Let's see if we have the mics on. Okay, we're in good shape. Well, good morning, everyone.
Good morning.
Come on, we can do better than that. This is a Nucor meeting. Good morning.
Good morning.
There we go. I'm John Ferriola, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President of Nucor Corporation. I'd like to welcome those of you who are here today, as well as the Nucor teammates, stockholders, and others who are listening to the live webcast of this meeting. As chairman of the board, I will be chairing this meeting and would like to call the 2019 annual meeting of the stockholders of Nucor Corporation to order. A. Rae Eagle, Nucor's General Manager and Corporate Secretary, will act as secretary of this meeting. We have with us today several key members of Nucor's management team. Jim Frias, our Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer, and Executive Vice President. Craig Feldman, Executive Vice President of Raw Materials. Ladd Hall, Executive Vice President of Flat-Rolled Products. Ray Napolitan, Executive Vice President of Engineered Bar Products. Dave Sumoski, Executive Vice President of Merchant and Rebar Products.
Leon Topalian, Executive Vice President of Beam and Plate Products. Chad Utermark, Executive Vice President of Fabricated Construction Products. Joe Stratman, our Chief Digital Officer and Executive Vice President. Joe recently announced that he is retiring next month after more than 29 years of dedicated service to Nucor. Joe has been an exceptional and a resourceful leader who has made outstanding contributions throughout his career to Nucor. Over the past three decades, he has held key roles in our steel, raw materials, steel product businesses, as well as our business development and digital initiatives. Joe, thank you for your leadership. As I've said to you personally, and on behalf of 26,000 of our teammates, you will be missed. Please remember that you and Jill will always be members of the Nucor family. Come and see us often. Let's give Joe another round of applause.
Effective May 19th, MaryEmily Slate will be promoted to Executive Vice President and will assume responsibilities for the Tubular Products group, logistics, and certain joint ventures. MaryEmily is a dynamic leader with 19 years of experience at Nucor. She will be a strong addition to our executive management team. Welcome, MaryEmily. We also have with us today the following current directors and nominees for election as directors. General Lloyd Austin. General Austin is a retired four-star general who served for 41 years in the U.S. Army. Lloyd has been a director since 2017. Thank you for your service to our country. Patrick Dempsey, who's President and Chief Executive Officer of Barnes Group. Patrick has been a director since 2016. Chris Kearney, retired Chairman and CEO of SPX FLOW. Chris has been a director since 2008. Laurette Koellner, retired President of Boeing International.
Laurette has been a director since 2015. Finally, John Walker, non-executive chairman of Global Brass and Copper Holdings, Inc. John has been a director since 2008, and has served as Nucor's lead director since 2017. Victoria Haynes is not able to join us this morning. We also have with us several of Nucor's advisors. From the law firm of Moore & Van Allen, James Wyche is with us today. James. From the accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, we have Matt Kosmiski, the lead partner for the audit engagement. How are you, Matt? Rich Rodoto, Senior Manager. Hi, Rich. There are several other people in the audience that I'd like to recognize. We have several, three to be exact, retirees. I have the list here, but I really don't need it. Okay. Let me just get right into it. Dave Aycock. Dave was our chairman, CEO, and president.
Retired, but still a great friend and investor in our company. Thank you, Dave. His daughter, Daphne, who's always hesitant to stand up, but we're going to ask you to please stand up. Of course, Dan DiMicco, our former chairman, CEO, and president and currently chairman emeritus. Good to see you, Dan. Finally, we have Betsy Lieberman with us today. Where are you, Betsy? Betsy, I think I have the number right, 35 years of service with Nucor? That's amazing. Congratulations. Okay, now on to some business. The secretary will please report the stockholders present by proxy and in person.
Mr. Chairman
Thank you. Had a little technical issue here, but we're good. We're catching up. Okay, here we go. Since the holders of the majority of the shares entitled to vote are present by proxy and in person, a quorum is present for the transaction of all items of business. I will ask the secretary to file the proxies with Nucor's records. Ms. Eagle, will you please report on the notice of meeting sent to the stockholders of record as of March 11, 2019? These are the holders entitled to vote at this meeting.
I present to this meeting for the notice of internet availability or proxy.
Ms. Eagle, would you please annex your affidavit to the minutes of this meeting? Sid Rodrie with Broadridge Financial Solutions has been appointed Inspector of Election as required by Delaware law. He has submitted his oath of office executed before a notary public. I ask that his oath be attached to the minutes of this meeting. The next order of business is to consider the five proposals for this annual meeting as set forth in the proxy statement. Proposal number one is the election of the seven directors for one year. The terms of Lloyd Austin, Patrick Dempsey, Victoria Haynes, Chris Kearney, Fred Kohler, John Walker, and myself will expire at this annual meeting. The board's governance and nominating committee has recommended. The board of directors has nominated these seven nominees for re-election for one-year terms ending at the annual meeting in 2020. There are no other nominees.
Proposal number two is the ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as Nucor's independent registered public accounting firm. The audit committee of the board of directors has selected the firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers to serve as independent auditors of Nucor for the year ending December 31, 2019. PricewaterhouseCoopers has acted in such capacity for Nucor since 1989. Nucor's board of directors unanimously recommends a vote for the resolution. Proposal number three is an advisory vote on the named executive officer compensation. Nucor's board of directors unanimously recommends a vote for the resolution. The next two proposals were submitted by stockholders. Under Nucor's rules of conduct for its annual meeting, a stockholder or stockholder group offering a proposal as printed in the proxy statement is allowed a total of three minutes to introduce and discuss the proposal. Proposal number four is a stockholder proposal about a lobbying report.
Brady Quirk-Garvin, a representative for the proponent, is here to present the proposal. Brady?
Good morning, fellow stockholders and member of the board. My name is Brady Quirk-Garvin. I'm here representing Domini Impact Equity Fund. I move proposal four, asking our company to provide a report on its state and federal lobbying expenditures, including indirect funding of lobbying through trade associations and support for groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council. This is the fourth straight year that stockholders have asked Nucor to improve its lobbying disclosure. Transparency and accountability in corporate spending to influence public policy are in the best interest of Nucor stockholders. With Trump's steel tariffs, Nucor's lobbying has been attracting media scrutiny this year. Steel producers spent more on lobbying in 2018 than any other year since at least 1998. The largest steel spender was Nucor, which spent more than $2.2 million on lobbying. Nucor has reportedly sought to influence the appointment of two high-ranking trade officials.
Since 2010, Nucor has spent $17.75 million on federal lobbying activities, and there is incomplete disclosure about spending at the state level, where our company also lobbies extensively. For example, in New York State, Nucor has already spent more than $1.2 million on lobbying since 2011. Nucor is required to report all of its lobbying and already has this information, so it could easily be provided to stockholders in a report. Corporations contribute millions to trade associations that lobby on their behalf without specific disclosure or accountability. Nucor fails to disclose its trade member association membership and does not disclose its trade association payments, nor the amounts used for lobbying. Our research shows that Nucor Chairman and CEO, John Ferriola, sits on the board of the National Association of Manufacturers, or NAM.
For 2017 and 2028, the National Association of Manufacturers spent more than $17.5 million on federal lobbying, but stockholders currently have no way to know Nucor's trade association's contributions or how they're being used to lobby on its behalf. Investors are concerned that undisclosed lobbying poses reputational risks when the lobbying can lead to regulatory capture. We believe Nucor stockholders face this risk on the issue of tariffs, which Nucor has been lobbying for, but can lead to higher prices for consumers and charges of unfair competition. The proxy advisor, ISS, supports this proposal. Our request for disclosure is a call for transparency and accountability in the spending of our stockholder resources. We urge support for this proposal. Thank you.
Thank you. Nucor's board of directors unanimously recommends a vote against the proposal for the reasons outlined in the proxy. Under Nucor's charter, shareholders, stockholders have cumulative voting rights. Wrong page, Jim, I think.
Sure.
Okay, thank you. There we go. Okay, proposal 5 is a stockholder proposal for political spending report. Brady, you're also going to present this proposal?
Yes, sir. Thank you. Good morning again. My name is still Brady Quirk-Garvin, and this time I am representing the First Affirmative Financial Network. I am here to move proposal number five. It requests greater accountability and transparency with regard to Nucor's political spending. We have no doubt that the company, as it points out in its opposition statement, complies with current laws. However, compliance with law does not equate to adequate disclosure to investors. Our proposal requests that disclosure is considered material to many investors, necessary for investors to evaluate how Nucor's involvement in public policy is managed, of increasing interest to investors. This interest is demonstrated by increasing support of similar disclosure requests at other companies, and by a record number of comments to the SEC in favor of rulemaking that mandates political spending disclosure.
Many companies already provide the disclosure necessary to adequately evaluate risks, including contributions to state-level political candidates and parties, contributions to support or oppose ballot measures, payments to trade associations that support election-related activity, and payments to other non-profit entities that engage in political activity. One area receiving particular investor scrutiny is political spending made with corporate funds via third parties. When a company contributes funds that are used by a trade association or other entity for political purposes, it delegates an important function to the third party, necessitating diligent management oversight and disclosure to investors. These third parties are not obligated to disclose their contributors, and this money is now aptly referred to as dark money. Our company states that membership in such organizations does not equate to an agreement of all its positions, and therefore, presumably, its political spending and priorities.
This fact does not eliminate the potential business and reputational risks posed by contributing corporate dollars that fund political spending of these affiliations. We believe that companies should be accountable for all political spending, not just the political spending that by law cannot be hidden. There is an effective solution to this lack of accountability, and that is disclosure. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy supported this idea in his 2010 Citizens United opinion. Through disclosure, he said, quote, "Shareholders can determine whether their corporation's political speech advances the corporation's interest in making profits. Citizens can see whether elected officials are in the pocket of so-called moneyed interests." Public attention and scrutiny of corporate political contributions have reached a new level of intensity, and contributions via third party present investors with a significant blind spot. Dark money organizations spent at least $182 million in the 2016 presidential cycle.
In the 2018 midterm, these organizations spent a staggering $302 million, either spent directly or funneled through super PACs. Nucor's board of directors has a fiduciary duty to ensure that the company's assets are being used to further the long-term interests of the firm and to fully disclose the company's public policy priorities and spending to investors. We once again urge shareholders to vote in favor of this proposal. Thank you.
Thank you. Nucor's board of directors unanimously recommends a vote against this proposal for the reasons outlined in the proxy statement. The polls are now open to vote on the five matters presented to stockholders. If any of you prefer to vote in person, please raise your hand for a ballot if you have not yet received one. Under Nucor's charter, stockholders have cumulative voting rights for the election of directors. Cumulative voting means that you have the number of votes equal to the number of shares you own times the number of directors to be elected, which is seven. You may cast the total number of votes you have in favor of only one of these seven nominees for director, or you may spread your votes among them as you wish. With respect to the other proposals, you have one vote for each share that you own.
After you have completed your ballot, please raise your hand so that we can collect it. If there are no further votes to be cast, I declare the polls closed and ask the Inspector of Elections to count the votes. I now request that the Inspector of Election announce the results of the vote.
Mr. Chairman, I have a certificate of the Inspector of Elections certifying to the vote. Proposal one, Lloyd Austin, Patrick Dempsey, John Ferriola, Victoria Haynes, Chris Kearney, Bernard L. M. Kasriel, and John Walker have been reelected as directors of the company. On proposal two, the selection of PricewaterhouseCoopers to serve as the registered independent accounting firm for the company for the fiscal year ending December 31st, 2019, has been ratified by the stockholders. On proposal three, Nucor's named executive officer compensation on an advisory fee has been approved by the stockholders. On Proposal four, the stockholder proposal regarding a lobbying report has been defeated by the stockholders. And on Proposal five, the stockholder proposal regarding a political spending report has been defeated by the stockholders.
Thank you, Sid. If there's no further business to come before this meeting, a motion to adjourn is in order. Thank you. Well done. I know you've been practicing that, Greg. A motion has been made and seconded. Without objection, I declare that this meeting is adjourned. We will now proceed with a discussion of Nucor business. Before I begin, let me remind you all that we are making some forward-looking statements in this meeting. Now, without further delay, some great news. The company has set new records for earnings per share, revenue, and tons of steel shipped in 2018. Strong economic growth fueled our record year. Tax reform and ongoing efforts to streamline the federal regulatory system took a good economy at the end of 2017 and made it even better.
On top of that, the Section 232 steel tariffs provided another tailwind for the industry by preventing unfairly traded steel imports from entering the U.S. market. Between these tariffs and the cumulative impact of trade cases our industry has won in recent years, unfairly traded imports declined significantly last year. Increased demand levels and lower imports generated approximately 6 million tons of added volume for the U.S. steel industry last year. The strong economy and progress on fair trade were certainly important to our success in 2018. Equally important was being well-positioned to benefit from that. For that, we can thank the consistent efforts of our Nucor teammates year in and year out to steadily transform Nucor into the industry leader it is today. Our teammates have been executing Nucor's long-term strategy of profitable growth, which has built on our traditional competitive strengths and created new ones.
Today's Nucor is diversified across numerous products and regional markets. We are well-regarded by our customers, the company is strongly capitalized and well-positioned to profitably grow in the years to come. For the next few minutes, I'd like to speak to you about Nucor's strengths and why they are so important. Then I'll spend a few minutes discussing a few of the things we are doing to position Nucor for the future. Without a doubt, Nucor's most significant strengths remain our culture and our people. We believe our teammates are the company's most valuable asset, even more importantly, our teammates understand and believe this also. This belief is critical and is built on a foundation of trust that we have consistently sought to reinforce. We do this in a number of ways, especially by emphasizing the following. Safety.
Everyone understands it's the most important consideration every day. Nothing is more important than the safety of our teammates. Absolutely nothing. Teamwork, encouraged and rewarded throughout the company. A no-layoff practice. Do your job well today and you'll have it tomorrow. Paying for performance. When Nucor succeeds, our teammates do well. This alignment reinforces the behaviors we want to encourage and helps us to continuously get better at what we do. Finally, our teammates live where we do business, so they take great care and pride in Nucor's environmental performance. Nucor teammates regularly find ways for the company to support the communities where we live and work. Central to the way that we do business is the autonomy that our local management teams have to make and implement the decisions that they believe will produce the best possible results.
Our teammates are empowered to find the best path to success at their divisions, they do just that. Today, Nucor is North America's most diversified steel and steel products company. Our business divisions complement each other, making the whole company stronger. For example, the tubular product capabilities that we have been developing are an important source of base load demand for our sheet mills. Working closely with our own pipe and tube mills has enabled our sheet mills to perform better for both internal and external pipe and tube mill customers. Our tubular mills have likewise benefited from their strong partnerships with the sheet mills, enjoying higher quality, more reliable substrate supply, improving their conversion cost and the quality of their product. Today's Nucor is a much stronger and more diversified company than the one I joined 28 years ago.
We are vertically integrated and a vertically integrated industry leader with attractive businesses all across North America. We are the market share leader in the majority of the North American steel products, and we still see numerous opportunities for continued profitable growth. More about that later. Another critically important factor behind our success over the years is our cost position. Nucor's highly variable cost structure ensures that we earn a robust metal margin regardless of market conditions or the direction that steel price may be headed. In 2018, very strong pricing and demand environment, we were fortunate to enjoy a particularly strong metal margin. Even during the more difficult periods, such as 2015, when very weak oil prices and an influx of imports made for more challenging conditions, Nucor's metal margin per ton was still very healthy.
Nucor is able to remain consistently cost competitive because of our flexible electric arc furnace-based steelmaking technology, our access to abundant ferrous scrap metal, and the attractive power contracts we have secured. The critical difference in Nucor is our highly skilled teammates who are committed and incentivized to constantly innovate to lower our conversion costs. Nucor teammates find ways to do more with less or just plain do more. These teammates turn Nucor's competitive advantages into leadership positions in the markets we serve. Every Nucor teammate understands that productivity and innovation are the keys to maintaining Nucor's competitive edge. That brings me to our financial profile. At Nucor, we have always believed that financial strength is a competitive advantage. We have consistently worked to convert our consistently strong cash flow position into a strong balance sheet.
This means that we're always ready to deal with a crisis, like the Great Recession of 2009, or to seize opportunities, like the rapid establishment of a leadership position in Tubular Products in 2016 and 2017. Today's Nucor is well-capitalized, with the strongest credit rating in the steel sector and generates strong cash flow even during more challenging market environments such as we experienced in 2015. With that, as I promised, let me spend just a few minutes on what we are doing to position Nucor for continued success. Many of you have seen our five drivers to profitable growth before. These represent our thinking on what we should be focused on to bring Nucor forward to the next level of success. Some, such as being a low-cost producer and achieving market leadership, represent what we have always done and what we must continue to do.
Other drivers, such as moving up the value chain, expanding channels to market, and achieving commercial excellence, represent more recent initiatives that we are also executing on today. We feel strongly that they too are key to Nucor's prospects in the months and the years to come. Let me turn now to some examples of how these drivers translate into work Nucor's teammates do every day. This slide shows our recently updated mission statement, which we recently updated to better reflect how we will achieve our next level of success. It says, "We will take care of our customers by delivering the highest-value products, services, experiences, and relationships to ensure long-term success." We rolled this out across the company during the first quarter.
I view it as a great summary of the kind of company we need to be, and I expect that as each Nucor teammate internalizes it, our progress towards true commercial excellence, one of our five drivers, will accelerate. Let me provide a little bit more background here. While we are happy with Nucor's position and what we have achieved together, we are not satisfied. We are never satisfied. We know that we can never be satisfied. We must be continuously looking for the next initiative that we can undertake to improve Nucor's competitive standing. Nucor earned its position as North America's largest and most profitable steel and steel products company primarily by focusing on internal factors like safety, quality, cost, productivity, profitability and environmental stewardship. We are well aware, however, that such operational excellence alone is not enough to propel us forward to future success.
We need to become commercially excellent as well. That is why our mission statement has evolved to reflect the importance of enduring mutually beneficial customer relationships. We will execute this mission by focusing on many of the same things that got us here: safety, quality, cost, environmental responsibility. We will expand our expectations to include partnerships, financial strength, and customer engagement. We have a number of initiatives underway to ensure that we live up to this evolved mission. For example, we have established enterprise account managers for some of our largest strategic customers. We have revised our commercial teams' incentive compensation plan to better align their efforts with our commercial excellence objectives. We have undertaken on an ongoing digitalization initiative, much of which is aimed at making it easier for our customers to do business with us. We are working as well to refine the Nucor brand.
Our vision for the Nucor brand is not only to represent who we are as a company, but also a projection of who we want to be, a company that builds powerful partnerships with our customers to deliver powerful results. With our evolved mission comes a new tagline. I'm sure you can figure it out by now. Powerful partnerships, powerful results. Years ago, Nucor was a little steel company that could, fighting to win by doing things differently and better. Today, we are a market leader. We have proven who we are and what we are capable of. We have evolved as a company. It is appropriate that we shift the way we speak, communicate, and present ourselves to our customers and to the marketplace.
Finally, I'll take just a few more minutes to review some of the major capital investments we are making to position Nucor for the future. These are also guided by and very much reflect our five drivers of profitable growth. We currently have 10 significant growth projects going on across the company that will begin operations between now and 2022. We are particularly excited that several of these are coming online this year, 2019. Among our sheet products, our new cold mill in Hickman, Arkansas, has started up already and has shipped prime product. This flexible cold reduction mill expands our capability to produce motor lamination, high-strength, low-alloy, and advanced high-strength steel products. Congratulations, and thanks to the entire Nucor Steel Arkansas team on a very successful startup. Another significant sheet product initiative is our hot-band galvanizing line at Nucor Steel Gallatin.
We expect it to begin producing pickled and oiled coils in July and galvanized coils in August. Lastly, on the sheet product side of things this year, our joint venture galvanizing line with JFE Steel, located in Mexico, is in the midst of qualifying with customers. These projects, as well as our other projects in sheet steel, are squarely focused on moving Nucor up the value chain in terms of products and solutions that we deliver to our customers, the third of our five drivers. Among long products, we have our merchant bar mill expansion in Illinois and a new rebar micro mill in Missouri, both on track for startups later in 2019. We have recently received our permits and commenced construction on our Frostproof, Florida, rebar micro mill. We are targeting startup there in mid-2020.
While they create several advantages and points of competitive differentiation for us, our long product investments are primarily motivated by the importance that we have always placed on being a low-cost producer, the first of our five drivers for profitable growth. Once these investments are completed, we expect to enjoy important conversion costs as well as logistical advantages, both on inbound scrap and outbound customer shipments. Logistics are an increasingly important competitive factor in Nucor's businesses. I don't want to close this morning without mentioning the most ambitious project we have announced, our plans to build a new state-of-the-art plate mill in Brandenburg, Kentucky. This is a strategic move to solidify Nucor's position as the leader in the U.S. plate market, not just in terms of volume, but also quality, reliability, and cost.
Consistent with my comment a moment ago on logistics, our site on the Ohio River is located in the center of our country's largest plate-consuming market, strengthening our ability to serve our customers with lower plate costs and superior on-time delivery. Further, we will be in a region with abundant low-cost scrap that is well-covered by our David J. Joseph scrap business. We are very excited about this investment and our entire pipeline of value-enhancing growth projects. Nucor has achieved success over the past five decades by building market leadership positions, and we have done this by providing our customers with unmatched performance in quality, cost, product range, and on-time delivery. At Nucor, we build powerful partnerships that deliver powerful results. The more successful we can make our customers, the greater success we will have as Nucor shareholders and teammates. At this time, I will open the floor for questions.
If you have a question, please step up to the microphone in the middle of the room.
Gary Burgess. Most of the world considers when you're on the board for 10 years, you're no longer independent. Four out of our seven directors are. Directors, what can we do about changing that?
Let me start by contesting that assumption. I know each member of the board very well. I can tell you that not only are they extremely qualified, extremely experienced, but they are acting in a very independent manner. If you attend any of the board meetings or if you are at any of our private lunches or dinners or breakfasts, you would learn that they are very independent. They challenge me, they challenge our management team, and they challenge our company in many aspects. I disagree with you. We do have a very qualified board of directors. They're extremely competent, and they are acting in a very independent manner.
John, if I could add one comment. You started with a statement like it's a fact that the majority of the world agrees with this 10-year standard, and I don't think that's a true statement either. Otherwise, we wouldn't have the strength of re-election results that we have and other companies have with board members with more than 10 years of service. I would just refute that statement that most of the world thinks that 10 years should be the limit.
Let me just correct myself. I apologize if I'm wrong, but there is a general understanding that after 10 years, you're no longer independent, and I may have that wrong, but I believe that. I think after you've been on the board 10 years, you're no longer independent. Anything you do would be much appreciated. If I look on page 86, I know our stock is highly volatile and changes at the end of the year, but we're basically down 15% and your salary is up. Why is that? Doesn't seem right to me.
Well, let me start by agreeing with your first comment, okay, that our stock is highly volatile. We're in a very cyclical business, as you know. Cycles change. With that, there's a result in our stock price. I will say to you, when I look at the, as we just covered, the 10 projects that we have going forward, not only do they increase our ability in the steel sector, they do a better job of balancing out and increasing the diversification of our company, which I believe will result in more consistent, less variable profits, and a more consistent stock price.
You mentioned earlier if you could come to a board meeting. Could I come to the board meeting with the next pay?
We all know the answer to that, okay? Unfortunately, you cannot. You can read the reports, okay? I also would encourage you at any time to come and visit with me personally if you have questions about the board or the company's performance. I'm always welcome to speak to any of our shareholders about our performance or our company.
Very good. Well, thank you very much. I vote for the individual. If they can extremely have high credential level, vote for them. I think we're Republican-affiliated. Dan was part of the Trump team. Trump doesn't take a salary, he donates back the $400,000 that he gets.
Unfortunately, I didn't have his experiences before the current job, okay? Inherit the amount of money that he did. The answer to that would be no.
I briefly read the rebuttals for proposals four and five, it really didn't say anything to me. Of course, I don't understand everything correctly. Could you from the heart respond to why we're not transparent? I think Dan did a good job of being transparent. I think I would like to see us be.
Well, our policy has not changed in the last 20 years easily. It's defined very well in the proxy. We believe that we comply with all federal regulations. We also have internal regulations and guidelines that we follow. As I said, we're confident that our position is the right position based upon our comments in the proxy.
One last comment. This complies with all the laws, regulations, and things like that. Hope I can say that a lot of people think this is corporate bullshit. We ratcheted up the CEO pay, I think we justify a lot of things. Sorry if I stepped out of line, I think the big thing is we have a divide in the country, I'm very much Republican, pro-capitalism, somehow we need to do a better job.
Thank you for your comments and your questions. Francois, welcome.
Good morning, John, and good morning, fellow stockholders. Well, I believe you shouldn't be a stockholder of a company if you don't support the company that you own. It's your company. You own the company. If you don't support the company, voice your opinion, and if you cannot come to a conclusion, then sell your stock. On that note, I would just like to know, and I've been wondering about this for a long time. Every time we have the meeting, it's mentioned that PwC has been our auditors since 1989. Again, on independence, I would like to ask, and I believe that we have a good relationship with PwC, but 30 years, isn't that too long?
Jim?
Let me begin by answering the question, John. If you want to add something, you can. As part of the way auditing firms and public companies work together, there's a rotation of the audit chair every five years, specifically to deal with that issue of independence. In fact, we have a new signing audit partner from PwC that's here with us today, Matt Kosmiski, who's just started his five-year term for 2019. That's part of the answer. Additionally, there has been recommendations in the past about forcing a more frequent rotation of the actual public accounting firm. Part of the quality audit is the result of the auditors knowing the company well. Because of the length of time that PwC has been in our detailed business and seeing it grow and evolve, they're better able to do their work in a way that creates an effective audit.
If you were to change firms, you would actually dilute the quality of the audit, in our opinion, for at least two or three years while a new firm figured things out that PwC has ingrained deeply in their knowledge. Not having to start with the basic building blocks of what Nucor does, they can really dig in deep into subtle questions about things like revenue recognition or fraud risk because of their in-depth knowledge of the company.
The entire team has rotated every five years?
No, there is a fairly frequent rotation in the accounting staff just because of the turnover that happens in public accounting. That probably is true that there's a rotation every five years, it's required that only the signing audit partner is rotated, the other folks come and go as their careers develop and advance as they become promoted or leave the firm for private sector work. Only the signing audit partner is required to rotate every five years.
I think I would add one thing to that. We, of course, review the quality of the work done by PwC, it's stellar. If that should change, frankly, then we would consider making a change.
The audit committee, of course, oversees that. Management has some voice, the audit committee makes that decision on the board.
The decision by the Board, how much is it influenced by Management? You say they have an influence, but how much is it influenced?
I'd say that's hard to monitor, but they're an independent Board, and if they didn't agree with Management, they would choose to change public accounting firms and go through a process.
I have a finance question. I didn't pick up on it on the call, and I haven't read the annual report thoroughly yet. What is our current debt-to-equity ratio at the moment?
It's in the neighborhood of 30% at the end of the first quarter. I think it was 29.
29% debt to equity.
Mm-hmm. That's been a historical level. We've always been a very fiscally conservative company, we're continuing that practice today.
Yes. Everyone who owns the stock appreciates the dividend, I guess that's why most people from outside the company own the stock. I appreciate the conservatism with the dividend. That said, the company does generate a lot of cash flow. Would the board consider an increase in the dividend?
We always take a look at what profitable growth opportunities are ahead of us, right now we see a lot of them. As you've heard, we've invested quite a bit. We have about $3.2 billion in projects going on right now. If you look over the last 10 years, we've invested about $9 billion of that cash that we've been generating back into the company in profitable growth. We always take a look at that, we have a policy of returning about 40% back to our shareholders, we do that through dividends or share repurchases. We take a look at which makes the most sense financially at the time. Right now, we've got the split that you are enjoying.
On operations, I would like to ask specifically about Skyline Steel in New Jersey. If the department heads want to comment on that, or if John wants to comment on that. Can you elaborate on operations at Skyline Steel?
Well, the headquarters are located in Rock Hill, South Carolina. We have operations throughout North America. It's both an engineering company and a production company. It specializes in piling and pipe. It's been very successful. We worked with Skyline in a customer-supplier relationship for, I'm going to say 20 to 30 years. More than that, 40 years. Okay. We had an opportunity to bring them into the Nucor family a few years ago through a unique chain of events, and we took advantage of that opportunity, and they've been a profitable part of our company since.
I have one last question, the fact that it happened is not Nucor's fault. If you don't want to comment on whether they're our customer or not, that's okay, but do we supply steel to the, I was going to say aerospace industry. Do we supply to Boeing?
We don't put much steel in airplanes.
Okay.
We might supply some small components, but I don't believe we sell at all. Where's Bloom? Where's Rich? Are we selling anything to Boeing at all?
No.
Okay.
No.
We do not supply Boeing with anything.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you.
If I can make a comment. Tom Izzo was highly critical of his openly chastising Henry, the verdict's not entirely out, but the big thing is Henry played better in the tournament. What came about that is Tom Izzo loves his players. His chastising players made them better players, grew the relationship. All I'm saying is, just because you criticize someone doesn't mean you don't love them.
Are you saying you love us?
I love you a little.
That's what I'm reading into this statement.
I loved you a little bit more when Dan was president. He was a little bit warmer. He introduced the stockholders and things like that. That overly impressed me. I thought Dan was very transparent. I'm just asking for transparency. I'm trying to improve the world.
I can't be more transparent than to invite you into my office to discuss any topics that you'd like to talk about.
Well, thank you. I'm
Now, do you have a question somewhere? Is there a question in here?
No, I just wanted to say, hey, just because you criticize someone doesn't mean you don't love them.
Okay. Thank you for that comment. Any other questions? Dan?
I know this is probably highly unusual for a former CEO and chairman to get up at an annual meeting and speak. I can't help myself, and you know that all too well. First off, I want to commend John Ferriola and his team and the board of directors for doing a great job overseeing the growth and success of this company.
Thank you.
The idea that somehow John is less transparent than previous CEOs, I take strong exception to that. I do appreciate your compliments, okay?
I didn't say that.
He's better than I am. That was my job to make sure we found somebody to replace me who's better. I know that you love the company. We've had great conversations. I'm telling you, this guy is better than me and doing a great job, and I thank you for that, John.
The key thing, I'm not coming for his limit. Go ahead, John.
You don't need to defend yourself. I've got the microphone. The idea that somehow the stock price drives Nucor's compensation is a false one. Ken Iverson would've been the first one to tell you, all right? He ignores the stock price. Okay? He looks for performance. I'm telling you, 2018 was a great year performance-wise. I know, as we always say, John, the best is yet to come.
The best years are still ahead of us.
Yes. Now, his pay is considerably higher than mine when I was CEO, and I don't begrudge that because he's got a bigger company, and he's done a better job. This excellence program and commercial excellence is just fantastic. It's taking Nucor to the next level, and I know John and his team are going to continue to do that. His pay that he got last year was based on last year's performance. If this year's performance isn't as good, his pay won't be as good. In fact, if I'm wrong, correct me, but Nucor still has the policy if, for some reason, we are not profitable, there are no payoffs.
That's correct.
He gets his base salary. Okay? Nucor is one of the few companies out there whose compensation is based upon performance from top to bottom, if we have a bad year, it's the people at the top of the company that get hurt first, not our teammates on the shop floor. We did not lay off one person in 2008, 2009 Great Recession. Not one. That's why John's leadership has continued a great tradition that we've had at Nucor. Maybe I sound like I'm defending the current team. I don't need to. I want people to understand, because there's a lot of new folks in this room here, that Nucor's system doesn't depend on the stock price. The stock price depends upon our performance. Ken always believed, and we all, John and I, believe the same, and Dave believes the same, okay?
If our performance is there, the stock price will be there. I'll guarantee you one thing, Nucor's stock price should be closer to 90 than to 50, okay? The stock market works in mysterious ways. All right? Keep performing. The stock's going to do great. Thank you, and God bless the entire team.
Thank you.
I agree with that, Dan. I wholeheartedly agree with that because the stock market cannot always, in the first place, predict what's going to happen, and the stock market does not always appreciate what's happening. The stock market doesn't sit inside a boardroom. The stock market doesn't stand on a shop floor. The stock market is not in the quarry where the job is done. Anytime the stock price trades, and it's trading below $60 right now, but anytime it trades below $60, I believe it's a buy. The fact that it doesn't correlate with anything or it seems to not correlate with anything, the market doesn't know what goes on inside a company. If you believe that the stock price is cheap at the current level, how many shares do we have outstanding? 304 million? If it's cheap, buy more. Buy more.
Thank you.
Are you going to follow your own suggestion?
I will.
Okay.
I will.
I will say this. At the end of the day, I think all analysts would agree, most financial people would agree, that the long-term performance of a stock reflects the long-term performance of the company. I am confident, as we said just a moment ago, the long-term performance of Nucor will continue to be very strong. Our best years are still ahead of us. Thank you all for coming today.