Good morning, and welcome to Broadridge's 2017 Annual Meeting. We are delighted that you can join us this morning and participate in this meeting from the convenience of your home or office. My name is Leslie Brunn, and I have the privilege of serving as this Board's Chair. And this is Broadridge's 9th 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 to you our slate of Director nominees, including Pamela Carter, who's been recently nominated. And I'll start with, on my right, Mr. Robert Dulz, Mr. Thomas Perna, Pamela Carter, Richard Haviland, who chairs our Audit Committee, Rich Daley, our CEO, Alan Weber, who chairs our Compensation Committee, Mora Marcus Stewart Levine, who chairs our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee and Brett Keller. As well, we have Mike Angelaris Linda Hallstrom from our accounting firm Deloitte and Touche and our General Counsel, Adam Amsterdam is here as well.
I'd like to turn the meeting over to Maria Allen to conduct the business aspects of meeting and to announce the results of the shareholder vote. Maria?
Thank you, Les. This meeting is held pursuant to a notice dated October 2, 2017. On or about October 2, each stockholder of record as of the close of business on September 21st 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. The tabulator has provided me with a report indicating that more than 91% of our outstanding shares are present by proxy at this meeting.
Accordingly, I certify that a quorum exists. The company has appointed Tom Tai as the Inspector of Election. 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 seventy seven-three twenty eight-two 502 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. So 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 that was made available to stockholders. I will now review the proposals. Proposal number 1, the board is proposing 10 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 on the frequency of future votes on our executive compensation.
And proposal number 4, the Board is proposing the ratification of the appointment of Deloitte and Touche to serve as the company's independent auditors
for the
2018 fiscal year. The Board recommends that stockholders vote for proposals 1, 2 and 4 and for every 1 year on proposal 3. We received the stockholder votes and I now declare the polls closed. And now I'll turn the meeting over to our Chief Executive Officer, Rich Daley.
Thanks, Maria. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. I'm Rich Daley, CEO of Broadridge Financial Solutions. This is Broadridge's 9th 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 230 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 2017 financial performance, results from our Q1 of fiscal year 2018 and finally, some facts about our culture here at Broadridge. When I'm done with my prepared comments, I will answer questions received from stockholders. First, some financial highlights from fiscal year 2017. Let me open by saying that I am very pleased with Broadridge's fiscal year 2017 results.
Total revenues grew 43% to $4,100,000,000 This was led by the acquisition of NACC which occurred on the 1st day of fiscal 2017 contributing $1,100,000,000 to our revenues. Recurring fee revenues grew by 29% in fiscal 2017 with a strong 6% coming from organic growth. Overall, we achieved 15% growth in adjusted EPS to $3.13 and we generated record close sales of $188,000,000 up 25%, enabling strong momentum for fiscal year 2018. I am especially pleased that our fiscal year 2017 results enabled Broadridge to achieve the 3 year financial objectives we laid out at our Investor Day in December 2014. In August, our Board approved an 11% increase in our annual dividend to $1.46 per share.
Broadridge's dividend has increased every year since 2007. At Broadridge, we remain committed to a strong dividend. Broadridge continues to achieve strong total shareholder return performance. TSR was 18% for fiscal year 2017, 93% over the 3 years ending June 30, 2017, and 383% since we began trading in April of 2007 through June 30, 2017. Delivering top quartile shareholder return to our investors is a key focus of our management team.
I would now like to give you a brief summary of our Q1 fiscal year 2018 results. Broadridge continued the strong momentum from fiscal 2017 into the Q1 of fiscal 2018. Recurring fee revenues rose 6% to $548,000,000 led by organic revenue growth of 5%. Event driven revenues rose 58% to $59,000,000 and distribution revenues declined 6%, resulting in total revenue growth of 3% to $925,000,000 The growth in recurring fee revenues, especially event driven revenues, contributed to strong 30% growth in adjusted operating income to $106,000,000 Adjusted EPS in turn rose 50% to $0.54 In summary, we are off to a good start And as we noted in our Q1 earnings call on November 8, we were on track to achieve our full year 2018 guidance. Next, a few thoughts on Broadridge's culture.
The key to our success is our commitment to the service profit chain, driven by the hard work and dedication of our associates. I work with over 10,000 highly engaged associates in 16 countries around the world. Their efforts underpin our 98% client revenue retention rate and I'd like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for their efforts. I am proud to say that Broadridge was recognized by Fortune Magazine as one of the world's most admired companies. For the 10th year in a row, we've been recognized as a best company to Work For in New York State by the New York State Society of Human Resource Management.
Broadridge was also named one of the best places to work for LGBT Equality for 5 years by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. Receiving these awards underscores the importance we place on developing and nurturing our human capital. To conclude, I would like to thank our Board of Directors for being true partners whose insights, guidance and contributions are essential to our success. And lastly, I want to express my gratitude to you, our stockholders, for the confidence you have shown in us over the course of our 10 years as a public company. I will now open the Q and A portion of our meeting.
You can ask a question during the meeting by clicking Ask a Question or by calling 77-328-2502. I will repeat that number. 1-eight seventy seven-three twenty eight-two fifty two. If time for some reason doesn't allow or if a follow-up is required, we'll respond to your questions within 24 hours with responses available on our Investor Relations website. That's at broadridge ir.com.
We will take questions in the following order. 1st, we'll answer questions submitted prior to the meeting date. Then, we will answer questions submitted live from the Internet during the meeting. Finally, we'll answer questions from the phone. After Q and A, Maria Allen, our Corporate Secretary, will report the meeting results.
Hello, Rich. This is the first pre meeting question. How do I change the e mail ID in my profile?
Okay. So we're not 100% certain which e mail ID you're referring to. But we assume you're referring to the e mail you received, which we sent your proxy materials to. If that's the case, your shares are held in a brokerage account and you would need to contact your broker to update your e mail address. However, if you are a registered shareholder, you would need to contact the transfer agent.
If this is not the e mail ID that you're referring to, please submit a question to our Investor Relations website, again at broadridge ir.com, and we'll respond to you promptly.
The second pre meeting question is what is Broadridge's plan to ensure against the risk of issuers potentially being allowed to receive a full list of OBOs and mail out packages directly.
For those of you who are not familiar with the designation of OBO or for that matter OBO, let me give you a brief background. Back in the early '80s, I was on a New York Stock Exchange panel where corporate issuers were desiring to know who the underlying holders were behind the brokerage accounts. That evolved to where confidentiality rights became a heated debate even back then. And the designations of NOBO and OBOW came about. A NOBO is a shareholder in a brokerage or bank account who has not objected to giving up their identity.
OBOs, as referred to in this question, are the shareholders who have objected to giving up their identity. Now to my knowledge, this is not a current debated topic about giving up the rights of holders who have expressed the need to be confidential. Beyond that, if for some reason that policy was to change, what's evolved over the last 3 decades and particularly because of the investments Broadridge has made by putting over $1,000,000,000 into our technology is right now for all street holders, we've eliminated 70% of the materials, that's the printing cost and the postage cost by distributing these materials in some form of electronic. That means that in essence for every dollar we charge in fees, we're saving issuers more than $2 in out of pockets. So if someone was looking to mail us directly, all right, they would likely be doubling the cost that they're incurring right now.
And let me be clear, because of the consistency of our process, applying the technology across brokers and banks, no other entity, okay, and in particularly, registered holders, whether it be in brokerage I'm sorry, registered holders, whether it be for corporate issuers or for that matter, mutual funds, it's rare that they break 10% elimination of paper and postage. So the economics, even if confidentiality rights were to be taken away, which we do view as being unlikely, but if that was to happen, it wouldn't be economically in anyone's interest to bypass the Broadridge process at this time because of the efficiency our technology has driven. As we go forward, all right, we believe that our technology will continue to drive this process. Just recently, we've been made aware of activities in proxy contests, whether it be DuPont, whether it be the recent PNG activities or ADP, to name a few of the highlighted ones. You should also recognize in there and using P and G as the example, that is now in a place known as the Snake Pit where they're disputing the results, but they're not disputing the 92% of the outstanding shares represented by Broadridge.
Again, the consistency of technology being implemented to give accurate results and on top of which Broadridge is the only entity I'm aware of that's a neutral party and has independent verification. So between all we've spent on our technology and then the $1,000,000 plus we spend each year to verify our results really puts Broadridge into a unique position. Last piece in terms of technology creating a benefit. You're witnessing it live right now. This virtual shareholder meeting will reach well over 100 shareholders live if it's consistent with prior years.
Prior to having a virtual shareholder meeting, we had 3 attendees at our last physical meeting. So technology is enabling greater technology, whether it be in reducing cost in the case of OBOs and NOBOs, whether it be independent verifiable results, which at the times the polls close in the P and G meeting within minutes our 92% was a final vote not to be challenged or whether it be enabling more shareholders to participate in annual meetings through our technology. So the answer to all of these issues going forward is to use technology exactly to go forward, not to say, let's go backwards, okay, and make the process less efficient and more costly.
Rich, there are no more pre meeting questions. We will now move on to the online questions. And the first question is on blockchain. How is Broadridge preparing for the possibility that blockchain technology will disrupt the current shareholder voting process?
At Broadridge, we take our responsibilities to be relevant today and relevant in the future very, very seriously. We have led this part of the industry proxy in recognizing the power of blockchain and the potential of blockchain. We are not at the point where blockchain will be universally adopted, but let me give you a few examples. We announced earlier this year a pilot internationally with JPMorgan, Banco Santander and Northern Trust, where we ran a meeting using blockchain technology. In the U.
S, we announced last year that we made a significant investment to acquire the technology assets of a firm, specifically to use those technology assets to create a U. S.-based blockchain capability as we go forward. We're very pleased about both of those efforts. We update our shareholders regularly in our quarterly earnings calls on this. And you can read and find out more about this or look at those calls at our website.
And again, it's broadridge ir.com.
The second meeting second question has been submitted online is on the VSM format. It reads, the virtual meeting is very convenient for shareholders. But if someone wanted to attend your meeting in person, would you allow for that?
At Broadridge, we've taken the position that there is nothing that a shareholder would want to do that they can't do in a virtual meeting. We've built this technology make it available to all companies and frankly, it's a business value proposition that we're excited about the future. There has been some controversy about virtual shareholder meetings and we're working with issuers, regulators and institutional investors to create what's viewed as best practices for virtual meetings. We believe that best practices should be implemented, but we also believe that the technology of enabling people from anywhere in the world to attend the meeting and any attire they want is something that will increase participation and make governance more effective.
There are no more online questions.
Mr. Daley, at this time there are no phone questions. I would like to turn it back to you for any additional online questions or closing remarks.
Okay. Let me invite Marie Allen back to announce the results of the shareholder vote.
Thank you, Rich. The Inspector of Election has presented me with a preliminary report of the votes received for and against each of the proposals. All votes are subject to final count certified by the inspector, but we do not expect the final totals to differ greatly. Regarding proposal 1, I'm pleased to report that all of our 10 nominees have been elected with all nominees receiving at least 94% of the votes cast. Proposal 2, the proposal to approve the company's executive compensation passed with at least 96% of the votes cast.
Proposal 3, the proposal to approve the frequency of future votes on our executive compensation passed with the timing of annual frequency with at least 84% of the votes cast. And Proposal 4, the proposal to ratify the appointment of Deloitte and Touche to serve as our independent auditors for the 2018 fiscal year has been approved with approximately 96% of the votes cast. The complete voting results will be contained in the Form 8 ks that the company will file with the SEC within 4 business days following this meeting. The 8 ks will be available on Broadridge's website promptly after it has been filed. Les, I turn the meeting back over to you.