Welcome to the 2025 Special Meeting of Stockholders for MicroStrategy Incorporated. Your host today is Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman and Chairman of the Board of Directors of MicroStrategy. Mr. Saylor, you may begin, sir.
Welcome to our 2025 Special Meeting of Stockholders. I'd like to start by thanking all of our stockholders for their ongoing support of MicroStrategy. I'm very excited about the future of our company, and I strongly believe that we're well positioned to continue to execute on our ambitious goals as a Bitcoin Treasury company and build shareholder value. Before we begin the formal portion of the meeting, I'd like to introduce certain individuals who are in attendance at today's meeting. First, I'd like to introduce the independent members of the board who are in attendance today: Brian Brooks, Jane Dietz, Steve Graham, Jarrod Patten, Rick Rickertsen, and Greg Winiarski. Brian, Jane, and Greg were added to the board last month.
We're excited that they've joined because they bring significant experience and expertise in digital assets, capital markets, and regulatory matters, and we believe they'll make strong contributions to the company and our Bitcoin strategy. Also attending are several members of our executive management team: Phong Le, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and also a member of our Board of Directors. Andrew Kang, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Ming Shao, our Executive Vice President and General Counsel. And Shirish Jajodia, our Vice President and Corporate Treasurer. We also have some of our outside advisors attending today: Tom Ward and Ryan Brewer on behalf of the company's outside counsel, WilmerHale. And Julia Cullen and Hugh Molnar on behalf of our independent registered public accounting firm, KPMG. And finally, James Raitt is attending on behalf of American Election Services, LLC. Jim serves as our Inspector of Election.
Thank you, Michael, for those opening remarks. My name is Ming Shao. I am General Counsel and Secretary. We will conduct the formal part of the meeting shortly. Before we begin the formal part, I would like to note certain procedural rules as follows: recording of any kind is not permitted during any portion of the meeting. Prior to the meeting, stockholders had an opportunity to submit questions and comments pertinent to the proposals to be acted upon at this special meeting via the intranet as set forth in the proxy statement. Questions will also be accepted during the special meeting if pertinent to the proposals to be acted upon today and can be submitted on the virtual meeting website.
After all of the proposals have been identified and the polls are declared open, we will share and respond to any questions that we received that are pertinent to the proposals. We will spend a maximum of 10 minutes for our remarks on questions relating to any single proposal. As indicated in the notice of special meeting and accompanying documents that were mailed to stockholders, we are here today to consider four proposals. The polls will open once all of the proposals have been read, and I have announced that the polls are open. The polls will remain open until I announce that the polls are closed. No votes, revocations of proxies, or changes to proxies will be accepted after the polls are closed. We'll announce the preliminary results of the voting on each matter immediately following tabulation of the voting.
We have received an affidavit from Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc., certifying that the notice of special meeting, proxy statement, and accompanying proxy cards were sent commencing on January 3rd, 2025, to all stockholders of record as of January 2nd, 2025. A copy of this affidavit will be included in the minutes of the meeting. Mr. Raitt has been appointed to act as Inspector of Election and will provide a count of the number of shares present at this meeting in person via this virtual meeting or through representation by proxy. As the count is being confirmed, I will read the four proposals to be voted on at this meeting. The first proposal is the approval and adoption of an amendment to our Second Restated Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of Class A Common Stock from 330 million shares to 10 billion 330 million shares.
The second proposal is the approval and adoption of an amendment to our Second Restated Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of Preferred Stock from five million shares to one billion five million shares. The third proposal is the approval and adoption of an amendment to the MicroStrategy Incorporated 2023 Equity Incentive Plan to provide for automatic equity award grants to new directors upon their appointment to the company's Board of Directors. The fourth proposal is the approval of one or more proposals to adjourn the special meeting if necessary to solicit additional proxies if there are insufficient votes at the time of the meeting to approve proposal one, proposal two, and/or proposal three. Mr. Raitt, does a quorum for this meeting exist?
Yes, Mr. Secretary. There are present at this meeting in person or through representation by proxy at least 76,948,519 shares of Class A Common Stock and 19,616,680 shares of Class B Common Stock, constituting 273,115,319 votes out of a total of 422,540,748 votes entitled to be cast at this meeting.
The polls are now open. As set forth in the proxy statement, stockholders of record as of the record date had an opportunity to submit questions in advance of the special meeting. If there are any stockholders with questions pertinent to the proposals being voted on who didn't submit questions in advance, you can enter them now using the Ask a Question dialog box on your screen. We'll allow a few minutes to see if we have any questions relating to the proposals while we respond to the stockholder questions we received in advance of today's meeting. The company received several pertinent stockholder questions in advance of today's special meeting. To facilitate an efficient discussion, we've grouped these questions by topic and will address each set of related questions together.
To start with, we received two sets of questions that don't refer directly to proposals one or two but are indirectly related to them. The first set of questions asked generally about our capital-raising activities and whether we plan to purchase additional Bitcoin. Michael Saylor, the company's Executive Chairman and Chairman of our Board of Directors, will respond on behalf of the company.
Thank you, Ming. As a Bitcoin Treasury company that has adopted Bitcoin as our primary Treasury reserve asset, we view our Bitcoin holdings as long-term holdings and expect to continue to accumulate Bitcoin. We've not set any specific target for the amount of Bitcoin we seek to hold and will continue to strategically accumulate Bitcoin using proceeds from equity and debt financings, as well as cash flows from our operations. Our Treasury strategy is designed to provide investors varying degrees of economic exposure to Bitcoin by offering a range of securities, including equity and fixed income securities. We will continue to monitor market conditions in determining whether to engage in additional financings to purchase additional Bitcoin. In October, we announced our 21/21 Plan, which targets raising $21 billion in equity and $21 billion in fixed income securities, including debt, convertible debt, and preferred stock, over the next three years.
In 2024 alone, we raised over $16 billion through the sale of common stock under our At-the-Market Equity Offerings program, closed five convertible notes offerings, resulting in gross proceeds of approximately $6.2 billion, and achieved BTC Yield of 74.3%. For an explanation of what BTC Yield is and how we use this KPI, I'd refer you to our most recent Form 8-K.
Thank you, Michael. Let's now turn to the second set of questions, which don't refer directly to proposals one or two but are indirectly related. The second set has to do with the topic of leverage. More specifically, we received several questions regarding whether we plan to take on additional debt and, if so, how we plan to pay any interest due under such instruments. Michael, can you address this topic as well?
We view our capacity to take on leverage holistically to include our access to equity capital markets, our operating cash flow, and our net assets. Potential financing structures that would increase leverage would depend on various factors. We are flexible in evaluating financing opportunities. We've had and expect to continue to have ample access to liquidity through our capital markets activities and cash flows from operations. We haven't sold and don't intend to sell our Bitcoin to satisfy our interest obligations as they become due. Our practice has been to take.
To be voted on at this meeting. For proposal one, we received questions regarding how we intend to use the additional authorized shares of Class A Common Stock if proposal one is approved, including how the issuance of shares may have a dilutive impact on existing stockholders and whether we intend to use some of the shares to affect a stock split. I'll once again turn this over to Michael to respond.
If proposal one is approved, we anticipate that we will use the additional authorized shares of Class A Common Stock for various purposes, including one, financing transactions such as public or private offerings of Class A Common Stock or settlement of redemptions or conversions of our existing convertible notes or any convertible notes or other fixed income instrument offerings we may issue in the future that are convertible into our Class A Common Stock. Three, employee incentives and compensation through our stock purchase plans and equity incentive plans. Four, for other corporate purposes. Other than sales through our existing ATM program, conversions or exercises of our outstanding securities into Class A Common Stock and future issuance under our 2023 Equity Incentive Plan and 2021 Employee Stock Purchase Plan, we do not currently have any specific plans, proposals, or arrangements to issue any of the proposed. Sorry.
Increasing the number of authorized shares does not in and of itself result in dilution to our existing shareholders, but it does give us much-needed capacity to continue our strategy of issuing more shares to raise capital when we believe doing so will achieve positive Bitcoin yield. If you look at the appreciation of our stock price in 2024, this capital-raising strategy proved to be economically accretive, not dilutive, for holders of our common stock on a per-share basis. We intend to continue pursuing this strategy. We believe that the increase in the availability of authorized shares of Class A Common Stock is necessary to allow us to continue to execute our business strategy, including our 21/21 Plan. We would have the ability to use the additional authorized shares to affect a stock split, but there are no immediate plans to do so.
For Proposal Two, we received a question regarding whether the issuance of the Preferred Stock authorized by the amendment would have a dilutive impact on existing shareholders if Proposal Two is approved. I'll again ask Michael to respond.
Since fixed income securities may include Preferred Stock , the company needs an increase in the number of authorized shares of Preferred Stock so that we have the capacity and flexibility we need to execute our business strategy, including our 21/21 Plan. If and when we decide to raise capital through the issuance of Preferred Stock , we would intend to do so in a way that is economically accretive and not dilutive to existing shareholders.
Thank you, Michael. With respect to proposal three, we've been asked whether MicroStrategy intends to further expand its Board of Directors and how it determined the amount of equity compensation to provide to new directors upon their appointment to the board. Rickertsen, one of our outside directors and chairman of our board's compensation committee, will respond on behalf of the company.
Thank you, Ming. We recently appointed three new directors: Brian Brooks, Jane Dietz, and Greg Winiarski to our board. We think there's a good mix of qualifications, experience, and attributes among the directors that make up our board following these recent appointments, and we believe that this group of talented individuals brings a diverse set of experiences and capabilities to the table and should work well together to help us innovate and grow our business. We don't see any particular need to further increase the size of the board in the near term, but we'll continue to evaluate the composition of our board on an ongoing basis to determine whether its size and composition are appropriate.
With respect to the amount of equity compensation provided to our new directors, as disclosed in the proxy statement for the special meeting in December 2024, our board determined that we should amend our Equity Incentive Plan to provide for initial equity awards to newly appointed non-employee directors with an aggregate fair value equal to $2 million on the date of their initial appointment to our board, split evenly between stock options and RSUs, restricted stock units. In determining to adopt the amendment and recommend it for approval and adoption by our stockholders, our board concluded that there are several important factors unique to MicroStrategy that support awarding non-employee director compensation at this level.
Specifically, due to our novel Bitcoin acquisition strategy and frequent participation in capital markets transactions, our directors are expected to provide a high degree of engagement and responsiveness, possess a high level of experience, qualifications, attributes, and skills, and be capable of evaluating complex equity and debt capital markets transactions in support of our strategic initiatives and nimbly assessing and changing direction based on variations in and the unpredictability of the capital markets.
We'll now pause for a few moments to see if we received any additional questions related to the proposals. At this point, we'll no longer accept additional questions during today's meeting.
Just who's going to stay?
We received a number of questions during the meeting which are not germane to the proposals or which have already been covered by our prepared remarks. We did, however, receive one question which we are going to respond to, and Michael Saylor will respond to it. The question is as follows: If proposal one is approved, will there be a maximum number of ATM shares that can be sold per month or year?
The answer to that question is no. There's no maximum number of shares that could be sold in any given time period per the ATM program.
Thank you, Michael. There are no other questions to be responded to during today's meeting, and this concludes the Q&A portion of the meeting. If there are any stockholders present who either have not submitted a proxy and wish to vote online during the meeting, or who have submitted a proxy but wish to revoke their proxy or change their vote, you may do so by clicking the voting button near the center of your screen. I will pause now for a few moments to give some time to those stockholders who wish to click on the voting button for those purposes. This concludes the business items on the agenda for this special meeting. The polls are now closed, and Mr. Raitt will tabulate the votes and report the results of the meeting. Is the Inspector of Election ready with the vote tabulation?
Yes, I am, Mr. Secretary. I will now report the preliminary tabulation of the voting for each proposal. When I read a percentage figure with respect to proposal one and two, it represents the votes cast as a percentage of the outstanding number of shares entitled to vote. When I read a percentage figure with respect to proposal three, it represents the votes cast as a percentage of all the votes cast in favor of and against the proposal at this meeting. On proposal one, to approve and adopt an amendment to Article 4 of the second restated certificate of incorporation of MicroStrategy Incorporated to increase the number of authorized shares of Class A Common Stock, par value $0.001 per share from 330 million shares to 10,330 million shares. 234,865,788 votes or 55.58% have been voted in favor of this proposal.
37,893,337 votes or 8.96% have been voted against this proposal. 356,194 votes have abstained, and there were zero broker non-votes.
I hereby declare that the amendment to increase the number of authorized shares of Class A Common Stock has been approved and adopted.
On proposal two, to approve and adopt an amendment to Article 4 of the Second Restated Certificate of Incorporation of MicroStrategy Incorporated to increase the number of authorized shares of Preferred Stock , par value $0.001 per share from 5,000,000 shares to 1,005,000,000 shares. 234,500,360 votes or 55.50% have voted in favor of this proposal. 38,225,016 votes or 9.04% have been voted against this proposal. 389,943 votes have abstained, and there were zero broker non-votes.
I hereby declare that the amendment to increase the number of authorized shares of Preferred Stock has been approved and adopted.
On Proposal Three, to approve and adopt an amendment to the MicroStrategy Incorporated 2023 Equity Incentive Plan to provide for automatic equity award grants to new directors upon their appointments to the Board of Directors. 239,242,436 votes or 87.88% have been voted in favor of this proposal. 32,987,858 votes or 12.12% have been voted against this proposal. 885,025 votes have abstained, and there were zero broker non-votes.
I hereby declare that the equity plan amendment has been approved and adopted. Proposal four, to approve one or more of proposals to adjourn the special meeting if necessary to solicit additional proxies if there are insufficient votes at the time of the special meeting to approve proposal one, proposal two, and/or proposal three, does not need to be brought before a vote because the first three proposals were approved. There is no further business to be considered at this meeting. Meeting is adjourned.
Thank you, Ming. Thank you, everyone, for joining MicroStrategy's 2025 special meeting of stockholders. And thanks again to our stockholders for your continued support and your ongoing confidence in MicroStrategy.
The conference has concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.