Welcome to the 2025 annual meeting of shareholders of Dollar Tree, Inc. Our host for today's call is Ned Kelly, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dollar Tree, Inc. I will now turn the call over to your host. Mr. Kelly, you may begin.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to call this meeting to order. I'm Ned Kelly, Chairman of the Board of Dollar Tree, Inc. Good morning and welcome to Dollar Tree, Inc.'s 2025 annual meeting of shareholders. We thank you for joining us on this live webcast of the annual meeting. Before we turn to the formal items of business, I'd like to introduce the other members of the board nominated for election at this meeting. Paul Hilal, Mike Creedon, Cheryl Grisé, Dan Heinrich, Jeff Naylor, Stephanie Stahl, Bill Douglas, Tim Johnson, Diane Randolph, Bert Scott. I would also like to recognize and welcome representatives from KPMG, our independent accountants, and Dollar Tree, Inc.'s management and associates, including Mike Creedon, our CEO, John Lakin, our Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, and Bob LaFleur, our Senior Vice President of Investor Relations.
I will now turn this over to John Lakin to conduct the formal business of this meeting. John Lakin.
Thank you, Ned. After the formal business of the meeting, we will answer general questions from shareholders unrelated to the formal business of the meeting. Shareholders may submit questions during the meeting using the text box on the web portal. Today's meeting will be governed by our rules of conduct and procedures, which also can be found on the web portal for this meeting. We ask that you review these rules and procedures at this time if you have not already done so, including for additional information on submitting questions or comments. The company has appointed CT Hagberg to act as our inspector of election. A representative from CT Hagberg is also available by phone today and has taken the oath of inspector of election on behalf of CT Hagberg.
The 2025 annual meeting has been called by the board of directors for the purpose of voting on the four proposals included in our proxy statement. In today's meeting, the matters to be voted on at the meeting will first be presented, and then shareholders will be given an opportunity to vote or change their vote. The voting results will be announced. An affidavit has been delivered attesting that a notice of internet availability of the proxy materials was mailed on or about May 6, 2025 to all shareholders as of the record date. The shareholder list is available on the web portal to shareholders who have logged into the meeting with an authenticated control number. These items and the final voting results will be included in the minutes of the meeting.
As of the record date, there were 210,147,804 shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting. The inspector of election has advised the company that a majority of such shares are present at the meeting in person or by proxy. Therefore, a quorum is present, and the meeting is authorized to transact business. The polls are now open. The proposals being voted on are as follows. Proposal one, the election of each of the 11 directors named in our proxy statement. Proposal two, an advisory vote to approve the compensation of our named executive officers. Proposal three, the ratification of KPMG as our independent registered public accounting firm. Proposal four, approval of the Dollar Tree 2025 Employee Stock Purchase Plan.
The board of directors has recommended that the shareholders vote for each nominee in proposal one, for proposal two, for proposal three, and for proposal four. Any shareholder who has not yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions. Shareholders who have sent in their proxy or voted by telephone or internet and do not want to change their vote do not need to take further action. We will pause for a moment to permit shareholders to vote. Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, the polls are now closed. Since all of the votes have been cast, I have received a preliminary report from the inspector of election, and I will now announce the voting results.
Regarding proposal one, election of directors, each nominee for director received the majority of the votes cast at this meeting. Accordingly, all nominees have been duly elected. Regarding proposal two, to approve on an advisory basis the compensation of the company's named executive officers, the proposal passed and received a majority of the votes cast. Regarding proposal three, to ratify the selection of KPMG as the company's independent registered public accounting firm, the proposal passed and received a majority of the votes cast. Regarding proposal four, approval of the 2025 Employee Stock Purchase Plan, the proposal passed and received a majority of the votes cast.
Thank you, John. Since there are no other matters before the annual meeting, we have concluded the formal business, and I hereby declare this annual meeting of shareholders adjourned. Mike Creedon and Bob LaFleur will now respond to shareholder questions.
Thank you, Dan. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that remarks made in today's presentation about expectations, plans, or prospects for the company may contain forward-looking statements for the purposes of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and our actual results may differ materially from those indicated in these forward-looking statements. For information on the risks and uncertainties that could affect our actual results, please refer to the risk factors, business, and Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations section in our annual report on Form 10-K filed March 26, 2025. Our Form 10-Q for the most recently ended fiscal quarter and other filings we make from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We caution against reliance on these forward-looking statements made today.
We disclaim any obligation to update or revise these statements except as required by law. With that, Mike and I will now take questions from our shareholders. Our first question comes from Robbie. Robbie wants to know how the sale of Family Dollar will affect the company and its strategy going forward?
Thank you for the question, Robbie. After a thorough process, we determined that a sale of Family Dollar was the best way to create value for both banners. Family Dollar and Dollar Tree are distinct businesses with separate customer groups and go-to-market strategies. Because of that, the opportunities to gain operating efficiencies by running each business under common ownership were limited. With the separation, which is set to close at the end of the month or so, each company will be run by a dedicated management team that is solely focused on its success. We believe this will help each business realize its full potential. The more streamlined business focus of a standalone Dollar Tree will also make it easier for investors to fully understand and properly value the business.
Our next question comes from Carrie. Carrie asks, are there plans to replace foreign goods with more American-made goods? Will Dollar Tree underwrite some merchandise to make this change?
Thank you, Carrie, for the question. We reported in our last 10-K that nearly 60% of the goods that we sell at Dollar Tree are sourced domestically. Dollar Tree is all about providing value, convenience, and discovery to our customers, so we're very focused on keeping costs down so we can keep prices as low as possible. While the global trade environment has gotten more complex in recent months and our sourcing mix may change over time, it is likely that we will continue to source goods both domestically and internationally with our North Star remaining providing value to the customer.
Carrie also has a follow-up question, and she would like to know if the stores that we are closing are only low-performing stores.
Thanks, Carrie. With the expected closing of the Family Dollar sale just a few weeks away, let me speak specifically to Dollar Tree in answering this question. With over 9,000 stores in our portfolio, we sometimes need to make the difficult decision to close a Dollar Tree store. This could be for underperformance, but it could also be because we found a better location in the same neighborhood or for some other reason. The important thing is that we open significantly more stores each year than we close. For example, we opened 525 new stores in 2024 and only closed 70 stores. Dollar Tree is one of the fastest-growing retailers in the country, and we're focused on expanding our portfolio and bringing value, convenience, and thrill of the hunt discovery to more and more customers each year.
Our next question comes from Francis. Francis says she has noticed some prices going up in her local Dollar Tree recently. Is this in response to tariffs? Can we expect more price increases?
Thank you for the question, Francis. We face many inflationary pressures in the current economic environment. To address these pressures, we employ a variety of cost mitigation levers. Those include negotiating with our suppliers, re-engineering our products, and in some cases, we may stop carrying certain items if they become uneconomical for us to sell. In order to keep providing the value that our customers expect from us, we are laser-focused on sourcing the products we sell at the lowest cost possible. Another tool we use is diversifying our supply chain based on country of origin. Lastly, our expanded assortment and multi-price strategy gives us additional mitigation capabilities. While adjusting pricing is one option, it is not our preferred method in dealing with inflationary cost pressures.
Our sourcing and pricing strategies are designed to give us maximum flexibility as we deal with the rapid changes we face in today's economy. We remain steadfast in our mission to provide great value to our customers. As a matter of fact, in the nearly 40 years that Dollar Tree has been in business, the average price of an item in our store has gone from $1 back then to about $1.35 today. 85% of items in our stores are still priced below $2. No other retailer has been able to sustain a value proposition like that for as long as we have.
Mike, we received several sustainability-related questions from the Campaign for Healthier Solutions about Dollar Tree's work to reduce or eliminate the use of certain chemicals in its products or operations, restrict substances on the Chemicals of High Concern to Children, and commitment to selling lead-free products.
I appreciate these questions. We at Dollar Tree are committed to the integrity and safety of the products we sell. As such, we are currently reviewing our Restricted Substances List to determine what updates need to be made across product categories and substances. Additional details will be provided in our corporate sustainability report, which will be released later this year.
Thank you, Mike. The time for our meeting has now expired. This will conclude our webcast. Thank you for attending this year's annual meeting. I will now turn things back to the operator.
Thank you. This now concludes the meeting. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day.