Good morning, and welcome to 3 ms's Annual Meetings for Shareholders. Greg Larsen, our Corporate Secretary, advises me that the quorum is present and that all shareholders of record have been sent a notice of this meeting. On the record date of March 19, 2019, there was approximately 576,000,000 shares of common stock issued and outstanding. 87% are represented here today in person or by proxy. Therefore, I declare this meeting open for business.
We have 4 business items on the agenda for today, which Greg Larsen will conduct. First, however, I will make some brief comments about our 2018 performance. In 2018, we posted organic growth of more than 3% with growth across all business groups and geographic areas. Our team expanded GAAP earnings per share by more than 12% to $8.89 or $10.46 on an underlying basis. We posted free cash flow conversion of 91% along with a return on invested capital of 22%.
Beyond these financial results, we continued to deploy capital to grow the business and to return cash to you, our shareholders. Last year, we invested EUR 3,400,000,000 in the combination of research and development and CapEx. We also paid EUR 3,200,000,000 in dividends and repurchased EUR 4,900,000,000 of 3 ms shares. And as a reminder, we increased our Q1 dividend in 2019 by 6%, which marks 61 straight years of dividend increases. In summary, 2018 was a successful year for 3 ms, and we posted good results and continued to transform the company for the future.
Turning to 2019. I will now make some brief comments on our Q1 performance. Organic growth company wide was minus 1% due to softness in a few of our key end markets. We posted adjusted earnings of $2.23 per share, down 11%, along with underlying margins of 21%. As you know, we have announced a number of actions, including an organizational realignment with the objective to improve our competitiveness.
Going forward, I'm very confident in our ability to manage through the challenges we face while continuing to position 3 ms for the future. That concludes my remarks. At this point in time, I would like to introduce our Board of Directors. I will ask our board members to please stand as they are introduced and remain standing. Please hold your applause until all are introduced.
Ed Liddy, retired Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer to Allstate Corporation Tony Brown, Retired Group Vice President, Global Purchasing, Ford Motor Company Dave Dillon, Retired Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, The Kroger Company Mike Eskew, Retired Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, United Partial Service Herb Henkel, Retired Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Ingleson Rand Amy Hood, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Microsoft Corporation Moonta Kent, retired Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, The Coca Cola Company Dambisa Moyo, Founder and CEO of Milestrom LLC Greg Page, Retired Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Cargill Incorporated Mike Rohman, Chief Executive Officer, 3 ms Pat Worth, Retired Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, ADM Company. As you may notice, my name is the last one on list. And as you are aware, I do not stand for reelection as the Executive Chairman for 2019, and I'm retiring from 3 ms in the end of this month. Now let's recognize our entire Board of Directors. Thank you, and I will now turn the program over to Greg Lawson.
Well, thank you, Inge. Good morning, everyone. Before discussing the business items, please review the meeting rules you received this morning. They are summarized on the screen behind me. These rules allow 3 ms to better accommodate the shareholders who attend this meeting and to be fair to everyone who wishes to speak.
As the agenda you also received indicates, the Board of Directors is presenting 3 proposals and a stockholder is presenting 1 proposal, all of which are described in the proxy statement. We will vote on all of these proposals together after presenting each one. No other items of business will be considered at the meeting. The first proposal is to elect 12 directors for a 1 year term that expires at the 2020 Annual Meeting. The Board's nominees are Tony Brown, Pam Craig, Dave Dillon, Mike Eskew, Herb Henkel, Amy Hood, Mutharkhent, Ed Liddy, Dambisa Moyo, Greg Page, Mike Roman and Pat Wirtz.
All nominees are standing for reelection to the Board, except Pam Craig and Danbisa Moyo, who are standing for election to the Board for the first time. The second proposal is to ratify the audit committee's appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as 3 ms's independent registered public accounting firm for 2019. The lead partner from PricewaterhouseCoopers is here at the meeting. The 3rd proposal is to approve our executive compensation as described in the proxy statement. The board recommends a vote for each nominee and for each of these proposals.
We will now consider the stockholder proposal on setting target amounts for CEO compensation. Katrina Fitzgerald represents the proponent and may make a brief 3 minute statement on the merits of the proposal. Katrina?
Hi, everyone. My name is Katrina Fitzgerald. On behalf of the steelworkers, I hereby move Proposal 4 asking our company to consider the pay grades and salary ranges of all 3 ms employees when setting target amounts for CEO compensation. Each year, our company must report the ratio of annual total compensation of the CEO to that of our mean employee. Since 3 ms charged CEO in 2018, the company calculated the total CEO compensation by combining the compensation for both for the periods in 2018 in which they served.
The company has determined that 2018 CEO compensation was slightly over 17,300,000 dollars Our mean employee total compensation last year was 57,313. So our CEO compensation is about 302 times that of the mean employee. Our CEO's compensation has grown leaps and bounds over the last 20 years. In 2008, it was less than $3,500,000 at 2018, it was 12,300,000 Now it's pushing $20,000,000 This massive increase mimics the rise in CEO compensation across large corporations in the United States. The reason for this increase is simple.
Prior to 1980 or so, CEO compensation was largely determined by internal equity on how CEO pay compared with that of other employees within the same company. However, a new field of executive compensation consultants came along and has convinced companies to move to external equality method, meaning that CEO compensation will be based on that of other CEO pay. Now, the common referred to as peer group benchmarks. The effect of this is exactly what we've seen at 3 ms, huge jumps at CEO compensation relative to the mean employee. We urge you to vote for Proposal 4 and take a step to fix the broken pace CEO compensation system even with it's just our company.
Thank you, Cortina. The Board opposes your proposal for the following reasons. The company uses global compensation practices to ensure fair and reasonable employee compensation. We benchmark pay components to those of other premier companies and adjust the necessary to attract, retain and motivate employees at all levels throughout the company. Almost all stockholders support the current executive compensation program.
For the last 5 years, 95% of the votes cast on our say and pay proposal approved the compensation of the CEO and other named executive officers. Finally, the actions requested in the proposal to consider pay grades and salary ranges of 93,000 employees when setting CEO compensation would impose significant implementation costs and burden company resources without discernible benefit. For these reasons, the board recommends voting against this proposal. We are finished presenting the items of business in the proxy statement, and now it is time to vote. If you submitted your proxy over the Internet, by telephone or by mail, it will be voted as you instructed.
Please ask for a ballot only if you did not previously vote or if you wish to change your vote. If you need a ballot, please stand and an attendant will give you a ballot. When you have marked your ballots, please stand and the attendants will collect them. The polls are about to close. If there's any stockholder who has not turned in a ballot and wishes to do so at this time, please stand so that the attendants can pick up your ballot.
The polls are now closed. The preliminary results of the voting will be announced later in the meeting. This concludes the business segment of the meeting and our live webcast. For those watching online, thank you for joining us.