Good afternoon, and welcome to the annual and special meeting of shareholders for Dream Unlimited Corp. Your host for today's call is miss Joanne Fursman, chair of the board of Dream Unlimited Corp. Ms. Fursman, please go ahead.
Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. As this meeting is held virtually via live audio webcast, for the purposes of the meeting today, voting on all matters will be conducted by electronic ballots. Registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders will be asked to vote on each business item. At any time during the meeting, registered shareholders who have not already provided voting instructions or appointed a proxy holder that are logged on and wish to vote their shares may do so by clicking on the Vote Here button on your screen and following the instructions provided. We have been advised by Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc.
That based on the proxies already deposited with them, votes have been capped to carry each of the motions. Shareholders or proxy holders may ask questions at any time during the meeting by submitting the question in writing in the text box labeled ask a question. If shareholders or proxy holders wish to ask questions about the company's business, you may do so at any time during the meeting or during the question and answer session following the conclusion of the formal business of the meeting. We will now proceed with the formal portion of today's meeting. To expedite the formal part of the meeting, I will move and Shannon Macri will second all motions.
I will act as Chair of the meeting. Robert Hughes will act as Secretary of the meeting. For the purposes of this meeting, I appoint Leanne Branson and Rosemary Kalachick of Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. To act as scrutineers to compute the votes of any pools taken at this meeting and to report thereon. The board of directors fixed 05/21/2020 as the record date for determining shareholders entitled to vote at this meeting.
An affidavit has been delivered attesting to the mailing of the notice of availability of proxy materials and the voting instruction form or form of proxy. Our circular and other meeting materials were made available through the notice and access system. I would ask the secretary to place the affidavit before the meeting and to keep the affidavit with the corporate record. I'm pleased to announce that there are present by proxy a sufficient number of the voting shares of the company to constitute a quorum. Accordingly, this meeting is duly called to order and properly constituted for the transaction of business.
After our formal business is concluded, our CRO will provide a few brief remarks and then there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please hold questions that do not relate to the formal business of the meeting until that time. The first item of business is the presentation of the company's 2019 annual report, which contains the company's audited financial statements for 2019. I note that the Secretary has placed before the meeting a copy of the 2019 annual report. The next item of business is the election of directors.
The eight directors to be elected by the shareholders of the company shall hold office until the close of business of the first annual meeting of shareholders of the company following election or until their successors are elected or appointed. The eight nominees are Michael Cooper, James Eaton, Richard Daitman, Jane Gavin, Duncan Jackman, Jennifer Cost, and Censa Serra, and myself. Each of the persons nominated has confirmed that he or she is prepared to serve as a director. Mr. Hughes, have we received any other nominations?
No, we have not.
Since there are no other nominations, I declare the nominations closed and I move a motion to elect the directors. The next item of business is the appointment of auditors. The audit committee and the board of directors have recommended the reappointment PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, chartered professional accountants as auditors. I move that PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP be appointed auditors of the company until the next annual meeting of shareholders and that the Board of Directors be authorized to fix their remuneration. May I have a seconder?
I second the motion. Thank you. The next item of business is to vote on a special resolution authorizing and approving an amendment to the company's articles to affect the share consolidation of one, the issued and outstanding Class A subordinated voting shares on the basis of one post consolidation subordinate voting share for every two pre consolidation subordinated voting shares. And two, the issue an outstanding Class B common shares on the basis of one post consolidation common share for every two pre consolidation common shares in the form set out in the circular dated 05/15/2020. In order to be effective, the share consolidation resolution must be approved by one, not less than two thirds of the votes cast by the shareholders represented at the meeting Two, not less than two thirds of the votes cast by the holders of subordinate voting shares at the meeting, voting separately as a class.
And three, not less than two thirds of the votes cast by holders of common shares at the meeting, voted separately as a class, all as more particularly described in the circular. If the share consolidation resolution is approved and all regulatory requirements are satisfied, the Board of Directors currently intend to pass a Board resolution following this meeting authorizing the implementation of the proposed share consolidation with effect on 07/02/2020. Full details on the effective date of the share consolidation will be announced by way of press release after the Board has passed these authorizations following this meeting. I move to approve the share consolidation resolution in the form set out in the circular starting on Page 28. May I have a seconder?
I second the motion. Thank you. We will be closing the pools for voting momentarily. Before we do so, I will ask Mr. Hughes whether we have received any questions relating to the formal items of business on our agenda today.
We have one question relating to the formal business of the meeting. The intention is that once the consolidation is approved, the meeting is done. It's management's intention to proceed. We'll file articles of amendments for articles incorporation and within the next ten or fifteen days, it should be act upon. Thank you, Mr.
Cooper.
Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, I now declare the pools for the twenty twenty Annual and Special Meeting of Shareholders of Dream Unlimited Corp closed. I have been advised by the scrutineers that a significant majority of the proxies received by management prior to the meeting have been voted for the election of directors, the appointment of auditors and that in excess of two thirds of the proxies received by management prior to the meeting for each of the subordinate voting shares and the common shares have been voted for the share consolidation resolution. I adopted scrutineers report and therefore confirm that the eight nominees for election as directors have been elected as directors and confirm that the motion to appoint the auditors and the motion to amend the company's articles to affect the share consolidation have each carried. I would ask that the scrutineers compile the reports regarding the results of voting on all business matters. The results of the vote will be published on SEDAR and will be disclosed in a press release that will be filed on SEDAR later today.
The formal items of business as said in the notice of meeting have now been dealt with. As there is no further business to come before the meeting, I declare the formal part of the meeting to be concluded. I now invite Mr. Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer of the company to provide a few brief remarks. After Mr.
Cooper's remarks, we will have a question period. We ask that registered and beneficial shareholders or proxy holders who would like to ask a question, submit their questions in writing in the text box labeled ask a question. We will answer as many questions as time permits. Mr. Cooper, please go ahead.
Thank you, Madam Chairperson. It's been a surreal twelve months. The company has gone through massive changes and for the most part our company is much better shape than it's ever been in before. We repositioned the portfolio. We're building a lot of high quality properties.
We were very fortunate in that we made the decision last spring and we want to focus on increasing our liquidity. We've raised $700,000,000 of cash after debt and it's put our company in great shape. We've been able to continue to operate Western Canada for land and housing business while we keep taking out a lot of money. We're building an office building in Ottawa that's leased to the federal government. We're building an apartment building.
We're completing three commercial buildings. All of these are going be wonderful assets for us to hold for the long term. In addition to that, we're building 1,500 apartment units in Downtown Toronto, Slauson Indigenous Hub. And again, these are going be great buildings to own for the long term. Throughout Dream Office, through our 31% position, we have access to incredible assets in Downtown Toronto, which we think will continue to be exceptional assets to own over the long term.
In February, we hit about 13.6 on our stock price, which was pretty amazing because we were up 73% last year. During the calendar year, we started this year doing great. And then with COVID, we really took it on the chin as did many other companies that are similar to ours. Notwithstanding that, we are in great shape to deal with whatever comes up and we're starting some new initiatives that are very exciting. And I think the market will end up being one that the real estate market will end up being one that our particular skills will be quite useful.
As I mentioned, our stock was up 73% last year. It's up 17% over. During 2019, it was up 73%. Today versus last year this time, it's up 17%. Since we went public, we have an annualized increase in book value 17%.
And in February, were trading above our book value. We're very excited. I think we're well positioned. We've got an incredible team. They're doing amazing work considering everything they have to deal with, with COVID, with economic crisis and with social injustice protests.
But I'm very proud of our team and I think we're going continue to generate very decent returns going forward. I have some questions. They're all from 99240799. I'll try to address them, but if that person wants to talk to me later, feel free. Question number one, can you comment please on progress in European initiative to build a portfolio of properties?
We have made no progress. We haven't started that yet. The industrial REIT has over $300,000,000 of properties. We're building a team there and it's not our first initiative for Dream Equity Partners, but it's something we'd like to move on soon. Question number two, can you comment please on progress in the initiative to develop significant third party asset management business that was discussed last quarter?
And what management board is seeing in terms of opportunities to purchase opportunities to attract third party investors and competition with such heavyweights as Brookfield who have similar platforms and strategies. When I started this company, Brookfield was much more intimidating compared to where I was and they are today. The market is very crowded. It's a very competitive field. We have an interesting track record.
No promises, but I think we're putting together a great team and I think we've got some great product ideas, but it's a very competitive field and we'll see how that goes. Question number three, can you please comment on how the huge holding company discount relative to NAV is influencing your decision making in maintaining such large holding of Dream Unlimited and DIR specifically what strategic value there to our company other than its element to control of those companies. Brookfield's example, she's the control objective through very much smaller direct holdings. These investments seem to be overwhelming the asset base of our company while the strategic value is relatively unclear. Thank you.
I don't know about Brookfield Holdings, but I think they're massively larger than ours in their managed subs. We think and by the way, Dream Unlimited, I do not believe owns one share in Dream Industrial REIT. Dream Unlimited own a big stake in Dream Office. To us, the stake isn't particularly different than owning a percentage of a partnership that's building an office building in Downtown Toronto or condos. So we've got 32 office buildings in the city of Toronto that we think are fantastic.
We own our stake at a pretty low price and we have optionality in terms of buying more maybe one day selling, but we own the stake in Dream Office because we've shifted away from being a Western Canadian based land and housing company to being a more balanced company and owning a lot of Downtown Toronto and Dream Office is a strategic and a strategic investment in terms of the upside on that portfolio, we think is huge. And we own that portfolio, the interest in that portfolio because we think we can generate quite attractive returns over a very long time period. The only comment I would make is we bought back 12% of the company in the last year. We'll continue to buy back stock as we feel more comfortable with the market conditions. But I think buying back 12% of the company is a pretty significant investment.
So we've been buying back our stock aggressively. We bought Dream Office aggressively a couple of years ago. Before that we're spending a lot of money in Downtown Toronto and we've been recycling capital to get a portfolio that we think will be great over the longer term. Next question, can you comment please on whether what is pretty much a pure play Toronto auto real estate opportunity with Dream is being reconsidered in light of their recent challenges from COVID and whether the lack of diversification now a strategic objective with DRG gone, the concentration is now its greatest in the recent company history. Thank you.
We started about 70% Western Canada in 2013. We've been moving our portfolio around. We haven't made any conclusions of what life will be like after COVID is resolved. We're quite happy with what we own. And if we think we should change the mix of the portfolio in the future, we would do that.
Can you please comment on our company's liquidity position and what level of stressful assumptions be a significant challenge? Are we facing any reasonable possibility of this COVID situation doing anything more than stretching our growth further into the future? That's a great question. I think as of last Thursday, had $430,000,000 of liquidity. That's a lot and that's also $430,000,000 of liquidity after spending $120,000,000 paying tax and about $125,000,000 buying back stock.
So we've achieved a lot of our goals. We have lots of liquidity. I can't give you any answers on what the world is going to look like. I would say that we have been very aggressive stressing our company under unbelievable conditions, very, very pessimistic assumptions and our company looks very strong. But I don't know if there will be a second wave, I don't know if there will be 40% unemployment, whatever it is, we're ready to deal.
I would just say that between our own resources, our relation with our banks and the quality of the assets, we're quite comfortable that we're building an excellent business. I think this is question number seven. Has our company been approached by any third party or by any company inside or take over the company or take it private both formally or informally? No, they have not. Thank you very much.
99348199 for your questions. As there are no questions, any other questions, nor are there questions from anybody else. With that, we'd like to terminate this meeting. Thank you very much for your interest.