Catherine McLeod-Seltzer, Una Power, Paul G. Schiodtz, Tim Snider, Sarah A. Strunk, and Yu Yamato. I also would like to introduce and welcome Dr. Norman B. Keevil, Teck's Chair Emeritus. He's also in the room with us today. He's a founder and an incredibly important person in our history. Thank you, Norm, for coming today. Sitting on stage with me is Teck's Chief Executive Officer and my fellow director, Jonathan Price, Executive Vice President and Chief Legal and Sustainability Officer, Lyndon Arnall, and Vice President, Legal and Corporate Secretary, Amanda Robinson. When the formal business of the meeting is complete and the meeting has been adjourned, Jonathan will give a presentation, following which we'll invite questions. At Teck, we begin each meeting with a safety or values message. I'd like to introduce Teck's Chief Inclusion Officer, Jackie Scales, to give us a values message.
Good afternoon, everyone. I want to take a moment to share a value-based message on ending violence against women and girls, particularly the disproportionate impacts faced by indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people. In Canada, indigenous women are significantly more likely to experience violence or go missing than any other women. As a company that operates on indigenous lands and works closely with indigenous communities, we believe it's important to acknowledge these realities clearly and respectfully. Two important national observations that help bring visibility to this issue are the Red Dress Day, which happens on May 5th, a day of awareness for missing and murdered indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people, and the Moose Hide Campaign Day on May 15th, which invites individuals and organizations to take a stand against gender-based and domestic violence.
When we talk about Moose Hide Day, it is in particular where men and boys stand up to do their part in ensuring that we eradicate violence and domestic abuse against women and children. At Teck, we recognize that respect, safety, and dignity are foundational to sustainable development. Our observation of Red Dress and the Moose Hide campaign reflects our broader commitments to respecting Indigenous peoples, cultures, and rights, contributing to safer workplaces and communities, and standing against violence and harassment in all its forms. This commitment aligns with our sustainability framework and our focus on responsible and values-driven leadership. The artwork that you see here was commissioned by Kayla Phillips, an Indigenous artist with deep ties to the regions where Teck operates. Her work reflects remembrance, loss, and the ongoing call for justice and reminds us that behind these statistics are real people, families, and communities.
We are grateful to share her work today with permission as part of this message. Addressing violence against women, girls, particularly Indigenous women and girls, is not a single-day event. It requires awareness, partnership, and engagement and willingness to eradicate violence against women and girls, in particular, in these two instances, Indigenous women and girls. Thank you for taking a moment to learn about how we can take part in this, and pass it back to you.
Thank you very much, Jackie. Before we begin the formal business of the meeting, I want to make a few comments on behalf of the Board of Directors and to reflect on where Teck stands today and the future that lies ahead. This annual meeting is very likely the last one that we hold as Teck in its current form, as we work towards completion of the merger of equals with Anglo American. That makes this a very meaningful moment, not only for our company, but for our employees, our communities, and our shareholders who have helped build this company over many, many decades. Teck has a long and proud history as a Canadian company, grounded in responsible resource development and a commitment to long-term value creation. This is a legacy that many incredible people have contributed to, and in particular, Dr. Keevil and his father.
The planned combination truly draws on the strengths of that foundation and our legacy, and the confidence that we have in the future. It will mark the beginning of a new chapter as Anglo Teck, a Canadian headquartered global critical minerals champion. Drawing on the legacy of both organizations to create a step change, creating new opportunities for growth, resilience, and shared success, while continuing to deliver value for our shareholders and opportunity for all of our stakeholders. On behalf of the board, I want to thank you for your continued support as we navigate towards this exciting new future. The meeting will now come to order. I'll chair the meeting. I'll ask Teck's Vice President, Legal and Corporate Secretary, Amanda Robinson, to act as Secretary of the meeting.
Pursuant to the authority granted to me by Teck's bylaws, I appoint Zabrina Evangelista of TSX Trust Company to act as scrutineer. The Secretary has confirmed to me that the meeting materials were mailed to shareholders in accordance with applicable laws on March 23rd, 2026. I directed a copy of the minutes and a declaration of mailing be attached to the schedule of the minutes to this meeting. I'll now ask the secretary to read the scrutineer's preliminary report on attendance.
Quorum for the transaction of business at this meeting is at least three shareholders present in person or by proxy who hold shares representing at least 25% of the votes that could be cast at this meeting. I'm pleased to report that there are 56 shareholders holding 6,302,858 Class A common shares with 100 votes per share, and 302 shareholders holding 344,434,427 shares, Class B subordinate voting shares present in person, virtually, or by proxy at this meeting. This represents a total of 358 shareholders holding 974,720,227 total votes, which is 78.5% of the 1,241,269,110 issued and outstanding votes as of the record date of March 2nd, 2026, including 71.6% of the votes attached to Class B subordinate voting shares.
Thank you, Amanda. Having determined that a quorum is present, I declare the meeting properly constituted for the transaction of business. I direct that a copy of the final scrutineer's report on attendance be attached as a schedule to the minutes of the meeting. Voting today is going to be conducted by way of a ballot for each resolution to be considered. Registered shareholders who submitted a valid proxy in advance of the meeting do not need to vote again. If you're attending in person, voting will take place on ballots that were provided to you when you arrived. Please mark your ballots at the meeting as the meeting progresses, and the scrutineers will collect them at the end of the meeting. If you're attending virtually, voting will be conducted by electronic ballot on each item of business.
Polls will remain open until, in my opinion as Chair, every registered shareholder or duly appointed proxy holder has an opportunity to vote. Rather than hold up the business of this meeting for the final tabulation, detailed voting results will be filed on SEDAR+ for those who are interested. Each Class A common share carries 100 votes. Each Class B subordinate voting share carries one vote on all matters. Approval of all resolutions before this meeting today require the affirmative vote of a majority of votes cast by shareholders voting together as a class, present or virtually, or represented by proxy at this meeting. During the discussion period, only registered shareholders or proxy holders are permitted to ask questions. If you do have a question, please limit your question to two minutes of speaking time. All questions must relate to the business at hand.
If you're attending this meeting in person and would like to ask a question, please raise your hand and I will call on you at the designated time. When asking your question, please provide your name or the name of the entity you represent and confirm that you are a registered shareholder or a duly appointed proxy holder. If you're attending virtually, please submit your questions through the virtual meeting platform. To ensure fairness for all attendees, I will exercise discretion to decide on the amount of time allocated to each question and may limit, consolidate, or decline questions. We're also happy to engage with shareholders outside of the formal meeting in accordance with our shareholder engagement policy, which is found on our website.
If anyone feels that questions have not been addressed or they did not have an opportunity, they just need to reach out to us as per the shareholder engagement policy. Now to the business of the meeting. The first item of business is the presentation of our audited consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2025, together with the auditor's report. The financial statements are contained in our 2025 annual report, which is available on our website and under Profile on SEDAR+ or in the United States on EDGAR. Are there any questions or comments regarding this matter from shareholders or proxy holders in the room? Seeing none, Amanda, are there any questions or comments submitted in connection with the presentation of the audited consolidated financial statements online?
There are no questions online.
Thank you, Amanda. The second item of business is the election of directors. As noted at the outset, we have 11 directors being nominated for election in accordance with the provisions of General By-law No. 1. You've already met all of them. They're at the front of the room, but they are Arnoud Balhuizen , James Gowans , Norman B. Keevil III, Catherine McLeod-Seltzer, myself, Una Power, Jonathan Price, Paul Schiodtz, Tim Snider, Sarah Strunk, and Yu Yamato. Based on the proxies that we've received in advance of this meeting, each director that we have nominated has received votes in favor that range from at least 97.7% to 99% of the votes cast, and each will therefore be elected based on those proxy results. Are there any comments or questions regarding the election of directors from shareholders or proxy holders in the room? Amanda, are there any questions or comments submitted in connection with this matter?
There are no questions online.
Thank you very much. Okay, I will now entertain a motion that those nominees be elected as directors of the corporation. For efficiency, I have asked our corporate secretary, who is an appointed proxy holder, to move all of our motions today.
It's all moved.
Thank you. If anyone is voting by ballot, I'd encourage you to sign your ballot now, printing your name on the ballot. For those of you who are attending virtually, voting on these items will be open for a short period of time on the virtual meeting platform. Please submit your votes now. I'm going to move now to the third item on the agenda, which is the appointment of the auditors. Based on the proxies received by the scrutineer in advance of the meeting, the auditors have received votes in favor, representing at least 97.8% of the votes cast. Are there any questions regarding this matter from shareholders or proxy holders? Amanda, any questions online?
There are no questions online.
All right. I will entertain a motion to reappoint PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as auditor of Teck and to authorize the directors to fix the auditor's remuneration.
It's all moved.
Thank you, Amanda. Please mark your ballots now and vote online for those of you attending virtually. The fourth item and last, you'll be relieved to know on our agenda, is the advisory vote on Teck's approach to executive compensation. Consistent with past practice, the board has asked shareholders to vote on an advisory say-on-pay resolution as described in the management proxy circular for this meeting. Based on proxies received by the scrutineer in advance of this meeting, the say-on-pay advisory vote has received votes in favor representing 98.2% of the votes cast. Are there any questions from anyone in the room regarding the say-on-pay vote? Seeing none. Amanda?
There are no questions online.
All right. Thank you. I'll now entertain a motion to approve the advisory resolution on the corporation's approach to executive compensation in the form set out in the management proxy circular.
It's all moved.
Thank you. Please mark your ballots if you are voting in the room, and vote online for those of you voting virtually. I believe everyone has now had an opportunity to vote on the items of business before the meeting. I declare the polls to be closed. As noted as we went through this, since we had such overwhelming support in the proxies that were submitted before the meeting, I can provide you with a preliminary voting result from the scrutineer on the three items of business. Each of the 11 directors that were nominated has received a majority of votes cast in favor for their election and are thereby elected. The reappointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as auditor of Teck has been approved, and the directors are authorized to fix their remuneration, and the advisory resolution on Teck's approach to executive compensation has been approved.
I direct that the final results of the vote on each matter before the meeting be included with the minutes of this meeting, and we will issue a news release with the voting results in accordance with TSX rules, and detailed voting results will be filed on SEDAR+. We've now reached the end of the formal business of this meeting. There being no further business to come before the meeting, I declare the meeting terminated, and I will turn the meeting over to our President and CEO, Jonathan Price, for an update, following which we will entertain your questions. Jonathan?
Thank you, Sheila. Thanks everyone for joining us today for Teck's 2026 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. As Sheila said, this is an historic meeting as we are on the threshold of a next exciting chapter for Teck with the planned merger of equals to form Anglo Teck. We head towards that milestone in very strong shape, building on a 2025 that saw Teck continue on the journey to become a truly global critical minerals champion. Before we start, I would like to draw your attention to the caution regarding forward-looking statements. I know this is your favorite part. This presentation contains forward-looking statements regarding our business. This slide describes the assumptions underlying those statements. Various risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to vary. Teck does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statement. I will also refer to various non-GAAP measures in these remarks.
You can see how we define those measures and how they reconcile to our accounts in our most recent quarterly filings and in Teck's latest investor presentation in the Investors section of teck.com. With that, I will start with a summary of the key highlights from 2025. Teck continued to make significant progress on our strategy to be a global leader in critical minerals with a focus on copper growth. The merger of equals with Anglo American represents a significant step forward in that strategy. It will massively increase our scale, resilience, and copper growth potential and position us as a top five global copper producer. In December, shareholders voted overwhelmingly in favor of the merger, and a key approval was secured under the Investment Canada Act. We thank you for your support.
We look forward to closing the merger, and we remain excited about its outstanding value creation potential. In October, we announced the completion of our comprehensive operational review, which strengthened our operational plans and was a key contributor to closing out the year with strong operational performance. At QB, we made meaningful progress against our QB Action Plan and towards steady state operations by the end of this year. We maintained a robust balance sheet and continued to return significant cash to our shareholders through share buybacks and dividends, totaling CAD 1.3 billion in 2025. We also began construction of the Highland Valley Copper mine life extension in July, and the project is now well underway. Of course, we never wavered from our first priority, the health and safety of our people. Health and safety is a core value at Teck and the first consideration in everything we do.
Our high potential incident frequency rate for 2025 was 50% lower than 2024, matching our best result on record. We've had a solid start to 2026 as well, with an even better high potential incident frequency rate for the first quarter. We continue to advance our safety culture through the rollout of Life-Saving Commitments, a fatality prevention program that reinforces consistent safety practices. However, we were deeply saddened by two fatalities in separate incidents at our non-operated joint venture, Antamina, in 2025. We worked closely with our partners to complete thorough investigations, and we shared learnings from these events across Teck and the industry to help prevent recurrence. As I noted earlier, in 2025, we returned a total of CAD 1.3 billion to shareholders while also reducing debt and retaining significant cash on hand. This included CAD 1 billion in share buybacks and CAD 246 million in dividends.
Teck achieved strong financial results for the year, including adjusted EBITDA of CAD 4.3 billion and profit from continuing operations before taxes of CAD 1.7 billion for the year. As of December 31st, 2025, Teck had a cash balance of CAD 5 billion and a liquidity position of CAD 9.1 billion. This strong financial performance continued into 2026, with adjusted EBITDA of CAD 2.1 billion in Q1 2026, which was CAD 1.2 billion or 125% higher than the same period last year. Our cash balance also continued to increase, and our cash balance as of yesterday was CAD 5.7 billion. Teck continues to have one of the strongest balance sheets in our sector, which supports the continuation of balancing returns to shareholders with reducing debt and investing in value-accretive growth. Now turning to our operations. 2025 was a significant year.
As I mentioned, we met our revised operational guidance for 2025 and have delivered a very strong start to 2026, underpinned by record quarterly copper sales, strong commodity prices, and disciplined execution across all our operations. At QB, we continue to make strong progress towards steady state operation by the end of the year through implementation of our QB Action Plan. The primary constraint on QB production has been the Tailings Management Facility or TMF, and the TMF development work is now proceeding as planned. In December, we achieved the highest monthly rate of throughput in 2025. This progress continued in Q1 this year as QB delivered strong production consistent with Q4 2025.
In 2025, we also received regulatory approval and sanctioned the construction of the mine life extension for Canada's largest copper mine, Highland Valley Copper, here in B.C., extending that operation out to 2046 and producing 132,000 tons of copper per annum on average over the life of mine. Work on that project is now well underway. We have also continued building on our environmental and social performance. We achieved 100% renewable power at our Chilean operations by the end of 2025. We were named one of the most attractive companies to work for in Chile, and for the ninth consecutive year, one of Canada's top 100 employers. Teck was recognized by Morningstar Sustainalytics as a 2025 ESG Industry Top-Rated company and achieved prime status on the ISS ESG corporate rating.
I want to close by talking about both the history of Teck and its future, about the spirit of reinvention and evolution that has defined the journey of this organization for the past 113 years, and continues to guide us today into the next chapter of that story. Starting in 1913 as a single gold mine, through mergers and consolidations, exploration and development, and of course, from the good old-fashioned work of actually building new mines like Temagami, Afton, Bull Moose, Red Dog, Antamina, and of course, Quebrada Blanca. At various points in time, Teck has been a company known for gold, copper, zinc, oil, and steel-making coal, and always as a company that has evolved to meet the needs of our shareholders, our customers, our employees, and the world.
As Dr. Keevil would be quick to remind, you can never rest on your oars, and I think it's fair to say that Teck certainly has not. We owe an enormous debt to Dr. Keevil, his father, and the many other pivotal individuals who made that culture part of the DNA of this great company. The seeds for the next big reinvention were set beginning back in 2023, and we began repositioning Teck to become a pure-play metals company focused on copper. That included exiting the oil sands in 2023 and the steelmaking coal business in 2024 while growing shareholder value. We completed construction on QB, our new tier one cornerstone copper asset, all the while advancing and de-risking our leading copper growth pipeline. We grew our copper production by approximately 55%, and it now represents over 70% of our total production.
All of which made possible the most consequential strategic milestone, the merger of equals with Anglo American to form Anglo Teck. This merger is a step change forward in advancing our strategy and the next chapter of the story of reinvention and growth that has defined Teck for so long. Anglo Teck will be one of the world's leading investable copper opportunities as a top five global copper producer with significant scale, resilience, and growth potential. We expect this positioning will provide access to a deeper pool of investors and enhance Anglo Teck's re-rating potential. The combined business will have one of the world's leading copper portfolios with six world-class copper assets, more than 70% copper exposure, and tremendous copper growth optionality at very low capital intensity. The compelling opportunity to combine QB and Collahuasi has the potential to unlock $1.4 billion in annual underlying EBITDA uplift.
There are also $800 million in tangible, recurring annual corporate synergies potentially available. We will have the resilience and enhanced financial capacity to grow copper production into what is proving to be a very strong market. This is crucial because for electrification, energy security, and advanced computing, copper is central and indispensable. As global demand continues to rise, Anglo Teck will be in a strong position to fill that essential need and capture value. In closing, the evolution of Teck into Anglo Teck is the culmination of a strategic, purposeful journey to grow this company to become a truly global critical minerals champion headquartered here in Canada. Today, at what is most likely the last annual meeting of Teck shareholders, I want to thank Dr. Keevil, our board of directors, our Chair, Sheila Murray, our employees, and of course, you, our shareholders.
We look forward to embarking on this next exciting chapter together. With that, I am happy to take your questions. Thank you very much.
Thanks to everyone who joined us today for Teck's annual meeting of shareholders. The meeting is now concluding.