Good morning, welcome to the Crocs, Inc. 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. To start this meeting, I would like to introduce you to the Chairman of the Board of Directors at Crocs, Inc., Tom Smach.
Good morning. I am Tom Smach, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Crocs, Inc. Thank you for attending the 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Crocs. We have held our annual meetings of stockholders virtually since 2020. Based on our experiences at those meetings, we believe our virtual annual meeting format offers stockholders the same opportunities to participate as an in-person annual meeting and allows us to provide consistent opportunities for engagement to all stockholders, regardless of their geographic location. We appreciate your attendance, your interest, and most importantly, your support of Crocs. Before the meeting begins, I would like to introduce you to Andrew Rees, Chief Executive Officer, and Sara Hoverstock, Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer, who are with me here this morning. Other board members and senior executives have joined the meeting as well.
I would also like to introduce to you Megan Flori King of Deloitte & Touche LLP, the company's independent registered public accounting firm. With introductions complete, I hereby call the 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders to order. Sara Hoverstock, our corporate secretary, will act as secretary of this meeting and will record and run the proceedings. At the conclusion of the business portion of this meeting, the management team will be available to answer questions that have been submitted by stockholders through the annual meeting portal. Though we may not be able to answer every question, we will do our best to provide a response to as many as possible. We will now proceed to the business portion of this meeting.
Thank you, Tom. I have with me a list of registered stockholders of record as of April 13th, 2026, the record date for this meeting. This list is certified by Computershare Trust Company, N.A., the company's transfer agent and registrar. I also have an affidavit of distribution from Broadridge indicating that a notice of internet availability of proxy materials was sent to each stockholder of record beginning on April 23rd, 2026. Christine Amrhein , a representative of Broadridge, has been appointed to act as Inspector of Election at this meeting. The inspector's duties are to decide upon the qualifications of voters, accept their votes, and count the ballots cast.
The Inspector of Election has examined the proxies received and stockholders present at this meeting and reports that the holders of a majority of the voting power of the outstanding shares entitled to vote generally in the election of directors are present in person or by remote communication or by proxy. We have a quorum. The polls are now open for voting on the matters to be considered. All stockholders entitled to vote at this meeting have the ability to do so online. If you are a stockholder entitled to vote and have not yet voted, or if you want to change your previously cast vote, please do so via the online portal for this meeting. Please remember that if you have already voted by proxy, it is not necessary to vote again. After voting has been completed on all matters on the agenda, we will close the polls.
As described in the proxy statement, there are four items submitted to stockholders for consideration at this meeting. One, election of three Class III directors to our Board of Directors to serve a three-year term until our 2029 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. The director nominees are Thomas J. Smach, Beth J. Kaplan, and Neeraj S. Tolmare . Ratification of the appointment of Deloitte & Touche LLP, our independent registered public accounting firm for the 2026 fiscal year. Three, an advisory vote to approve the compensation of our named executive officers. Four, approval of the Crocs Inc. 2026 Equity Incentive Plan. The Board of Directors recommends a vote for each of the director nominees and a vote for each of the proposals two, three, and four. There are no other items properly submitted to be considered at this meeting.
If you have not voted but wish to do so, please vote by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions. Please also submit any questions related to the four proposals now. Note that general questions will be addressed at the Q&A session after the meeting ends. Since there is no one else wishing to vote, the polls are now closed on all matters, and the ballots will be counted. The representative of Broadridge has provided me with a preliminary tally of votes for the proposals. Based on the preliminary tabulations of the Inspector of Election, we are happy to announce that each of the Class III directors were elected. The appointment of Deloitte & Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm has been ratified.
The compensation of our named executive officers has been approved on an advisory basis, and the Crocs Inc. 2026 Equity Incentive Plan has been approved. We will report final voting results on a Form 8-K within four business days from today. There is no other formal business to be addressed. The 2026 annual meeting of stockholders of Crocs, Inc. is hereby adjourned. I invite you to stay for a Q&A session, which will begin with Andrew Rees, our CEO, now.
Thank you, Sara. We'll now take questions from stockholders. Before we get started, please remember to follow the rules of conduct available on the meeting site. Questions may be submitted through the web portal. Please note we will attempt to answer as many questions as time allows, but only questions that are germane to the meeting will be addressed. If we receive substantially similar questions, we may group such questions together and provide a single response to avoid repetition. It appears that we have a question at this point. The question references, "Has the management and the board of directors considered the co-locating of Crocs and HEYDUDE stores?" Good question. What I would say is we actually do have a number of stores that are located in very close proximity.
The driver of that decision is really where is the best traffic patterns that would make those stores as successful as possible. In terms of having that be, I would say, a consistent and coherent strategy, we don't believe that the consumer has tremendous awareness that both of these brands are owned by the same company, and they have slightly different consumer bases. Our strategy is to make sure that we locate our stores in the best location for each of the brands. Sometimes that will be coincidental, sometimes that will not be. I appreciate the question. We'll pause to make sure to see if there are any further questions.