Hello, and welcome to the annual meeting of shareholders of Equinox Gold Corp. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. If you participate in today's meeting and disclose personal information, you'll be deemed to consent to the recording, transfer, and use of same. If you disclose personal information of another person in today's meeting, you'll be deemed to represent and warrant to Computershare and the company that you first obtained all required consents for the disclosure, recording, transfer, and use of such personal information from all appropriate persons before your disclosure. During the meeting, we'll have a question-and-answer session. If you are attending the meeting online, you can submit questions or comments at any time by clicking on the Q&A icon. It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Mr. Ross Beaty, chair of the board of Equinox Gold.
Mr. Beaty, the floor is yours.
Thank you very much, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, online and in person here, and welcome to the Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Equinox Gold. On behalf of our directors, management, and employees, I thank you for joining us today. Thank you to the shareholder who came in person and the other shareholders amongst our management team, and our distinguished auditors, KPMG, and our legal advisory firm, Blakes. I want to also thank Jamie Kariya for the hospitality of Blakes in allowing us to use this room. Thank you very much. I'm pleased to offer an online option so that all shareholders can join the meeting. Since this is a hybrid meeting, with some shareholders here in person and others joining us online, the following process will apply for the conduct of the meeting.
Questions about a motion can be submitted online by any registered shareholder or proxyholder using the Q&A icon on your screen. If you're not sure how to navigate the online system, please refer to the AGM user guide that was mailed to you, and that is also available for download in the shareholder events section of Equinox Gold's website. Two, for those registered shareholders or proxyholders attending the meeting in person, when asking a question, please indicate your name, which entity you represent, if any, and if you are a registered shareholder or proxyholder. Three, we will only be taking questions that are procedural or directly related to motions before the meeting. If you have questions related to Equinox Gold's financial statements, properties, or business strategy, please get in touch with Ryan King, Equinox Gold's Executive Vice President, Capital Markets.
Ryan, wherever you are. There you are. His contact details are on the website. Yeah, normally we do a kind of a full corporate presentation at these meetings and have time for Q&A, but we're not going to do that today in the interest of time. Rhylin Bailie, VP Investor Relations, will act as question monitor, moderator for the meeting. I will now outline the voting procedures. For those attending the meeting today online, voting on all matters will be conducted by electronic ballot using the virtual interface. To give registered holders and proxyholders sufficient time to vote, we've opened the ballots and will keep them open while I present each item of business to be conducted at the meeting. For those attending the meeting in person, voting will be conducted by ballot.
Registered shareholders and duly appointed proxyholders will be asked to vote on each business item. If you've already voted by proxy, it's important that you do not vote again here at the meeting unless you intend to change your initial vote. We don't have any directors here today in person other than Darren and myself, Darren, our CEO, and myself. We have most of our, if not all of our directors online, and I'm just going to read out their names. Len Boggio, Maurice Desloges , Trudy Curran, Omaya Elguindi, Doug Forster, Blayne Johnson, Marshall Koval, and Mike Vint. Other executives and management in attendance, I think in person. Do we have Pete here? Peter Hardie. There he goes. CFO. David Schummer. David Schummer is our COO. He's hard at work in the office. Daniella Dimitrov, Chief Strategy and Risk Officer. Tom Gallo, EVP Growth.
I think Tom's also working today in the office. Good. Ryan King. We've already introduced Ryan. EVP, Capital Markets. Jacqueline Anthony, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Thank you very much. Of course, Rhylin Bailie, VP Investor Relations. We'll now proceed with the formal portion of today's meeting, which should take about 10 minutes. To expedite matters, I will move and second all motions. The meeting will now come to order, and I will act as Chair. I appoint Jacqueline Anthony, Equinox Gold's General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, as Secretary of this meeting. For the purposes of this meeting, I appoint Computershare Investor Services as Scrutineer to compute the votes of any polls taken in this meeting and to report the results to me as Chair.
The objectives of today's meeting are set out in the company's Management Information Circular dated March 23rd, 2026. I confirm that the notice for this meeting, the Management Information Circular, and the form of proxy were mailed to shareholders on March 25th, 2026. The company has received an affidavit confirming proof of mailing from our transfer agent, Computershare Investor Services, Inc. A copy of the affidavit will be attached as a schedule to the minutes of this meeting. Unless there's any objection, I will dispense with the reading of the notice of meeting. Copies of the Management Information Circular and other material, meeting materials are available on Equinox Gold's website and under the company's profile on SEDAR+ and on EDGAR. The scrutineer has advised that proxies were received from the holders and a sufficient number of common shares to constitute quorum.
I declare the meeting to be regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business. The formal report of the scrutineer will be attached as a schedule to the minutes of this meeting. As most of you are aware, at annual meetings, most shares are represented at proxies given to management. The scrutineer has advised that a significant majority of the proxies received by management have been voted in favor of each of the director nominees and in favor of each of the other items of business. We thank you for your confidence. All registered shareholders and proxy holders who have joined online and properly logged in with their control number or invite code and wish to vote will be able to see on their screen all items of business to be voted on at this meeting.
Please remember that if you have previously recorded your vote by proxy, you should not vote again unless you wish to revoke and change your initial vote. As a reminder to those online, the polls are currently open for all items of business to be voted on at today's meeting. This means that you can vote on each item immediately, or you can wait until the conclusion of discussion on each item before casting your vote. The items of business to be voted on and your available voting options will be visible on the voting panel on your screen. Please register your votes by selecting the for, withhold, or against buttons next to the name of each proposed director and next to each of the other resolutions.
Once discussion is concluded on all items of business, we will provide a few additional moments for you to enter your votes. For those of you attending in person today, voting for each item will be conducted by ballot. If you are a registered shareholder or proxy holder, you should have received a combined ballot for all items of business to be voted on when you checked in for this meeting. If you are a registered shareholder or proxy holder and did not receive a ballot, please raise your hand now and a representative of the scrutineer will come by and deal with you. If you have already voted by proxy, it's important that you do not vote again here at the meeting unless you intend to change your initial vote.
Management's proxy nominees will vote all proxies in favor of matters put before this meeting, notwithstanding the ballots being taken. I now present to the meeting the audited financial statements of Equinox Gold for the year ended December 31st, 2025, together with the auditor's report on the financial statements. Copies of these documents have been mailed to the shareholders who requested such statements and I don't intend to read them at this meeting. The next item of business is the board size. The company's articles require that its board consists of the greater of three directors or the number set by ordinary resolution. I move and second a motion to increase the number of directors of the company from nine to 10. Unless there are any questions, I will move on.
We have not received any questions.
Thank you. The next item of business is the election of directors. Management nominees. Management nominates the following ten individuals to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed. Ross Beaty, Lenard Boggio, Maurice Desloges, Trudy Curran, Omaya Elguindi, Doug Forster, Darren Hall, Blayne Johnson, Marshall Koval, Mike Vint. Each nominee has confirmed that they are prepared to serve as a director of Equinox Gold. Equinox Gold has adopted an advanced notice policy that requires shareholders to give the company advance notice of proposed director nominations at the annual meeting of shareholders. Equinox Gold did not receive notice of any such nominations for this meeting. As a result, I declare the nominations closed, and I move and second a motion to elect each of the directors. Unless there are any questions, I'll move on.
We have not received any questions.
Thank you. The vote to approve this resolution is required to be taken by ballot. I direct that a poll be taken. Again, as a reminder to those online, the polls are currently open for all items of business to be voted on at today's meeting. For those shareholders and proxy holders attending in person today, please record your vote for each nominee on your ballot. Am I supposed to wait a few minutes or can I carry on?
You can carry on.
The next item of business is the appointment of Equinox Gold's auditor. I move and second a motion to appoint KPMG LLP as auditor of the company to hold office until the close of the next annual meeting of shareholders and that the board be authorized to fix KPMG's remuneration. Unless there are any questions, I'll move on.
We have not received any questions.
The last item of business, thank you, is the say on pay advisory vote. I move and second a motion that on an advisory basis and not to diminish the role and responsibilities of the board, Equinox Gold shareholders accept the approach to executive compensation disclosed in the company's Management Information Circular dated March 23rd, 2026, delivered in advance of the meeting. Unless there are any questions, I'll move on.
We have not received any questions.
Thank you. For those shareholders and proxy holders attending in person today, please record your vote and ensure that you have signed and printed your name on the ballot. Once you have completed your ballot, please raise your hand and the scrutineer will collect it from you. These are all the resolutions before the meeting. We'll provide a few moments for shareholders and proxy holders to complete your electronic and paper ballots. I'm told I should tell a joke, but I'm not going to. What I'm gonna do is tell you what happened to me at 3:30 this morning. There was a noise outside my bedroom. I have an apartment in Vancouver. I live on Bowen Island. It was somebody hollering in the street. You know, it was a different noise. Woke me up.
I woke up, you know, took a while to fall back to sleep. Took quite a long time. During that period, when I was sort of half awake, I reflected on coming to this annual meeting today and my own career in the public company business. This is my sort of fifteenth or sixteenth company that I've been very privileged to chair. You know, some companies lasted three years and some companies lasted, well, now 32 years is the longest, but I've had plenty of others. Equinox, this is its, I think, 8th annual meeting or maybe 9th. In any case, I reflected on all these companies and how many times I've been in the privileged position of being chair reading this stuff. I think it's like 140.
Wow.
You would think after 140 times reading pretty much the same thing, you'd commit it to memory, but you just can't do this stuff, commit it to memory. I tried to think, what have I memorized? You know, duly constituted and ready for the proper transaction of business, more or less. Can't do it.
I'm surprised that thinking about that didn't put you immediately back to sleep.
It actually woke me up. I am going, "I can't possibly have done this 140 times." It's been a long time, and I'm close to the sunset of my career. I just will say it has been such a great privilege of knowing not only management teams like the wonderful team we have in Equinox, but also the support team we have in our ecosystem, right? The lawyers who are so good in Vancouver, who are such experts in helping companies like ours grow and develop and do all the good stuff that we have to do under the Company Act. Also, the accountants, the engineers here, the consulting firms, the whole ecosystem we have. Just how very fortunate we are to have this great history and talent in Vancouver.
Have I used up my 30 seconds?
Yep. I think that's your time. Thank you. On behalf of Computershare, I can confirm that the polls have closed.
Great. Thank you. Thank you, Rhylin. I ask that the scrutineer compile the report regarding the results of voting on all business matters. The results of voting will be included with the minutes of this meeting, as well in accordance with the company's majority voting policy and requirements of the Toronto Stock Exchange. Individual results for each board nominee will be announced in a press release later today, along with other results from the meeting. Is there any further business for the formal portion of this meeting?
There are no outstanding questions related to the business of the meeting.
Thank you. If there's no further business, I move and second that this meeting now terminate and declare Equinox Gold's annual meeting of shareholders for 2026 be concluded. Thank you everyone for joining us today. If you have any questions about Equinox Gold's properties or business strategy, please get in touch with Darren or Ryan or me or Rhylin or really any of us. I'd like to ask all people who are on our management team to clap your hands, and if anyone has questions about anything, you can also ask any of them. Thank you all for joining us today very much, and we'll see you a year from now, if not sooner.
Thank you, Ross. Thank you everybody for coming. Operator, you can now conclude the call.
Thank you for attending today's meeting. This meeting has concluded, and you may now disconnect.