Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the T. Rowe Price Group 2024 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. I'm Bill Stromberg, Non-executive Chair of the Board, and I'll preside over today's meeting, which is being conducted in a virtual format. I'd like to call the meeting to order. The agenda and rules of conduct are available on the virtual meeting site. The rules of conduct will govern how we run the meeting, and as stated in the rules of conduct, please limit your remarks to the proposals set forth in the proxy statement. Please note, we've allotted an hour for the meeting. In addition, if a stockholder would like to vote at the meeting, the polls are now open for each matter to be voted on today. At the start of the meeting, I'd like to take a moment to recognize Dr.
Freeman Hrabowski, who's retiring from our board after more than 11 years of service on behalf of the company's stockholders. During that time, he has provided the company with wise counsel, governance acumen, and exceptional leadership, in addition to bringing unique insights to our boardroom. Thank you, Freeman, and best wishes for continued success and happiness in the future. Moving to the business of the meeting, there are 11 directors who've been nominated for election, all of whom are attending this meeting. The nominees are Glenn August, Mark Bartlett, Bill Donnelly, Dina Dublon, Rob MacLellan, Eileen Rominger, Rob Sharps, Cynthia Smith, Bob Stevens, Sandra Wijnberg, and Alan Wilson. Thank you. David Oestreicher will act as secretary of the meeting. Representatives of Broadridge Financial Solutions have acted as the tabulator for this annual meeting.
J. Raitt of American Election Services will act as the independent inspector of election, and he has taken his oath as the inspector of election, which will be filed with the company's records. Christopher J. Sames of KPMG, our public accounting firm, is also with us and will be available to answer any questions you might have related to their engagement. The record date for voting at this meeting was the close of business on March 1, 2024. The secretary has delivered an affidavit of mailing to show that the notice of this meeting was given, and a copy of both the notice and the affidavit will be incorporated into the minutes of the meeting. This morning, we're asking our stockholders to do three things. One, is to elect 11 directors to our board.
Two, is to approve by a non-binding advisory vote, the compensation paid to our named executive officers. And three, ratify the appointment of KPMG to serve as our public accounting firm for 2024. After we complete our official business, Rob Sharps, our CEO, president, and incoming chair of the board, will address the meeting, after which there'll be a question and answer session. In order to begin, our bylaws require that a majority of all votes entitled to be cast at the meeting be represented in person or by proxy for us to have a quorum. The stockholders' list shows that holders of 223,643,878 shares of common stock of the company are entitled to vote at this meeting, with each share having one vote.
We are informed by the inspector of election that there are represented in person or by proxy, 184,619,820 shares of common stock, or approximately 83% of all shares entitled to vote at the meeting. Based upon the percentage of the total shares of the company held by holders of record now present at the meeting, either in person or by proxy, a quorum is present. The report of a quorum and all proxies received at this meeting will be filed in the company's records. This meeting is now duly convened. We'll now consider today's proposals, and please note that we'll give stockholders an opportunity to comment on the proposals themselves after all three proposals have been presented.
If any stockholder would like to ask a question or comment on any of the proposals, please submit your questions through the web portal beginning at this time. Any stockholders who haven't yet voted or wish to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions there. The first proposal is the election of 11 directors to hold office until the 2025 annual meeting of stockholders. The nominees have been introduced and are listed in your proxy materials. The board recommends a vote for all director nominees presented for election in the Proxy Statement and at this meeting. The second proposal, commonly known as Say on Pay, is a non-binding advisory vote to approve the compensation paid to our Named Executive Officers, as disclosed in our Proxy Statement.
The board recommends approval of the compensation of the named executive officers. The third proposal before us today is the ratification of the appointment of KPMG as our accounting firm for 2024. The board recommends the ratification of the appointment of KPMG. We will now address any questions.
Mr. Chairman, there are no questions on the proposals at this time.
Okay. Thank you, Mark. Because no further business is on the agenda to come before this meeting, we'll move on to voting. Stockholders who have sent in proxies or voted via telephone or internet do not need to take any further action.... Okay, I declare the polls now closed and ask that the Inspector of Election collect and tabulate the votes.
Mr. Chair, the votes have been tabulated.
Okay, we've been informed by the Inspector of Election that the preliminary vote report shows that the nominees for election to the board have been duly elected. The compensation of the named executive officers have been approved by advisory vote, and the appointment of KPMG has been ratified. We'll be reporting the final vote results in a Form 8-K to be filed with the SEC within four business days. There are no further official business to come before this meeting. The 2024 annual meeting of stockholders with T. Rowe Price Group is now adjourned, and we'll now proceed with the informal portion of the meeting. At this time, I'd like to introduce Rob Sharps, our CEO, President, and incoming Chair. Please note the web portal is now available for any questions to be submitted, which will be answered after Rob's remarks. Rob?
Bill, thank you. While 2023 was a challenging year for us with substantial net outflows, it also brought meaningful progress. Investment performance improved, and we advanced important work to ensure our firm is positioned for future growth. We are already seeing a number of early indicators that support our confidence that better days are ahead. For a complete overview of the company's 2023 results, please visit the investor relations page of our corporate website and listen to the recordings of our quarterly earnings calls. Before we turn to your questions, I'd like to recognize Bill Stromberg and Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski III, both of whom retire from the board today. As chair and a longtime member of the board, Bill has made significant contributions to T. Rowe Price. During his tenure as chair and CEO, he led important initiatives such as the launching of T.
Rowe Price Investment Management and the firm's global expansion. As non-executive chair, Bill continued his commitment to strong financial discipline and the build-out of diverse board leadership. Bill's impact on T. Rowe Price will be felt for years to come. Freeman has also been an impactful member of the board. As chair of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, Freeman led the board's review of the firm's corporate social responsibility and environmental, social, and governance efforts. In addition, Freeman was instrumental in supporting the development of the board, including through the board's self-evaluation and nomination processes. We thank him for his integrity, insight, and thoughtful leadership over the years. We have the right team in place to build on Bill and Freeman's many contributions and their legacy, and I'm confident that together we'll deliver value for our clients and stockholders long into the future.
With that, I'll open the line for questions.
Thank you. The first question comes from a former employee, Christine Lehman. She asks, "As a former employee, I enjoyed coming to the annual meeting to speak with management in person and catch up with coworkers. It would be wonderful if in-person meetings would start up again now that COVID is over. I'm sure I'm not the only shareholder that feels this way. Could this be considered going forward?
Chris, great to hear from you. It's David Oestreicher. Actually, the feedback on our virtual meetings has been very strongly positive, basically because it provides more access to all of our shareholders, no matter where they reside. So, as we have considered that, our intention at this point is to continue with meetings in this format.
Thank you, David. A follow-up question from Ms. Lehman is: "While I was an employee for many years, purchasing shares through the employee stock purchase plan, the stock split four times. What is the reason that no stock splits have occurred in more recent years?" I'll ask that of Mr. Sharps.
Yeah. Yeah. Good, good question. Historically, stock splits have made round lots more accessible to individual or retail investors. As commission levels have come down meaningfully and odd lots or even fractional shares have become more accessible, I think a lot of the, the rationale for doing such stock splits, no longer holds. In addition, there's some administrative expense to, changing your... The share count change associated with a, a stock split. So, at this point, it's not something that we're anticipating doing, in the future.
Thank you, Rob. At this time, there are no further questions.
Okay, this is Bill. With no further matters to come before the meeting, the meeting is adjourned. Thank you for joining us today.