Good morning, welcome to the Comcast Corporation 2026 annual meeting of shareholders. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and Co-CEO of Comcast.
Thank you, operator, welcome everyone to Comcast Annual Meeting. I will be serving as Chairman of the meeting. I declare that this meeting is duly convened, properly organized, and competent to transact business. The polls are open and will close as soon as the official business portion of the meeting has been completed without further notice, we encourage any shareholders to vote now if they have not yet done so. The agenda and rules of conduct that govern this meeting are posted on the meeting website. Joining me today are several members of management, including Tom Reid, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary, Mike Cavanagh, our Co-CEO, Jason Armstrong, our Chief Financial Officer, Marci Rybicker, Head of Investor Relations, Jen Khoury, Chief Communications Officer, and Liz Wideman, our SVP and Assistant Secretary.
Also attending the meeting are members of our Board of Directors, believe the entire Board and the audit partner of Deloitte & Touche LLP, our independent auditors. T om Reid will be the moderator and Secretary of the meeting.
Thank you, Brian. This meeting has been called pursuant to notice dated April 24th, sent to all shareholders of record as of the close of business on April 8th. Jim Raitt of American Election Services has been appointed as judge of election to conduct the votes at this meeting and any adjournment or postponement. He has delivered to me his oath of office and has advised that, based on proxies presented prior to the meeting, a quorum exists for each matter to be voted upon. Twice during the meeting, we will entertain questions and comments from shareholders. First, we will address questions and comments related to specific proposals under consideration if the question specifies that it relates to a proposal. Later on in the meeting, we will address general questions and comments about our company. Shareholders should carefully read the rules of conduct before submitting a question.
To ensure that all shareholders are able to participate, shareholders may ask only questions that comply with those rules and may ask only one question per proposal and one question during the general question-and-answer discussion. We plan on completing the meeting by 10:00 A.M. We may make forward-looking statements during this meeting. Please refer to the rules of conduct for additional information. We will now proceed to the business of the meeting. We will consider three company proposals and one shareholder proposal. The first three proposals are company proposals that the Board has recommended that shareholders vote in favor of. These proposals are the election of directors, ratifying Deloitte & Touche as our independent auditors, and an advisory vote to approve executive compensation. These proposals and the reasons for the Board's recommendations are set forth in the proxy statement.
The company proposals are now properly before the meeting for consideration and action. The next item of business is a shareholder proposal to adopt a policy to have an Independent Chair. This proposal and the statements for and against its adoption are set forth in the proxy statement. The board has recommended that shareholders vote against this proposal. Operator, do we have a motion from the National Legal and Policy Center or its duly authorized representative?
On the line is Paul Chesser, who will now present the proposal. Please go ahead, Paul.
I'm Paul Chesser of National Legal and Policy Center, presenting Proposal Four, which asks Comcast to separate the offices of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. The case rests on the financial record of the past five years. Comcast shareholders have lost approximately 40% of their investment, including dividends, over that period. The S&P 500, of which Comcast is a component, has returned approximately 87%. When Chairman CEO Brian Roberts closed the 2011 acquisition of NBCUniversal, Comcast was worth roughly 10 times Netflix. Today, Netflix is worth four times Comcast. That is not a market judgment about cable, broadcast, streaming, or film production as industries. That is a market judgment about how this company has been run. Mr. Roberts, in his own words, acknowledged the problem.
In the third quarter of 2025, he told shareholders that Comcast is, quote, "making steady progress as we reposition the company for long-term sustained growth." End quote. A company that requires repositioning is a company that was placed in a poor position in the first place due to management and governance shortcomings. In January, Comcast spun off networks including CNBC and MSNBC into Versant Media Group. Versant comprises the cable networks Mr. Roberts spent more than a decade assembling as part of the NBCUniversal acquisition. Comcast paid roughly $30 billion for those assets. The market now values them at approximately $5 billion. In December, Comcast pursued Warner Bros. Discovery. Co-Chief Executive Officer Mike Cavanagh told investors that Comcast, quote, "didn't expect that we had a high likelihood of prevailing." End quote. Comcast was in such a weakened state competitively that the deal went to Paramount and Skydance.
My organization raised many similar concerns at last year's annual meeting about the stewardship of Comcast assets. Our 2025 independent chair proposal, though it did not pass, received approximately 43% of votes cast by shareholders other than Mr. Roberts. Mr. Roberts holds one-third of Comcast voting power through his Class B shares. His economic ownership of the company is about 1% of total equity. This proposal does not strip Mr. Roberts of his shares, his voting power, or his role at the company that his father founded. It asks only that the person leading the board not also be the person the board is meant to evaluate. 60% of S&P 500 companies have already separated these two offices. Comcast shareholders deserve the same. I urge a vote for Proposal Four. Thank you.
We will now respond to questions on any of the proposals. No questions, in fact, have been submitted, and the polls have been open since registration began. All shareholders and proxies have by now had an opportunity to vote, and the polls for each matter are now closed. The judge of election has informed me that based upon his preliminary tally, shareholders have voted in favor of each of the first three company proposals and against the approval of the shareholder proposal. He will execute a certificate with the final voting results that will be filed along with the minutes of this meeting. The voting results will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on a Form 8-K within four business days. If any shareholders would like to submit a general question or comment and have not yet done so, please submit it now.
Okay. Tom, do we have any questions?
We have a question that asks how we will win with traditional telcos laying fiber. Where do we see the industry in five years?
Well, as we deal with the competitive changing dynamic in the marketplace, I think we have a multi-pronged strategy. First of all, we have new offers with five-year price guarantees. We've looked at all the various feedback from customers and former customers as to where we can improve customer experience. We are very excited by the technology improvements allowing us to even give better and quicker service all across every aspect of the company. I believe that the combination, the competitive offering of our broadband, starting with a gig of speed and will be increasing, is superior to fixed wireless in almost every respect. In any respect that we're not, we're working to correct that.
As we look at wireless and combining that in a converged product offering, where we save customers money, we have access to the best Wi-Fi, the Verizon Wireless network, and the best prices in the market, the best value. You put those two products together, we're very confident in our offerings. That competitive reality that was mentioned in the question and in the other comment, my view there is that we have the strongest balance sheet in the industry, these moments come, and they ebb and flow in the competitive intensity as new competitors construct their networks. Over time, the best products win, and the best service wins, and that's our goal. Thank you.
We have one question from a Mr. and Ms. Darcy, who ask about when concerns regarding internal controls are raised, do they go through the company's Board governance channels? I can confirm that any concerns raised by any customer do get escalated according to our protocols, and if appropriate, that means to the audit committee and to the Board. There are no additional questions at this time, Brian.
All right. Well, there being no further business to come before the meeting, I therefore declare the meeting is adjourned, and thank you all for attending.
The annual meeting has now concluded. Thank you for participating in the meeting.