Day, welcome to the ConnectOne Bancorp, Inc. Annual Meeting. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Frank Sorrentino, Chairman of the Board. Please go ahead.
Good morning. I'm Frank Sorrentino, Chairman of the Board of ConnectOne Bancorp Inc. On behalf of management and Board of Directors of the company, I welcome all of you to this online annual meeting of shareholders of the company. The purpose of this annual meeting is to elect members of the Board of Directors, approve ConnectOne Bancorp Inc. 2026 Equity Incentive Plan, to vote on an advisory basis to approve the executive compensation of ConnectOne Bank, named executive officers as described in the proxy statement, and to ratify the appointment of Crowe LLP as the company's independent registered public accountants for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2026. All as described in further detail in the proxy statement for this annual meeting. We will undertake the business of this annual meeting first, and then have time for any questions later in the meeting.
On or about April 10th, 2026, formal notice of this meeting, proxy statement, and form of proxy was made available to all shareholders of record as of the record date, March 31, 2026. In the interest of efficiently conducting this meeting, I dispense with the reading of the notice of the meeting. The Secretary will file the notice of this meeting, proxy statement, and form of proxy with the minutes of this meeting. I hereby appoint Laura Criscione as Secretary, and Frederick Chao of Broadridge Financial Solutions as Judge of the Elections for this meeting. I now ask the Judge of Elections to please report on the presence of shareholders.
The company has 50,288,494 shares of common stock issued and outstanding and entitled to vote, and at least 42,281,567 shares of common stock are present in person and by proxy, thus constituting a quorum.
Okay, thank you. Since the holders of a majority of the voting power of the company's shares are present in person or by proxy at this meeting, there is a quorum present, and the meeting is organized and ready to transact business. The polls are now open for voting for any shareholder who has not previously voted online, by telephone, or by returning a proxy card, or for any shareholder who wishes to change their previously cast vote. The first order of business to be conducted at this meeting is voting on the management nominees for the board of directors as set forth in the proxy statement. The second order of business is to vote on ConnectOne Bancorp Inc.'s 2026 Equity Incentive Plan.
The third order of business to be conducted at this meeting is voting on an advisory basis to approve the executive compensation of ConnectOne Bancorp Inc.'s named executive officers as described in the proxy statement. The final order of business to be conducted at this meeting is voting to ratify the appointment of Crowe LLP as the company's independent registered public accountants for the fiscal year ending December 31st, 2026. Any shareholders who have not yet voted online, telephonically, or by returning a proxy card, or want to change their vote, may vote now using the keys posted on the website for this meeting. I now declare that the polls are closed. Oh, I'm sorry, they're open. The voting will take place. Okay, I now declare that the polls are closed for voting at this meeting, and I ask the Judge of Elections to tabulate the results.
In the meantime, while we're waiting for that, there were a couple of questions that came through regarding our loan growth and competition with the various other financial institutions that are not banking institutions. Certainly, we are aware of all of the various competitive forces within the market and continue to hone our skills relative to that change in the marketplace itself. ConnectOne has continued to see growth in all the markets we represent, and so we're happy about the ability to continue to grow with our business model going forward. Another question was regarding our emphasis on commercial real estate, and certainly ConnectOne has always had a lot of strength in the commercial real estate space. As we get larger and serve new markets, we continue to diversify our portfolio.
Certainly, part of the merger the first time was being able to accomplish that by bringing on a fairly large residential portfolio, and as we've reported in the past, continuing to grow both our C&I exposures and our risk solutions. There was a question about opportunities for acquisitions. We remain opportunistic at all times, moving forward from since the day of our inception. We've made a number of small acquisitions over time. We continue to look at the marketplace and think about what makes sense for ConnectOne and what fits into our strategy. Again, we remain opportunistic as time goes on and look to be financially disciplined as we think about any type of acquisition. With there being no other questions, I would now request the Judge to report on the ballot results for this meeting. Operator, could you go ahead please and show those results.
Based on the tabulation of the votes, management's proposals and recommendations have been adopted.
Thank you. I declare that the proposals to elect management's nominees to the board of directors, to approve the ConnectOne Bancorp, Inc.'s 2026 Equity Incentive Plan, to vote on an advisory basis to approve the executive compensation of ConnectOne Bancorp, Inc.'s named executive officers as described in the proxy.