Welcome to the Virtual 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of American Tower Corporation. Please note that no one is permitted to use any recording device to record the meeting without company consent. Thank you for your cooperation. I will now turn the call over to American Tower's Executive Chairman, Jim Taiclet.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Jim Taiclet, Executive Chairman of the Board. It is 11 am Eastern Time, and I hereby call the meeting to order. Welcome to the virtual 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of American Tower Corporation. 1st and foremost, we hope that everyone is healthy and safe in these challenging times of the COVID-nineteen outbreak.
I would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the first responders and health care workers who are tirelessly working to keep our communities safe. With our increased reliance on mission critical communications as we manage the pandemic on a global level, we at American Tower are working to ensure access to vitally important information while protecting the safety and health of all of our stakeholders. In light of this pandemic, to protect the well-being of our stockholders, we decided to hold this meeting through a live audio webcast. Our agenda for today and the rules of conduct for the meeting can be found on our web portal at www virtualshareholdermeeting.com/amt2020. In addition to our Board members, individuals from American Tower who have joined the meeting today include our President and Chief Executive Officer, Tom Bartlett and our Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Rod Smith.
Aaron DeSano, our Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel, who will serve as the secretary for this meeting. Keisha Nahada, Vice President, Legal and Corporate Sustainability and Assistant Secretary, who will serve as the Q and A facilitator to field the questions and comments submitted by our stockholders. John Holliwa of Broadridge Financial Services, our Inspector of Elections for this meeting. Mr. Holliwa has taken the oath of Inspector of Elections.
And finally, Jeff Smith and Brendan Houghton of Deloitte and Touche, our independent registered public accounting firm, who will be available to answer any questions during the Q and A portion of our meeting. This meeting will pertain to the formal business covered by the proxy statement that has been filed with the SEC and made available to all of our stockholders. I will ask Ed, as Secretary of the meeting, to lead us through. As is our custom, we will conduct the business portion of our meeting first and answer any questions at the end during the Q and A portion. The polls are currently open to vote on the 5 proposals before this meeting that Ed will further elaborate on once I turn the meeting over to him.
I would like to point out that most of you have probably already cast your votes by filling out a proxy card and returning it or by voting over the Internet or by telephone. Stockholders who have sent in proxies or voted by the Internet or telephone prior to the meeting and do not want to change their vote do not need to take any further action. Any stockholder who has not yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal until the polls close. If you have a question or comment that you would like addressed during the Q and A portion, please submit it in the designated field on the web portal as soon as possible. We ask that you please include your name and organization, if applicable, along with your question.
And if your question relates to a proposal, please submit it prior to the discussion of the proposal to permit time to discuss it. Only stockholders may ask questions and out of consideration for others, we ask that you please limit yourself to 2 questions. For more information about American Tower, including our latest earnings presentation, please visit the Investor Relations section of our website. We will now proceed to the formal business of the meeting. Accordingly, I would now like to turn the meeting over to Ed.
Thank you, Jim. This meeting is held pursuant to a printed notice dated April 6, 2020, that was distributed on or about that date to our stockholders of record as of March 23, 2020. The stockholder list is available for your review on the web portal. I have affidavits certifying that proper notice was served to each of these stockholders. A quorum for this meeting means that at least half of the total votes represented by the shares outstanding as of the record data present on the call or by proxy.
Mr. John Holowa, who is serving as our Inspector of Elections, presented his preliminary report indicating the presence of a quorum. That being so, I hereby declare a quorum present for this meeting. The matters to be considered at this meeting will be in the order set out in the proxy statement. The meeting was called to vote on 5 proposals.
There are 3 management proposals and 2 stockholder proposals. After voting is completed for all matters on the agenda, the votes for each proposal will be tallied and confirmed. Let me summarize the proposals here. The first proposal is to elect 11 directors for the ensuing year or until their successors are elected and qualified. They are Tom Bartlett, our current President and Chief Executive Officer Ray Dolan, who is the current Chairman and CEO of Coher Technologies and serves on our Compensation Committee Robert Hormats, who is Managing Director of Tideman Advisors and serves on our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee Gustavo Loro Cantu, who is the former CEO of Monsanto Company Latin America North Division and serves on our Compensation Committee Grace Liebland, who is former Vice President of Global Quality for General Motors and serves on our Audit Committee Craig McNabb, who is the former CEO of National Retail Properties and serves as the Chair of our Compensation Committee Joanne Reed, who is a Health Care Consultant and former CFO and Senior Vice President of Finance for Medco Health Solutions.
She serves as the Chair of our Audit Committee. Pam Reeve is the former President and CEO of Lightbridge and serves on our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. Subject to her reelection, Pam will serve as Non Executive Chair of the Board. David Sharath, who is the former CEO and Chairman of Alamosa Holdings and serves as the Chair of our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee Bruce Tanner, who is the former Executive Vice President and CFO of Lockheed Martin Corporation and serves on our Audit Committee and Sammie Thompson, who is the President of Telet Associates and serves on our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. Our Executive Chairman, Jim Taiclet, serving as Chair here, is not standing for reelection.
Additional information about each of our Director nominees is available in the proxy statement. The Board of Directors recommends that you vote for each of the Director nominees. I will now pause to address any questions or comments regarding this particular proposal And ask Ms. Najadir, are there any questions or comments that have been put forward on this proposal?
There are no questions or comments received for this proposal.
Thank you. There being no further questions or comments, let us move to Proposal 2. Proposal 2, this is to ratify the selection of our current independent registered public accounting firm, Deloitte and Touche LLP to serve in that capacity for 2020. The Board of Directors recommends that you vote for the ratification of Deloitte and Touche LLP as our current independent registered public accounting firm. I will now pause to address any concerns, questions, comments on this proposal.
Ms. Najada, are there any questions or comments?
There are no questions or comments received for this proposal.
There being no further questions or comments, please submit your vote for proposal 2 on the web portal if you have not already done so. We'll move to proposal 3, which is to approve on an advisory non binding basis our executive compensation. The Board of Directors recommends that you vote for the executive compensation on this advisory non binding basis. I will now pause to address any questions or comments regarding this proposal that may have come in. Ms.
Najada, are there any questions or comments on this particular proposal?
There are no questions or comments received for this proposal.
There being none, please submit your vote on proposal 3 if you have not already done so. I'll pause just a second to allow time if you want to do that. Okay. The next, Proposal 4. This proposal has been submitted by Ms.
Young. The Board of Directors recommends that you vote against this proposal. Ms. Young provided for her representative. In this case, it will be Mr.
John Chevenen. Mr. Chevenen will have up to 2 minutes to make his statement in support of this proposal for. As stated in our rules of conduct, Mr. Chevenen, you should restrict your comments to the proposal that you are presenting.
Should you wish to raise any other matter, you could, of course, do so, but you must do so by submitting your question or comment in the designated field on the web portal. And we will from that address your question or comment during the Q and A portion of this meeting, time permitting. We request the operator to please now open the line for Mr. Chevedden or if he has another representative to him, but I believe it is Mr. Chevedden, to introduce the proposal.
Can we have the Hello? Hello? Yes. Is that Mr. Chevedden?
Hello. This is John Chevedden. Can you hear me okay?
Yes. You're very clear. You can proceed.
Okay. This is Proposal 4, Political Spending Disclosures, sponsored by Myra K. Young sponsor. Shareholders request that management provide a company website report disclosing the company's policies and procedures for making expenditures to participate or intervene in any campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office or to influence the general public with respect to an election and disclosure of monetary and non monetary contributions used in the manner described above. As a long term shareholder, the sponsor supports transparency and accountability in corporate election spending.
This includes any activity considered intervention in a political campaign under the IRS code, such as direct and indirect contributions to political candidates, parties, organizations and expenditures or electioneering communications on behalf of federal, state or local candidates. It is odd that every one of our 11 directors reject this proposal and are thus in favor of making their oversight role more difficult. It is odd that every one of our 11 directors reject clerical help in compiling oversight information in one report. Yet every one of our 11 directors claims to be committed to corporate governance best practices. Disclosure is in the best interest of the company and its shareholders.
The Supreme Court recognized this in its 2010 Citizens United decision, which said, disclosure to permit citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. Relying on publicly available data does not provide a complete picture of the company's election spending. For example, the company's payments to trade associations that may be used for election related activities are undisclosed. The proposal asks that the company disclose all of its election spending, including payments to trade associations and other tax exempt organizations, which may be used for election purposes. Thus, we're bringing our company in line with a growing number of leading independent companies, including Mastercard, Intuit, salesforce.com, which present this information on their websites.
Proposals on this topic were approved by shareholders at Alliant Energy and Cognizant Technology Solutions despite management opposition. The company's Board and shareholders need comprehensive disclosure to fully evaluate the use of corporate assets in a license. Please support this proposed important governance reform that gives our directors more information in one report instead of the current scattered about information. Please vote for political standing disclosure proposal 4.
Mr. Chevedden, have you concluded your remarks for the moment? Yes. Thank you. Thank you for your very detailed explanation of the proposal.
I would now ask the operator to close the line for Mr. Shevlin. Okay. I would simply note that the management's response is included in the proxy or the director response, sorry, is included in the proxy statement. I would now turn to Ms.
Najada. As to this proposal, are there any questions or comments that have been received?
There are no questions or comments received for this proposal.
There being no further questions or comments, we'd advise that you could please submit your vote rather on proposal 4 on the web portal if you've not already done so. With that, we'll move to the next proposal, which is Proposal 5. It is also a shareholder a stockholder proposal, sorry. The proposal has been submitted by Mr. Sheveden.
The Board of Directors recommends that you vote against this proposal. Mr. Sheveden, you will have as to this proposal as well 2 minutes to make your statement in support. As stated in our rules of conduct, we just ask that you restrict your comments to this particular proposal. Should you wish again to raise any other matter in connection, please do so by submitting your question or comment in the designated field on the web portal and we will address your question or comment during the Q and A portion.
We request the operator to please now reopen the line for Mr. Chevenen to introduce the proposal and make his statement in support thereof.
Hello. This is John Chevedden. Can you hear me okay?
You're coming through.
Okay. Proposal 5, Special Shareholder Meeting Improvement, John Chevedden's sponsor. Shareholders asked our Board to take the steps necessary to amend our bylaws in each appropriate governing document to give the owners of a combined 10% of our outstanding common stock the power to call a special shareholder meeting. This proposal includes the removal of the current exclusion of all shares owned for less than one continuous year. Special meetings allow shareholders to vote on important matters such as selecting new directors that can arise between annual meetings.
This proposal topic won more than 70% support at Edwards Life Sciences. Scores of Fortune 500 companies allow a more practical 10% of shares to call a special meeting compared to the current next to impossible AMT rules in regard to shareholders calling a special meeting. Under the current AMT right for shareholders to call a special meeting, it could take 75% of AMT shares to actually call for a special meeting. If 75% of AMT shares request a special shareholder meeting, then 1 third of these shares could be disqualified because they are held for less than one continuous year. Then another third of the shares could be disqualified because they fell short on being just one of the tedious requirements in the AMT bylaws.
This proposal topic won 46% support at the 2016 AMT Annual Meeting. This 46% support represented majority support from the AMT shares that have access to independent proxy voting advice. Management should respect a majority vote from the shareholders have access to independent proxy voting advice. For example, after a 45% vote, which is less than the majority vote for our shareholders proposal, the Bank of New York Mellon said it adopted the proposal a year later. Since special shareholder meetings allow shareholders to vote on important matters, such as electing new directors, adoption of this proposal might accelerate the refreshment of our Board of Directors.
For instance, our new Chair of the Board, Pamela Reeve, had 18 years long tenure, the longest tenure on the Board. Long tenure erodes the independence of a Director and independence is the greatest attributes in a Director, especially a Chair. Plus, Robert Ormatz is one of 2 AMT Directors beyond age 74. Please vote yes. Special Shareholder Meeting Improvement Proposal 5.
Okay. We at this time, with the conclusion of Mr. Chivedan's statement, we ask the operator to close the line and confirm that it's closed.
The line is closed.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Shevevan, for your detailed explanation of your proposal. Included in the proxy statement on Page 78 is a complete explanation of the Board's reasoning for opposing this stockholder proposal. Now I will pause just a bit here to find out if there are any questions or comments regarding this proposal that have come in.
Ms. Najada, are there any?
There are none at this time.
There being no further questions or comments, I would ask that you submit your vote for proposal 5 on the web portal if you have not already done so. I'll pause for a few moments before I have time to submit any final votes or changes to votes for any of the proposal. If you wish to submit a change vote, please do so now. We will pause for just a few moments to allow you that opportunity. With that, the voting this concludes the voting for the proposals on the ballot.
I hereby declare the polls closed, as all matters before the meeting have now been voted upon. Mr. John Haloa, our Inspector of Elections, has provided us with a preliminary count of the proxies submitted and the following as a report of the results. As a duly appointed proxy of the stockholders submitting votes by proxy, I hereby vote the shares as follows: Proposal 1, with respect to the election of directors, a majority of the votes submitted have been cast for the election of each director nominated. Proposal 2, with respect to the ratification of Deloitte and Touche LLP, a majority of the votes submitted have been cast in favor of this proposal.
Proposal 3, with respect to the approval of executive compensation on an advisory basis, a majority of the votes submitted have been cast in favor of this proposal. Proposal 4, with respect to Proposal 4, which is a stockholder proposal, a majority of the votes submitted have been cast against this proposal. Proposal 5, with respect to Proposal 5, which is a stockholder proposal, a majority of the votes submitted have been cast against this proposal. Having received such votes duly voted by proxy from the Inspector of Elections subject to final tabulation, I hereby declare that proposals 1 through 3 have been duly approved and proposals 45 have been rejected. The final results of the votes submitted will be available in a Form 8 ks filed by the company within 4 business days of this meeting.
There being no other business, the formal portion of our meeting is now concluded. I hereby declare that this meeting is officially adjourned. Before we begin the Q and A portion of the meeting, however, given that our long term Chair's tenure has concluded with the conclusion of the meeting. Mr. Bartlett proposes to say a few words in appreciation.
Thanks, Ed. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize Jim Taiclet for his incredible leadership over the last 18 years. Under his stewardship, American Tower has delivered solid performance while substantially growing its operations and simultaneously returning cash to stockholders. Personally speaking, it's been a tremendous privilege for me to work so closely with Jim for over a decade. We stand poised to execute on our Stand and Deliver strategy through Jim's guidance and vision.
As I've said before, Jim's legacy at AMT will not just be what he accomplished, but equally or more important is how he accomplished it. His leadership style and approach to working with his team, all of our employees, investors, customers and our Board is absolutely second to none. Jim, on behalf of the Board and the company, thank you for your steadfast leadership to position American Tower as a global leader. With that, I'll hand the baton back to Jim and conduct Q and A.
Thanks so much, Tom. It's been an hands. We'd now like to open the meeting for stockholder questions. We'll take stockholders' questions that have been entered on the web portal. So if you have not entered your question in the field designated for questions, please do so now.
We will attempt to answer as many questions as our time allows, provided the questions comply with the rules of conduct. Manisha, are there any questions at this time?
Yes, sir. Arjun, I will be aggregating similar questions and topics together. The first question is, what is the greatest impact of COVID-nineteen on the company?
Well, as described in our earnings call, only meaningful effect so far in the company has been for those. Other than that, operations, customer demand, safety of our workforce have all been moving forward robustly and in accordance with our plans.
The next question is related, what percent of employees can work mostly from home?
The vast majority of our employees can work from home. We have an office workforce, which is around the globe, nearly 100% working from home. We also have a field workforce, which traditionally works out of their homes and uses company vehicles to get to sites. Those people's jobs have not changed fairly at all. They never really had to come into a workplace environment or rarely, and that is still the case.
And so we're able to execute our operations with 80 plus percent productivity across both the field workforce and the office workforce.
Great. We have a couple of questions related to our share buyback program. Do you plan 2020 share buybacks? And what factors do the Board consider in making future repurchase decisions?
The company will continue to apply our capital allocation process and program that we've had for many, many years. Part of that is a share repurchase option. And many factors always go into those decisions. Those factors include our strong commitment to the dividend, which we will continue to put as the top priority for the company's capital allocation. Secondly is the opportunity to build sites and systems because we found that our construction program provides us with some of the best returns available.
Thirdly would be the availability, terms and valuations of portfolio acquisition opportunities or joint ventures. And also, when it comes to the share repurchase program, what's the intrinsic value of the stock and management's opinion, trading prices, etcetera. But I think we would highlight in such uncertain times as we have today a couple of additional factors. First of all, we'll be very mindful of developing events in the capital markets related to the COVID-nineteen crisis and its ultimate fallout. We'll also be very, very mindful of liquidity for our company, which we think is in a very strong position today, but we'll be very mindful of it going forward.
And those are some of the factors that we will actually increase our attention to as we navigate through the COVID-nineteen crisis and aftermath.
Great. And the final question is, when was the last in person board meeting?
The last in person board meeting was just in early March 2020, headquarters in Miami, Florida. And I think it was a very effective session with essentially all but one director in physical attendance and that other director on the phone for the entire session. With no more questions then, our program for the day has concluded. Please note that our Head of Investor Relations, Igor Khislavsky, is available should you have further questions or comments as a stakeholder or shareholder. Thank you all for attending today's meeting and for your continued support of American Tower.
Operator, you may now adjourn the meeting.
Thank you. Your meeting is now adjourned.