Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Dave King, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of LabCorp and Chairman of this Annual Meeting. I am happy to welcome you to this Annual Meeting of Shareholders. The meeting will now come to order. All votes will be delivered to the Inspector of Election.
The Secretary will record the proceedings. I would like to introduce you to the Board members and officers who are present today. Directors present are Terry B. Anderson, Jean Luc Bevingard, D. Gary Gilliland, Garheng Khan, Robert E.
Mittelstaedt Jr, Peter M. Neupert, Rochelle P. Parham, Adam H. Schechter and R. Sanders Williams.
I would now like to acknowledge our senior officers present today. Glenn A. Eisenberg, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Gary M. Hough, Chief Executive Officer, LabCorp Diagnostics John D. Ratliff, Chief Executive Officer, Covance Drug Development Lance V.
Pervarian, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer Edward G. Dodson, Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer Sam Eberts, Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary Brian J. Caveney, Chief Medical Officer and Lisa J. Yukonot, Chief Human Resources Officer. Also present are David Pickett and Chris Muzendes, representing PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, independent accountants of the company.
They will be available to answer appropriate questions during the general question and answer period after the formal business of the meeting. After the formal meeting has been adjourned, we will also provide time for general questions. Only validated shareholders will be able to submit questions using the designated field on the web portal or through our Investor Relations email address at investorlabcorp.com. If you choose to submit a question by email, please include your control number in the email subject line in order for your question to be considered. Out of consideration for others, please limit yourself to one question.
The Board of Directors set March 23, 2018 as the date of record for this shareholders meeting. We have here a record of shareholders as of that date. A duplicate record has been on file at the office of the company for the last 10 days available for inspection by any shareholder at any time during usual business hours. I have been advised by the Inspector of Elections that immediately prior to commencement of the meeting, at least 86% of the company's shares of common stock issued an outstanding and entitled to vote are present or represented by proxy at today's meeting. Because a majority of the company's shares is represented here today, a quorum is present and the business of the proceeding may proceed.
The Secretary has informed me that the notice for the meeting was duly and properly mailed. The Secretary will file affidavits of mailing of the notice of meeting, proxy card and proxy statement with the records of this meeting. There are 3 items on the agenda to be voted on today. The election of directors, the approval on a non binding advisory basis of executive compensation and the ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings independent accountants for the year ended December 31, 2018. There will be a discussion period relating to each item immediately after its introduction.
Any shareholder would like to make a comment regarding any of the proposals at the indicated times, please submit your comment at that time using the designated field on the web portal or through our Investor Relations e mail address, investorlabcorp.com, with your control number included in the e mail's subject line. We will attempt to ensure that all shareholder comments are read aloud and representatives of management will respond to questions. However, in the interest of time and because each of these items has been fully discussed in the proxy statement, discussion on each item will be limited to 5 minutes. If you send in your proxy, you do not need to take any further action unless you wish to change your vote. At the end of the discussion period relating to the items to be voted on during today's meeting, the ballots will be collected and delivered to the Inspector of Election.
The company has appointed Scott Frommer to be the Inspector of Election. He is familiar with the duties and responsibilities of an Inspector of Election at a shareholders meeting. He will report the results after all proxies and votes have been tabulated. We will now turn to item 1. The first item is the election of directors.
The nominees and their qualifications are described in the proxy statement dated March 30, 2018, which has been made available to all shareholders of record as of March 30, 2018. Mr. Eisenberg, will you please present the proposal to elect directors?
I move that the director nominees be elected pursuant to the following resolution. Resolve that each of David P. King, Carrie B. Anderson, Jean Luc Bellegarde, B. Gary Gilliland, Garheng Kong, Robert D.
Mittelstaedt Jr, Peter M. Neubert, Rochelle P. Parham, Adam H. Schechter and R. Sanders Williams be and hereby his elected as a Director of the company to serve until the next annual meeting of shareholders and until his or her successor is duly elected and qualified or until his or her earlier death, resignation or removal.
Thank you. The meeting is open for discussion relating to the election of directors. If any shareholder would like to make a comment regarding this proposal, please submit your comment through the web portal or by email now. Seeing no comments, the second item is the non binding advisory vote to approve executive compensation. Mr.
Eisenberg,
will you please present the proposal to approve executive compensation? I move that the company's executive compensation be approved pursuant to the non binding advisory vote and the following resolution. Resolve that the compensation paid to the company's named executive officers has disclosed pursuant to the rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in the compensation discussion and analysis, compensation tables and narrative discussion in the company's 2018 proxy statement is hereby approved.
Thank you. The meeting is open for discussion relating to the approval of the company's executive compensation. Any shareholder would like to make a comment regarding this proposal, please submit your comment through the web portal or by email now. Seeing no comments, the third item is the ratification of the appointment of independent accountants for 2018. Mr.
Eisenberg, will you please present the proposal to ratify the selection of accountants?
I move that the appointment of the independent accountants for 2018 be ratified pursuant to the following resolution. Resolve that the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as independent accountants of Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2018,
be ratified. Thank you. The meeting is open for discussion relating to the selection of independent accounts. If any shareholder would like to make a comment regarding this proposal, please submit your comment through the web portal or by email now. Seeing no comments, I declare that the polls shall now be open for voting.
Any shareholders who have not yet voted or wish to change their votes may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions. Shareholders who have sent in proxies or voted via telephone or Internet and do not want to change their votes do not need to take any further action. We will pause for a moment while the Inspector of Election tabulates the results of the votes. I am told that the Inspector of Election has completed the count of the votes and is ready to report the preliminary results to the Secretary. Will the Secretary please present the preliminary report of the Inspector of Election?
The Inspector of Election has reported to me that of the shares of LabCorp common stock outstanding on the record date and represented at the meeting, at least 78% of the shares voted have voted for the election of each of the nominated directors. At least 95% of the shares voted have voted to approve the company's executive compensation and at least 96% of the shares voted have voted for the ratification of the appointment of independent accountants for 2018. Accordingly, the motions for the election of the nominated directors, the approval of the company's executive compensation and the ratification of the appointment of independent accountants for 2018 have passed. Thank you, Mr. Evertz.
The Secretary will file the final report of the Inspector of including the final and complete tally of the votes with the records of the meeting and the record books of the company. This concludes the formal business of the meeting. After the adjournment of the meeting, we will take general questions and answers. There being no further business before the meeting, I hereby declare the meeting to be adjourned. Thank you for participating and for supporting the company.
At this time, I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. As a result, as a reminder, only validated shareholders will be able to ask questions using the designated field on the web portal or through our Investor Relations email address, investorlabcorp.com. If you choose to submit a question by email, please include your control number in the email subject line in order for your question to be considered. We will attempt to ensure that everyone that has a question will have a chance to be heard and representatives of management will respond to questions. However, in the interest of time, we will limit each individual to one question at a time and discussion on each question will be limited to 5 minutes.
As a reminder, this Q and A session is being webcast live this morning. At this time, are there any questions? We have a notation from the portal that someone is having difficulty submitting. So could you please submit your question through email to investor at labcor.com. We have a question submitted by Doctor.
Emily Stornell at ETA dot org. I will read the following question. Covance has a history of animal welfare violations and animals continue to suffer abuse and neglect at Covance. Recent federal inspections of Covance facilities document the Regis violations of animal welfare regulations, including the following: Beagles at Covance's dog breeding facility were denied adequate veterinary care. 1 beagle had an orange size ulcerated mass on her mammary glands.
Another had inflamed and written skin on the inside of both ears on his abdomen, groin and armpits, around his lips and on his paws and toes. Several young beagles had thinning hair coat possibly indicative of poor nutrition and care. Nearly 1 5th of the dogs had excessively long nails. In one case, the nails had curled back to touch the ball pads. An 8 month old rabbit had to be euthanized after she was found with a bell stuck in her mouth.
Another rabbit had to be euthanized after she sustained a spinal injury. Covance failed to provide veterinary care to monkeys who had sustained limb fractures and suffered from alopecia and diarrhea and failed to handle monkeys humanely, resulting in serious orthopedic injuries. Our company acknowledges that failure to comply with animal welfare regulations could harm the company's reputation and business. What is Covance doing to prevent these violations in the future? Let me first say that I have personally been to a number of Covance animal facilities and I have not observed any sort of indifference or lack of care to the animals.
To the contrary, I personally have observed a high degree of compassion and caring from our dedicated Covance employees and colleagues at every single site that I have been and a high degree of attention to the condition of the animals. So, certainly there may be isolated incidents and this question does not make clear which are actual findings and which are allegations made by the questioner, but we take very seriously our ethical and regulatory responsibilities to treat animals with the utmost care and respect. This is not only the right thing to do, but it is fundamental to sound scientific research and the ability to develop safe and effective new medicines save the lives of people and animals. There are clear links between excellent animal welfare, great science and medical success. We are proud of our compliance record and we have made significant contributions to the development of life saving and life enhancing medicines for a variety of diseases.
Some of the incidents referred to in this question were unfortunate and isolated. They were addressed with strong corrective measures, including building in redundancies to prevent any reoccurrence. The accidental or unnecessary death of any animal in our tier is a matter of utmost concern. These allegations again were unfortunate incidents. They were immediately addressed.
They are not indicative of a wide problem or pattern of neglect at Covance at all. We continue to enhance our quality of safety procedures in all of our facilities And we continue to train our colleagues to make sure that the welfare of the animals is the highest priority at all of these sites. Specifically with regard to the rabbit with the bell which was a toy that was available to the rabbit in the cage, These devices were all replaced. We have since had 2 audits by the USDA in the facility and they have determined that there is no issue with the devices. With regard to health issues in 4 dogs at the Cumberland site, the site has a process for observing each animal daily and reporting issues to the veterinarians.
We have instituted a new process so that every dog whether inside or outside will be observed daily. Each dog is scheduled for regular nail trimming. Dogs observed the long nails were awaiting their scheduled trimming that was actually occurring at the time of the inspection. In discussion, the inspector agreed that the schedule outlined in our operating procedures is appropriate and we've appealed the observation regarding nails to the USDA. Again, these are isolated and unfortunate incidents.
They do not reflect a standard of lack of care for our animals or lack of attention by our valued colleagues. And I personally and John Ratliff as well visit these sites on a regular basis and we're proud of the record that we have for caring for these animals. Thank you for the question. Seeing no further questions at this time, we thank you again for your attendance at this morning's Annual Meeting of Shareholders and for your continued support of LabCorp. Thank you and good day.