Marcus & Millichap, Inc. (MMI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the 2022 Marcus & Millichap Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. Questions may be submitted by the message icon at the top left of your screen. Typing your message, then clicking to send icon to the right of the message box. It is my pleasure to now turn the meeting over to Chairman of the Board, George Marcus, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Welcome to the Annual Shareholders' Meeting of Marcus & Millichap, Incorporated, which will now come to order. I am George Marcus. And as Chairman of the Board of Directors, I will be presiding over this meeting, we are holding a virtual meeting again this year [ especially ] to those who may not be unable to travel and be with our annual meeting. Let me begin by introducing our directors who are all in attendance: Hessam Nadji, our CEO; Collete English Dixon; Norma Lawrence, Nick McClanahan, Lauralee Martin, George Shaheen and Don Watters, an outstanding board. Also present on the call are a number of our company officers and representatives from Ernst & Young and the -- the company's independent accountants. This afternoon, our program will proceed as follows. Number one, first, I will conduct the official business of the 2022 Annual Meeting. There are certain formalities that we need to fulfill at this meeting. I ask that you bear with me so that we can meet those formalities. Number two. Next, after the formal business of the meeting, Hessam Nadji, our Chief Executive Officer, will provide a short review of our business. First order of business is the affidavit from American Stock Transfer and Trust, the company's transfer agent, certifying that each stockholder of record as of March 8th, 2022, was mailed an official notice of this meeting, together with the proxy statement, proxy card, annual report and other materials necessary to vote at this meeting. Steve Hoffman, the Stock Transfer Trust has been appointed to serve as the Inspector of Elections, and he will be responsible for tabulating the results of the voting. Let me now call on Steve Hoffman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have examined the proxies received as of this morning, and over 95% of the shares of common stock entitled to vote at this meeting are represented by proxies.

Thank you. We have a quorum, and this meeting may now proceed. We will address the matters in the agenda shown on your screen. First, matter will be voted upon is the election of the Class III members of the Board of Directors: George Marcus, George Shaheen and Don Watters may have -- they have all been nominated to serve for a 3-year term expiring at the 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders or until their successors are duly elected and qualified. The second matter to be voted upon concerns the appointment of the company's independent auditors. The Board of Directors has appointed Ernst & Young as the company's independent auditor firm for the year ending December 31st, 2022. Ernst & Young has ably served as auditors for many, many years. Third, we asked our shareholders, on an advisory basis to approve the compensation of the company's named executive officers as discussed in the proxy statement. We will now open the meeting to any questions about any of these 3 matters before the stockholders. If you register with your 11-digit voting control number previously provided by AST, and wish to ask any questions, you may do so clicking the chat box icon located at the top of your screen and then type your question into the question box found at the bottom of the screen to submit your written questions. I will return after the waiting of a minute or two to allow you to do this. There are no questions received. We will now proceed to vote on each of the matters. We will be open for further Internet voting for the next few minutes. It is not necessary for stockholders to vote today if they have already sent in their proxy cards or voted electronically over the Internet or telephonically, unless they wish to change their votes. Those stockholders who wish to vote today should have received a required 11-digit control number from AST. If you would like to vote today, please click on the proxy voting site link located on the left-hand side of your screen and follow the instructions. We will provide additional time for voting, and I will return shortly. I declare the polls closed. I ask that the Inspector of Elections, Steve Hoffman to present the preliminary results of the voting.

On tabulation of the preliminary votes, George M. Marcus, George T. Shaheen and Don C. Watters have been elected as directors until the 2025 Annual Meeting. The appointment of Ernst & Young as the company's independent auditor has also been ratified. Additionally, the stockholders approved, on an advisory basis, the compensation of the company's named executive officers.

Thank you, and congratulations to our directors on their reelection. I will ask that the report of the inspector of the elections be filed with the secretary and final results will also be reported in a Form 8-K to be filed with the SEC following this meeting. Let me now call on Hessam Nadji, our CEO, to provide a brief update on our business activities.

Thank you, George, and good afternoon, everyone. As we reported, 2021 was a record year for MMI with $1.3 billion of top line revenue and net income of $142.5 million. We are very proud of having closed over 13,200 transactions and $84 billion in sales and financing volume despite the still hampered work environment. These financial results clearly reflects our ability to help investors capitalize on last year's market recovery and increased capital flows into commercial real estate. At the same time, these record numbers also demonstrate the success of our growth strategy deployed over the past several years. This includes investments in proprietary technology in our brokerage support systems, high productivity among our tenured producers, the steady addition of experienced professionals and teams and 9 acquisitions, which have integrated into our culture and systems very well. With the benefit of a strong balance sheet and a leading market position, we continue to execute on our growth strategy and creating long-term shareholder value. To this end, we're pleased to have announced the expansion of our capital allocation plan with the initiation of a dividend policy, which was announced on our year-end earnings call. Marcus & Millichap remains the top investment brokerage firm in North America by transaction count and having the large specialized sales force with nearly 2,000 professionals in 80 offices, all of which positions us very well for future growth. Back to you, George.

Thank you, Hessam. There being no further business to come before the meeting, the 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Marcus & Millichap is now adjourned. That concludes our meeting today. Thank you for your attendance at the stockholder meeting. Thank you again.