Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Baxter International 2020 Annual Shareholders Meeting. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Joe Almeida. Sir, you may begin.
Good morning. This is Ellen McIntosh, Baxter's Corporate Secretary. We are now coming to order for the 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders for Baxter International. I will now introduce Joe Almeida, our CEO and chairman. For the first time today, we are conducting today's meeting via webcast. If any of you are experiencing any technical issues, please contact a Broadridge representative at 1-800-586-1548 for those of you in the United States, or 303-562-9288 for those outside of the United States. Each of you should have received an agenda for the meeting, which indicates the matters to be considered today. At the conclusion of the meeting, and time permitting, we will present duly submitted general questions. I would also like to introduce Jay Saccaro, our Chief Financial Officer. Joe? We will continue by introducing the members of our board, all of whom are participating on the webcast.
Tom Stallkamp, our Lead Independent Director, has served in this role since 2015 and is a critical piece of the strong corporate governance practices we have at Baxter. We have Thomas Chen, , John Forsyth, James Gavin, Peter Hellman, Mike Mahoney, Patty Morrison, Steve Oesterle, Cathy Smith , Al Strouken, and Amy Wendell. We are extremely fortunate to have a board with distinguished backgrounds and extensive leadership experience. I encourage you, on behalf of Joe Almeida and the rest of the management team, to read their biographies in our 2019 proxy statement. Baxter's talented senior leadership team is also on the call with us today. Before we move on to today's business, I'll be reading our safe harbor statement. Our comments today will include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from the forward-looking statements.
Please refer to our annual report on 2019 Form 10-K and our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, all of which are available on our website. In addition, today's presentation contains certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is posted on the investor relations section of our website. Joe, are you with us? Okay. Copies of our proxy statement were sent to stockholders of record on or about March 17, 2020. The record date for voting of shares was March 12, 2020. More than 88% of the approximately 507 million shares entitled to vote at this meeting are represented here today. There are no other securities entitled to vote. Therefore, a quorum is present. Since a quorum is present, we'll proceed with today's business. Peter Seblek.
I will take it from here.
Oh, of course.
Are you on your part, Ellen?
I just announced that a quorum is present. We are going to proceed with the introduction of our Inspector of Elections and PWC.
Is it slide number seven?
Correct.
Okay. Hopefully, Brad Bridge kept me on this time. Copies of our proxy statement were sent to stockholders of record on or about March 17, 2020. The record date for the voting of shares was March 12, 2020. Ellen, please report the number of shares of common stock that are entitled to vote and are present at this meeting.
More than 88% of the approximately 507 million shares that are entitled to vote at this meeting are represented here today. No other securities are entitled to vote, so a quorum is present.
Thank you. Since a quorum is present, we'll proceed with today's business. Peter Seblek with Broadridge Financial Solutions will act as inspector of elections today. His oath of office has been filed with the Corporate Secretary. John Sichak and Johnny Lewis of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Baxter's independent registered public accounting firm, are with us today. Mr. Sichak is our new lead partner beginning with 2020. He has advised me that they have no formal statement to make. However, they will be available during the Q&A session to respond to related questions from stockholders. Before we begin the formal business of the meeting, I would like to review the procedures that will follow during the meeting today. We have five items of business to be voted on today. After the presentation of each agenda item, I will ask Ellen to raise any questions related to that item.
To submit a question, please click on the ask a question button on the meeting website. You will then need to submit your question. In order to ensure that the business of the meeting proceeds in an orderly fashion, questions at this point should be limited to the five agenda items being considered today. We'll be posting answers to a representative set of unanswered questions as soon as reasonably practical after completion of the meeting. Answers will be posted at www.investor.baxter.com and will remain available until one week after posting. Following the voting on matters to be acted upon at the meeting, I will share highlights of Baxter's 2019 performance and direction for the future. Time permitting, we will then turn to general Q&A. We will now proceed with the formal business of the meeting. There are five proposals on today's agenda. First, the election of 12 directors.
Second, approval of named executive officer compensation for 2019. Third, the ratification of PWC as Baxter's independent registered public accounting firm for 2020. Fourth and fifth, two stockholder proposals. Most of our stockholders have already voted on all of these proposals. If you have previously voted, you do not need to take any action unless you wish to change your vote. To submit or change your vote during the meeting, you must be logged on as a Baxter stockholder. If you are, click on Vote Here on the meeting website. Submission of a new vote will revoke any prior proxy you may have previously submitted. You will now proceed through the proposals in the order in which they were discussed in the proxy statement. Time permitting, I will ask Ellen to present any duly submitted questions relating to a particular proposal after the proposal has been presented.
The first proposal to be considered is the election of 12 directors. May I have the nominations for directors?
Mr. Chairman, my name is Eric Zine, and I'm a Baxter stockholder. I nominate Joe Almeida, Thomas Chen, John Forsyth, James Gavin, Peter Hellman, Mike Mahoney, Patty Morrison, Steve Oesterle, Cathy Smith, Al Stroucken, Tom Stallkamp, and Amy Wendell for election as directors.
Thank you. Is there a second?
My name is Ramon Rivera, and I'm also a Baxter stockholder. I second.
Thank you. For this annual meeting, Baxter's by laws require that the corporate secretary be notified in writing of any nominations for director on a timely basis in advance of today's meeting. We received notice of any other nominations for directors. Accordingly, the nominations for directors are closed. The board of directors has recommended a vote in favor of each of these directors. Ellen, have there been any duly submitted questions on this proposal?
No, there haven't, Joe.
Thank you. The second proposal to be considered by stockholders is an advisory vote on the compensation of the company's named executive officers for 2019. Is there a motion?
My name is Eric Zine, and I'm a Baxter stockholder. I so move.
Thank you. Is there a second?
My name is Ramon Rivera. I'm a Baxter stockholder. I second.
Thank you. The board of directors has recommended a vote in favor of this proposal. Ellen, are there any duly submitted questions on this proposal?
We've been asked to compare this year's preliminary results for say-on-pay to last year's, which we'll be doing towards the end of the meeting. Otherwise, no.
Thank you. Thank you, Ellen. The third proposal to be considered is the ratification of PWC as Baxter's independent registered public accounting firm for 2020. Is there a motion?
My name is Eric Zine, and I'm a Baxter stockholder. I so move.
Thank you. Is there a second?
My name is Ramon Rivera. I am a Baxter stockholder. I second.
Ellen, have there been any duly submitted questions on this proposal?
There haven't been, Joe.
Thank you. The fourth proposal to be considered was submitted by Mr. Kenneth Steiner. Through Mr. John Chevedden, Mr. Steiner has designated Mr. Jesse Alba as his proxy on this proposal. This proposal relates to separating the roles of chairman and CEO and appears as proposal four in the proxy statement. Thank you, Mr. Alba, for acting as proxy for Mr. Steiner today. Would you like to make a motion with respect to proposal four? I would ask the in consideration for others present in our agenda. Please keep your comments to a reasonable period of time.
Thank you and good morning. Proposed independent board chairman sponsored by Kenneth Steiner. Shareholders request that the board of directors adopt a policy and amend the governing document as necessary to require that the chairman of the board be an independent member of the Board whenever possible. This proposal topic won 52% support at the Boeing meeting last week. This proposal topic won 50% plus support at five major U.S. companies in one year, including 73% support at Netflix. These majority votes would have been still higher if more shareholders had access to independent proxy voting advice. It is more important to have an independent chairman of the board since Baxter's lead director, Thomas Stallkamp, has a 20-year-long tenure. Long tenure in a director is the opposite of independence, and independence can be the most important attribute for a director, especially a lead director. Plus, Mr.
Stallkamp serves on no other board of directors to help keep his skills up to date. Mr. James Gavin was another long-tenured director on the board who serves on no other board of directors. Mr. Gavin received the record-high number of negative votes at Baxter in 2019, 10 times more than certain other Baxter directors. Mr. Gavin ironically chairs the governance committee, which is responsible for considering the merits of this proposal. The defective management statement next to this proposal, in effect, says that the most important thing at the top of Baxter is like-minded thinking and not independent critical thinking.
In another matter regarding our directors, the Delaware Court of Chancery issued a decision regarding Valco Energy, Incorporated in December 2015, in which the court interpreted Section 141(k) of general corporation law of the state of Delaware and held that many companies may improperly state in their certificate of incorporation or bylaws that directors may be removed only for cause. It is not clear whether Baxter directors can be removed without cause. The roles of chairman and CEO are fundamentally different and should be held by two directors: a CEO and a chairman who is completely independent of the CEO and our company. Please vote yes for independent board chairman proposal four. Thank you.
Thank you. Is there a second?
My name is Ramon Rivera, and I'm a Baxter stockholder. I second.
Ellen, have there been any duly questions submitted on this proposal?
No, there haven't been, Joe.
The fifth proposal to be considered was submitted by Mr. Chevedden. This proposal relates to giving stockholders the ability to act by written consent and appears as proposal five in the proxy statement. Mr. Chevedden has designated Mr. Alba as his proxy on this proposal. Mr. Alba, would you like to make a motion with respect to proposal five? I would ask that in consideration for the others present in our agenda, please keep your comments to a reasonable period of time.
Thank you. Proposal five, right to act by written consent, sponsored by John Chevedden. Shareholders request that the board of directors take the necessary steps to permit written consent by shareholders entitled to cast the minimum number of votes that would be necessary to authorize the action at a meeting at which all shareholders entitled to vote thereon were present and voting. Management is instantly disingenuous in opposing this proposal. Management's number one argument in opposing this proposal is the management claim of sticking up for minority stockholders. If management were really in support of minority shareholders, it would help minority shareholders obtain independent proxy voting advice on the subject of this proposal. The greatest problem that minority shareholders have in voting is the difficulty in obtaining independent proxy voting advice. Management is also disingenuous by claiming support for the special meeting process.
However, the current right of shareholders to call a special meeting puts this right out of reach for Baxter shareholders. Baxter requires 25% of shares to combine their holdings to call a special meeting, a higher level than the 10% of shares permitted by many states of incorporation. The high 25% threshold for shareholders to call a special meeting at Baxter is one more reason that shareholders should have the right to act by written consent. Plus, the higher 25% threshold has bureaucratic pitfalls that can trigger minor shareholder errors that could mean that 50% of shares would need to ask for a special meeting in order to be sure of obtaining the threshold of 25% of requests without errors. One can be sure that management will have a sharp eye to spot any errors.
This proposal topic won majority shareholder support at 13 major companies in a single year. This included 67% support at both Allstate and Sprint. Hundreds of major companies enable shareholder action by written consent. This proposal topic received 42% support at Baxter International. This 42% support may have represented a majority vote from the Baxter shareholders who have access to independent proxy voting advice. The right for shareholders to act by written consent is gaining acceptance as a more important right than the right to call a special meeting. This seems to be the conclusion of the Intel Corporation shareholder vote at the 2019 Intel annual meeting. The directors at Intel apparently thought they could divert shareholder attention away from written consent by making it less difficult for shareholders to call a special meeting. However, Intel shareholders responded with greater support for written consent in 2019 compared to 2018.
This proposal topic received 45% support at the Bank of New York Mellon in 2018, and the Bank of New York Mellon said it adopted written consent in 2019. Please vote yes for right to act by written consent proposal five. Thank you.
Thank you. Is there a second?
My name is Ramon Rivera, and I'm a Baxter stockholder. I second.
Thank you. Ellen, have there been any duly submitted questions on this proposal?
There haven't been, Joe.
Thank you. We'll now proceed to vote on the agenda items. The time is now 9:20 A.M. Central Standard Time, and I declare the polls open. Once again, if you have not already voted or if you wish to change your vote on any proposal, please click on the Vote Here button on the meeting website. Thank you. The time is now 9:22 A.M. Central Standard Time, and I declare the polls closed. At the end of the meeting, we will present the results based on the votes submitted as of this morning. The inspector of elections will tabulate the votes, and we will disclose the final results on a Form 8-K to be filed within four business days after completion of this meeting. Now I'm going to take a few minutes to give you our presentation on Baxter's business in 2019.
Nothing more important to Baxter employees than our mission of save and sustain lives. We have anchored all our values behind a mission that has great purpose, and this has been tremendously displayed in the rising and dealing with the challenge of COVID-19. We have maximized our production of critical medical products, but the first thing that we did when this crisis came along was to ensure that our employees were protected, that we created a system by evaluating each location's hazards and local regulations. Today, our plants are operating with a high level of protection. We are doing everything we can to protect our employees with wearing masks, checking temperatures, and doing all the things that were recommended by the CDC as well as by our internal group of physicians who are looking after this matter. Our number one priority is to protect the employees of the company.
mission is to produce product that is most needed in so many places around the globe. We also are actively recruiting 2,000 people, some are temporary, some are permanent, to come to our ranks and help us build products for the healthcare providers across the globe. We also are philanthropically active. We have donated more than $2 million, excuse me, to global relief partners throughout the Baxter International Foundation. This has been a crisis that has shaken the world, and Baxter sits in a position today that we can do something to help. Our employees have embraced the mission so much to their hearts, their actions, and we have provided products for every place in the world that they needed. We are making record production output in our plants in areas that we need as much as acute kidney injury.
Our medicines, premixes, are being used everywhere in the United States. Our solutions and injectable IV are used in many, many countries in the world. I want our shareholders to know how proud we are for being a contributor, albeit small, in this large crisis in the relief of so many people who got ill. We are also very focused in keeping our employees safe so they can produce the products most needed in the fronts. Baxter is a diversified company. It was very clear through this COVID-19 that we had a series of products. Most of our products are used in ICUs, in hospitals, and more importantly, at home with our peritoneal dialysis products, which we ship daily to many, many countries around the globe and to many, many patients around the globe. We have more than 300,000 patients at home who depend on Baxter's peritoneal dialysis supplies.
We are an $11.4 billion revenue company with six specific businesses ranging from renal care, medication delivery, pharmaceuticals, clinical nutrition, advanced surgery, and acute therapies. We're a global company with 54% of our sales in the Americas, 26% in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, and 20% in Asia-Pacific. Our performance in 2019 has been remarkable. Our sales growth was 5%. Adjusted operating margins grew 140 basis points to 18.7%. Our adjusted diluted earnings per share were $3.31, which is a 14% growth. Our cash flow grew 4% to $1.4 billion. Everything that we do at Baxter is centered in our mission. The way we describe to our employees is simple. The first thing in our mind is the safety of our patients and employees and the quality of the products we make. We apply our funds and ingenuity to innovate and create better products for our patients.
We also foster a best place to work culture where people want to get up in the morning and come to work. If we do that with a sense of urgency, with the simplicity in everything that we think through our processes, collaborate amongst ourselves and with the industry, and have the courage to raise points and to be bold. When we do this with ethics and in compliance with everything in everything we do, we fulfill our mission of save and sustain lives. By doing that, we then can think about being a leading performer in the industry. As a consequence, not a means to an end, but it is a consequence of doing the right things for the patients, for the employees, for the healthcare providers, we end up doing well for our stockholders.
Let's take a little bit more time and go into how we think about patient safety and quality. It's our priority number one. Since I came to Baxter, we put this aspiration on our charts to be top quartile, if not number one, in addressing patient safety and quality. We have invested in quality systems. We've been improving our quality metrics. We're strengthening our relationship with our regulators. Remarkably, we have addressed six FDA warning letters since 2014. The only open warning letter is our plant in Ahmedabad in India. The warning letter was given to the plant the day that Baxter acquired that plant back in 2017. When you think about how we foster an environment for employees to come to work, we are recognized for excellence.
If you think about it, we strive to be a company that is responsible not only to the environment but also to our own employees. We are considered by Forbes in 2019 America's best large employers. We are a military-friendly company. We're the best place to work for LGBTQ equality. We are in an inclusion, top 10% inclusion index company. We do this with tremendous pride, with tremendous pride. We also drive sustainability through our operations and support the increased access to care, disaster relief, STEM education, among other things. We are amongst the most just companies in the world and considered one of the best corporate citizens in 2019. Growing through innovation is also another lever that we're using, and we are displaying tremendous momentum in that. We look at it in three buckets.
Portfolio innovation is how we look at our products and continue to innovate, creating solutions to better address clinical needs. Market development, when we look at products such as acute kidney injury and how we've been developing the market to create awareness of technology and therapies that can be better positioned to address needs such as COVID-19. We're finding out that our Oxiris filter, which is a sepsis-designed filter to address sepsis, is a filter designed to address sepsis. It's used in our machines. We just got EUA in the U.S., which is an emergency authorization to use because that product's better suited to filtration of blood of patients who are infected with the COVID-19 virus. We also are very keen about anti-adjacencies, thinking about the things such as monitoring as an adjacency for our medication delivery.
When we put this all together, our impact in growing through innovation is displayed in the products we have launched and acquired. A couple of examples are the launch of ShareSource 2.0 Clinical Portal. This was a great advancement for the treatment of PD patients at home. We also have got approval for faster preparation of our FlowSeal Hemostatic Matrix. We have created the first in-market insulin ready-to-use for IV infusion called Mixerdline. That's great innovation because it reduces time of preparation in the hospitals as well as is proven to have a continuous delivery, the same strength throughout its shelf life, different than products that are compounded in hospital. Another entry in adjacencies is the acquisition of Seprafilm, an adhesion barrier, this for Advanced Surgery products. That comes into the bag of our wraps and is a great product and complementary product.
As you can see, we have through our own acquisitions and our own development, organic and inorganic, we bring a symbiosis that creates the innovation pathway for Baxter. Giving a little bit more of a view of our organic innovation, you will see that we are expanding our pump offerings. We have two different sets of pumps, one launched outside the U.S. called EvoIQ, continues to gain momentum right now in terms of adoption, approvals, and sales. We are also launching the new pump platform. It's a new platform for pumps for Baxter. For the first time, we're launching a syringe pump alongside with a large volume parenteral pump. Those pumps will be launched in the U.S. later this year, already approved in Canada this year. We're going into monitoring, which is a PEVA, which is a hemodynamic balanced monitor, and differentiating molecules.
As you can see, the culture of innovation has landed in Baxter. We look at our innovation index now; it is multiple times greater than when we started in 2016. We are accelerating the pace of innovation, and we feel that our employees have really embraced the new paradigm of becoming an innovation company despite the fact that our products have been on the market for a long time. When we think about how we create leverage and create efficiency, you think about our operational excellence. We continue to push forward in economies of scale, in efficiency, in efficacy, in everything we do. We have achieved, and we are planning to achieve in 2020, $1.1 billion in cost savings. These are not cost savings for the sake of reducing headcount and personnel.
What we're doing is we're becoming a more efficient company, a company that has, if you remember, the four tenets of our culture: speed, sense of urgency, simplicity. So important driving those savings because simplicity creates the opportunities for efficiency and efficacy. We also have set efficiency and efficacy in everything we do applied to our capital deployment. If you think about how we've been deploying our capital, we continue to reinvest in our business with great efficiencies in research and development. We continue to pay dividends and increase dividends every year. We are repurchasing shares when we feel it's adequate. M&A, we're going to continue to do M&A in adjacencies, but we've been very disciplined in how we use our cash. Vis-à-vis is the position of Baxter today with a significant amount of cash in the bank and prepare for a crisis such as the COVID-19.
How are we delivering value to our investors? Baxter, if you see in this chart, 141% versus IHI 109% since December 15. I think we have done well for our shareholders. We're going to continue to strive to do well, and that has to be through always paying attention to patient safety and quality, paying attention to innovation, and creating an environment where our employees are enjoying coming to work. We are continuing our momentum for 2020 and beyond. We are increasing our responsiveness and agility in an uncertain market. We continue to drive our innovation accelerator growth. We are maintaining a great cadence of product launches through our innovative process. We're going to continue to look at opportunities to acquire companies that are adjacent and bring more synergies into the process of selling these products. We're going to continue to do the transformation of the company.
The next thing for Baxter is going to be the digitization of the company. It's to bring Baxter to be a digital company because our customers are going through that process. Our digital health advancements have been great, as I showed to you, ShareSource 2.0. We have a 3.0 version that will be coming out later this year with some artificial intelligence capabilities. We, as a company, need to become a digital company for the most part to help aid our clinicians, customers, doing a better job with our product. Strategically, we will continue to deploy capital to enhance value-improved profitability. With that, we will move to the next order of business. Ellen, do you have the results of the voting?
Yes. Thank you, Joe.
Based on the results submitted as of this morning, the number of shares voted for each director was greater than or equal to approximately 90% of the number of votes cast with respect to him or her. Assuming any new or changed votes duly submitted during this meeting do not change the results, this is more than the required majority, and therefore, each of the nominees has been elected. Based on the results submitted as of this morning, the advisory vote requesting that stockholders approve the compensation of the company's named executive officers, as disclosed in the proxy statement for 2019, received votes in favor representing approximately 95% of the shares present and entitled to vote. This is approximately 1% higher than last year's say-on-pay vote.
Assuming any new or changed votes duly submitted during this meeting do not change the results, the disclosed compensation for 2019 has been approved, and the company thanks you for your support. Based on the results submitted as of this morning, the proposal to ratify PWC as the company's independent registered public accounting firm in 2020 received votes in favor of approval representing approximately 94% of the shares present and entitled to vote. Assuming any new or changed votes duly submitted during the meeting do not change the results, the ratification of PWC appointment for 2020 is ratified. Based on the results submitted as of this morning, the proposal relating to separating the roles of chairman and CEO received votes in favor of approval representing approximately 55% of the shares present and entitled to vote.
Assuming any new or changed votes duly submitted during this meeting do not change the results, the shareholder proposal has passed. I will now ask Dr. James Gavin, the chair of our Corporate Governance Committee, to comment on this proposal.
Thank you, Ellen. Consistent with our contractual obligations and the terms of the shareholder proposal itself, the board unequivocally affirms its commitment to maintaining Joe Almeida's position as chairman and CEO. As we have said before, we have full confidence that Joe is eminently qualified to fill this combined role. We certainly acknowledge the views of our shareholders and the likely results of this vote, which we will address in the coming months by making appropriate changes to our governance guidelines and which we will take into account in the ultimate transition to our next CEO in the years to come. Ellen?
Thank you, Dr. Gavin.
Finally, based on the results submitted as of this morning, the proposal relating to granting shareholders the ability to act by written consent received votes in favor of approval representing approximately 38% of the shares present and entitled to vote. Assuming any new or changed votes duly submitted during this meeting do not change the results, this shareholder proposal has not passed.
Thank you, Ellen. This completes the business of the meeting. Time per meeting, I would ask that Ellen present any general questions not otherwise relating to one of the meeting agenda items. As a reminder, we will be posting answers to a representative set of any unanswered questions relating to meeting matters as soon as reasonably practical after completion of the meeting. Answers will be posted at www.vaster.baxter.com, and it will be available until one week after posting.
I will pass on to Ellen to ask if there are any questions. I would like before Ellen responds to clarify one comment I made in my presentation that the warning letter given to our plant in India located in Ahmedabad was given to us months after the day that we purchased the company, and the FDA gave the plant a list of observations, which is called a Form 483. That Form 483 was given to the plant the day we took over as new owners. The warning letter came months later as a result of the 483. Hope that clarifies my comments from my presentation. We also had other questions. I'm going to pass on to Ellen if she has something to read.
Thank you, Joe. There were a handful of additional questions submitted during or in connection with the meeting.
The first question was, how many questions were submitted to the meeting? There were six in total. Second question, how many shareholders have accessed this meeting? Based on preliminary counts provided by Broadridge, we've had 41 people logged in as shareholders with 93 additional guests. Please note that this does not include any shareholders who will be accessing the meeting via the investor relations portion of our website. Joe, this next question is for you. It relates to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. How is the virus affecting Baxter's operations, and how are you protecting Baxter employees?
I had mentioned during my presentation that our number one job is to protect our employees. Our number two job is to make sure we're making the right products to address this horrible crisis around the globe. Our products are used in almost every setting described in treating patients of coronavirus.
Do not forget, we also have patients at home who depend on us with chronic kidney disease that need to be tendered and attended to on an ongoing basis with products to sustain their lives. Our employees are all in our plants wearing masks. They are given masks every day, temperature checking. We make sure symptomatic patients or employees, rather, are taken immediately for testing. We also address the cleaning and disinfection of our plant according to our procedures. We are doing everything we can in this very difficult situation to comply with two very important mandates. One is protect our employees at any cost. Second, also create an environment where they can make the product that is needed so much. We also observe social distance where it is possible, but also we protect our employees. Remember that our offices across the globe, with very few exceptions, are closed.
Our employees working are in our global supply chain operations as well as service. Remember, we have service employees who have to maintain and keep the machines going in the field. Sometimes we can do that remotely. Sometimes we can't. We have a significant amount of employees who are working to maintain our equipment operational across the globe. In this, I would like to take an opportunity to really thank the 50,000-plus employees of Baxter who have done a wonderful job coming together and creating great solutions to address difficulties in the goal from obtaining raw material to make products all the way to delivering them to people's homes and hospitals as well. We created an air bridge, as we announced, bringing products back and forth from Europe to the U.S. We created 2,000 new jobs to be able to offset our absenteeism in some of our plants.
Our absenteeism is slightly higher, but very, very, very slightly higher. It tells me two things: our people are feeling safe coming to work, but also that we all have a sense of mission, which is there's always a patient at the end of every product we make. These patients today need us more than ever. We will do everything we can to address all the needs on our employees as well as our patients.
Thank you, Joe. Before we turn to the final question that we have not otherwise addressed earlier in the call, I would just like to note that the count of shareholders and guests logged into the meeting continues to increase. We are now at approximately 49 registered shareholders and 102 participating guests. The last question that has been submitted—this is back to you, Joe—the shareholder wants to know what is happening with our plants in Puerto Rico.
Our plants in Puerto Rico are working today. Our Puerto Rico facilities make infusion solutions, two of them. Also make components to go to other plants. The third one makes anesthetic gases. We have worked in all those plants. They are working as many hours as possible. We are protecting our employees there, as I described before. The plants are operational. Once again, thanks to all the employees of Baxter for the wonderful job they are doing in this very difficult time. Ellen, if there are no other questions, I will remind again our shareholders, the folks on the call listening, that all answers will be posted for about a week on www.baxter.com. I declare this meeting formally adjourned. Thank you for your participating in this year's annual meeting. We appreciate your continued support. All have a safe and healthy rest of the year.
Be safe, be well, and be strong. Thank you.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's annual meeting. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.