Dream Unlimited Corp. (DRM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Dream Unlimited Corp. Your host for today is Ms. Joanne Ferstman, Chair of the Board of Dream Unlimited Corp. Ms. Ferstman, please go ahead.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. As this meeting is held virtually via live audio webcast for the purposes of the meeting today, voting on all matters will be conducted by electronic ballot. Registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders will be asked to vote on each business item. At any time during the meeting, registered shareholders who have not already provided voting instructions or appointed a proxy holder that are logged on and wish to vote their shares may do so by clicking on the Vote Here button on your screen and following the instructions provided. Proxy holders may also vote now using the same method. The polls will remain open until just before the conclusion of the formal business of the meeting. If you voted your shares prior to the start of the meeting, your vote has been received by the scrutineers, and there is no need to vote those shares during the meeting unless you wish to revoke or change your vote. We have been advised by Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc., that based on the proxies already deposited with them, enough votes have been cast to carry each of the motions. Shareholders or proxy holders may ask questions at any time during the meeting by submitting the question and writing in the text box labeled Ask A Question. We will respond to questions received on the matters of formal business just prior to closing the polls for voting. [Operator Instructions] We will now proceed with the formal portion of today's meeting. To expedite the formal part of the meeting, I will move and Shannon Macri will second all motions. I will act as Chair of the meeting. Robert Hughes will act as Secretary of the meeting. For the purposes of this meeting, I appoint Leanne Branston and Rosemary Colakic of Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. to act as scrutineers to compute the votes of any polls taken at this meeting and to report thereon. The Board of Directors fixed April 16, 2021, as the record date for determining shareholders entitled to vote at this meeting. An affidavit has been delivered from Broadridge attesting to the mailing of the notice of availability of proxy materials and the voting instruction form or form of proxy. Our circular and other meeting materials were made available through the notice and access system. I would ask the secretary to place the affidavit before the meeting and to keep the affidavit with the corporate records. I am pleased to announce that there are present by proxy a sufficient number of the voting shares of the company to constitute a quorum. Accordingly, this meeting is duly called to order and properly constituted for the transaction of business. After our formal business is concluded, our CRO will provide a few brief remarks, and then there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please hold questions that do not relate to the formal business of the meeting until that time. The first item of business is the presentation of the company's 2020 annual report, which contains the company's audited financial statements for 2020. I note that the secretary has placed before the meeting a copy of the 2020 annual report. The next item of business is the election of directors. The 8 directors to be elected by the shareholders of the company shall hold office until the close of business of the first annual meeting of shareholders of the company following election or until their successors are elected or appointed. The 8 nominees are: Michael Cooper, James Eaton, Richard N. Gateman, Jane Gavan, Duncan Jackman, Jennifer Lee Koss, Vincenza Sera and myself. Each of the persons nominated has confirmed that he or she is prepared to serve as a director. Mr. Hughes, have we received any other nomination?

No, we have not.

Thank you. Since there are no other nominations, I declare the nominations closed, and I move a motion to elect the directors. The next item of business is the appointment of auditors. The Audit Committee and the Board of Directors have recommended the reappointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, chartered professional accountants, as auditors. I move that PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP be appointed auditors of the company until the next annual meeting of shareholders and that the Board of Directors be authorized to fix their remuneration. May I have a seconder?

I second the motion.

Thank you. The next item of business is to vote on a resolution authorizing an amendment to the company's deferred share incentive plan to increase the number of deferred share units and income deferred share units that may be granted or credited under the plan by a further 150,000 units and to ratify certain deferred share units and income deferred share units. I move to approve the resolution amending the deferred share incentive plan and to ratify certain deferred share units and income deferred share units, as set out starting on Page 25, of Dream Unlimited management information circular. May I have a seconder?

I second the motion.

Thank you. The next item of business is to vote on a resolution to authorize and approve the adoption of a restricted share and restricted share unit plan. Pursuant to this plan, an eligible participant may be awarded restricted share units or restricted share awards. A restricted share unit is a right to receive a subordinate voting share that is subject to vesting over time and a restricted share award is the grant by Dream of any amount in cash to be used exclusively to subscribe for subordinate voting shares. I move to approve the resolution to adopt the restricted share and restricted share unit plan, as set out starting on Page 27, of Dream's management information circular. May I have a seconder?

I second the motion.

Thank you. We will be closing the polls for voting momentarily. Before we do so, I will ask Mr. Hughes, whether we have received any questions today relating to the formal items of business on our agenda.

No, we have not.

Thank you. Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, I now declare the polls for the 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Dream Unlimited Corp. closed. I have been advised by the scrutineers that a significant majority of the proxies received by management prior to the meeting have been voted for the election of directors, the appointment of auditors, the amendment to the deferred share incentive plan and the adoption of the restricted share and restricted share unit plan. I therefore confirm that the 8 nominees for election as directors have been elected as directors, the motion to appoint the auditors, the motion to amend the company's deferred share incentive plan to increase the number of deferred share units and income deferred share units and the motion to adopt the restricted share and restricted share unit plan have each been carried. I would ask that the scrutineers compile the report regarding the results of voting on all business matters. The results of the votes will be published on SEDAR and will be disclosed in a press release that will be filed on SEDAR later today. The formal items of business, as set out in the notice of meeting, have now been dealt with. As there is no further business to come before the meeting, I declare the formal part of the meeting to be concluded. I now invite Mr. Michael Cooper, Chief Responsible Officer of the company, to provide a few brief remarks. After Mr. Cooper's remarks, we will have a question period. We ask that registered and beneficial shareholders or proxy holders who would like to ask a question, submit their questions in writing in the text box labeled Ask A Question. We will answer as many questions as time permits. Mr. Cooper, please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome, everybody. Once again, we would much prefer to be meeting in person and providing a complete presentation. We can't, but hopefully, we will next year. I want to thank that all of my colleagues as they've really been incredible over the last 16 months, and our Board has been very supportive and so have our shareholders. Very briefly, notwithstanding the interruptions to our day-to-day life, a lot of Dream Unlimited is doing very, very well. A-Basin is neck and neck with the best year we've ever had, so we'll see how the summer goes. But that's pretty exciting because we made a lot of changes. And last year, we had to close early. Western Canada is having the best year it's had in 4 or 5 years, and it looks as if [ knowing ] this year's a good year, it's likely that next year will be as well as our builders and our homebuilding operations are selling through houses to direct consumers, so they're going to want to buy more. In addition to that, we really create a focus on institutional money management this year, an area of the business that's being led by Jane Gavan, and also on impact investing. Those are really 2 new areas and we've made some good progress. We expect to have more updates soon. Dream Industrial has been doing very well, and its expansion into Europe has really flourished over the last 4 weeks. And we hope that within a very short period of time, we'll close on a large transaction there and really have a big footprint in Europe and a great management team that's growing. Our construction is going ahead actually very well. And as far as cost go, they're pretty much in line. Revenue on condos are very high. And I think that before the balance of the year, we're going to have a number of buildings completed that were developed by us at income properties. We're also making great progress on the condos. So I think we're going to see a lot of value created there. We've had a tremendous amount of approvals, whether it's Victory Silos or the West Don Lands and others. And then Dream Office is the one that's probably more of a uncertainty as people don't go to the offices right now, and we'll see how it recovers. But the value of those buildings is amazing, and we're really quite pleased with the business as a whole. So I think that we're seeing a lot more good news than difficulty, which is kind of hard to believe given everything. We've refinanced a lot and we've grown all our businesses. So it's very exciting times. And again, I'd like to thank everybody on our team that's been building the company. We'll be releasing our second quarter results, I believe, it's on August 12, and we'll have a lot more to talk about then. But in the meantime, our stock price is pretty much near its multiyear high, and we're pleased with that and we think there's more room to go. So I just want to thank everybody for participating in this call. I want to assure you that the company is doing quite well. And if there's any questions, we'd be happy to answer them.

Mr. Cooper, we have received no questions. You may conclude the meeting.

So we've had no questions all day. That's great. Thank you, everybody, for participating, and we look forward to the next time we meet, and hopefully that will be in person.

Thank you. The conference has concluded. You may disconnect your line.