Good morning, and welcome to the 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders for Evercore. Please note that this meeting will be recorded and will consist of copyrighted material. You may not record or rebroadcast these materials without Evercore's consent. I will now turn the call over to John Weinberg, Chairman of the Board and Executive Chairman of Evercore.
Greetings. We sincerely thank you for taking the time to join us this morning for our 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders and hope that you are well and safe. We decided to host this year's annual meeting virtually in light of the pandemic. We extend our thoughts to those who have been impacted as well as those in the health care sector, public health officials, essential services workers and the worldwide community as we continue to grapple with this difficult situation. At this time, I call the meeting to order.
A copy of the agenda is on your screen and the rules of conduct are available in the virtual shareholder meeting room. I will now turn the meeting over to our Corporate Secretary, Jason Klirfeld.
Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. You will be able to participate in the meeting by voting and by submitting written questions if you help stock as of the close of business on our record date on April 22, 2020. Let me now provide an overview of how our meeting will proceed. 1st, I'll make several introductions, go over some procedural housekeeping necessary for our corporate record keeping, review the rules of conduct for our virtual meeting and introduce the formal business of the meeting, including the 4 proposals being voted on today. I will then open the polls for voting.
We will answer any questions that we received that relate to the proposals. After voting is closed, I will report on the preliminary voting results announced. I will then adjourn the formal part of the meeting, and we will then address general questions from stockholders that were submitted. Present today are the following Board members: Roger Altman, our Founder and Senior Chairman Pamela Carlson Ellen Footer Gail Harris Robert Millard Willard Overlop Jr. Sir Simon M.
Robertson Ralph Schlossstein, Chief Executive Officer and President, John Weinberg, Chairman of the Board and Executive Chairman, William Wheeler, Sarah K. Williamson, Kendrick R. Wilson III. Also present today is Robert Walsh, our Chief Financial Officer. Representatives from Deloitte and Touche are also present today.
During the question and answer period, at the end of the meeting, they will be available to answer questions concerning the company's financial statements. Jonathan Kaplan is acting as the Inspector of Elections and has previously taken the oath as an Inspector of Elections. The proxy holders for this annual meeting are Rausch Lapstein and myself. Now to the rules of conduct. You all have access to a copy of the rules of conduct.
In order to conduct an orderly meeting, we ask that participants follow these rules. Because this is a meeting of stockholders, only our stockholders as of the close of business on our record date on April 22, 2020 are permitted to vote and ask questions. To vote and submit questions, please follow the instructions in our virtual shareholder meeting room. You will be limited to a maximum of 2 questions. As a reminder, we will only answer questions that are submitted in writing via these procedures.
Proof of notice of meeting. As noted, the record date for voting at this meeting was the close of business on April 22, 2020. A list of stockholders on the record date, this year's notice of meeting and proxy statement and our annual report are available for your review in the virtual shareholding meeting room. I have in my possession an affidavit showing that the notice, the proxy statement and the annual report were duly mailed on April 24, 2020, to stockholders of record. A copy of both the notice and the affidavit of mailing will be incorporated into the minute.
We have been informed that there are represented in person or by proxy, by phone or by proxy a majority in voting power of the stock issued and outstanding, which is a sufficient number of shares for a quorum to be present for this meeting. This meeting is now duly convened for the purposes of transacting business properly before it. Now I'll turn to the proposal. The next order of business is a description of matters properly brought before the meeting. Voting will commence after all polls have been presented.
The first proposal is the election of our directors. There are 13 nominees to be elected today. Those 13 nominees receiving a plurality of the votes of peers present in person or by proxy at this meeting will be elected as directors. Directors elected today will hold office until the 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders and their successors are elected and qualified or until his or her earlier resignation or removal. The nominees are listed on the agenda.
Proposal 2 is the approval on an advisory basis of the compensation of our named executive officers. Proposal 3 is the approval of our amended and restated 2016 Evercore Inc. Stock incentive plan and the last item for business is the ratification of the selection of the Duarte Santouche as their independent registered public accounting firm. I have moved all of these proposals and the polls are now open. If you have provided your proxy card, your shares will be voted accordingly without any further action on your part.
If you intend to vote today, please follow the instructions shown in the virtual shareholder meeting room. At this time, we will address any questions relating to these proposals. If you have not submitted a question, but would like to do so now before we move on to voting, please follow the instructions in the virtual shareholder meeting room. We will now allow time for the vote. I declare that the polls are now closed at 9:0:6 a.
M. Today, June 16, 2020, and ask that the Inspector of Elections collect and tabulate the ballot. John, can you please confirm that the ballots have been counted?
That confirmed.
The ballots have now been tabulated and the preliminary results are that each of our nominees have been duly elected as a Director of the company, each to serve his or her designated term and all the remaining proposals have received the requisite shareholder approval. I will file the following with the records of the meeting. A list of stockholders entitled to vote at this meeting, proxies voted at this meeting, the notice of mailing and proof of mailing, inspectors oath and reports, ballots for the election of directors and minutes of the meeting's proceedings. Since there is no further official business to come before this meeting, I declare the meeting to officially be adjourned at 9:0:8 am, June 16, 2020. We will now proceed to the informal portion of this of the meeting.
At this time, we will answer any questions. We have we do have one question that has come in, which I will ask Ralph Schlotsteiner, CEO to address. Ralph, the question is, is the dividend secure, which sectors look the best for M and A for Evercore?
Well, the dividend is, of course, is considered by the Board every quarter. And we the Board voted obviously to pay the dividend in the full $0.58 for the Q1 and the Board will consider that in the Q2, but there is nothing that we see in terms of the finances of the firm or the prospects of the firm that at this point would cause an interruption in the dividend. And in terms of which sectors are important to us, we really have a presence in all of the major sectors. There are 6 sectors that each constitute more than 10% of the total M and A fee pool, energy, healthcare, technology, industrials, consumer and financial institutions, and we have significant presences in all of those.
Thank you, Ralph. There being no further questions, our program for the day has concluded. We thank everyone for attending today's meeting and for your continuing support of Evercore. The meeting is now adjourned.
Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude your call. You may now disconnect your line.