Good morning. Welcome to Broadridge's 2018 annual meeting. We are delighted that you can join us this morning participate in this meeting from the convenience of your home or office. My name is Les Brennan. I have the privilege of serving as the chair of this board.
This is Broadridge's 10th completely virtual meeting of shareholders. Validated shareholders can vote and submit questions in real time, And this format has increased shareholder access, participation, and voting. I'd like to introduce my fellow directors But before doing so, you'll notice that Rich Haveland is not here with us today. Rich has reached his retirement age. We'd love to thank him for his service.
And are grateful for all that he's done for Broadridge during his time in office. My fellow directors, starting with Thomas Perna, Next to Tom, one of my far left is Brett Keller, Pam Carter, who is, nominated as new chair of our audit committee. Rich Daley, who is our CEO, Stuart Levine, who chairs our Nominating And Corporate Governance Committee, Mora Marcus. Next to her is Alan Weber, who chose our compensation committee. And last but not least is Rob Dulkes, who is also an active member of several committees.
I'd like to introduce our D and T representatives, Jun Nicholas, over on my left. And Marty McElroy, as here for D And T. I'll introduce our general counsel, Adam Amsterdam, and turn it over now to our Corporate Secretary, Maria Allen, to conduct the business aspects of the meeting. Maria?
Thank you, Les. This meeting is held pursuant to a notice dated September 24, 2018. Honor about September 24, Each stockholder of record as of the close of business on September 17th was sent either a notification of Internet availability of proxy materials, or the proxy materials themselves. All documents concerning notice of the meeting will be filed with the records of the meeting. And the company has appointed Tom Tai as Inspector of Election.
The tabulator has provided me with a report indicating that more than 88% of our outstanding shares are present by proxy at this meeting. Accordingly, I certify that a quorum exists. All Broadridge stockholders entitled to vote at this meeting have the ability to do so online, as well as the ability to submit questions either online or by phone by dialing 1-eight 70seven-three 20eight-two 50two. And providing the control number that was included with your notice of this meeting. I will be closing the polls after I review the proposals.
Sir, if you're a stockholder entitled to vote and have not yet voted or you want to change a previously cast vote, please do so now via the website. The proposals being considered today are explained in detail in our proxy statement. They are Proposal number 1, the board has recommended 9 nominees for election as directors. Proposal number 2, The board is seeking approval of our executive compensation. Proposal number 3, the board is seeking approval of our 2018 Omnibus Award plan.
And proposal number 4 is the ratification of the appointment of Deloitte and Touche to serve as the company's independent auditors for the 20 fiscal year. The board recommends that stockholders vote for all proposals. We have received the stockholder votes, and I declare the polls closed. And now I'll turn the meeting over to our Chief Executive Officer, Ridge Shelley. Rich?
Thanks, Maria. Good morning, everyone. Rich Daley CEO of Broadridge. Welcome to Broadridge's 2018 annual shareholder meeting. As Les pointed out, this is Broadridge's 10th virtual only annual meeting.
This virtual annual meeting is powered by Broadridge Technology. Over the last year, we've provided the technology to support over 250 public companies with their virtual annual meetings. As part of this virtual annual meeting format, I will share with you a few highlights regarding Broadridge's fiscal year 2018 financial performance as well as results from our first quarter of fiscal year 2019. When I'm done with my prepared comments, I will answer questions received from stockholders. But first, this will be my last annual meeting as CEO of Broadridge.
Given Broadridge's strong position, my tenure and age the time is right for Broadridge to transition to new leadership. I'm extremely pleased that Tim Gokey our current president and chief operating officer will become Broadridge's next CEO on January 2, 2019, and I will become Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors. Since joining Broadridge in 2010, Tim has played a key role in transforming Broadridge into a fintech leader. He brings a deep knowledge of the financial services industry, a keen understanding of the importance of innovation to our future success, and a proven track record of delivering sustained growth at Broadridge. I am confident that our company will be Let me open by saying that I'm very pleased with Broadridge's fiscal year 2018 results.
Total revenues grew 5 percent to $4,300,000,000. Recurring fee revenues grew by 6% in fiscal 'eighteen with a solid 5% coming from organic growth. Overall, our strong operating performance, combined with our lower tax rate, contributed to a strong 34% growth and adjusted EPS to $4.19. And we generated record closed sales of $215,000,000, up 14% providing strong momentum for fiscal year 2019. In August, our board approved a 33 percent increase in our annual dividend amount to $1.94 per share.
Total shareholder return was 55 percent for fiscal year 2018, putting us in the top quartile of the S and P 500. Speaking of the S and P 500, Broadridge shares were added to the index in June of 2018. In recognition of our long track record of execution, and value creation as a fintech leader since becoming a public company 11 years ago. Now I'd like to give a brief summary of our first quarter fiscal year 2019 results. Broadridge continued the strong momentum from fiscal year 2018 into the first quarter of fiscal 2019.
Recurring fee revenues rose 5 percent to $575,000,000. Total revenues grew 5 percent to $973,000,000. Current fee revenues and event driven revenues contributed to strong 15% growth in adjusted operating income, to $123,000,000. Adjusted EPS in turn rose 46 percent to $0.79, In summary, we are off to a good start, as we noted on our first quarter earnings call on November 6th. We are on track to achieve our full year 2019 guidance and our 3 year financial objectives that we laid out at our last Investor Day.
To conclude, I would like to thank our Board to direct this for their insights, guidance, and contributions to me. Which have been essential to our success. I would like to thank my 10,000 fellow associates across the globe whose shared passion and dedication have driven Broadridge's success over the last 11 years. And lastly, I want to express my gratitude to our stockholders for the confidence you've shown in me as CEO over the course of our 11 years as a public company. Tim Gokey and our leadership team are well positioned to take Broadridge to the next level.
I'm confident based on our leadership and opportunities that the best is yet to come for Broadridge. I'll now open the Q And A portion of our meeting You can ask a question during the meeting by submitting it to the ask a question field on your screen or by calling 18773282502. I will now repeat If time doesn't allow or follow-up is required, we will respond to your questions within 24 hours where responses available on our Investor Relations website located at Broadridge, dotcom, or we will take questions in the following order. 1st, We will answer questions submitted prior to the meeting date. 2nd, then we will answer questions submitted live from the internet during the meeting.
And third, and finally, we'll answer questions from the phone. After Q And A, Maria Allen, our Corporate Secretary, will report the meeting results.
We do have a question for management. Question is, Over the past several years, Broadridge has made multiple acquisitions. Do you believe these new business units have been successfully incorporated into the larger corporate structure and are performing as expected.
M and A has been a key part to Broadridge's success. As we stated in our last invested day, we're looking to get 1 to 2 points of growth from M And A. The real work in M And A is before the transaction and identifying 3 key criteria. 1st and most important, important is the strategy of the deal. There's lots of properties out there, but our view is why would Broadridge be a better owner than in its current environment.
Meaning, does it fit well with our customer base? Can we leverage our strong brand, the trust our clients have on us, and our strong distribution channel. And it meets that criteria, we believe can achieve financials beyond where it is today, and that just becomes that 1st key strategic criteria. Next is the financials themselves. We set a high bar for financial performance because one, we believe If it's worth acquiring, then we should be able to grow revenue or run it more successfully with synergies, then it's presently running today.
So with that high bar of financial returns that we put out there, even if there's a little bit of slippage on that, we can still generate a strong return for our shareholders. And the 3rd and probably of equal importance to everything else is the belief and need for leadership. We require a strong leader inside the company to sponsor the deal, and we require either at the time of closing or immediately thereafter, a belief that either through the company's existing management or through making some leadership changes we will have a strong leadership team in that entity that will have our values that will actually embrace our culture, live by the service profit chain and enable it to both assimilate into Broadridge and be successful in the marketplace. So thank you for the question. We are very pleased with the performance of M And A overall, and we expect to continue on the path that we're on as we go forward.
I just used the new active path software to facilitate my vote. Very impressive. I hope the marketplace will adopt it as the standard.
So based on the question, I know that this has to be a question from an employee because what we did this year was the path acquisition that we recently did, we use that technology to create a true interactive, engaging experience to vote your shares on a pilot basis. It was very successful. I used it myself. It provided information about the company, It provided a statement from me. It provided other things that would be very easy to read on your phone and then vote shares accordingly.
This technology, this exact week, was showcased at both Corp Finicky SEC as well as investment management at the SEC in preparation for the roundtable, which will be coming up in about a week, the SEC roundtable. To talk about ways to make the proxy process more engaging and beneficial to shareholders, which is really a strong directional goal that the current SEC chairman Jay Clayton has laid out. So we're very, very excited about this technology and we have a strong belief that this will be adopted by the marketplace in line with the early adopters we already have who are using the virtual meeting format of those 250 companies I mentioned earlier. So thanks for the question. I don't know who you are at Broadridge, but I do know you are at Broadridge.
There are no additional pre meeting questions or online All right. So given that the question and answer period is over from online and pre submitted, we're gonna open it now, to the phones, if anyone would like to dial in with a question.
There are no questions on the phone at this time.
Well, thank you for your participation. And I'm now going to turn the meeting back over to Marie Allen, who will now, who will announce the results of the meeting.
The Inspector of Election has presented me with a report of the votes received for and against each of the proposals. Although those are subject to final counts certified by the inspector, but we do not expect the final votes to differ greatly. Regarding proposal 1, I'm pleased to report that all of our 9 nominees have been elected, with all nominees receiving at least 95% of the votes cast. Proposal 2, the proposal to approve the company's executive compensation passed with approximately 95% of the votes cast. Proposal 3, the proposal to approve the company's 2018 Omnibus award plan passed with approximately 91% of the votes cast.
And proposal 4, the appointment of Deloitte and Tush to serve as our independent auditors for the 2019 fiscal year, has been approved for approximately 97% of the votes cast. The complete voting results will be contained in the Form 8 K that the company will filed with the SEC within 4 business days following this meeting. The 8 K will be available on Broadridge's website promptly after it has been filed. Les, I turn the meeting back over to you.
Thank you, Maria, and thank you for attending this morning. Before we sign off, I'd like you to join me in thanking Rich Daley for his 11 years of services, our CEO, and the outstanding job he's done on behalf of us all, and to wish him well in his new journey as Executive Chairman starting in January. There being no further business. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you.