I appreciate you, everyone, coming. It's a rare event. You get to see leadership changes at Raymond James, so, which is a good thing for the company, but I want you to understand that there are kind of two pieces to the meeting for those that are local and used to informal meetings. There's a very formal shareholder part that we'll go through, and then we'll go through more of a Raymond James transitional part, so let me go ahead and get started. I'm going to call the shareholders' meeting to order. Welcome to the 2025 annual meeting of shareholders of Raymond James Financial, Inc. I'm Paul Reilly, big surprise to most of you, Chair and CEO, and I'll be chairing the meeting. On behalf of the directors, officers, associates of Raymond James, it's my pleasure to welcome you.
The rules of procedures of our meeting were made available as you entered the room. I'm sure you've all read them. Notice of this meeting was contained in our proxy materials, mailed on January 8th, 2025, to shareholders of record on December 18th, 2024. In accordance to our bylaws, I hereby appoint Mr. Jonathan Santelli, our General Counsel and Company Secretary, as the meeting's Inspector of Elections. Jonathan, will you please announce the number of shares known to be present in person or by proxy?
Thank you, Paul. Over 193,455,165 shares of common stock of the company are represented at this meeting either in person or by proxy, which represents more than 94.46% of the 204,799,623 shares of common stock outstanding on our record date of December 18th, 2024. Accordingly, Paul, we have a quorum present and voted.
Great. And if my math is good, that is a majority of the outstanding capital stock entitled to vote at our meeting, in person or by proxy. I declare a quorum to be present, and the meeting has been duly convened for purposes of transacting such business and may properly come before it. Now I call the annual meeting of shareholders of Raymond James Financial, Inc to order. I'd like to welcome the directors, Marlene Debel, Jeff Edwards, Ben Esty, Art Garcia, Anne Gates, Gordon Johnson, Ray McDaniel, Rod McGeary, Cecily Mistarz, Raj Seshadri, Paul Shoukry, and myself, Paul Reilly. I'd like to welcome our representatives of KPMG, Joe Santucci, our lead engagement partner, and Kyle Fouch, our audit managing director. The KPMG representatives are available to answer any questions that might be appropriately directed to them today.
Moving to items of business for the meeting, I shall present the proposals included in our proxy statement for your consideration. I will then open the floor to questions and discussion related to proposals and the polls for voting. While the ballots are being collected, I will deliver my Chair's report before we close the polls. There are three agenda items. First, the election of the director nominees named in the proxy statement. The board has nominated the following 12 directors to serve as the company's board of directors until the annual meeting of shareholders in 2026, and until their successor shall have been elected and qualified. I told you this is a little formal part. The proxy statement contains information on their backgrounds and experience.
Marlene Debel, Jeff Edwards, Ben Esty, Art Garcia, Anne Gates, Gordon Johnson, Ray McDaniel, Rod McGeary, Cecilia Herbert, Loretta Mester, Paul Reilly, Raj Seshadri, and Paul Shoukry. Second, to approve the advisory non-binding resolution on the company's executive compensation. Shareholders are given the opportunity to cast a non-binding advisory vote on the company's executive compensation for fiscal 2024. Third, to ratify the appointment of KPMG LLP as the company's independent public accounting firm for fiscal 2025. KPMG has served as the company's independent registered public accounting firm since 2001. Are there any questions discussing these proposals? Hearing none, the polls are now open. I declare that the polls are open. If you desire a ballot, please raise your hand and it will be provided. The inspector of election, Mr. Santelli, will provide ballots for those who desire them.
If you previously voted by proxy, you do not need to change your vote today. You do not have to cast a vote unless you want to change your vote. Once you have completed your ballot, please submit it to the inspector of elections. Although I assume you've seen the fiscal 2020 results, let me just do a brief overview of this year. I have to get to the right section here. I first want to start, especially in a time like this where we're passing leadership once again, to remember that this business has been founded on people and their financial well-being. Our cultural values are really what has driven this business, not just for consistent really earnings throughout its history.
They've really centered around our core values, and you all have heard them a million times here, that we put clients first, that we act with integrity, we think long-term, and we value our independence like our advisors do, like our people do to make the right decisions, and as we do as a company to do the right thing. That result has just created continued outstanding financial results for the fiscal year 2024. As you can see by the slide, revenue grew over 10%, and adjusted earnings or earnings per share per common over 20%, which is really a great result. It's really been the fourth year in a row of record earnings and revenue growth, which is amazing in our industry, given the cycles of interest rates, what's happened up and down in equity markets.
The great thing about the company just as an earnings, it's just what a solid basis it's on. We have a great balance sheet, hitting about $83 billion right now, our common equity over $11 billion, and a market capitalization as of September 30th of $25 billion. That's well over $30 billion today. So the company is in great financial shape, and it's a great basis as we move forward for new, really existing leadership. But as the leadership changes, we have a rock-solid foundation for them to grow on. That's been the history of Raymond James from the beginning. We're at 148 consecutive quarters of profitability. I like to remind people the only quarter we weren't profitable being public was in 2009, and, I'm sorry, 2001, when we had a correction and we lost $100,000 in one quarter. Most firms would have made an accounting adjustment to be profitable.
At Raymond James, we don't do that very well, and you know, so Tom led this through just you know an amazing cycle, and based on what he's built, we continue to do that. The assets have grown. I remember kidding. It didn't seem that long ago about hitting $500 billion. Now we've hit over $1.5 trillion of assets, which is really a testament to our financial advisors and all the people that work for them and the great work they do for clients, so once again we've continued to grow. We're very very strong, and even despite the well-capitalized, we still have industry-leading return on equity, so it's really a testament to the firm, to the leadership, and this management team that's driven us over this long period of time. Most firms today get low returns, some low returns, by having a lot less capital.
We have double the regulatory capital to be well capitalized. And even with that result, we're still getting those kind of returns. And we do that because of the excess cash and capital. We're able to navigate tough markets, not just good markets. And we can talk about our stability. For a company our size to have three A-level ratings by the three leading rating agencies is really unusual. And again, a testament to what everyone has done here, all the associates, to grow this firm steadily. Tom's favorite slide, because he's one of the few that have owned shares back at this beginning, and maybe Bo, very close to it too, who's in the audience. I'd like to welcome Bo, a former director and a manager that really grew this firm. At 200, you know, it's 200 shares invested.
If you kept it invested in the company, it was a 17% compounded return over all these years. And it's really a testament. The slide looks like it's all happened recently, but it's scale. I mean, the firm, outside of down periods, which every market has, has continued to grow and grow steadily, not racing. A good, long, steady growth that's added to our stability. And that's great. That's the past. But the past, you really, is of interest, it's part of our legacy. Our values are certainly part of the past, but it's what the future brings that's important. And we went through this once, and I still remember when I was up here and became CEO almost 15 years ago.
And the mentorship, I'd been a CEO twice, and I said, "I'm not going to learn much, except I'll learn stuff about the industry." The amount of mentoring and what I learned from Tom James, both on how do you keep values as you grow, how do you drive a business, and just being able to work with him has been a real blessing. So I've known Tom a long time. I knew we'd get along, but, you know, we've become very, very close friends because we share values about clients, about this wonderful firm he built with the management back then. And it's easy to love this place because of the people. And that's not management. It's the associates. It's all the hard work people do. So it's nice coming to work when you care about the people because you feel like you're not running something for numbers.
You're running it for Raymond James family. I don't think people understand that unless they're here. That's very special. That's part of our legacy, and I'm convinced that's not going to change in the future. We are handing over the gavel after this formal meeting to Paul Shoukry. We'll get that, but Paul shares that values, as does his whole leadership team. A number of people are up to be CEO. They're all very, very capable, but they've all coalesced together, committed to grow the firm around these core values. That won't change, but the business will change. We have to make changes. We have to evolve. Tom made changes when he was running the business. I've made changes. Paul will have to, and his team will have to make changes, but as long as we do it with that core values in mind, I know we will be successful.
So with that, I'm concluding my formal remarks. We'll have a little more fun on the next remarks after we close the meeting. I will now entertain any additional questions from the audience before we go ahead and check to see if our resolution's passed. Having seen no questions, we will now close the polls. The inspector of election will now collect any outstanding ballots. Anybody fill out a ballot? Not surprising. Now we have all the ballots, and since all those desiring to vote by ballot have done so, I hereby declare the polls closed. The inspector of election will now count the votes. You're going to count all 1.9 million something, Jonathan.
Thank you, Paul. All proposals set forth in our proxy statement have been approved by our shareholders. First, the 12 nominees to the board of directors of the company were elected.
Each of the nominees received favorable votes of at least 159,724,331 shares, which represents at least 95.44% of the shares voted. Second, the proposal to approve our advisory non-binding resolution relating to the company's executive compensation was approved by a favorable vote of 149,425,883 shares, which represented 89.39% of the shares voted. Third and last, the proposal to ratify the appointment of KPMG LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending September 30th, 2025, was approved by a favorable vote of 186,771,709 shares, representing 96.6% of the shares voted.
Thank you. And having heard that all three have passed, ladies and gentlemen, the shareholders' meeting is now adjourned.