorous and constant investment of technology to deliver best in class trading platform, efficient and constant cash trading market share management that allows us to capture a distribution share of volumes and volatility revenues, a continued cost discipline that allows us to grow EBITDA more than revenues, and disciplined deployment of capital that allows us to acquire value accretive value added assets that contribute to the growth of the company. Moving to Slide 8 and 9.
So on Slide 8, as I said, the acquisition of BP Security is a major milestone in the geographic expansion in the Nordic region because since 2019, Euronext has significantly increased its presence in the Nordic region with more than €800,000,000 €50,000,000 of capital deployed and committed. And through this deployment, we strengthened our post trade business with the addition of CSDs and expanded into overtraining. And I want to underline that point. 1 year ago, we had a couple of employees in Stockholm. Now we have almost more than onethree of the employees of Euronext that are based in Helsinki, Tallinn, Vilnius, Stockholm, Oslo, Bergen and soon Copenhagen.
So this moving to Slide 9, this disciplined capital deployment diversifies Renak's profile and pro form a including revenues from Oslo, UPS, Norpool and DP Securities a revenue mix which significantly increased exposure to post trade. That would account now around 23% of group revenue. And in the meantime, we are also improving our exposure to healthy and solid local economies in the Nordic region that would generate around 25% of our 2019 pro form a revenue. So moving to Slide 11, which shows to conclude the results of this year achievement. We can see that despite the COVID crisis, which greatly disrupted financial markets, Euronext share price increased by more than 40% since our last general meeting.
And year to date, Euronext stock price is outperforming all the peers with plus 16.5 percent as we speak versus the stock price on January 1. Over to you, Mr. Chairman.
Stefan, thank you very much for this very clear presentation on the financial year 2019 and the Q1 of 2020. The annual report, 2019, comes in the form of an universal registration document based on Article 9, Sub 3 of the EU Directive 20 seventeen-eleven-twenty nine, Euronext filed its universal registration document without prior approval of the AFM. The first item on the agenda is the explanation of the policy on addition to reserves and dividends, which is a discussion item. I refer to the explanatory notes to the agenda of this meeting for more information on our dividend policy. We believe that also under the current circumstances, Euronext is perfectly equipped to confirm its current policy to distribute 50% of our profits.
In our view, this policy remains balanced and does not impair Euronext's flexibility to meet its short and its long term liabilities and objectives. No questions were asked or remarks were submitted to the corporate secretary by shareholders about this topic prior to this meeting. Before we proceed to the proposals to adopt the remuneration report and to adopt the financial statements, I would like to give the floor to Mr. Bernard Ruders of our external auditor for the 2019 financial statements. Mr.
Ruders also joined this meeting remotely by phone, and I kindly invite Mr. Rudolf to give our shareholders his views. Bernard, please go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We prepared a short presentation on the process of the 2019 audit of Euronext. As in prior years, we started our work with identifying the main tension points being the new acquisitions, changes in the IT infrastructure and evaluation of goodwill and equity investments. And also important areas included cybersecurity and compliance to new regulations such as MiFID II.
In planning the extent of our procedures, we used a materiality level of €16,000,000 based on 5% of profit before tax, and we furthermore applied full scope major operations of Euronext in Paris and Amsterdam as well as the newly acquired businesses in Ireland and Norway, thereby covering about 90% of the reported income statement. Our French and Dutch teams again worked out of a combined approach and used the same file. And the teams included IT auditors as well as specialists for valuation, taxation, IFRS and laws and regulations. Following our audit work, we issued a management letter and a long form report to the boards of directors and supervisors, and these reports comprise our observations on the main attention points from our audit, of which the most important have been presented in our public auditors' opinion. This related sorry, to the accounting for the Oslo acquisition, the valuation of the equity stake in Euroclear and the go live of the last phase of the IT implementation, as was also referred to by Mr.
Boujnard. We found all three audit metrics to be reasonable. Finally, for this presentation, we note that the cooperation with Euronext has again been open and transparent and as known to the shareholders that we have issued an unqualified opinion to the 2019 financial statements of Euronext. This was my presentation, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, And we now can go ahead with agenda item 3B. That's our first voting item. In accordance with Article 2 point one three five, paragraph 5A of the Dutch civil code, the implementation of the remuneration policy in 2019, as outlined in the 2019 financial statements, will be discussed. And in accordance with Article 2.135B, paragraph 2 of the Dutch Civil Code remuneration report is submitted to the meeting for an advisory vote. As no questions have been received from shareholders about the implementation of the remuneration policy and the remuneration report, We will proceed to the advisory vote on the remuneration report, which is, as I said, the first voting item.
As no shareholder or the representatives are present in this meeting, I have been informed about votes that have been cast in advance of the meeting. BNP Paribas Surpiritae Services, the company's registrar representing Euroclear France, in its turn representing in this meeting in total 55,227,043 shares informed me that it has been instructing to vote as follows: 2,549,790 votes against this item 5,955 votes in abstentions and 50 2,551,298 votes in favor of this item. I, in my capacity as Chairman of this general meeting, have received powers of authority for 3.30 shares in total. All of these are being cast in favor of this item. The outcome of the vote is therefore as follows: 2,500,000 549,790 votes against this item, 5,955 votes as abstentions and 52,500 and 51,628 votes in favor of this item.
The 2019 remuneration report has been approved. So we can proceed with the next item, and that is the proposal to adopt the 2019 financial statements. No questions or remarks about this item have been received. BNP Paribas Security Services informed me that it has been instructed to vote as follows: 1040 votes against this item 95,560 votes as abstentions and 55,000,000 10,437 votes in favor of this item. The 330 votes that I cast in my capacity as Chairman of this meeting are in favor of this item.
So the outcome of these votes is therefore as follows: 1040 votes against this item 95,566 votes as abstentions and 55,010,000 767 votes in favor of this item. The proposal to adopt the 2019 financial statement has been approved, and we can proceed with the next item. The 3rd voting item of this meeting is a proposal to adopt a dividend of €1.59 per ordinary share. Prior to this AGM, we have received one question about this agenda item from ORA Traders, namely about the ex dividend date of Euronext. The answer to this question is that the payment of the annual dividend will occur on the 22nd May this year, with ex dividend on 20 May and a record date on the 21 May.
The answer and this date can also be found on the website of Euronext. BNP Paribas Security Services informed me that it has been instructed to vote as follows: 0 votes against this item, 4,532 votes as abstentions and 55,102,000 511 votes in favor of this item. The 330 votes that I cast in my capacity as Chairman of this meeting are also in favor of this item. The outcome of this vote is therefore as follows: 0 votes against this item, 4,532 votes as abstentions and 55,102,831 votes in favor of this item. The proposal to adopt a dividend of €1.59 per ordinary share has been approved, and we can proceed with the next item.
The 4th voting item in this meeting is the proposal to No questions or remarks about this item have been received. No questions or remark about this item have been received. BNP Paribas received. BNP Paribas Security Service informed me that it has been instructed to vote as follows: 1,753,030 1 votes are against this item. 142,460 votes are and 52 votes are in favor of this item.
The 330 votes that I cast in my capacity as Chairman of this meeting are in favor of this item. The outcome of the vote is therefore as follows: 1,000,000 753,031 votes are against this item 142, 460 votes are casted as abstentions and 53,000,000,300,000 331,882,882 votes are in favor of this item. The proposal to discharge the this respect of the duties performed during the year 2019 has been approved. So we can proceed with the next item. The 5th voting item in this meeting is a proposal to discharge the members of the Supervisory Board in respect of the duties performed during the year 2019.
No questions or remarks about this item have been received. BNP Paribas Security Service informed me that it has been 142,400 and 142,460 votes are abstentions, and 49,000,000 979,054 votes are in favor of this item. The votes the 30 the 3 30 votes that I cast in my capacity as Chairman of this meeting are in favor of this item. So the outcome of this vote is therefore as follows: 5,105,529 votes are against this item, 142,460 votes are casted as abstentions and 49,979,384 votes are in favor of this item. The proposal to discharge the member of the Supervisory Board in respect of the duties performed during the year 2019 has been approved.
So we can proceed with the next item. Further to the rotation schedule that has been adopted by the Supervisory Board and has been published on the website of Euronext NV, 2 members of the Supervisory Board, Ms. Kersten Guenter, and myself will retire immediately after this Annual General Meeting. Ms. Gunther has decided not to stand for reappointment, And I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mrs.
Guenther for her valuable contributions to the Supervisory Board and the company as a whole in the past 4 years. We will certainly miss both her views and knowledge and a warm personality. Thank you again, Kersten. As you have seen on the agenda of this meeting, I'm available for reappointment for a second term. The Supervisory Board has drawn up a binding nomination for my The Supervisory Board has drawn up a binding nomination for my reappointment.
So the 6th voting item is the proposal to reappoint me, Dick Schlamers, as a member of the Supervisory Board for a term of 4 years. I refer to the explanatory notes to the agenda and its annex. I would like to point out that following the departure of Mrs. Guenter from the Supervisory Board, only 2 out of 9 of its members will be female, while currently 3 out of 10 members are female. Please be assured that diversity is high on the agenda of the Supervisory Board and that this issue will have the Supervisory Board's full attention in discussion and decisions about its future composition.
No questions or remarks about this item has been received. BNP Paribas Security Service informed me that it has been to instruct to vote as follows: 4,277,000 721 votes against this item. 139,552 votes are casted as abstentions and 50,809,000 770 votes are in favor of this item. The 330 votes that I cast in my capacity as Chairman of this meeting are in favor of this item. So the outcome of the vote, therefore, is as follows: 4,000,000,277,720 votes are against this item, 139,552 votes as abstentions and 50,000,000 810,100 votes are in favor of this item.
The proposal regarding my reappointment to the Supervisory Board for a term of 4 years is therefore been approved. And I would like to thank you, you shareholders, for your confidence in me as Chairman of this Board. We will proceed with the next item. On the agenda of this meeting are the appointments of Mr. Oeyvind Amundsen and Mr.
Georges Luchard to the Managing Board. The Supervisory Board has drawn a binding nomination for both appointments, each for a term of 4 years. Now I'm happy to announce that yesterday, we received approval for Mr. Oeyvind Amundsen appointment. We still are waiting for the approval of the appointment of Georges Luchard, and that has to do with the fact that we simply started his procedures somewhat later due to the fact that he was also appointed somewhat later.
I refer to the explanatory notes to the agenda and its annex for the reason behind this proposal and for information about the candidates. Approval for the appointment of Georges Leshard from the Dutch Minerals of Finance and from the College of Regulators is still pending. If the shareholders approve the appointment, the appointment will only take effect once regulatory approval has been granted. No questions or remarks about this item has been received. We will first vote on the appointment of Mr.
Amundsen, which is the 7th voting item. The BNP Paribas Security Service informed me that it has been instructed to vote as follows: 1,000,000,721,000 and 113 votes against this item, 80,879 votes as abstentions and 53,425,151 votes in favor of this item. The 330 votes that are cast in my capacity of Chairman of this meeting are in favor of this item. The outcome of these votes is therefore as follows: 1,720,130 votes are against this item. 80,879 votes are cast of the abstentions and 53,425,381 votes are in favor of this item.
So the proposal to appoint Mr. Amundsen to the Managing Board for a 4 year term, therefore, has been approved. Thank you. And all the best, and congratulations to you, Eufind, with this appointment. We will now vote on the appointment of Mr.
Georges Luchard, which is the 8th voting item. BNP Paribas Security Service informed me that it has been instructed to vote as follows: 4,000,000 no, excuse me, 4,165 votes against this item 80,879 votes as abstentions and 55,000,000 141,999 votes in favor of this item and the 330 votes that I cast in my capacity as Chairman of this meeting are in favor of this item. The outcome of these votes is therefore as follows: 4,165 votes are against this item 80,879 votes are cast into substations and 55,000,000,142,329 votes are in favor of this item. So the proposal to appoint Mr. Georges Luchard to the Managing Board for a 4 year term And subject still subject to regulatory approval also has been approved.
And here, I also would like to congratulate Georges on his appointment, and I have full confidence that the regulatory approval will arrive soon. The next item on the agenda is a proposal to adopt a new remuneration policy with regard to the Managing Board aligned with the Shareholders' Rights Directive 2 as implemented in Dutch law. I refer to the explanatory note to the agenda for the reasons behind this proposal. Please note that this item will need a 75% majority of votes in favor in order to be approved. No questions or remarks about this item have been received.
BNP Paribas Security Services informed me that it has been instructed to vote as follows: 19,000,000,192,652 votes are casted against this item, 851,542 votes are cast as abstentions, and 34,382,849 votes are in favor of this item. And the 330 votes that I cast in my capacity as Chairman of this meeting are in favor of this item. The outcome of these votes is therefore as follows: 90,992,652 votes are against this item 851,542 votes as of pretensions and 34,000,000 383,179 votes are in favor of this item. The proposal to adopt a new remuneration policy with regard to the Managing Board aligned with the Shareholders' Rights Directive 2 as implemented in the Dutch law has therefore not been approved. I would like to state that the Supervisory Board and the Managing Board are disappointed that the new remuneration policy for the Managing Board has not received the required 75 majority from our shareholders.
We have taken efforts to adapt the remuneration policy that was approved at the Extraordinary General Meeting held on the 8th October 2019 to recent Dutch regulation, and we believe that we have submitted a fair and sound proposal to this meeting. Given that it has not been approved, however, we will submit a new proposal to you next year. In the meantime, the current remuneration policy will remain in place. The 10th voting item on the agenda is the proposal to adopt a new remuneration policy with regard to the Supervisory Board aligned with the Shareholders' Right Directive 2 as implemented in Dutch law. I refer to the explanatory notes to the agenda for the reasons behind this proposal.
Please note that this item will also need a 75% majority of the votes in favor in order to be approved. No questions or remarks about this item have been received. Now BNP Paribas Security Service informed Nedevitt has been instructed to vote as follows: 2,000,000 455,754 votes against this item 390,552 votes were cast as a substations and 52,321,935 votes were in favor of this item. And the 3 30 votes that I cast in my capacity as the Chairman of this meeting are in favor of this item. The outcome of this vote is therefore as follows: 2,455,754 votes are against this item 390,552 votes were abstentions and 52,000,000 322,265 votes are in favor of this item.
The proposal to adopt a new remuneration policy with regard to the Supervisory Board, aligned with the Shareholders' Right Directive 2, as implemented in this law, therefore, has been approved. The 11th voting item on the agenda is the proposal to appoint Ernst and Young Accountants LLP as Euronext's external auditor to audit the financial statements for 2020. No questions or remarks about this item have been received. BNP Paribas Security Services informed me that it has been instructed to vote as follows: 423 votes against this item 4,532 votes as abstentions and 55,222,088 votes in favor of this item. The 330 votes that I cast in my capacity as Chairman of this meeting are in favor of this item.
So the outcome of this vote is therefore as follows: 423 votes against this item 4,532 votes are extensions and 55,222 1,418 votes were casted in favor of this item. The proposal to appoint Ernst and Young Accountants LLP as the external auditor to audit the financial statements for 2020 has therefore been approved. So we can proceed with the next item. Agenda item 9 contains 2 proposals. The first proposal is to designate the Managing Board as the competent body to issue ordinary shares, which is voting item 12.
The second proposal is to designate the Managing Board as the competent body to restrict or exclude the preemptive rights of the shareholder, which is voting item 13. I refer to the explanatory notes to the agenda of this meeting. No question or remarks about this item have been received. So we will first vote on item 12. BNP Paribas Security Services informed me that it has been instructed to vote as follows: 291,258 votes against this item, 993 votes as abstentions and 53,270,720 6 votes were casted in favor of this item.
The 330 votes that I cast in my capacity 219 291,258 votes are against this item, 993 votes were casted as abstentions and 53,280,156 votes were casted in favor of this item. The proposal to designate the Managing Board as the competent body to issue ordinary shares had therefore been approved. So we can now go to voting item 13. BNP Paribas Security Services informed me that it has been instructed to vote as follows: 3,000,622,000 564 votes were casted against this item, 993 votes were cast as a abstention and 49,886,420 votes were cast in favor of this item. The 330 votes that are cast in my capacity as Chairman of this meeting are in favor of this item.
So the outcome of this vote is therefore as follows: 3,000,000 622,500 and 64 votes were against this item, 993 votes were casted as abstention and 49 1,886,750 votes were cast in favor of this item. So the proposal to designate the managing board as the competent body to restrict or exclude the preemptive rights of the shareholders has also been approved. The 14th voting item is the proposal to authorize the Managing Board to acquire ordinary shares in the share capital of the company on behalf of the company. No questions or remarks about this item have been received. BNP Paribas Security Services informed that it has been instructed to vote as follows: 2,000,000,95,996 votes against this item, 21,231 votes as abstentions and 51,392,750 votes in favor of this item.
The 330 votes that I cast in my capacity as Chairman of this meeting are in favor of this item. The outcome of these votes is, therefore, as follows: 2,000,00969 votes against this item, 21,231 votes as abstentions and 51,393,080 votes in favor of this item. So the proposal to authorize the Managing Board to acquire ordinary shares and the share capital of the company on behalf of the company has been approved. The 15th voting item is the proposal to authorize the Supervisory Board or Managing Board, subject to approval of the Supervisory Board, to grant rights to French beneficiaries to receive shares in accordance with Article L225 197one and sequence of the French Code of Commerce. I refer to the explanatory notes to the agenda of this meeting for further information on this proposal.
No questions or remarks about this item have been received. BNP Paribas Security Services informed me that it has been instructed to vote as follows: 1,582,434 votes against this item 5,532 votes as abstentions and 51,922 1011 votes in favor of this item. The 330 votes that I cast in my capacity as Chairman of this meeting are in favor of this item. The outcome of these votes is therefore as follows: 1,582,430 votes are against this item, 5,532 votes are casted as abstentions and 51,922,341 votes were casted in favor of this item. So the proposal to authorize the Supervisory Board or Managing Board, subject to approval to the Supervisory Board, to grant rights to France beneficiaries to receive shares.
In accordance with the articles L225 197one and sequence of the French code of commerce to the French code of commerce has been approved. As mentioned, we have given our shareholders the opportunity to ask questions prior to this meeting. Our Corporate Secretary, Paul Tonerse, has received only the question about the ex dividend date that was answered early in this meeting. Before I come to a formal closing of this meeting, I would like to express a big thank you to all our people at Euronext who have been working so hard under these very difficult circumstances. These times were not easy for you and Next.
But as our CEO, Stephane Bousschnard, did explain during his meeting, our result have been truly outstanding, and we owe that to all the efforts that were made in Belgium, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the U. K. Thank you very much to all of you. And I hereby close this Annual General Meeting, and I thank everybody for attending the webcast. Have a nice continuation of the rest of the day, and please stay healthy.
Thank you very much.