Hello and welcome to the Annual Meeting of Stockholders of MI Homes. During the meeting, we'll have a question and answer session. You can submit questions or comments at any time by clicking on the message icon. It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Robert H. Schottenstein, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of MI Homes.
The floor is yours.
Thank you very much. Good morning, and welcome to the twenty twenty one Annual Meeting of the Shareholders of MI Homes. As you heard, my name is Bob Schottenstein, and I'm the President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board. As we previously disclosed, due to the public health impact of the COVID-nineteen pandemic and to support the health and well-being of our shareholders, stakeholders, employees and community, we are holding this year's annual meeting in a virtual only format. We appreciate all of you joining us today.
First, I would like to take a moment to introduce the other directors of the company who are present electronically for today's meeting: Phil Creek, who is also an Executive Vice President and the Chief Financial Officer of our company Tom Mason, who is also an Executive Vice President as well as Chief Legal Officer and Secretary of the company Friedel Boehm, our Lead Director Bill Carter Michael Glimcher Lisa Ingram Nancy Kramer Norman Traeger and Kumi Walker. Before we make our presentation about the 2020 fiscal year, we are going to first take care of the formal part of this annual meeting. Therefore, if the meeting will now come to order, I would like to ask Tom Mason, who will act as Secretary of the meeting and who will run the formal part of the meeting, to report on the notice for this meeting. Tom? Thank you, Bob, and
good morning to everyone. First, if you have not done so already, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the rules of conduct for this meeting. Those rules are posted on the meeting's consent or screen. On April seven of this year, written notice of this meeting, our annual report, proxy statement and a proxy card were mailed to all shareholders of record at the close of business on 03/16/2021, which is the record date for this meeting. The tabulation of today's votes will be conducted by Tammy Marshall from Computershare, the company's registrar and transfer agent.
She will also act as Inspector of Elections for this annual meeting. In addition to counting the votes, Ms. Marshall will also determine the number of votes which are present in person or by proxy. This Marshall was made available on the meeting center screen a list of shareholders of record certified as of the record date. This list will remain open for inspection by shareholders until the close of today's meeting.
A copy of the proxy statement and annual report are also available on the meeting center screen. If you joined this virtual meeting as a shareholder and you have already submitted a proxy, you do not need to vote during this meeting. If, however, you join the meeting as a shareholder and wish to vote during the meeting, you may do so by clicking on the Cast Your Vote link that is located on the left side of the meeting screen and voting any time before we declare the polls are closed. The polls are now open, and we will close the polls immediately following the consideration of the last matter to be voted at this meeting. I now ask Ms.
Marshall to report on the number of votes entitled to be cast at the meeting. Tammy?
Thank you, Mr. Secretary. As of the record date, there were 29,177,130 common shares outstanding and both entitled to be cast at this annual meeting. Of such amount, 26,485,446 shares are present in person or by properly executed proxy. As a result, a quorum exists for this meeting.
Thank you. There are three matters to be considered today. First, the election of three directors for terms expiring in 2024. Second, an advisory resolution to approve the compensation of the company's named executive officers, commonly known as Sao en Pais. And lastly, a proposal to ratify the appointment of Deloitte as the company's accounting firm for 2021.
Please note that shareholders will have the opportunity to ask questions regarding each matter being voted upon at this meeting when such matter is addressed. In addition, shareholders will have the opportunity to ask general questions about the company's performance following our presentation regarding our 2020 fiscal year. To ask a question, shareholders should click on the dialogue icon at the top of the meeting center screen. Turning to the first matter. The three nominees for election as directors are Michael Glimcher, Lisa Ingram and Kumi Walker.
Subject to our majority voting policy described in our proxy, a plurality of the votes of the outstanding common shares is required to elect each nominee. May I have a motion with respect
to the election of directors?
My name is Anne Marie Hunker, and I am a shareholder of the company. I move for the adoption of the following resolution: Resolve that Michael Glimsher, Lisa Ingram and Kumi Walker be elected to serve as directors of MI Homes until the twenty twenty four Annual Meeting of Shareholders and until their successors are duly elected and qualified or until their earlier resignation, removal from office or death.
My name is Scott Turner, and I'm a shareholder of
the company. I second the motion.
Thank you, Ann Marie and Scott. Are there any questions regarding this matter? Okay. There being no questions, we will now turn to the second matter for consideration, which is the approval, again, on an advisory basis of the compensation of the company's named executive officers. The affirmative vote of a majority of the outstanding common shares is required to approve this proposal.
May I have
a motion with respect to this matter? I move for the adoption of the following resolution, resolve that the shareholders approve on an advisory basis the compensation of the company's named executive officers as disclosed in the proxy statement.
I second the motion.
Thank you, Bo. Are there any questions regarding this matter? Okay. Being advised there are none, we will now turn to the third matter, which is the ratification of the appointment of Deloitte as the company's accounting firm for 2021. The affirmative vote of a majority of the outstanding common shares is required to ratify the appointment.
May I have a motion with respect to this matter?
I move for the adoption of the following resolution: resolve that the appointment of Deloitte as MI Homes accounting firm for 2021 is ratified on behalf of the company. I
second that motion.
Thank you. Are there any questions regarding this matter? Being informed there's no questions at this time, I'm going ask those shareholders who intend to vote during the meeting and have not already done so to complete the submission of their votes on the meeting center screen. We will give you a moment. Okay.
At this time, I declare the polls closed. Ms. Marshall, will you please report on the results?
Yes. Thank you, Mr. Secretary and Mr. Chairman. I hereby report that one, Michael Glimsher, Lisa Ingram and Kumi Walker have been elected to the company's Board of Directors.
Item two, the compensation of the company's named executive officers has been approved by the shareholders and three, the ratification of the appointment of Deloitte and Touche as the company's accounting firm for the twenty twenty one year has been approved.
Thank you, Tammy. The Certificate of the Inspector of Elections will be included in the records of this meeting. Formal part of this meeting is concluded, and we will now proceed with our presentation regarding our 2020 fiscal year. First, because of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, I'm required to tell you that certain of the matters which we are about to discuss regarding, among other things, the company's future performance, our expectations for the future and matters relating to COVID-nineteen pandemic constitute forward looking statements that are dependent on certain risks and uncertainties. Any forward looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results may differ materially as a result of the risk factors described in the company's annual report for the fiscal year ended 12/31/2020.
Before turning the meeting back over to Bob, I'd like to congratulate Michael Glenscher, Lisa Ingram and Kumi Walker for their appointments in the Board for an additional three years. To add some color on the votes themselves, all matters that received were up for vote today, all received in excess of 91% in support. So obviously, excellent results. And with that, Bob, I'll turn the meeting back to you.
Thank you, Tom, and thank you to everyone again for joining us today. I'm very excited to briefly present to you on the company's results for calendar year 2020 and to share with you a lot of good news. Our company today is in the best shape financially we've ever been in, and 2020 was a record year, and we're very excited about our business. Go to the first slide, please. This just gives you a snapshot of where we operate.
We are and have been for many, many years one of the nation's leading homebuilders. We build homes in 15 markets spread out across the Midwest, the Mid Atlantic and the Southern Part Of The United States, and you can see those 15 markets identified on this slide. Our company has been in business for forty five years. We began in Columbus, Ohio in 1976. We went public nearly thirty years ago in 1993.
And since the beginning of our company's establishment back in 1976, we have sold in excess of 130,000 homes across our various markets. 2020 was a record year, a record shattering year. We sold over 9,400 homes, which represented a 39% increase over what the previous record was in 2019. We had record closings of an excess of 7,700 homes, again, a 22% increase over the previous record, which was in 2019. Record revenues of $3,000,000,000 our pretax increase our pretax income, rather, increased by over 85% to $310,000,000 a record And our earnings per share increased 84% to $8.23 per share.
We ended calendar year 2020 with a very significant backlog of 4,389 homes. That was 64% more homes in backlog at twelvethirty onetwenty twenty than at twelvethirty onetwenty nineteen. Our mortgage and title operation, which is operated under the business name MI Financial, also had record volume in 2020. We're really pleased with our results for a variety of reasons. We have a great team of people that help make this happen, and they did so in what were extremely challenging conditions, not just for our business, but for the entire country as a result of the very serious and difficult pandemic.
But notwithstanding those conditions, we achieved record setting results. And in addition to the financial results that I just mentioned, our customer service and quality scores were outstanding for the year, which is due and owing to the tremendous team of people that we have representing our company throughout our 15 divisions. Our balance sheet also is in excellent shape as we ended 2020 with near $1,300,000,000 of shareholders' equity, and we enter 2021 with just tremendous operating momentum and a very strong competitive position throughout our 15 markets. The next slide is a snapshot of a number of key financial metrics beginning in the upper left, homes delivered or closings. And you can see what we've done over the last five years going back to 2016, with closings growing from just under 5,000 closings in 2016 up to over 5,000 in '17, near 6,000 in 'eighteen, over 6,000 in 2019 and over 7,700 closings in 2020, just really tremendous growth for our company.
Likewise, those closings translated into very significant revenue growth as well. In the upper right, the yellow boxes, you can see that revenues over the five years have nearly doubled, going from just under $1,700,000,000 in 2016 to over $3,000,000,000 in 2020. Moving to the bottom left, we've not only grown the top line, but the bottom left shows how we have also significantly grown our bottom line and improved our profitability, frankly, by even more than we've grown the top line. Our pretax income in 2016 was $92,000,000 It's grown by 3.5 fold over the five year period to $310,000,000 in 2020. And finally, all of that has resulted in the best financial condition we've ever been in, as demonstrated by our net worth or shareholders' equity, nearly doubling over the five year period from $650,000,000 in 2016 to just shy of $1,300,000,000 in 2020.
And speaking of shareholders' equity, we are a very return focused company. And this slide, I think, reflects the tremendous improvement in our returns. Each of these graph this graph illustrates the return on equity over the last four years and an early peak at the first quarter of this year with return on equity as we speak today at 25%, which is at or near the top of the entire homebuilding industry. So we're particularly pleased with these very strong returns. And speaking of the first quarter, we're off to a phenomenal start.
We're poised to have another record year. We had just an outstanding first quarter, setting many records, beginning with net income, up 167% over the corresponding first quarter period in 2020. And that net income, up 167%, resulted in over 13% pretax coming to the bottom line, which is extremely strong profitability. We had record revenues in the first quarter, up 43% record closings, up 35% and again, sales, up 49%. And we ended the quarter with a very strong backlog, which gives us tremendous momentum as we move through the rest of the year.
Our backlog in terms of homes sold but not yet closed being up 68% as of 03/31/2021. All of this resulted in a very significant increase in earnings per share, up 161%. And again, very strong balance sheet, very low leverage, homebuilding debt to cap ratio of 32%. And at the end of the quarter, we were sitting on just under $300,000,000 of cash. So as we think about the company today and we think about where we're headed, as I said at the outset, we are in the best financial condition we've ever been in.
Homebuilding conditions are very strong. There's tremendous demand. Interest rates are at or near historic lows. Throughout the country, there are very low inventory levels. And all of this is helping to spur tremendous demand for new homes.
We will remain focused on maintaining a strong balance sheet, which will allow us to operate regardless of what happens to the economy. We will also continue to focus on the key core values of our company. Those are customer service, quality and always striving to build a better home. We continue to grow our market share in all 15 of our markets. That is our primary growth strategy, to grow market share, to capture additional share, all the while improving our profits and returns.
And there is no question today that MI Homes is positioned for further growth. So with that, that's the end of our formal presentation. I'll be happy to answer any questions.
We show no questions at this time, Rob.
We show no questions at this time. That concludes our meeting. We thank you for joining us, and we look forward to speaking with you again when we report our second quarter results. Thank you for joining us.
This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.