Welcome to the Ethan Allen Interiors Inc. 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. My name is Ginger Tricele, and I'm the Corporate Secretary of Ethan Allen. Before we begin, please note the Safe Harbor Statement, which is posted in the meeting material links located in the lower right-hand section of your screen. The matters discussed during today's annual meeting may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, as further detailed in the Safe Harbor Statement. This meeting is scheduled to conclude by 11:30 A.M. Eastern Time. We will now start our meeting, and I'm pleased to turn it over to our Chairman, President, and CEO, Mr. Farooq Kathwari.
Yes, thank you, Ginger. I'm very glad that we have started this, and it's my pleasure to have you all join our 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. We are pleased. At 11:00 A.M. Eastern Time, and in accordance with the notice of the meeting, I hereby call to order the 2025 Annual Meeting of the Stockholders of Ethan Allen Interiors. I'd like to first acknowledge the presence of our Board of Directors at our virtual meeting today. In addition to myself, our Board includes John Dooner, Jr., our Lead Independent Director, Maria Eugenia Casar, David Sable, Tara Stacom, and Cynthia Ekberg Tsai. In addition to myself, each of the current Board members is standing for election. We have a strong and diverse group of nominees. Each of our current directors is experienced and brings unique capabilities to our Board.
You can learn more about each nominee by referring to our 2025 Proxy Statement. In addition to our Board of Directors, joining me today are Matt McNulty, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, and Ginger Tricele, Corporate Secretary, as well as a representative from CohnReznick LLP, our independent auditors. I've asked Ginger Tricele to lead us through much of the formalities today, as well as act as our Secretary for the meeting. However, before we move to our official business, I have a few comments about our recent annual performance. Considering the many challenges, we are pleased that our unique vertically integrated enterprise and investments over the years are providing strong results. Our fiscal 2025 performance reflects the strength of our vertically integrated enterprise, including our interior design retail network, relevant product offerings, and ability to manufacture about 75 American facilities.
Our interior design focus, investments in technology, and many years of developing our strong retail network, North American manufacturing, and logistics have positioned us well to extend. We executed well throughout the fiscal year as we remained focused on the five key areas: talent, service, marketing, technology, and social responsibility. We are gratified at the hard work of our strong, dedicated team. Technology continues to play a central role in all our operations, from manufacturing to logistics to retail to marketing. Investing in technology has been a game changer and helped us operate more efficiently. Marketing efforts have increased, and today most of our marketing is through digital and print magazines, as well as paid search and social campaigns. During fiscal 2025, we strengthen our product programs and introduce new products on a planned basis. We also continue to develop our strong interior designer talent.
We have actually 50% less designers today than 10 years back. But generating 73% more business per retail associates. The combination of strong talent and technology is what makes it happen. Our North American manufacturing provides us a competitive advantage as we make about 75% of our furniture in North America and almost all custom on receipt of customer orders. We deliver our products at one price to our clients in North America with what we call a white glove delivery service. On social responsibility, our teams continue to operate as a socially responsible enterprise and treat our associates and our clients with respect and dignity. Financially, we produce strong results. For the full fiscal 2025 year, our gross margin was 60.5% with an operating margin of 10.2% despite lots of challenging economic environment. Observance of the rules, I'm sorry, we have also been able to maintain strong cash.
We ended the fiscal year with cash and investments of $196 million, no debt, and paid out over $50 million in cash dividends. The strength of our business model has successfully navigated challenging times throughout our 93-year history. Our robust balance sheet provides a solid foundation and positions us well as we work through fiscal 2026. We look forward to continue our progress and remain cautiously optimistic. With that, I'd like to now proceed with the formal order of business and turn the meeting back over to Ginger. Ginger.
Thank you, Mr. Kathwari, and thank you, stockholders and guests, for participating in our virtual meeting today. Our 2025 Annual Meeting agenda is displayed on the Virtual Shareholder Meeting webpage, and rules of conduct are posted on this same page. We plan to conduct the meeting in accordance with those rules of conduct. Your cooperation in observing these rules is greatly appreciated. Observance of the rules will provide equal opportunity for all stockholders to participate. If you wish to ask a question or make a comment, please follow the directions on the webpage and type the question or comment in the appropriate space on your screen. After each proposal is read, we will answer questions related to that proposal. We will answer other questions time permitting after voting is completed.
Only stockholders of record at the close of business on the record date of September 12th, 2025, or their duly appointed proxies are entitled to address the meeting and to vote. As Secretary of the Meeting, I can report that notice of this meeting was duly given on September 26th, 2025. As of the record date, there were 25,446,339 shares of common stock issued, outstanding, and entitled to vote at this meeting. The list of stockholders entitled to vote at this meeting has been available for examination by any stockholder at the company's offices in Danbury, Connecticut, for the past 10 days. The inspectors of election for this meeting are Peter W. Descovich of IOE Services, Inc. and Lou Larson of L Squared Elections, both of whom have signed the judge's oath, which will be filed with the records of this meeting.
The inspectors of election have confirmed that more than a majority of the corporation's outstanding shares of common stock are represented at this meeting either in person or by proxy, and we have a quorum present. It is now 11:09 A.M., and I now declare that the polls for voting are open. If you already voted online, by phone, or by mail, you do not need to vote again. Any stockholder who has not yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the Vote Now button on your screen and following the instructions. There are three proposals properly brought forth to be voted at this meeting. At this time, we will proceed with the first proposal for the election of six directors of the company.
The Board of Directors has nominated M. Farooq Kathwari, Maria Eugenia Casar, John Dooner, Jr., David Sable, Tara Stacom, and Cynthia Ekberg Tsai for election to the Board of Directors. There being no additional timely nominations, the foregoing six nominees are the only individuals to be considered for election. At this time, we have not received any questions relating to this proposal. The next proposal is to approve by non-binding advisory vote executive compensation for our named executive officers.
We have not received any questions relating to this proposal. The third and final proposal is to ratify the appointment of CohnReznick LLP as our independent public accounting firm for the 2026 fiscal year. We have not received any questions relating to this proposal. We are not aware of any other business to be conducted at this meeting. Now that all proposals have been submitted for consideration and everyone has had an opportunity to vote.
It is now 11:10 A.M., and I declare the polls are closed. The judges have tabulated the votes on the items of business brought before this meeting, and based on the judge's report, I declare that with regard to the first proposal, M. Farooq Kathwari, Maria Eugenia Casar, John Dooner, Jr., David Sable, Tara Stacom, and Cynthia Ekberg Tsai have been elected as directors of the company for a term of one year. I further declare that the second proposal to approve by a non-binding advisory vote executive compensation of our named executive officers has been approved, and the third proposal to ratify the appointment of CohnReznick LLP as our independent registered public accounting firm for the 2026 fiscal year has been approved. The report of the inspectors of election with the final vote count will be filed shortly after this meeting.
That concludes the formal business portion of the meeting, and I would now like to turn the meeting back over to Mr. Kathwari.
Thank you, Ginger. This is now the time of our meeting reserved for stockholder questions or comments. If you have a question and have not already submitted it, please do so now. We will attempt to answer all questions submitted within the time permitted, but we may group questions together that are related. I will ask Ginger to read the questions as we proceed. Ginger.
Thank you, Mr. Kathwari. I'm showing that no questions or comments at this time that are related to this meeting have been presented.
Okay. If that is the case, as there are no further questions or comments, I would like to thank you for attending the 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, and I declare this meeting adjourned. At any time, though, if you have questions, please contact Matt McNulty at our investor relations contact at ir@ethanallen.com. I want to thank you for your participation, and I want to thank our Board of Directors and all our associates who have continued to work hard and make Ethan Allen continue to be a strong, relevant enterprise after all these over 90 years of existence. Thank you very much.
This now concludes the meeting. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day.