Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the NMI Holdings annual meeting. Your host today will be Brad Shuster. Brad, the floor is yours.
Welcome to the twenty twenty one annual meeting of stockholders at n NMI Holdings Inc, and thank you for joining us today. I am Brad Shuster, executive chairman of NMI, and I will act as chair of the meeting, which I now call to order. We have been hosting virtual annual shareholder meetings since twenty twenty twenty fourteen, and we continue to believe the virtual meeting platform stands out as an effective and critical tool to keep us connected with our stockholders. I'd like to take a moment to introduce the other members of the NMI board of directors who are joining us by phone today. Michael Embler, James g Jones, Priya Huskins, Lynn McCreary, Claudia j Merkel, Michael Montgomery, Regina Muhlhauser, James h Ozan, and Steven l Scheid.
I would also like to introduce Carla Freeman and Lauren DeBarr of BDO USA LLP, our independent registered public accounting firm who are also in attendance by phone. Before we proceed, I would like to recognize our distinguished board member, Jim Ozan. Jim was an original board member of NMI serving since April 2012. He also has served as the chair of our compensation committee since that time. As you know, Jim is not standing for reelection, and so this will be his final stockholder meeting as a board member of NMI.
I want to personally and on behalf of the entire board, thank Jim for his guidance, friendship, and long term and dedicated service to NMI. Thank you, Jim. This meeting will be held in the manner disclosed in the instructions for attending the virtual annual meeting and rules of conduct that can be found at www.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/nmih2020one. The purpose of today's meeting is to consider and vote on each of the following proposals, election of nine directors, advisory approval of our executive compensation, and ratification of the appointment of BDO USA LLP as NMI's independent auditors. Electronic voting has been open since 12:01AM eastern time on 04/01/2021 for each of the matters on which stockholders will vote.
Voting will remain open until we close the voting prior to adjournment of this meeting. At this point, I hereby appoint Bill Letherbury, chief legal officer and secretary of NMI, a secretary of this meeting to keep a record of the minutes of the meeting and enter them in the corporate records of NMI. This annual meeting has been called pursuant to a notice of meeting dated 04/01/2021 delivered to NMI's stockholders of record at the close of business on 03/17/2021. The company has appointed Bill Leatherberry to act as inspector inspector of election. In accordance with the company's bylaws, Bill has taken and signed an inspector's oath, which will be filed with the minutes.
The board fixed 03/17/2021 as the record date for determining stockholders entitled to vote at this meeting. An affidavit has been delivered attesting to the notice or delivery of voting materials to stockholders of record beginning on or about 04/01/2021. These materials were either a notice to such stockholders that they could obtain via an Internet link, the notice of the meeting, the 2021 proxy statement, and the 2020 annual report to stockholders or physical documents were mailed to such stockholders of record and will be incorporated into the minutes of this meeting. The stockholder list showed that as of the record date, there were 85,353,382 shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting. We are informed by the inspector of elections that there are represented in person or by proxy shares of common stock representing 79,162,584 votes or approximately 92.74% of the voting power on the record date.
As this represents more than a majority of the voting power of all issued outstanding stock entitled to vote on the record date. A quorum is present for purposes of transacting business. I will now briefly review each proposal, the vote required to approve each proposal, and the NMI board of directors recommendation for each proposal. The first proposal is to elect nine directors to serve until the twenty twenty two annual meeting. The nominees of NMI who have been recommended by the nominating and governance committee and nominated by the board of directors are Bradley Shuster, Claudia Merkel, Michael Embler, James Jones, Priya Huskins, Lynn McCreary, Michael Montgomery, Regina Muhlhauser, and Steven Scheid.
A summary of the proposal, including biographical information for each of the director nominees, begins on page five of the proxy statement. NMI's bylaws require stockholders to provide advanced notice of their intent to nominate candidates for directors. No stockholder has provided such notice. I therefore declare the nominations for director closed. Directors are elected by plurality of the votes cast.
Accordingly, the nine director nominees that received the greatest number of votes at the annual meeting will be elected. In an uncontested election of directors, as is the case for this election, a director will be elected if he or she receives at least one vote. The board unanimously recommends that you vote for each of the nine director nominees. The second proposal is to approve on an advisory basis our executive compensation. A summary of the proposal begins on page 44 of the proxy statement.
Advisory approval of our executive compensation requires the affirmative vote of a majority of shares present in person or represented by proxy and entitled to vote at the meeting. The board unanimously recommends that you vote for this proposal. The final proposal is to ratify the appointment of BDO USA LLP as NMI's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending 12/31/2021. A summary of the proposal begins on page 45 of the proxy statement. Ratification of the appointment of BDO USA LLP as independent accounting firm requires the affirmative vote of a majority of the shares present in person or represented by proxy and entitled to vote at the meeting.
The board unanimously recommends that you vote for this proposal. These proposals are now formally before this meeting. Please cast your votes on the proposals before this meeting if you have not already done so. If you have previously voted, there is no need to vote again unless you wish to change your vote. Since all stockholders have now had adequate time to vote, I declare that the polls are now closed.
We will now turn to the preliminary results of the election. Our preliminary vote report shows that the nine nominees for election to the board are duly elected. The stockholders approved our executive compensation and the appointment of BDO USA LLP as the company's independent auditor for the year ending 12/31/2021 is ratified. Bill Leatherberry will tally the votes and provide us with a certified final report of the vote results. We will be reporting the final vote results in a form eight k to be filed with the SEC within four business days of today.
We will also include a copy of the Form eight k with the records of the meeting. There being no further business to come before the meeting, I declare that the meeting is now hereby adjourned. Thank you for your attendance at the formal business portion of this meeting. We will now answer questions submitted by stockholders during the course of this meeting. Let me remind you that we may make comments that might be characterized as forward looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Generally speaking, comments regarding NMI's or management's beliefs, expectations, intentions, goals, plans, outlooks or predictions of the future are forward looking statements. These statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to vary materially from the anticipated results implied by these forward looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in NMI's filings with the SEC, which are publicly available on the SEC's website. Are there any questions in the queue? Brad, there are currently no questions in the queue.
We now conclude the meeting, and thank you for your participation.
Again, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining the call. You may now disconnect.