Good morning and welcome to the virtual webcast of the 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of CF Industries Holdings, Inc. We do not expect any technical difficulties today. However, in the event we lose audio or webcast connection and we are unable to provide any updates, please wait 10 minutes for resolution. Please refer to the corporation's investor website for updates. The polls are open. Shareholders may vote by clicking on the voting button at the bottom right corner of the webcast screen. The polls will remain open until the conclusion of the matters for shareholder consideration portion of the meeting. I would now like to introduce CF Industries' General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Doug Barnard, to begin the meeting.
Thank you, Sue. During the webcast today, the company may make forward-looking statements about our expectations or predictions about the future. Because these statements are based on current assumptions and factors that involve risks and uncertainties, the company's actual performance and results may differ materially from what is said here today. Please refer to CF Industries' 2020 Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on February 24, 2021, for detailed discussions of the principal risks and uncertainties that could cause such differences and to our subsequent SEC filings for updates. With that, I'll turn the meeting over to Steve Furbacher, our Chairman, to call the meeting to order.
Good morning. I'm Steve Furbacher, Chairman of the Board of Directors of CF Industries. It's my pleasure to welcome you and to call to order the 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. It's my intent to chair and conduct the meeting in the manner stated on the agenda and the rules of conduct and procedures. In addition to Tony, Doug, and me, the other director nominees are attending today's meeting through this live webcast. Before I turn the meeting over to Doug, I want to recognize one of our long-serving directors who has elected to retire from our board. For the last 22 years, Bill Davisson has provided outstanding leadership, insight, and direction to the company. He played a critical role in our transition from a co-op to a publicly traded company, serving as Chairman of the Board from 2002 to 2004 as plans for an IPO began to take shape.
Since that time, Bill's wise counsel, extensive fertilizer experience, have been an invaluable contribution to board decision-making and to the creation of shareholder value. Bill, on behalf of all CF shareholders, employees, and our fellow directors, thank you for your contributions. We're grateful for your commitment and dedication. You will be missed. I will now ask that Doug conduct the formal business of the meeting.
Thank you, Steve. The agenda and the rules of conduct and procedures are available by clicking on the materials button on the bottom right corner of your webcast screen. The procedures we will follow are simple, and they're designed to ensure that we have a fair and orderly meeting. As noted, the polls are open. If you are a shareholder and you have not already voted your shares or you wish to change your vote, you may do so by clicking on the voting button at the bottom right corner of your screen. Otherwise, your shares will be voted in accordance with any vote you've already cast prior to this meeting. The polls will remain open until the conclusion of the matters for shareholder consideration portion of the meeting.
We want to ensure shareholders are afforded the same rights and opportunities to participate in today's meeting as they would have if it were an in-person meeting, including the opportunity to ask questions. Shareholders may submit questions electronically during the meeting by clicking on the Q&A button at the bottom right corner of the webcast screen, typing in the field labeled Submit a Question, and clicking Submit. These questions will not be visible to other participants. Any questions submitted via the webcast screen will either be addressed during the Q&A period at the end of the meeting or else answered after the meeting via the corporation's website on the investor relations page, depending on the subject matter and the relevance of the question. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. However, participants are not permitted to use any recording device themselves.
The close of business on March 11, 2021, is the record date for determining the shareholders entitled to notice of and to vote at this meeting. A written notice of this meeting and the availability of proxy materials was given to all shareholders of record as of the record date on or about March 23, 2021. A copy of such notice and an affidavit of its distribution from the corporation's distribution agent will be filed with the minutes of the corporation. Mr. Charlie Zade, a designee of Broadridge Financial Solutions, has been appointed as inspector of election for this meeting, and he has taken the oath of his office. A list of all shareholders of record as of the record date is available for inspection by shareholders using the registered shareholder list link found at the bottom right corner of the webcast screen.
As of the close of business on March 11, 2021, there were 214,457,806 shares of common stock of the corporation outstanding and entitled to vote. Each share of common stock is entitled to vote, and each share of common stock is entitled to one vote. The inspector of election has determined that a quorum is present. Therefore, this meeting is duly convened for the transaction of business. We will now proceed with the formal business of the meeting. We have five items of business on today's agenda. At this meeting, the corporation's shareholders are being asked to, first, elect 11 nominees to the board of directors to serve until the 2022 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Under the bylaws of the corporation, the only persons who have been properly nominated are those nominees listed in the corporation's proxy statement. I, therefore, declare that nominations for director are closed.
Second item, approve an advisory resolution regarding the compensation of the corporation's named executive officers. Third item, approve an amendment to the company's bylaws to provide for courts located in Delaware to be the exclusive forum for certain legal actions and for federal district courts of the United States of America to be the exclusive forum for certain other legal actions. Fourth item, to ratify the selection of KPMG LLP as the corporation's independent registered public accounting firm for 2021. Chet Riske, the KPMG engagement partner, is attending today's meeting through this live webcast. And fifth, vote on a shareholder proposal regarding the right to act by written consent if properly presented at this meeting. Each of the five proposals is described in detail in the proxy statement made available in connection with this meeting. The resolution associated with each proposal is set forth in the agenda.
The board of directors unanimously recommends that shareholders vote for each of proposals one, two, three, and four, and unanimously recommends that shareholders vote against proposal five. At this time, we recognize and welcome Mr. Chevedden. Out of respect for the other shareholders in attendance and to allow ample time for questions and answers, we ask you, Mr. Chevedden, to please limit your comments to a period of three minutes. Mr. Chevedden, you're now on the line.
Hello. This is John Chevedden. Can you hear me okay?
Yes, we can.
Yeah. Just as a point of order, this meeting is not accessible unless you do a download. So there was no disclosure that you have to do a download, and who knows whether you can trust the download. So that seems to be a reporting failure or disclosure failure or reporting failure by the company. But I'll go on with proposal five, adopt a mainstream shareholder right, written consent. Shareholders request that our board of directors take the necessary steps to permit written consent by the shareholders entitled to cast the minimum number of votes that would be necessary to authorize an action at a meeting at which all shareholders entitled to vote thereon are represented in voting. This proposal topic won 95% support at Dover Corporation and 88% support at an AT&T shareholder meeting.
A shareholder right to act by written consent still affords CF Industries management strong protection for a status quo mentality during the current rapid-changing business environment. Due to the low shareholder participation in annual meeting elections, any action taken by written consent would still need 62% approval from the shares that normally cast ballots at the annual meeting. This 62% vote requirement gives substantial protection to management that will remain unchanged. This proposal topic won more than 41% support at our 2020 shareholder meeting. This 41% support may have represented a near majority vote from the shares that have access to objective proxy voting advice. Most retail shareholders do not have access to objective proxy voting advice and thus vote with management regardless of the merits.
CF Industries Management even conjured up a haphazard version of written consent not envisioned by the 2020 proposal and then attacked its own fictionalized haphazard version of written consent. It is disappointing that directors get paid almost $250,000, and they do not have any original thinking on this proposal topic, and they bring up obsolete arguments that could only apply to in-person shareholder meetings, which are going extinct. The 2020 management resistance to this proposal said special shareholder meetings allow all shareholders to participate in and discuss the merits of a proposed action. This has been completely blown out of the water by the onslaught of tightly controlled online shareholder meetings. Management talks about shareholder engagement, fails to mention that there are no rules governing shareholder engagement, and shareholder engagement can be completely abolished without notice. This proposal has teeth.
Shareholder engagement depends entirely on the fickle goodwill of management. Please vote yes, adopt a mainstream shareholder right, written consent proposal five.
Thank you, Mr. Chevedden. As discussed in the corporation's proxy materials, the board of directors has unanimously recommended a vote against this proposal, and the reasons for the board of directors' recommendations are set forth in the corporation's proxy statement. This concludes the review of the matters to be voted on. It's now approximately 10:15 A.M. I hereby declare the polls to be closed. The inspector of election will tabulate all of the proxies and ballots. Since only a small percentage of the total vote remained to be counted, which should not significantly affect the overall results and subject to a final tabulation, we report the following preliminary results provided by the inspector of elections. All of the director nominees have been elected. The advisory vote of shareholders on executive compensation has passed. The exclusive forum amendment to the company's bylaws has passed.
The appointment of KPMG has been ratified, and the shareholder proposal regarding the right to act by written consent has failed. The final voting results, including the master ballot and the final report of the inspector of election, will become part of the record of the meeting and will be reported in a Form 8-K to be filed in connection with the matters voted upon at this meeting. All items of the business have now been completed, and at the request of the chairman, the meeting is now adjourned. With that, I'll turn the meeting over to CF Industries Chief Executive Officer, Tony Will, to provide a brief report on the corporation's 2020 performance and the current environment before we proceed to the question and comment period. I should point out our quarterly earnings are set to be released tomorrow, and our investor call is scheduled for Thursday.
So please keep in mind that we cannot address questions related to our first quarter performance or results at this time. Tony.
Thanks, Doug. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to CF Industries' 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders being held virtually again this year. Our performance in 2020 was nothing short of remarkable. Despite the unprecedented challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, we operated safely, ran our network extremely well, delivered strong financial results, and launched a natural evolution in our corporate strategy linked with substantial environmental, social, and governance commitments. I want to take a moment and highlight a few of our more significant accomplishments in 2020. We ended the year having experienced only four recordable injuries across our entire network, yielding our best-ever recordable incident rate. As is typically the case, safe operations are also more productive. We set a company record of 10.4 million tons of ammonia produced. We also set all-time company records for shipping and sales volumes of over 20 million product tons for the first time.
We are proud of how our team worked together to protect the health and well-being of employees and all those who entered our locations. We altered shift schedules, installed plexiglass barriers, adhered to strict distancing requirements, and limited visitor access. We are pleased to report that we have not experienced a single known transmission of the COVID-19 virus at any of our locations, and we did not experience any disruptions to our business from the pandemic. Looking ahead, we're excited about the long-term growth platform we have created. As we explored opportunities to reduce the carbon footprint of the company, we identified a tremendous opportunity to help decarbonize the broader economy as well as our own operations. Our strategy is to leverage our unique assets and capabilities to accelerate the world's transition to clean energy. We will aggressively decarbonize our production and distribution network.
This will enable us to provide clean energy in the form of nitrogen fertilizer, continuing our legacy of feeding the crops that feed the world. It will also allow us to provide a clean energy source to enable the new hydrogen economy and to provide zero-carbon ammonia as a fuel in its own right. As we execute our strategy, we expect to create long-term value for all our stakeholders. Our business strategy is aligned with our commitment to have a positive impact across the many issues important to our broad group of stakeholders. We have announced a set of comprehensive ESG goals against which we will measure our progress. These include a dramatic reduction in carbon emissions as well as specific goals related to inclusion and diversity as well as community involvement. You can find our complete set of goals on the company's website and in our corporate sustainability report.
CF Industries has a bright future ahead. Our commitment to decarbonize the world's largest ammonia production network positions the company at the forefront of emerging demand for clean hydrogen and ammonia supply, providing our company a long-term growth platform. I would also like to take a moment and thank Bill Davisson for his 22 years on the CF Industries board. We had occasion last evening to provide Bill a bit of a send-off in a less formal atmosphere. Of all the stories that were told, there were two clear themes that emerged. One was that Bill is a consummate gentleman. The second was his unwavering belief in CF Industries and his focus on making this company the best it could be.
Many people don't know this, but 16 years ago when CF first emerged as a public company, Bill Davisson was at the time the CEO of Growmark, one of the former co-op owners. Bill so believed in CF that Growmark didn't sell any of their shares in CF during the IPO nor while Bill was CEO. Upon his retirement, when Growmark did sell their shares, they had turned an initial $25 million investment into over $400 million. Bill, thank you for all your support and guidance through the years. You will be missed greatly, but I wish you all the best. Okay. Thank you for your continued interest in CF Industries, and we look forward to continuing to earn your support. I will now address any questions submitted during the meeting and via the webcast portal. Doug, do you want to moderate the questions for us?
Sure, and we have three questions so far. I'm going to read them, and Tony, you can answer them one by one. First question. The Carpenters Pension Funds hold a total of 108,700 shares of the company's stock. As long-term investors, we strongly believe that the company's executive compensation plan should be designed primarily to drive the successful execution of the board's long-term strategic business plan. Today's public company executive compensation plans are largely formulaic, peer-related plans with simplistic annual say-on-pay voting reinforcing plan homogeneity. Would you speak to whether CF Industries might be better served by an executive compensation plan tailored specifically to the company's particular circumstances and its unique long-term strategic business plan? Thank you.
Thank you for your question, and I think we are in full agreement with you that the executive compensation plan should absolutely align with and support the long-term strategic plan. We lay out in our proxy statement in the CD&A section a pretty fulsome disclosure and discussion of how the plan was developed, and it really is focused both on near-term financial performance and longer-term strategic objectives and value creation. We have a nice mix of both financial and non-financial goals in order to accomplish that, including some specifically focused on decarbonizing our network, as I mentioned, which is a core tenet of our strategic platform going forward, so I think we fully agree with, and I believe we have done an excellent job of tailoring our compensation plan to meet those very objectives. Thank you.
The second question, I believe, also from the Carpenters Pension Funds is as follows. The topic of stakeholder capitalism as an alternative to shareholder capitalism has received considerable attention recently. As long-term pension fund investors, the Carpenter Funds appreciate the sentiments embodied in the stakeholder capitalism perspective but feel that execution could be complicated. Could you discuss the board's perspective on the concept of stakeholder capitalism and what principles the board would use to balance the interests of varied stakeholders as it develops and implements the company's long-term business strategy? Thank you.
Again, thank you for the question. And I think we're similarly in absolute agreement around the notion that stakeholder capitalism is a critical area of focus. In fact, I think the way that we approach this is very much from the perspective that says in the long-term, shareholder value creation or shareholder capitalism is directly tied to and enabled by broader stakeholder capitalism and stakeholder returns. And in fact, I am a signatory to the Business Roundtable's restatement on the purpose of a corporation, which is very broadly considered stakeholder-focused. In terms of our compensation program, as your previous question asked, we have very specific goals around diversity and inclusion, increasing the participation of females and people of color within the management team.
We've got some very specific objectives around our community involvement and giving back volunteer time-off programs, as well as our broader societal objectives of trying to decarbonize our network and having a much lower footprint in aggregate, and of course, our employees are at the forefront of all of our safety objectives, which are a critical tenet of our compensation programs as well, so I feel that we're 100% aligned around both the notion of stakeholder capitalism writ large and how to integrate those objectives into a compensation program.
Thank you, Tony. The third question, this one from another shareholder. Why has the company not considered the possibility of cutting the dividend even to zero and applying that cash back to shareholders in the form of buybacks? I realize both have been done in tandem, but it would seem buybacks would be much more beneficial to shareholders. This was most evident over the past year during the pandemic when the share price hit $26. The share price is still undervalued relative to yield on cash flow. I would like to see aggressive buying back of shares rather than a dividend. Can you please share your thoughts on this matter? Thanks.
Yes, again, thank you for the question. I think we consistently talk about capital allocation priorities and dividends versus share repurchase programs versus other objectives with our investors when we meet with them. And I'd say there is a broad spectrum of responses. Some tend to be very focused on share buybacks, like the author of this question. Some tend to be much more focused on a consistent return of capital that a dividend program provides. I think what we have tried to do over time is to consistently focus on reducing our fixed charges so that we've got flexibility and sustainability across cyclical periods of time that are more trough-like instead of mid-cycle or at the high. And we've been very successful in reducing our fixed charges.
I think we like the mix that we have today because it does provide for a certain ratable return of capital to shareholders, but does provide us the opportunity to go in and repurchase shares. Now, we have talked about a slight shifting of our philosophy on share repurchases. I'd say historically, they've tended to be more ratable in terms of their approach. What we're talking about now is much more of an opportunistic kind of bigger bang during low points in the stock price, as you mentioned, at $26 or below, or even in other dips where we would see opportunities to take shares out in a larger fashion. So I think we are trying to balance the notion of ratable return of capital with opportunism on repurchases. And we think that that will overall provide the best kind of balanced profile for value creation for the shareholders.
Tony, I believe those were the only three questions we received. I want to apologize for everyone for the siren that went off at the beginning of the meeting and my having to shout over it. Fortunately, it's ended. So I think that we can wrap things up here with Tony's closing thoughts.
Terrific. Well, again, I want to thank everyone for their participation in the meeting and for your continued support of CF Industries. And thank you for your thoughtful questions. So this concludes the Q&A session. We're pleased that you attended and look forward to opportunities to engage with you in the future. Thank you.