Good morning. I am Louise Sams, Chair of the Board of Directors of CoStar Group, Inc., and I will be acting as Chair of the meeting today. It is a pleasure to welcome you to the company's 2026 annual meeting of stockholders. It is 10:00 A.M. and the meeting is now called to order. We have Rory Serrano from Ernst & Young LLP, the company's independent registered public accounting firm, who will be available to answer questions during the Q&A portion of the meeting. We also have present Gene Boxer, the company's General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Christian Lown, the company's Chief Financial Officer, and Lisa Tansey, the company's Assistant Secretary. This meeting will be conducted in accordance with the agenda and rules of conduct that have been posted on the virtual meeting website to assure fairness to all stockholders in attendance and an orderly meeting.
The agenda for the meeting should be visible on your screen. We ask that participants abide by the rules of conduct, and we thank you for your cooperation. I have proof by affidavit from Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. that notice of this meeting and notice of access to the proxy materials and voting have been duly given to all stockholders of record of CoStar's common stock at the close of business on April 27th, 2026, the record date for this meeting. CoStar Group's list of registered stockholders as of the record date is available for inspection during this meeting under the Meeting Materials section of the virtual meeting website. These documents will be filed with the corporate records of the company. Our General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Gene Boxer, has been appointed to act as Inspector of Elections for this meeting.
Mr. Boxer has signed his oath of office, which will be filed with the records of this meeting. I have been informed by the Inspector of Elections that we have present in person or by proxy a sufficient number of shares to constitute a quorum for this meeting. The meeting is duly constituted. The polls opened at the beginning of the meeting. We will close the polls on all matters immediately after the presentation of today's proposals. If you are a stockholder of CoStar Group that logged in using your unique 16-digit control number, you can vote your shares during the meeting by clicking on the Vote Here button on the virtual meeting website. If you have already voted your shares, there is no need to vote again during today's meeting unless you'd like to change your vote.
If you are a stockholder of CoStar Group and wish to submit a question regarding today's proposals or other matters appropriate to our business, you may do so during the meeting in the Ask a Question text box on the virtual meeting website. You must have logged in using your unique 16-digit control number to submit a question. After we give an overview of the items of business being considered at this meeting, we will respond to any questions regarding the proposals, close the polls, and report on the preliminary results of the vote. We will seek to answer submitted questions that are appropriate to CoStar Group's business in a general question and answer session. As stated in the rules of conduct, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and restrict your questions to matters of general interest to our stockholders.
Alternatively, you can reach out to our investor relations team at ir@costar.com with questions, and your questions will be answered in a timely manner. At this time, I will turn to the formal portion of the meeting. I will now introduce the four agenda items in the order presented in the proxy statement dated April 30, 2026. The first item of business is to elect eight directors named in the proxy statement to serve until the company's 2027 annual meeting of stockholders or until their successors are elected and qualified. The second item of business is to ratify the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2026. The third item of business is to approve, on a non-binding advisory basis, the company's executive compensation.
The fourth item of business is to approve the company's 2026 employee stock purchase plan. There are no other proposals to come before this meeting. We will now see if there are any questions or comments regarding these proposals. I see no questions on the proposals. It is now 10:05 A.M. Eastern Time, and the polls are now closed for voting. Gene Boxer, the Inspector of Elections, will now present the preliminary results of voting.
Based on all the proxies and ballots received, the company's eight nominees have been elected to the board of directors. The appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the current fiscal year has been ratified. The advisory resolution to approve executive compensation has been approved, and the company's 2026 employee stock purchase plan has been approved.
Thank you. This concludes the business matters for the meeting, and the formal portion of this meeting is now adjourned. We will file the final report of the Inspector of Elections with the records of this meeting.
If any stockholder submitted questions through the web portal that are appropriate to CoStar Group's business, we will attempt to answer them now. As a reminder, we will only respond to questions that comply with the guidelines set out in the rules of conduct. Pursuant to the rules of conduct, we reserve the right to exclude questions that are not pertinent to the meeting, irrelevant to the business of the company, derogatory or in bad taste, repetitive of statements made by another stockholder, relate to material non-public information of the company, pending or threatened litigation, personal matters, personal grievances, or are otherwise inappropriate. We will attempt to answer as many questions as time allows