Hello, and Welcome to the EQT Corporation Special Meeting of Shareholders. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Toby Rice, Chair of the Special Meeting. Mr. Rice, the floor is yours.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As Chair of the Special Meeting of Shareholders of EQT Corporation, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the meeting. It is now shortly after 8:30 A.M. Eastern Time on July 18th , and this meeting is officially called to order. The agenda for today's meeting is available on the meeting portal. We will take up the business portion of the meeting in the order set forth in the agenda. The business portion of the meeting will be followed by a question-and-answer session. Our independent board chair, Lydia Beebe, is also with us at today's meeting. In order for business to be conducted at this meeting, a quorum must be present. A majority of the outstanding shares of EQT common stock entitled to vote at this meeting, present at this virtual meeting or represented by proxy, constitutes a quorum.
Based on proxies on file, shareholders present by proxy represent at least 387 million shares, which is greater than 87% of all shares entitled to be voted at this meeting, which constitutes a quorum for purposes of this meeting. Additionally, we have received an affidavit from Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc certifying that proxy materials, which include notice of this meeting, were mailed to all shareholders of record as of the close of business on May 16, 2024, the record date for today's meeting, as required by law. This special meeting is therefore declared lawfully and properly convened, and the business of this meeting may proceed. The votes at this meeting will be tabulated and certified by three judges of election engaged through Broadridge. These three judges of election are Marlene Aguilar, Anthony Carrello, and Robert Johnson.
Each of them is in attendance at this meeting and has executed an oath with respect to his or her duties. Let's now proceed to the matters to be voted on today. Three matters, all of which were proposed by the board of directors, were presented in the Joint Proxy Statement dated June 5, 2024, for shareholder consideration. The first proposal, which we refer to as the Share Issuance Proposal, is to approve the issuance of shares of EQT common stock to the holders of Equitrans Midstream Corporation common stock, pursuant to the Agreement and Plan of Merger dated as of March 10th, 2024. Information about the merger agreement, the merger, and other matters of interest related to the merger is contained in the Joint Proxy Statement. The board recommends a vote for the Share Issuance Proposal.
The second proposal, which we refer to as the Articles Amendment Proposal, is to approve an amendment to EQT's Restated Articles of Incorporation to increase the authorized number of shares of EQT common stock from 640 million shares to 1.28 billion shares. The board recommends a vote for this proposal. The third proposal presented in the joint proxy statement is the approval of one or more adjournments of this special meeting, if necessary or appropriate, to permit solicitation of additional votes or proxies if there are not sufficient votes to approve the first two proposals. This Adjournment Proposal will not be put to a vote of the shareholders today, as the board has determined that an adjournment of today's meeting is not necessary. We will now proceed with the voting. It is 8:34 A.M. Eastern Time.
The polls are now open, and I call for a vote on the share issuance proposal and the Articles Amendment Proposal. If there are any shareholders present who have not submitted their proxies or votes and wish to vote at this time or any shareholders who wish to change a prior vote, please do so by clicking the link provided in the online meeting portal. If you voted before today's meeting via phone, internet, or mail, and you do not want to change your vote, there is no need to recast your vote again today. We'll now pause for a moment to allow any shareholders desiring to submit or change their votes now to do so. It is now 8:35 A.M. Eastern Time, and I declare the polls to be closed.
I now would like to receive the preliminary report of the judges of election, who have submitted their preliminary report to the Assistant Corporate Secretary, Tim Lulich.
Based on a preliminary tabulation of the votes by the judges of election, both the share issuance proposal and the Articles Amendment Proposal have received the requisite number of votes for approval. The official vote count will be reported by the company on a Form 8-K to be filed with the SEC.
Thank you. With the business portion of the meeting now complete, as chair of the meeting, I declare the Special Meeting of Shareholders to be officially concluded. With that, let's move to the question-and-answer session.
Attendees who joined today's meeting as shareholders may submit a question. To submit a question, please use the dialogue box on the left side of the meeting screen. I would like to remind everyone that only questions that are germane to this meeting will be addressed and that individual matters or personal grievances, not of concern to all shareholders generally, will not be answered in this forum. If your question relates to a subject matter covered by more than one submitted question, we will attempt to address the subject matter in a consolidated response. We will now open the floor for questions. Seeing no questions, we can conclude the question-and-answer session.
Thank you for attending today's meeting. We are excited about completing the merger and look forward to the company's exciting future.
This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.