Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to welcome everybody to our Webex shareholders meeting. I do apologize for not being able to do this live this year, but we all understand with the COVID-19 pandemic that we need to be safe for all our shareholders and for all our executives. I appreciate you joining us this morning. I'm David Farr. I'm Emerson's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for another five days.
To my left is Sara Bosco, Senior Vice President and Secretary and General Counsel of the company, who will serve as the secretary of this meeting. We're holding this meeting right here in our actual boardroom this year, which is the first time ever. We're pleased to be hosting our virtual meeting, which allows us to reach a large number of our shareholders. I welcome all the shareholders, the guests who are joining us this morning.
Please note that this meeting is being recorded. No one attending via Webex or telephone is permitted to use any recording device as we go through this process this morning. Let's get down to business. The 131st annual meeting of the shareholders of Emerson is called to order.
This is my 20th as the CEO of Emerson and will be my last as the CEO of Emerson. I'd first like to introduce our directors who are also on the line this morning. Mark Blinn, the former Chief Executive Officer and President of Flowserve Corporation. Clemens Börsig, Emerson's Lead Independent Director and retired Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank.
Josh Bolten, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Business Roundtable. Martin Craighead, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Baker Hughes. William Easter III, retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DCP Midstream.
Gloria Flach, retired Corporate Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Northrop Grumman. Arthur Golden, Senior Counsel at Davis Polk & Wardwell law firm. Candace Kendle, retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Kendle International. Lori Lee, Chief Executive Officer of AT&T Latin America and Global Marketing Officer for AT&T. Matt Levatich, former President and Chief Executive Officer of Harley-Davidson.
Jim Turley, retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ernst & Young. Before I move forward, I would like to thank the board for their tremendous support, help, and guidance throughout this last year.
It was a very extraordinary year given the COVID situation, given the events that unfolded across this company. Yet the board stayed course, worked very hard with management team as we lived here in St. Louis and around the world in our offices and worked.
I also want to thank the board for the tremendous effort this year in the final year of our succession planning, which has been going on for 5 years. I want to thank the board for their effort, their support, insights, and commitment to a successful succession to Lal Karsanbhai, which is very important for the history of this company. As many of you know, I'm only the 3rd CEO in 66 years.
Lal now is going to be the 4th in 66 years. Also in attendance today is Michael Train, our President here in St. Louis. Michael in the room. Frank Dellaquila, our Chief Financial Officer and Senior Executive Vice President here in the room with me today. Steve Pelch, our Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President here in the room here today. Mark Bulanda, our Senior Vice President of Planning and Development here in the room today.
Kathy Button Bell, our Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President, and she's been very busy the last couple of days. Thank you. Welcome here, Kathy. Several other members of the Emerson senior management team. I'd like also to introduce Emerson's business leaders or platform leaders. Jamie Froedge, Executive President in Commercial & Residential Solutions, here in the room today with us.
Welcome, Jamie. Jamie was recently in Singapore, and he moved his family from Singapore back to St. Louis in the last two or three months. Lal Karsanbhai, Executive President of Automation Solutions and will become Emerson's new Chief Executive Officer on February fifth, later this week. Congratulations, Lal. Congratulations. We also have with us today from KPMG, Craig Ryan, Engagement Partner, Matt Erickson, Partner. Both Mr. Ryan and Mr. Erickson are available to answer appropriate questions.
They are on the phone, so if you have a question relative to the auditors, we will unmute their phone, and we'll let them respond to the questions. You can also send them a note. We'll be glad to get it to them.
First, we should deal with some preliminary business matters. The Board of Directors of the company fixed today, February second, 2021, as the date of this annual meeting of shareholders and fixed November 24th, 2020, as the record date for the determination of the shareholders who are entitled to receive notice of and to vote at this meeting. Ms. Bosco, as Secretary, will you please report regarding the notice of the meeting and the proof of its mailing?
Mr. Chairman, I have an affidavit from our mailing agent certifying that pursuant to SEC rules, a notice of annual meeting, proxy statement, and form of proxy or a notice of internet availability of proxy materials was mailed commencing on December 11th, 2020, to each shareholder of record as of November 24, 2020, and these materials were also posted on the internet as required.
A copy of the company's 2020 annual report to shareholders was also mailed or otherwise made available to such shareholders in accordance with SEC rules. These will be filed as part of the records of the meeting. The shareholder list shows that 599,468,617 shares of the common stock of the company were issued and outstanding as of the close of business on November 24, 2020. These shares are entitled to be voted at this meeting.
At this time, we have received proxies and ballots of shareholders holding 521,740,888 shares of common stock. Each of these have been checked and is in good order. This is in excess of 87% of the total number of shares entitled to be voted.
Therefore, a quorum is present and this meeting is duly constituted. On the table before me is a copy of the minutes of the last meeting of shareholders held on February 4, 2020, which minutes are available for inspection by any shareholder.
Thank you, Sara. I appreciate that. I would now like to turn to the formal business on the agenda. The polls are now open. 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 there.
Shareholders who have sent in their proxies or voted via telephone or internet, do not want to change their vote, are not required to take any action. Just stay pat. The first item involves the election of four directors of the company. Management has solicited proxies for a slate of four directors, and at this time, I would like to call for that slate to be placed into nomination.
Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the board and management of the company, proxies have been solicited for four persons to serve as directors of the company, and I would like to formally put into nomination as directors of the company, Mark Blinn, Arthur Golden, Candace Kendle, and James Turley, each for a term ending in 2024.
Thank you. We have a nomination, four persons to serve as your directors with a term ending in 2024. The second item on the agenda is to ratify the Audit Committee selection of KPMG LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal 2021.
Mr. Chairman, I move that the audit committee selection of KPMG LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2021 be ratified.
Thank you. The third item on our agenda is an advisory vote on the compensation of executives named in the proxy statement for this meeting.
I move that the shareholders vote in favor of the following resolution, which appears in the proxy statement for this meeting. Resolved, that the shareholders approve the compensation of the company's named executive officers as described in this proxy statement under executive compensation and compensation tables, including the compensation discussion and analysis, and the tabular and narrative disclosure contained in this proxy statement.
Thank you very much. I would now like to review briefly our 2020 performance and our first quarter results, and answer any questions you may have regarding this review. After my presentation, I will announce the preliminary results of the voting on all matters. Clearly, given we're doing a Webex, we're doing this differently today. The charts will be pushed out so that shareholders can look at them on their screens.
There will be a slight delay, hopefully not too long of a delay, as we talk about it. Let's move forward with our review of 2020. Clearly, 2020 was a very good year for us. It was clearly focused on prioritizing the safety and the health of our employees and our customers, business continuity, and serving our global customers in critical industries.
We had a very strong disciplined cost control and positioned for long-term value creation through internal investment and also through acquisitions. We had to manage over 200 facilities around the world from an operational standpoint, because Emerson stayed open throughout the COVID-19 crisis starting back in March.
We had to deal with the supply chain issues. Very strong performance around both those areas, keeping the production going, supply chain, and getting the goods to our customers, which they depended on, including the medical industry, and obviously the life science industry right now with vaccines.
We had a strong finish to the year. Operational execution drives around our adjusted EPS, which included the restructuring, which was underway, was $3.46 for the full year. It was down slightly, as you'll see in a second, versus prior year. Not nearly as much as many of our competitors.
As we started back in 2019, we initiated some very global cost reductions and resetting actions, which we spent about $304 million in 2020. Obviously, given the fact we started back in 2019 and all of a sudden what happened in 2020, we are well ahead of the curve from a cost standpoint, and that clearly came through in our profitability and our cash flow. For the year, our cash flow was actually up.
Our free cash flow was up at $2.55 billion, was up 6%, and represented very strong conversion versus our earnings. Despite the overall uncertainty in challenging markets we faced, our orders and sales finished in line with the guidance we gave back in August. In fact, as we put out the guidance reviewed with the board back in April, we stayed slightly ahead of that.
We had very strong momentum going into the first fiscal quarter this year, which we'll show you in a second. Despite the lingering COVID-19 macroeconomic uncertainty, we're expecting consolidating sales to turn positive this year or Q2 of fiscal year 2021. Overall, the company executed in a very challenging, unprecedented year, and we have a lot of momentum coming into 2021.
A perfect time to turn the reins over to the next generation CEO and leadership team, in my perspective. If you go forward, you can see the actual numbers. You can see our consolidated sales were down 9%, underlying sales were down 8%, currency and divestitures or acquisitions impact those two numbers.
Our gross profit margins were slightly down. Our EBIT margin, Adjusted EBIT margin was down slightly. Our cash flow, our free cash flow were up, and our GAAP EPS and adjusted EPS were down slightly.
Overall, very good results. The board made the decision to increase our dividends last year by $0.04 and reflected that in the shareholders. Continuing to pay back money to our shareholders, both in dividends and share repurchase. Very strong year from that perspective. If you go into the first quarter, which we just announced this morning, you'll quickly see a change in dynamic.
Our sales reported were flat. Our underlying sales were only down 2%. The curve, the momentum has changed relative to our performance in the company, and we feel very good going to the second quarter, and we fundamentally believe that we're going to get close to flat underlying sales or maybe luckily even positive. Our EBIT margins in the first quarter were up significantly.
Again, obviously with the growth and the turnaround in business getting stronger and the fact that our cost reset actions are taking hold. We had a very good upward momentum in profitability. Adjusted EBIT, which takes out restructuring, also was up nicely, over 260 basis points for the quarter.
Basically very good operating performance both by Lal's business and by Jamie's business across the company. This operation is moving quite nicely these days and hopefully it'll have that strong momentum as we go into the second quarter and the second half this year.
Our GAAP and adjusted EPS were up very strongly. Obviously last year we were down as we went through the process of things weakening as we went into 2020. Our dividends per share is up slightly.
The board made a decision back in November this year to look at an annual run rate of only $0.02 dividend increase, given the uncertainty around 2021. We raised the dividend slightly, but they did increase it. Very strong operating cash flow and free cash flow in the first quarter.
A record cash flow for the first quarter numbers. Over $800 million of the operating cash flow. One, strong earnings and strong execution by both Jamie's side of the business and Lal's side of the business on dealing with the working capital.
Really tremendous performance across the company in the first quarter. Really strong performance. Obviously, the market sees that this morning and our stock is up very nicely with the report of these results. Hopefully that will hold throughout the day.
If you go to the next chart, you'll see what we saw underlying sales around the world. We're seeing our European business recover. We're seeing Asia, Middle East, and Africa, it's positive, it's recovering. We're still seeing parts of the U.S., the Americas, not recovered yet. They're still negative.
On Jamie's business, in the Commercial & Residential Solutions area, he was up very strongly in North America, in the U.S., as his business has recovered around the residential area. On Lal's business, we continue to see negative performance in U.S. We're starting to see signs of what we call green shoots and performance is starting to improve. Pretty good performance, and we'd expect this to continue as we move into the second quarter into the second half of the year. The guidance we put out today is around sales, $17.7 billion.
On a reported basis, up 4%-8%. Underlying basis will be positive, somewhere flat-4%. Our GAAP EPS will be up 2%-8% in the $3.29-$3.49. Our Adjusted EPS will be at $3.60-$3.80, up to 4%-10%. In fact, if we could deliver these results, our adjusted EPS for 2021 will be equal to what we delivered in 2019 on much lower sales in 2021. Great operating performance.
We've adjusted our operating cash flow up slightly. I want to applaud the effort that business is making, both in earnings and also from the standpoint of trade working capital. Really good performance. As we move forward, a couple things happened throughout 2020. We decided to launch a review of our purposes, our cause, and just look at what we stand for as a company.
We launched that in January of this year, January of 2020. Kathy and her organization went out to nearly 20,000 Emerson employees around the world to talk about our purpose, to talk about what we believe in, to go with our core values. Out of that came a new purpose statement. We drive innovation that makes the world healthier, safer, smarter, and more sustainable.
We brought into play five causes which we live by within the company, around the planet, humanity, champion, inclusion, and future. It ties very strongly to our core values around integrity, collaboration, safety and quality, continuous improvement, customer focus, innovation, and supporting our people. A very strong statement that we believe quite strongly across this company and we live by day in, day out.
Kathy, you and your team did a phenomenal job and I want to applaud you, and I want to thank all the people around the company that participated in this, including myself. I quickly found out that Kathy had deleted my button, so none of my inputs went into this. I quickly learned that very appropriately.
We look at what happened on this year, despite the challenges of pandemic, we continue to invest in key technologies, next-generation software, our digital transformation, our renewables and transmission and distribution.
Even with the tough marketplace we went through, the board worked with the company, worked with the management team to allow us to move forward and make these investments. American Governor around hydraulic power, a very important investment as you look at the future of power generation, a renewable or sustainable power generation.
We bought Open Systems International, Inc., OSI power. Very timely software company that we started in the month of February and bought it by the end of the fiscal year around October 1st. Progea, an investment that we made in software, again around analytics and SCADA technology. inmation, which is an equity investment in a German company, a very unique company.
We continue to invest both in technology and the next generation technology as for the company's perspective, and also continue to invest in our facilities for safety, for automation, for productivity.
In Jamie's business, we started investing for capital for growth and market share opportunities. The company had the opportunity with the cash flow generation this year to invest in both technology, but also invest in the core businesses that we need to invest in. Very good year.
Important area that we all face today, and it's one that's been core within the company, is around ESG, environmental, social, and governance. This is nothing new to Emerson. The board has been working with this company for a long time, and they're highly relevant around Emerson businesses, our culture, and the overall DNA around ESG.
It's a very important part of this company, and I want to share a little bit more with you on this area. It's a core part of our operating philosophy and the culture for many years. You'll see that as we talk about this. This is an area that will continue to gain momentum and importance from our shareholders and from the individuals that run this company, our customers, and the board's guidance as we drive through this and drive this across the world of Emerson.
If you look at our framework, our environmental sustainability framework, we look at it three ways. Extremely relevant within the entire portfolio as we drive the future of lower carbon, more efficiencies, and a cleaner, safer world. This is a critical Pan-Emerson relevant strategy. It's not just one business.
We are tied together across all businesses in the two platforms relative to how we're serving our customers and how the technology is needed to really make an impact to our customers in the industries we serve. We have the greening up, which means how do we green inside this company? How do we produce things? How do we deliver things more efficiently, less carbon, less energy? Very important. All 90,000 employees in the company are focused on this area, and will continue to focus on this area. Greening by, how do we deliver the products to our customers, the solutions?
How do we work with our customers to allow them to decarbonize? How do we allow them to run more efficiently with less emissions, a safer world, a more sustainable world? This is something that we work very closely with our customers, both in Jamie's business, in Lal's business, and actually, we share across the whole world in this area. Very important.
This is the number one topic that we talk to with our customer base day in and day out. We've been living this far more in the Commercial & Residential Solutions area for many years. It's now coming very fast into our Automation Solutions area. Engaging with our external shareholders, our partners, relative to how do we have more environmentally sustainable framework and performance across the company. There's a lot of people out there working with you, helping you, folks, around the help of time.
There are a lot of people out there really focused on this that we're going to work with to make this a better way. Working with the different organizations, the different groups, the different partners to make this a more sustainable approach that will help us as a company, but really help the world in the long term.
Again, a very critical pan-Emerson relevant strategy, one that we talk about quite clearly. I'm going to update the board this morning after we finish the shareholders meeting on some of the areas that we're focusing on within the company and the progress we've had. The low carbon economy opportunity will be significant for Emerson in the near term and longer term. As we look at the clean fuels infrastructure, we are involved with this.
In the renewable power, the clean fuels, this is something that it's core to what we do today. Our different products, our different solutions, we know how to help our customers do this. We're doing it for ourselves, but also our customers. The same thing in a brownfield, which basically is upgrading a facility.
How do you make the facilities more efficient, with less emissions, that capture carbon? These are taking current facilities today and make them more sustainable, more friendly, and to use a lot less energy, a lot less carbon emission.
Very important. Something we know how to do today, let alone talking about the new facilities of the future, which we also work. The market's quite large for us today. We look at today as we see the market, our served market, as well north of $8 billion, as we see it.
It could be larger over time. Very important, a huge opportunity for us, and one that will change over time. This will not impact day one. As we see some markets become less relevant for us, new markets will emerge, as we've seen over the years. One of these classic examples is hydrogen.
We are involved with hydrogen, the hydrogen value chain. How do you develop hydrogen? How do you move hydrogen? Hydrogen production to us is a large chemical facility, and we have the opportunity both on our control systems, our instrumentations, our solutions.
As the world looks at how they take hydrogen and use that versus hydrocarbons, and how they manage that. A lot of work is going to happen over the next several years. You can see in this chart, they're talking about major evolution to hydrogen.
A lot of work has to happen between now, 2020, and 2030 to make that vision happen out there when you hear about green and blue hydrogen in 2050. We are going to be involved in this. We're going to be highly involved in this from that standpoint. How you capture this, how you transport it, and how you work it, and how you do it safely.
Very big opportunity for us. If you look at the next chart, you can see today we're already working with some of this in the standpoint of green hydrogen production around ammonia production.
If you look at a facility today, we're looking at a typical facility around one gigawatt of hydrogen, around $15 million of opportunity for us. In systems, in software, in control work, in solutions, consulting, this is something we really know how to do.
On the conventional ammonia production, which we're also involved with, you can see we also have today $15 million of product in each of those facilities. We are a player today, but I think the market, we're going to see a big evolution over the next five, 10, 15 years as they figure out how to produce hydrogen safer, more efficiently, more greener, as we would say, and then how to move the hydrogen into the network so we can use it for power and energy.
Emerson has a unique position in this, and we're going to continue to invest to make that happen. I think one thing the company sees today, it's become very relevant, is our customer base is changing. The technology base is changing.
The one thing that Emerson's been able to do over the years is to see that, consult with the board, and make those changes. Not many boards would stand up and talk to a company about making a $1.6 billion acquisition in the middle of a pandemic. This board listened to us. We actually looked at two acquisitions, a total of $6 billion.
We decided on the one at $1.5 billion. The board understood, they saw the strategic nature of this, and we moved forward. I thank the board for allowing that to happen because it's a very important investment for the future of this company. One thing good about the company, we look forward, we take action, and we innovate to win. With that, I want to thank everybody for listening. I want everyone to stay safe, healthy.
Hope next year that Lal and team will be able to have it live in our nice auditorium here. As a large shareholder, I may attend, depending if I get invited. If they let me vote, if I get my proxy. They may figure out how not let me have a proxy. I want to thank everyone for joining us here today. We're going to take some questions, and then we'll go back. With that, Pete, operator, any questions have been submitted?
We do have a couple questions, Mr. Farr. The first comes from a shareholder that asks, "You highlighted that the company has been active with acquisitions in 2020. Do you expect that software and industry diversification will continue to be areas of focus?
The simple answer is yes, we will continue to do that. As we look at the strategy of the company and the reposition of the company over the years, if you look back at my 20 years, the company has transformed enormously from being a very component player to a solutions player. Today close to 13% of our sales in software.
Fundamentally, the industries are changing, our customer base is changing. We will continue to change. We will continue to invest to be relevant for our customers. That will include more software. As Lal and Jamie both know, it's core to where we're going in the future. I think that this company is obviously in tune with that and will continue to make those investments.
At the same time, we're not going to walk away from our core technologies around sensing, around managing, around control, because those are very important. I think it's going to be a balanced investment both in software, control, sensing, and instrumentation.
Another shareholder asks, "Yesterday, the company obviously announced the new CEO. What skills do you and the board believe the next generation of Emerson leaders need to have to succeed going forward?
One, they have to be good leaders. They are good leaders. Two, they have the business savviness to lead a company as large and complex as Emerson. Three, they're highly in tune to the new generation technology around the software, around sensing. They have both worked around the world. They're global players. All the leaders here at this company are very global players.
They are also in tune to the changing social dynamics that we serve in this company. They're a younger generation. My dad was born before the Great Depression. I come from a different generation background.
This next leadership team, led by Lal, will have a different perspective from the social responsibilities to ESG responsibilities. I think the board saw that through the process over the five years we've gone through this process, and they made a great choice in choosing Lal.
The team around Lal is critically important. As Lal quickly find out, this is not a one-man show. It was never a Dave Farr one-man show. It was always a team in concert with the board, and I think the board made a great choice. With that, we're going to move back to the voting tabulation from the inspection of election shows the following is the percentage of shares voted in person or by proxy or by changes.
Each director has been elected director for the term indicated by a substantial majority of over 93%. I believe this year we have, what, 77%-78% of our shareholders voted this year, John, is that correct? I'm sorry, 87%. I reversed the number, sorry. 87%, which is a very high voting consensus this year. Very good. Thank you very much, shareholders.
The proposal to ratify the election of KPMG has been approved by the majority of approximately 95% in favor. KPMG sneaked by. Snuck by there this year. The compensation of the company's named executives officer has been approved by a majority of approximately 93% in favor.
The final tabulations will be disclosed in a report on a Form 8-K, which will be filed by the company within the next four business days. I would expect us to see that out Friday sometime, as always has, and I would see the final numbers, but a great turnout in vote. Again, I want to thank the shareholders for that.
It's very important that we have our shareholders' input every year. It was great to see us getting back up this year to the 87%-88% level. I understand that Arthur Golden, who is a current board member, has a few words he wants to share with all of us. Arthur, I open the line to you so you can say what you would like to say.
Thanks, David. Good morning, everybody. As David said, I'm Arthur Golden. I am the senior independent director, which means the oldest, for Emerson, and Clemens Börsig, our Lead Director, has asked me to speak to you briefly this morning, both as a director for the board. I'm doing it also on a personal basis and as a very long time Emerson shareholder, like most of the rest of you, I hope.
As we know, and as David has mentioned, this is his 20th and final shareholders meeting. He's been our CEO for just over 20 years. October was his 20th anniversary, which we all know is a very rare accomplishment in modern corporate America for a CEO to be successful for that length of time. He's been with Emerson actually. This is his 40th year with Emerson, which is also a fabulous accomplishment.
In those 20 years as CEO, what David has done is really outstanding. He's continued the very strong traditions he inherited from his predecessor, Chuck Knight, and Buck Persons before him. He's also built on what they did, and he took Emerson to new heights. He led us through great change.
I mean, this company is nothing like it was, or very little like it was in 2000. He's led us through occasional turmoil, like the Great Recession, the dot-com bubble, and most recently through the coronavirus pandemic. In many respects, he's led us as we have reinvented Emerson to a company that is probably more successful than it's ever been. Speaking as a significant shareholder, which I am, I think we should all be very grateful for his leadership and accomplishments over these past 20 years.
Just to mention a few of them, we don't have enough time to go through all of them, but when David took over in 2000, the market value of Emerson's stock was $13.3 billion. Nothing to sneeze at. Today, as we're speaking, it is hovering around $50 billion this morning. That is almost four times as much.
In addition to that, during the last 20 years, Emerson has paid out to shareholders more than $20 billion in cash dividends. We have increased the dividend each and every one of those 20 years, as it has for the last 64 years, which is a record that only three or four other American companies can match. In addition to that, Emerson, as another way of returning money to shareholders who invest in it, has bought back shares for over $15.5 billion, for a total of about $37.5 billion.
When you add that to the increase in market value, that means in the last 20 years, what David has led Emerson to accomplish for its shareholders is worth over $70 billion, many times what it was worth when he took over. Stepping back from that a minute and thinking of some other things that are not necessarily tangible, but especially in these times, I think equally important.
Most of all, David has combined his business leadership and vision for Emerson with a focus on leading Emerson to do good things. Good things in its many communities, be a good neighbor, and very important to support social progress in just about every meaningful way. He's always been a good person, I've known him for the last 40 years, as well as an exceptional CEO.
As a director, I'm very proud to have served with him during the past 20 years. It's been a great ride for him and for me as a passenger, you might say. As a shareholder, I want to express my, and I really hope your gratitude for what he's done for us and contributed to Corporate America in general. As we all know, he was president of the National Association of Manufacturers.
We as the board are very excited to welcome Lal as David's successor. We are very confident he will continue Emerson's pattern of outstanding chief executives, but we will miss David, his presence, his thoughtfulness, and his leadership. To end, maybe a little bit on a personal note, David, I hope, and I think we all hope you enjoy your next phase with more time for your family and your other interests.
Again, thank you for all you've done for Emerson. Thank you for being my friend for the last many years, and I want you to know that we will all miss you. With that, I'm finished. Thanks. Goodbye, but just for today.
Thank you. Thank you, Arthur. Thanks to the Board. It's tough to say goodbye. This has been my blood for 40 years. With that, this concludes our business. I want to thank everybody. I'll miss you. Meeting's over. Thank you. Okay, now back to Board. That was very nice, Arthur.
Less than you deserve. This now concludes the meeting. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day.