Welcome to the 2026 annual meeting of shareholders for Diversified Energy Company. Our host for today's call is David Johnson, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Diversified. I will now turn the call over to your host. Mr. Johnson, you may begin.
Thank you, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to welcome you to the 2026 annual meeting of shareholders of Diversified Energy Company. I am David Johnson, Chairman of the board of directors of Diversified, and I'll be presiding over this meeting. At this time, I call the meeting to order. Please note that a copy of the agenda and rules of conduct for this annual meeting are available on the virtual annual meeting website. To conduct an ordered meeting, we ask that participants abide by these rules. Present at the meeting today are all of the directors of Diversified, each of whom has been re-nominated for re-election at this meeting, consisting of Rusty Hutson Jr., who is also our founder and CEO, Kathryn Klaber, Martin Thomas, David Turner Jr., and myself, David Johnson. Also present today are the following additional members of Diversified's management team.
Brad Gray, our President and CFO, Ben Sullivan, our Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Legal and Risk Officer, and Corporate Secretary, and Doug Kris, our Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Ben Sullivan will act as secretary of the meeting, and James Reeds of Broadridge Financial Solutions has been appointed to act as Inspector of Elections. His oath as inspector has been submitted to the meeting and will be appended to the minutes. Nathan Rice, a representative from PricewaterhouseCoopers, is also present today. He'll be available to answer any pertinent questions asked of PwC during the question and answer period. The secretary has delivered an affidavit of mailing establishing that notice of this meeting was duly given. A copy of the notice of meeting and the affidavit of mailing will be incorporated into the minutes of the meeting.
Our first order of business at this meeting is to determine whether the shares represented at the meeting, either in person or by proxy, are sufficient to constitute a quorum for the purpose of transacting business. The Inspector of Elections has informed us that there is a sufficient quorum for all business to be conducted at this meeting. I therefore declare this meeting to be duly convened for purposes of transacting such business as may properly come before it. The polls are now open for voting. If you previously voted, you do not need to take any additional action. If you previously voted and wish to change your vote, please do so before the closing of the polls by using the voting buttons on the virtual portal. Once the polls close, we will announce the preliminary voting results.
We will present each item on the agenda in the order set forth in the proxy materials. The first item of business is the election of the 5 director nominees named in the proxy materials to serve on the board of directors until next year's Annual Meeting of Shareholders. The second item of business is the ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers to act as the independent registered public accounting firm of the company for the year 2026. The third item of business is the advisory resolution approving executive compensation. The fourth item of business is the advisory resolution on the frequency of future advisory resolutions approving executive compensation. The board has approved and recommends that shareholders vote for each of the five director nominees for items two and three, and one year for item four. I will now take questions.
Any questions submitted must be relevant to the items of business presented at this meeting and otherwise comply with the rules of conduct. Are there any questions?
Mr. Chairman, at this time, there are no questions submitted for the meeting.
Thank you very much. In that case, we will now pause to allow any final votes to be submitted. Okay, I now declare the polls closed. The Inspector of Elections will count the votes. The next item on the agenda is the preliminary report as provided by the Inspector of Elections. Any votes submitted before the polls closed but not reflected in the preliminary report will be reflected in the final report of the inspector and will be reported on a current report on Form 8-K within four business days. Based on the preliminary report, we have determined that each of the five director nominees has been elected. Items two and three were approved by the required majority vote, and one year received the majority vote for item four. Thank you for attending today's meeting. There being no further business, this meeting is now officially adjourned. Thank you.
This now concludes the meeting. Thank you for attending, and have a great rest of your day.