Esperion Therapeutics, Inc. (ESPR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. Welcome to the 2020 Esperion Annual Meeting of Stockholders. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Tim Mayleben, President and Chief Executive Officer of Esperion. Mr. Mayleben, please go ahead.

Thank you, Peggy, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to the 7th Annual Esperion Stockholders Meeting, which is now called to order. We're pleased to be hosting our 5th annual virtual meeting of stockholders. We have stockholders attending through the web portal, and we have -- that we had provided. And following the meeting, we will answer any questions that you may have. I will be acting as chairman and inspector of elections of this meeting. Rick Bartram, our Chief Financial Officer, will act as secretary for this meeting. And as noted in the notice of annual meeting and the proxy statement previously made available to stockholders via the Internet, the record date for voting at this meeting was the close of business on March 31, 2020. A list of stockholders on the record date has been available for review by our stockholders at our corporate offices for at least 10 days prior to this meeting. We are joined today by representatives from Goodwin Procter, our external legal counsel and Ernst & Young, our independent auditors, who will also be available during the question-and-answer session following the meeting to respond to appropriate questions. The list of stockholders of record of Esperion as of March 31, 2020, shows, as of that date, there were 27,548,133 shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote at the meeting. On or about April 16, 2020, Esperion mailed its important notice regarding the availability of proxy materials for the annual meeting of stockholders to be held on May 28, 2020, to all stockholders of record as of March 31, 2020, and we posted our notice of annual meeting, proxy materials and 2019 and annual report via the Internet accessible at www.proxyvote.com. A preliminary count of the shares represented in person or by proxy at this meeting indicates that the holders of at least the majority of the shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote as of the record date are present at the meeting in person or by proxy. Should any stockholder desire to vote in person, please click on the voting button on the web portal and follow the instructions provided. Of course, if you've already delivered your proxy and you do not wish to change your vote, you need not to take any further action. A quorum exists. Therefore, the meeting is duly convened and open for business. It is now 8:03 AM on May 28, 2020, and the polls for each matter to be voted upon at this annual meeting are now open. So the first item to be voted upon is the election of 4 Class I directors. Our Board has nominated Daniel Janney; me, Tim Mayleben; Mark McGovern; and Tracy Woody for election as directors to each serve for a 3-year term ending at the 2023 annual meeting or until their successors are elected and qualified. Mr. Janney and our Board agreed that subject to Mr. Janney being reelected as a Class I director at this annual meeting, he will resign from Class I and be reclassified as a Class III Director with a scheduled expiration of his term at the 2022 meeting. Each of the nominees is a current member of our Board and has consented to serve if elected. The second item to be voted upon is the advisory vote on the compensation of our named executive officers. We have developed a compensation program that is designed to attract and retain key executives responsible for our success, reward short-term and long-term performance and align the financial interest of our executive officers with the interest of our stockholders. Our Board is committed to excellence in governance, and as part of this commitment, is providing our stockholders with an opportunity to cast a nonbinding but advisory vote on the compensation of our named executive officers. The vote is not intended to address any specific item of compensation but rather the overall compensation of our named executive officers and the policies and practices described in this proxy statement. Our Board unanimously recommends that our stockholders vote in favor of the resolution to approve, on an advisory basis, the compensation of our named executive officers as disclosed in the company's proxy statement. The third item to be voted upon is the ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2020. And finally, the fourth item to be voted upon is the approval of the 2020 employee stock purchase plan. Since no other matters have been properly brought before the meeting, we will now finalize voting. And again, you must submit your votes now in order for them to be counted, If you haven't already. [Voting]

It is now 8:06 AM on May 28, 2020, and the polls for each matter to be voted on at this meeting are now closed. As inspector of elections, I will now report on the results of the voting. So with regard to proposal 1, the 4 nominees received the plurality of votes entitled to vote and cast. With regard to proposal 2, a majority of the votes properly cast have been voted in favor of the proposed advisory resolution on the compensation of our named executive officers. With regard to Proposal 3, a majority of the votes properly cast have been voted in favor of the ratification of Ernst & Young as the company's independent registered accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2020. And finally, with regard to proposal 4, a majority of the votes properly cast have been voted in favor of approving the 2020 employee stock purchase plan. Accordingly, I declare that all of the proposals presented at the meeting have been ratified or approved by the stockholders. The final results of voting will be set forth in the report of the inspector of elections and will be included in the minutes of the meeting, and the final results will also be included in our reports filed with the SEC. So there being no other matters for consideration at this meeting, I hereby adjourn this meeting. So now we would like to allow time for appropriate stockholder questions and comments. We'll attempt to answer as many questions as time allows. And again, only validated stockholders will be able to ask questions in the designated field on the web portal. So I'll just take a little bit to see if there are any questions. All right. There are no stockholder questions received within the web portal of today's meeting. And so with that, I would like to thank our stockholders for their continued support, and we'll turn the meeting back over to Peggy for closing remarks.

I want to thank you all for attending. This does conclude today's conference, and thank you so much for participating. You may now disconnect, and have a great day.

Thank you. Thanks, Peggy.