Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Borealis Foods Inc. annual meeting. I'll now turn the conference over to Reza Soltanzadeh. You may begin.
Good afternoon, and welcome to the 2026 annual meeting of shareholders of Borealis Foods. My name is Reza Soltanzadeh, Chief Executive Officer of Borealis Foods, and I will act as chair of this meeting. It is now 12:30 P.M. Eastern Time on June 29, 2026, and I hereby call the meeting to order. Joining us today are members of the board of directors, members of management, representatives of Carr, Riggs & Ingram, our independent registered public accounting firm, and representatives of The Carideo Group, serving as Inspector of Election. I would now like to introduce Pouneh Rahimi, Chief Legal Officer, who will act as Secretary of the meeting. I will now turn the meeting over to Pouneh.
Thank you, Reza. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome. The company has appointed The Carideo Group, Inc. as Inspector of Election. Ms. Heather Obi is serving as Inspector of Election and has executed Inspector's oath. The rules of conduct have been posted on the virtual meeting platform and will govern the conduct of this meeting. Only shareholders of record as of May 26th, 2026, and duly appointed proxy holders are entitled to vote at this meeting. Questions may be submitted through the virtual meeting platform. Questions should relate to the business of the meeting and may be addressed following the formal portion of this meeting, if time permits. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. The board fixed May 26th, 2026, as the record date for determining the shareholders entitled to notice and vote at this meeting.
An affidavit of distribution of the notice of annual meeting, proxy statement, and annual report has been received and will be incorporated into the minutes of the meeting. As of the record date, there were 21,463,306 common shares issued and outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting. The Inspector of Election has advised that approximately 60% of the outstanding shares entitled to vote are represented in person or by proxy. Accordingly, a quorum is present, and a meeting is duly constituted for the transaction of business. Business to be conducted at this meeting is, Number 1, to receive the audited consolidated financial statements of the company for the fiscal year ended December 31st, 2025, which were included in the company's annual report and made available to shareholders in connection with this annual meeting. Number 2, to elect eight directors.
Number three, to appoint Carr, Riggs & Ingram, LLC as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2026. The audited consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, were included in the company's annual report on Form 10-K, previously made available to shareholders. No shareholder vote is required with respect to the financial statements. Turning now to the proposals. Proposal number one, election of directors. The following individuals have been nominated for election. Barthelemy Helg, Dr. Reza Soltanzadeh, Ambassador Ertharin Cousin, Mr. Steven Oyer, Mr. Shukhrat Ibragimov, Mr. Amin Ajami, Mr. Pavel Minzhanov, and Ms. Zoreh Alghezi. Each nominee will be elected if he or she receives a plurality of the votes cast. Abstentions and broker non-votes are not counted as votes cast and have no effect on the outcome. The board unanimously recommends a vote for each nominee.
Do we have any questions pertaining to proposal one? Nope, there aren't any questions. Proposal number two, appointment of directors. Proposal number two is to appoint Carr, Riggs & Ingram, LLC as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal year ending December 31, 2026. Approval of proposal two requires the affirmative vote of a majority of the votes cast on the proposal. The board unanimously recommends a vote for proposal two. Do we have any questions pertaining to proposal two? Nope, there are no questions. I turn it over to you, Reza.
The polls are now open. Any shareholder who has not yet voted may do so now through the virtual meeting platform. The polls are now closed. I will now turn the meeting back to Pouneh for Inspector's preliminary report.
Thank you, Reza. The Inspector will read the preliminary report. Based upon votes cast, each of the eight nominees has received the requisite plurality of votes cast and has been duly elected as a director of the company. In addition, the proposal to appoint Carr, Riggs & Ingram, LLC as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2026, has received the requisite majority of votes cast and has been approved. The final voting results will be reported in a current report on Form 8-K to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The chair has been advised that no other business has been properly brought before the meeting. Back to you, Reza.
Is there any other business that may properly come before the meeting?
There isn't any.
There being no further business to come before the meeting, before I adjourn today's meeting, I would like to respond to any shareholders' questions submitted through the virtual meeting platform. Pouneh, would you please present any shareholder questions?
We don't have any questions that have come in, Reza.
Thank you, Pouneh. With the formal business of the meeting concluded, I'd like to provide a brief update on the company. As we have discussed and we have filed in our 8-Ks, we've had challenges with our working capital, and we've had challenges with our senior lenders in the year 2025 and early 2026. Those problems have been mostly solved. Our shareholders have shown commitment to the company and to the success of the company, as we have filed in our latest 8-K. The company today is very much looking forward to a good 2026 and a better 2027. We have invested heavily in our science and in our formulations and commercialization of our products over the past few years. We have built a world-class plant with ample capacity.
Our products are well received in the market, not only U.S., but across other regions that we have started distribution in, including Canada and Mexico and Europe. We are super excited about the future. We have now several multinational groups that we have formed partnerships with, wherein we are using our IP and formulation and manufacturing infrastructure to launch truly fantastic products. These products are our sort of high-protein products that are well received in the market. Monetization of all our efforts and investments over the past few years has begun, and we very much look forward to the next few quarters to be good quarters. We will file accordingly as we get more information and as we sign new contracts and agreements that are significant, we'll definitely inform the market. I am personally very excited about what the future holds for Borealis Foods.
Again, thank you very much, everyone, for joining our meeting. With that, on behalf of the board of directors and management, thank you for your participation and continued support of Borealis Foods. I hereby declare the 2026 annual meeting of shareholders of Borealis Foods Inc. adjourned.
This concludes today's annual meeting. You may now disconnect.