Good morning. I'm Walter C. Johnsen, Chairman and CEO. I'm pleased to welcome you to the annual meeting of shareholders of Acme United Corporation. Paul Driscoll, our Chief Financial Officer and Secretary, will be leading the formal portion of the meeting. This will be followed by a question- and- answer period led by the management team. You are encouraged to ask questions, and we will do our best to respond to as many as possible. You can submit your questions through the web portal. Please remember that you may vote your shares online at any time during this meeting prior to the closing of the polls. The agenda for the meeting may be viewed through the web portal. I will now turn the meeting to Paul Driscoll. Paul.
Thank you, Walter. Welcome, everyone, to this virtual annual meeting. I hereby call the meeting to order. First, I would like to introduce our board of directors, all of whom are in attendance. Rex Davidson ,Richmond Holden , Walter Johnsen, Brian Olschan , who also is Acme's President, Susan Murphy, Brian Barker , Paul Conway. Also present is Scott Torreso, Acme's Vice President and Controller, as Inspector of Election. Mr. Torreso has taken the oath of Inspector of Election earlier today. I would like to introduce the representative of our independent auditors, Kevin Burkhardt of CBIZ CPAs, P.C., who will be available along with management to answer questions following the business portion of the meeting. I would also like to introduce our SEC and corporate counsel, Merrick Hall of Erb & Gershenson, and Alexandria Kane of Loeb & Loeb.
After we have finished with the formal portion of the meeting, we will provide time for general questions. Only validated shareholders may ask questions in the designated field on the web portal. Any shareholder who has not yet voted and wishes to vote or to change their vote should do so now by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions there. Shareholders who have sent in proxies or voted via the Internet and do not want to change their vote do not need to take any further action. The board of directors fixed the close of business on March 10, 2026 as the record date for determining shareholders entitled to vote at this meeting.
The shareholder list shows that as of the record date, there were 3,808,225 shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting. I have received an affidavit of mailing establishing that notice of this meeting was duly given on or about April 6, 2026 to shareholders of record at the close of business on March 10th, 2026. A copy of the notice of meeting and the affidavit of mailing will be included in the minutes of this meeting. The inspector informed me that at this meeting there are present in person and by proxy the holders of in excess of 50% of the voting securities of the corporation issued and outstanding on March 10th, 2026. This constitutes a quorum, and the meeting is legally constituted.
I have the minutes of last annual meeting held on April 21st, 2025 and ask that someone make a motion to dispense with the reading of the minutes. I have received the motion to dispense with the reading of the minutes. Now I will present the matters to be voted upon. Please note that we will give shareholders an opportunity to comment on the proposals themselves after all proposals have been presented. Proposal one is the election of seven directors. The current board of directors has nominated each of our seven incumbent directors, Rex Davidson, Richmond Holden, Walter Johnsen , Brian Olschan , Susan Murphy, Brian Barker, and Paul Conway, for election as directors of the company to serve until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected and qualified.
Our bylaws require a shareholder wishing to make a nomination for director to give advance notice of any such nomination to the company. Not having received advance notice of any other nomination, there can be no further nominations made at this meeting. Proposal two is to approve an amendment to the company's 2022 employee stock option plan. As more fully described in this year's proxy statement, the amendment to the 2022 employee stock option plan will increase the number of shares authorized to be issued under the plan from 500,000 to 700,000, an increase of 200,000 shares. Proposal three, commonly referred to as the say on pay proposal, is to approve on a non-binding advisory basis the 2025 compensation of our named executive officers as described in the proxy statement compensation.
Lastly, proposal four is to ratify the appointment of our independent registered accounting firm, CBIZ CPAs, P.C., for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2026. Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, I now declare the polls for the 2026 Acme United Corporation Annual Meeting of Shareholders closed. Mr. Torreso, do we have preliminary voting results?
We do. I hereby report that the election, Proposal one, election of the seven nominees for election of the directors, has been duly elected by shareholders representing more than a plurality of the votes cast at the meeting. Proposal two, to amend the 2022 employee stock option plan to increase the number of shares authorized for issuance under the plan has been approved by more than a majority of the votes cast at the meeting. Proposal three, to adopt a non-binding resolution to approve the compensation of our named executive officers, has been approved by more than a majority of the votes cast at the meeting. Proposal four, to ratify the appointment of CBIZ CPAs, P.C. as our independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31st, 2026, has been approved by more than a majority of the votes cast at the meeting.
Thank you, Mr. Torreso. If any shareholder would like to ask a question on any of the proposals and has not yet done so, please submit your question through the web portal. Now, I would like to open the meeting for shareholder questions. As Mr. Driscoll previously indicated, only validated shareholders may ask questions in the designated field on the web portal. We will now pause to assemble the Q and A. There are no questions, therefore, there is no further business to come before the meeting. I will entertain a motion to adjourn. I've received a motion to adjourn the meeting. Thank you for your attendance to the annual meeting. The Acme United Corporation 2026 annual meeting is now adjourned.