Good afternoon, and welcome to the Toro Company's 2025 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. I'm Rick Olson, the Chairman and CEO. I'm joined by Angie Drake, our Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Joanna Torossy, our Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary. Thank you for joining us today, and thank you for your continued support of the Toro Company. During fiscal 2024, we delivered our 15th consecutive year of net sales growth in an extremely dynamic operating environment. This was a testament to the strength of our innovative product lineup and the disciplined execution by our team of talented employees and best-in-class channel partners. Importantly, we continued to leverage technology advancements across the enterprise to accelerate new product development. We also gained momentum with our major productivity initiative and delivered a substantial increase in free cash flow.
With the improvement in free cash flow, we returned nearly $400 million to shareholders, including a 6% increase in our regular dividend payout and $250 million in share repurchases. We entered fiscal 2025 with confidence and optimism. In an environment that has included industry-wide headwinds in some of our markets and extremely elevated order backlog in other markets, we've improved our operational agility and capabilities. We have also continued to invest in innovation that our customers value. All of this positions the company well for long-term profitable growth. Our business fundamentals and market leadership remain strong, and we are confident in our ability to continue delivering value to our shareholders into the future. With that, I would like to note that the rules of conduct for voting for today's meeting can be found under Meeting Materials, together with the proxy statement for the meeting and our 2024 Annual Report.
I will now call our 2025 Annual Shareholders Meeting to order, and the polls are open. They will remain open until after the presentation of all matters to be submitted to a vote of our shareholders. If you are a shareholder who has joined the meeting using your control number, you may vote during this time using the Vote Here button. If you've previously voted, you do not need to vote again unless you wish to change your vote. Following introductions and formal meeting matters, we will answer questions pertaining to the meeting that were submitted through the meeting platform before or during the meeting. I would now like to introduce the current members of our Board of Directors who are joining us today and participating in listen-only mode. Gary Ellis, retired Executive Vice President of Medtronic and our Lead Independent Director.
Diane Craig, President of Lincoln at Ford Motor Company. Eric Hansotia, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of AGCO Corporation. Jeff Harmening, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Mills and the Chair of our Finance Committee. Chris Koch, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Carlisle Companies and Chair of our Nominating and Governance Committee. Joyce Mullen, President and Chief Executive Officer of Insight Enterprises. Joc O'Rourke, retired President and Chief Executive Officer of the Mosaic Company and the Chair of our Compensation and Human Resources Committee. Jill Pemberton, Chief Financial Officer, North America of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton and Chair of our Audit Committee. Next, I would like to introduce representatives from KPMG, our independent registered public accounting firm who are participating today. They are Kevin Slama and James Powell.
Kevin and James will be available at the end of the meeting to answer questions submitted through the meeting platform and relevant for KPMG. Finally, I would like to introduce our Inspector of Election for the meeting, Anthony Carideo, an agent of Broadridge Financial Solutions. I will now ask Joanna to conduct the formal meeting matters.
Thank you, Rick. Our first order of business is to establish proof of notice of the meeting. I confirm that we have received an affidavit of distribution establishing that notice of this meeting was duly given to each shareholder entitled to vote as determined by being a shareholder of record at the close of business on January 21, 2025, the record date. Our next order of business is to confirm that a sufficient number of shares of our common stock are represented today to constitute a quorum for the purpose of transacting business at this meeting. Our Inspector of Election confirmed that a sufficient number of shares of our common stock is represented today, and therefore we have a quorum. Because notice of this meeting was duly given and a quorum is present, this meeting is convened for the purpose of transacting such business as may properly come before it.
The first proposal before our shareholders is the election of four directors. The nominee for election to a two-year term ending at our 2027 Annual Meeting is Rick Olson. The nominees for election to a three-year term ending at our 2028 Annual Meeting are Jeff Harmening, Joyce Mullen, and Joc O'Rourke. We did not receive any other nominations for director. The second proposal is the ratification of KPMG as our independent registered public accounting firm for our fiscal year ending on October 31, 2025. The third and final proposal is the approval on an advisory basis of the executive compensation of our named executive officers. With regard to the proposals being submitted to a vote of the Toro Company shareholders today, the Board of Directors recommended a vote in favor of each director nominee and a vote in favor of proposals two and three.
In a moment, we'll close the polls. If you have not yet voted and wish to vote, please do so now. You can vote by clicking the Vote Here button. You do not need to vote if you have previously voted and do not wish to change your vote. I now will pause briefly so voting can conclude. The polls for this meeting are now closed, and we will move to the preliminary voting results. I'm pleased to announce that prior to the meeting, our Inspector of Election informed us of the preliminary voting tabulation and that pending the final tabulation of votes, all of our directors' nominees have been elected, and proposals two and three have been approved. Final tabulations for each of these votes will be completed and disclosed in our required Form 8-K to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
I will now turn the meeting back to Rick.
Thank you, Joanna. This concludes our 2025 Annual Shareholders Meeting, and the meeting is adjourned. We will now answer questions relevant to the meeting which were submitted through the online meeting platform. There will be a brief pause as we transition to the question-and-answer portion of the meeting.
There are no questions, Rick. We may conclude the meeting.
Thank you, Joanna. On behalf of the Toro Company, I'd again like to thank you, our shareholders, for joining us today and for your continued support. Have a great day.