EQT Corporation (EQT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the EQT Corporation Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Lydia Beebe, Independent Chair of the Board of Directors at EQT Corporation.

Thank you very much. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's my pleasure to welcome you to the EQT Corporation 2023 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. I would like to now call the meeting to order and say a few remarks on behalf of the Board of Directors. For the past several years, EQT has worked hard to maintain our focus on improving our balance sheet and solidifying our financial foundation. Our shareholders have benefited from these efforts. In 2022, we re-instituted our base dividend and funded share repurchases as well as additional debt retirements. EQT achieved investment-grade ratings from both Fitch and S&P and was added to the S&P 500 Index. At the same time, we continued to advance our efforts on reducing our emissions and achieving our other environmental, social and governance-oriented goals. My fellow directors and I would like to thank you, EQT's owners for your continued support of our company. On behalf of the entire board, I would also like to thank our talented management team and all of our employees for their continued vision, dedication and hard work. It is now my distinct pleasure to introduce our President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Toby Rice, who will lead us through the balance of today's -- business portion of today's meeting.

Thank you, Lydia, and good morning. The agenda for today's meeting is posted on the meeting portal. We will take up the business portion of the meeting in order to 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 now like to 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. David 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, 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 in the affidavits 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 315 million shares or approximately 87% 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 Michael Coller, Harold Murphy and Stephen Valley as Judges of Election. Each is present at the meeting today. The judges 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 the shareholders held on April 20, 2022 are available for shareholders to view via 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. Agenda 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 2024. The board recommends a vote for the election of all nominees. Agenda Item 2 is approval of a non-binding resolution regarding the compensation of EQT's Named Executive Officers for 2022. The board recommends a vote for this proposal. Agenda Item 3 is an advisory vote on the frequency of advisory votes on named Executive Officer compensation. The board recommends a vote for 1-year for this proposal. Agenda Item 4 is ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as EQT's independent registered public accounting firm for 2023. The board recommends a vote for this proposal. We'll now proceed with the voting. It is 8:05 AM. 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've voted before today's meeting via phone, Internet or mail, there is no need to recast your vote again today. We'll now pause for a moment to allow any shareholders desiring to submit their votes now to do so. 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 non-binding resolution regarding compensation of the company's named Executive Officers for 2022 received the majority of the votes cast. Item 3, advisory vote on the frequency of advisory votes on named Executive Officer compensation, the 1-year frequency option received the highest number of votes cast. Item 4, ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young for 2023 receives the majority of the votes casts. The essential vote count will be reported by the company on 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. Proposal Items 2 and 4 have been approved by the shareholders. And the 1-year frequency option received the highest number of votes cast for Item 3. 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 just a few brief comments regarding our company's successes and the tremendous opportunities that lie ahead. 2022 showed the devastating effects of a world without energy security. 2022 showed how important the success of EQT is for this world. And it's incredibly important for EQT to realize our higher purpose, which is to provide energy security to the world, while also lowering global emissions. We are proud to be the nation's largest natural gas producer. Putting our heart into what we do, propels us to unleash the tremendous resource that is U.S. natural gas production. In our opening remarks, Lydia highlighted some of our achievements from 2022, of which we're extremely proud of. At EQT, we will continue to pride ourselves on doing what we say we'll do. As shareholders of EQT, I want to thank you for your support and the positive role you play in helping us to achieve EQT's critical mission. I also want to thank all of our employees who are making our vision to make EQT the operator of choice for all stakeholders a reality. With that, let's move to the question and answer session.

Attendees who joined today's meeting as authenticated shareholders may submit a question. To submit a question, please use the dialogue icon on the meeting center screen. I would like to remind everyone that questions must address the business and operations of the company and the individual matters of personal grievances, not a concern to all shareholders generally will not be considered in this forum. If your question relates to a subject matter covered by more than one submitted question, we will attempt to address the subject matter in a consolidated response to avoid duplicative questions. With that, we'll open the floor to questions. Seeing no questions, we conclude the question and answer session.

Thank you all for attending and participating in today's meeting.

This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.

Thank you.