EQT Corporation (EQT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you very much, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As was just stated, my name is Lydia Beebe, and I am the Independent Chair of the Board of Directors of EQT Corporation, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to the EQT Corporation '22 Annual Shareholders Meeting, which will now come to order. I would like to begin today with a few remarks on behalf of the Board of Directors. First, I would acknowledge Dr. Phil Behrman's retirement from our Board. The company has benefited greatly from his 14 years of service as a director, and on behalf of my fellow directors and EQT's management, I would like to recognize and thank Phil for his many contributions to the success of our company. Next, it's really my pleasure to introduce -- formally introduce and welcome our newest Director, Frank Hu, who joined the Board in October of 2021. Frank's oil and gas investment background and his financial expertise have further strengthened our Board and our Audit Committee. Including the addition of Frank, I personally believe we have the best Board in the energy industry. Each director brings extensive industry experience and a unique skill set, enabling the Board together to meet new challenges that arise, as well as to continue effectively serving our stockholders. The Board is very proud of our part in the company's success last year. EQT continued to improve our balance sheet and our -- and solidify our financial foundation. We acquired and integrated additional production capacity, and we increased our focus on improving our environmental footprint. My fellow directors and I would like to thank you, EQT's owners, for your continued support of our company. And on behalf of the Board, I really would like to thank our terrific management team and all our employees for their continued vision, dedication and hard work. And it's now truly my pleasure to introduce our wonderful President and CEO, Mr. Toby Rice, who will lead us through the rest of the meeting.

Thank you, Lydia, and good morning, everyone. The agenda for today's meeting is posted on the meeting portal. We will take up the business portion of the meeting in the order set forth in the agenda. After the business portion of the meeting, I will provide a few brief remarks, followed by the opportunity for a question-and-answer session. I would like to now introduce the members of our Board of Directors who are present at today's meeting, our independent Board Chair, Lydia Beebe; Lee Canaan; Janet Carrig; Frank Hu; Dr. Kathryn Jackson; John McCartney; James McManus II; Anita Powers; Daniel Rice IV; and Hallie Vanderhider. I would also like to introduce our executive officers who are also present at today's meeting. Dave Khani, Chief Financial Officer; Will Jordan, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary; Lesley Evancho, Chief Human Resources Officer; Tony Duran, Chief Information Officer; and Todd James, Chief Accounting Officer. Finally, Vaughn Cook, a partner at Ernst & Young, is also present at today's meeting as a representative of our independent registered public accounting firm, Ernst & Young. The Corporate Secretary, Will Jordan, has presented a copy of the notice of meeting and the affidavit showing that each shareholder of record of this company received by mail either a notice of Internet availability of proxy materials or the notice of meeting, proxy statement and a proxy card as required by law. Based on proxies on file, shareholders present by proxy represent at least 321 million shares or approximately 85% of all shares entitled to be voted at the meeting, and this constitutes a quorum for purposes of this meeting. The Board of Directors has appointed Allyson Graham, Monique Hughes and [ Danielle Sadowski ] as judges of election. Each is present at the meeting today. The judge of election have executed an affidavit under oath with respect to their duties and the affidavit has been filed with the record of this meeting. The minutes of the last Annual Meeting of Shareholders held on April 21, 2021 are available for shareholders to view via the link on the meeting portal. Let's now proceed to the matters to be voted on today. 4 matters were presented in the proxy statement for shareholder consideration. All 4 of which were proposed by the Board of Directors. The first agenda item, Item 1 is the election of 11 directors nominated by the Board. Each director elected at this meeting will serve a 1-year term expiring at the Annual Shareholders' Meeting in 2023. The Board recommends a vote for the election of all nominees. The second agenda item, Item 2, is approval of a nonbinding resolution regarding the compensation of EQT's named executive offices for 2021. The Board recommends a vote for this proposal. The third agenda item, Item 3, is an approval of a proposed amendment to the company's 2020 long-term incentive plan to increase the number of authorized shares under the plan. The Board recommends a vote for this proposal. The fourth agenda item, Item 4 is a ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as EQT's independent registered public accounting firm for 2022. The Board recommends a vote for this proposal. We will now proceed with the voting. It is 8:05 a.m. The polls are now open. I now call for a vote on the director nominations and proposals. If there are any shareholders present who have not submitted their proxies and wish to vote at this time, please do so by clicking the link provided in the online meeting portal. If you voted before today's meeting via phone, internet or mail, there is no need to cast your vote again today. We'll now pause for a moment to allow any shareholders desiring to submit their votes to do so now. [Voting]

It is now 8:06 a.m., and I declare the polls to be closed. I now would like to receive the preliminary report of the judges of election who have submitted their report to the Corporate Secretary.

Each of the 11 persons nominated for election as a director has received a majority of the votes cast. Item 2, approval of a nonbinding resolution regarding compensation of the company's named executive officers for 2021, received a majority of the votes cast. Item 3, approval of a proposed amendment to the 2020 long-term incentive plan to increase the number of authorized shares under the plan received a majority of the votes cast. Item 4, ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young for 2022 received a majority of the vote cast. The official vote count will be reported by the company on a Form 8-K to be filed with the SEC.

Thank you. I hereby declare that the 11 nominees listed in the proxy statement have been elected directors of the company and proposal Items 2, 3 and 4 have been approved by the shareholders. With the business portion of the meeting now complete, as chair of the meeting, I declare the annual meeting to be officially concluded. I would now like to share some brief comments regarding our company's successes and the tremendous opportunities that lie ahead. At the end of last year, we announced a comprehensive shareholder return program, under which we reinstituted our recurring quarterly cash dividend and commenced a $1 billion share repurchase program. Through these actions, our shareholders are benefiting from capital returns supported by the free cash flow generated by our business. At the same time, we continued down a disciplined path of managing our debt maturities and our overall debt levels. As we announced at the end of last month, these efforts have resulted in EQT reaching investment-grade credit rating status, which affords us several benefits, including further improvements to our liquidity. This is a testament to the improved strength of our business. These and the many other successes we've achieved during the past year have given EQT the solid foundation necessary to step forward as the leader of what we've come to recognize as the largest green initiative on the planet, Unleashing U.S. LNG and replacing international coal with American natural gas. We believe this effort represents the world's best weapon to address climate change. Given EQT's scale as the largest producer of natural gas in the United States and the magnitude of our assets in the core of the Marcellus and Utica shales, combined with the quality of our operations and the strength of our balance sheet, we believe EQT is optimally positioned to lead this effort. Unleashing the true potential of U.S. LNG will set the world on a realistic path towards addressing global climate change. At the same time, it will offer policymakers a critical tool in addressing global energy security. The opportunity for our company to achieve this higher purpose makes it a very exciting time to be an owner of EQT. In 2022, we will continue to educate policymakers and the public on the significant ESG opportunity that responsibly produced American natural gas can unlock for the world. As shareholders of EQT, I want to thank you for your support and the positive role you play in helping us achieve these critical goals. With that, let's move to the question-and-answer session.

Attendees who joined today's meeting as authenticated shareholders may submit a question. [Operator Instructions] With that, we'll open the floor to questions. Seeing no questions, we can conclude the question-and-answer session.

Thank you all for attending and participating in today's meeting. Have a great day.

This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.