Afternoon. I am Jack O'Brien, Non Executive Chairman of the Board of Corporation, and I'm pleased to welcome you to the twenty eighteen Annual Meeting of Cabot Corporation Stockholders, and I hereby call the meeting to honor. I would like to begin today's meeting by introducing the other members of the Board of Directors. Will each director stand, please, briefly, as he or she is introduced: Cynthia Arnold, Juan Enriquez, Sean Cohain, William Kirby, Rory McCloud, John McGillicuddy, Michael Morrow, Patrick Privo, Sue Rattay, Matthias Wolfgruber and Mark Wright. Thank you all.
Glad to have you here. I also today would like to take a moment to recognize Rory MacLeod, who is retiring from our Board following this meeting after twenty one years of service to Cabot Corp. Over these years, Rory has served as a valuable member of the Board's Audit Committee and the Safety, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee. But more importantly, over the twenty one years, he has been a key contributor to Cabot's strategic thinking and has been a trusted adviser to actually four chief executive officers over that period of time. In addition to his knowledge of financial matters, he has brought to our Board significant long term perspective and a significant institutional knowledge about Cabot.
Rory, you are a strong and effective advocate. We will miss you. We will miss your insight and your perspectives, and we thank you for outstanding service to our company. We are also joined today by several former directors of Cabot Corp. We'd ask them to stand briefly, John Bradley, Kevin Cabot and Lydia Thomas.
Again, thank you all for coming today. Also present today are representatives from Deloitte and Touche, the company's independent auditors for the fiscal year 2017. They will be available to respond to appropriate questions for the 2017 fiscal year. I will now turn to the business of the meeting. Jane Bell, Secretary of the Corporation, is keeping the minutes of today's meeting.
Ms. Bell informs me that the notice of the meeting was duly and properly mailed and that a quorum is present. We will now open the polls to conduct the business of the meeting. There are three items of business before us this afternoon. They are the election of directors, advisory approval of the compensation of Cabot's named executive officers as disclosed in the proxy statement for this meeting, that is the say on pay vote the ratification of the appointment of Deloitte and Touche as Cabot's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year 2018.
As indicated in the proxy statement, the four directors that are nominated for a three year term to expire in 2021 are: Cynthia A. Arnold, John K. McGillicuddy, Mark S. Wrighton and myself, John F. O'Brien.
Is there a motion to elect the individuals nominated? Is there a second to the motion? Is there any discussion concerning the election of the directors? There being no discussion, we will proceed with the second item of business, which is the nonbinding vote to approve the compensation of Cabot's named executive officers. Is there a motion to approve the compensation of Cabot's named executive officers?
Is there a second to the motion? Is there any discussion concerning this proposal? There being no discussion, we will proceed with the final item of business, which is the ratification of the appointment of Deloitte Touche as Cabot's independent registered public accounting firm for the twenty eighteen fiscal year. Is there a motion to ratify the appointment of Deloitte and Touche as Cabot's independent auditors? Is there a second to the motion?
Is there any discussion concerning the ratification? As there is no further business to properly conduct before the meeting, we will proceed with the voting of the items of business. Any stockholder wishing to submit proxy or vote in person is to ask to raise his or her hand, and the ushers will collect the proxy cards and give ballots to the stockholders voting in person. Has everyone voted who wishes to do so? Then I declare the polls closed and ask the inspectors to count and certify the votes.
I will now turn the floor over to Sean Cohain, Cabot's President and CEO, who will comment on the company's performance in 2017. Sean?
Thank you, Jack, and good afternoon. On behalf of the Executive Committee of Cabot Corporation and our team members worldwide, I want to welcome you to our twenty eighteen stockholders meeting. Before I begin my remarks, I'll remind you that today's presentation will include forward looking statements. The statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and Cabot's actual results could differ from those contained in forward looking statements. A list of factors that could affect Cabot's actual results can be found in our 2017 Form 10 ks filing and our 10 Q filing for the 2018.
Copies of these filings are available on the company's website. Today, I plan to address three topics. First, I'll provide a review of the company's performance in the fiscal year twenty seventeen. I'll follow with an update on the progress we've made against our vision and advancing the core strategy. And finally, I will share perspective on the future and the exciting opportunities that are in front of us at Cabot Corporation.
Fiscal year twenty seventeen was a year of tremendous progress for Cabot. I'm proud to report that we delivered on our financial commitments, extended our industry leading positions and advanced a broad range of compelling strategic priorities to position the company for the future. Let's now take a deeper look at the state of the company and our accomplishments in 2017. To start, I want to highlight our safety, health and environmental performance. The safety of our people and the sustainable development, production and use of our products are central to our corporate vision.
Our 2017 total recordable injury rate of zero point four five continues to position us near the top of the broad industrial and chemical industry league tables. We have the highest expectations of our performance in this area and as a result include contractor safety in our performance measures, a practice that few in the industry do. We remain proud of our long standing position as a leader in safety, but continue to reflect on this performance with a healthy level of dissatisfaction as we know that zero injuries is possible. We continued our sustainability journey and enhanced our approach by conducting a comprehensive materiality assessment in 2017. This effort included outreach to our customers, shareholders and employees around the world, resulting in a sharper focus of those areas of sustainability most important to Cabot.
In June 2017, we published our sustainability report, which conforms to the latest Global Reporting Initiative or GRI standard and reflects the insights from the materiality assessment. With this input, we are moving forward with confidence that our sustainability goals are relevant and that we have a strong connection to our business agenda. Our leadership in this area has been recognized by numerous external parties. We are proud that Corporate Responsibility Magazine named Cabot one of twenty seventeen Most Responsible Companies in the Material Industry Sector. In addition, for the second year in a row, we were recognized with a gold level evaluation by EcoVadis, an independent organization that specializes in evaluating sustainability programs and related performance of participating companies.
I am proud of the work that we've been able to accomplish so far, but know that we can do more to positively impact our overall performance. Sustainability is a continuous journey for which we've established meaningful goals and milestones. With the support of our dedicated team across the globe, I know we will continue to improve our performance and make a difference. When we launched our vision and strategy in mid-twenty sixteen, we set an objective to deliver sustained and attractive total shareholder return. Our strategy and accompanying financial framework was built to deliver 7% to 10% annual adjusted earnings per share over time.
Complementing the earnings growth objectives is a commitment to a balanced capital allocation strategy, whereby approximately 50% of our discretionary free cash flow will be invested for growth and 50% will be returned to shareholders. This balanced capital allocation philosophy will ensure that we invest sufficiently in our core businesses to capture opportunities and drive long term earnings growth, while also providing our shareholders with a meaningful cash return. While there will always be cyclical dimensions to our business, we believe that this long term value framework will provide top tier performance for our shareholders. In fiscal twenty seventeen, we continued to deliver on our financial commitments. Adjusted earnings per share increased by 9% on a year over year basis to $3.43 and we produced $340,000,000 of operating cash flow, which clearly showcases the cash generating power of the portfolio.
As committed, we returned 57% or $138,000,000 of discretionary free cash flow to shareholders through a combination of dividends and share repurchases. While we are very pleased with these results, we remain committed to long term leadership and performance. And on this front, we advanced several long term strategic investments to strengthen our positions and ensure sustained growth of earnings and cash flow. The aim of our advancing the core strategy is to extend our leadership in Performance Materials by driving three key themes. First, investing for growth in our core businesses second, driving application innovation with our customers and third, generating strong cash flows through efficiency and optimization.
We made notable progress across each of these strategic pillars in 2017. In terms of growth in our core, our Reinforcement Materials and Performance Chemicals segments achieved volume growth in line with or better than market averages, while maintaining a commitment to earn fair value for the performance our products deliver in applications. We also advanced several key growth projects across the company. Specifically, we announced two new fumed silica plants in Muhai, China and Carrollton, Kentucky. These projects will allow us to meet the growing market demand for our high performance fumed silica while strengthening our relationships with key leaders in the silicones industry, Dow Corporation and HYC.
To strengthen our existing businesses, we are also pursuing bolt on M and A opportunities. To that end, in November 2017, we completed the acquisition of TechBlend, a leading North American producer of Black Masterbatch. This transaction is an excellent example of how we will use disciplined and focused M and A to strengthen our existing businesses. We have long held the position as a leader in black masterbatch and compounds in the Europe, Middle East And Africa region and Asia Pacific region. And this acquisition establishes a strong footprint for us in North America and a platform to better serve our global customers.
Our long standing position in the plastics value chain as both a supplier of specialty carbon blacks and a masterbatch producer has allowed us to develop deep understanding of plastics applications and bring unique performance to our customers. We acquired this business at an attractive multiple and have a clear plan to drive commercial synergies and generate above market growth. Innovating with our customers is a key pillar of our strategy and the opportunity in front of us has never been more compelling. We are experiencing a convergence of global macro trends that can only be addressed innovation. From green tires to lithium ion batteries to lightweight plastics and digital printing, our market spaces are rich with innovation potential.
Our commitment to growth and innovation is best exemplified by our investments in the high growth battery application. Conductive carbon additives are an essential performance material in battery formulations, both for lithium ion and advanced lead acid batteries. We have committed resources to the continued development and commercialization of battery materials and believe this application has the potential to become a material contributor to our growth objectives. Cabot has a strong right to win based on our current market position, a depth of application expertise, leadership in conductive carbon additive technologies and a strong footprint in Asia Pacific where most of this development is occurring. As we enter a period of higher capital spending to support growth and innovation projects, we are proceeding with a laser focus on capital efficiency.
This effort plays out in distinct ways across our asset base. We search for smart and efficient debottleneck projects to support capacity growth. In cases where we are building new assets such as our fumed silica investments, each project undergoes a rigorous capital efficiency review where we bring the best practices of value engineering to ensure that we maximize the efficient use of our capital spending. And finally, we strive to operate our assets at the highest level of reliability and with maximum energy recovery. This is a very exciting time for Cabot Corporation.
We sit at the crossroads of several significant and fundamental trends, which offer distinct strategic opportunities to grow and transform our company. The end markets that we serve continue to grow at robust rates and our global footprint and industry leadership position offer unique opportunities to create value for our shareholders. Across our diverse set of end market applications, we are experiencing a convergence of global macro trends that can only be addressed through materials innovation. We are also observing an ever increasing global trend toward greater environmental stewardship and sustainability. As an industry leader, sustainability has always guided our investment decisions.
For example, over the past fifteen years, China has emerged as the largest tire producing country in the world with approximately 40% of the world's capacity. This has resulted in incredible growth in the supporting chemicals value chain, but often at the expense of environmental sustainability. Throughout the years, as we invested to capture this growth, we did so with an unwavering commitment to implementing the best process technology and environmental controls. While there has not always been a level playing field, we recognized that this was the best way to build a durable leadership position. Today, we are experiencing a broad transformation in environmental enforcement across the entire industrial and chemicals landscape in China.
We strongly support this initiative and are a recognized leader in the ecosystem advocating for responsible management practices. There is no global competitor that is as well positioned as Cabot to capitalize on this important and fundamental trend. Against this backdrop of market opportunities, we continue to be guided by our vision to be the most innovative, respected and responsible leader in our markets, delivering performance that makes a difference. This commitment informs our choices, inspires our global team and will be the source of compelling value creation for our shareholders. In conclusion, I'm very pleased with our performance in 2017.
We are a strong company with leading industry positions, competitive global assets, superior technology platforms and the best talent in the industry. We have a strategy in place that is delivering results and we will continue to execute on that strategy to create superior value for our shareholders. Thank you for joining us today and I will now read the results of the voting. The inspectors report that Cynthia A. Arnold, John F.
O'Brien, John K. McGillicuddy and Mark S. Written have been elected directors of the corporation for terms expiring 2021. The inspectors further report that the proposal to approve in a nonbinding advisory vote, the compensation paid to our named executive officers has been approved. And finally, the inspectors report that the appointment of Deloitte and Touche as Cabot's independent auditors for fiscal year 2018 has been ratified.
With the results of voting complete, I declare Cabot Corporation's twenty eighteen Annual Meeting of Stockholders adjourned. Thank you for attending and I look forward to seeing you all again next year.