MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (MKTX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the MarketAxess Holdings Incorporated Annual Meeting. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Rick McVey. Sir, please begin.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's now 10 o'clock a.m., and the MarketAxess Annual Meeting of Stockholders will please come to order. I am Rick McVey, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I'd like to welcome you to our 2020 Annual Stockholders Meeting, and express our thanks for your attendance this morning. In light of COVID-19, we made the decision to hold this meeting virtually for the health and well-being of our stockholders. We recognize that this is not how you are accustomed to our stockholder meetings, and thank you in advance for your patience and understanding. The polls are now open and you may submit your votes through the web portal in connection with the proposals being voted on during this meeting. So that we may address questions from our stockholders of record. [Operator Instructions] We are pleased to have all members of our Board of Directors present at the meeting in listen-only mode. Also present for the meeting are the company's Chief Financial Officer, Tony DeLise, the company's Secretary and General Counsel, Scott Pintoff; Timothy Voice from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, our independent registered public accounting firm; and Tracy Oats from Broadridge Financial Solutions. Broadridge has been appointed inspector of elections to examine and tabulate proxies and ballots at this meeting. You will find the combined proxy statement and annual report, along with the meeting rules posted in the web portal, you are currently using to access this meeting. The meeting will proceed as follows: we'll proceed with the vote on each matter to be acted upon by the stockholders at the meeting. Following the announcement of results, we will respond to questions submitted through the designated field on the web portal. If you haven't submitted your question, please do so now. Following the Q&A session, the meeting will then be adjourned. Scott Pintoff, our Corporate Secretary and General Counsel, will now conduct the annual meeting as it relates to the proposals to be voted upon by the stockholders.

Thank you, Rick. All stockholders of record at the close of business on April 13, 2020 were given notice of the meeting by U.S. mail on or about April 29, 2020. And I have an affidavit to that effect for inclusion in the record of this meeting. The preliminary report of the inspector of elections is that more than 91% of the total number of shares outstanding and entitled to vote are present in person or by proxy at this meeting, constituting a quorum. A quorum being present, this meeting is declared open to proceed with its business. The first proposal to be voted upon today is the election of 12 directors to serve until the company's annual meeting in 2021. The second proposal is to ratify the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2020. The third proposal is to approve the compensation paid to the company's named executive officers on an advisory basis as described in the proxy statement. The fourth and last proposal is to approve the adoption of the MarketAxess Holdings Inc., 2020 and Equity Incentive Plan. The polls are open, and we will now proceed to vote on the nominees for director and the other 3 proposals. Any stockholder who hasn't yet voted or who wishes to change their vote may do so now by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions. It's not necessary to take any further action if you've already sent in your proxy unless you wish to change your vote. Now that stockholders have had the opportunity to vote, I hereby declare the polls closed. According to the report of the inspector of elections I have been provided, all the nominees for director have been elected as directors of the company. The selection of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2020, has been ratified. The compensation of the company's named executive officers as disclosed in the proxy statement has been approved by advisory vote and the adoption of the MarketAxess Holdings Inc. 2020 Equity Incentive Plan has been approved. Rick McVey and Tony DeLise are available to answer any questions that stockholders have entered on the web portal. To the extent that there are any questions, let me remind you that during this meeting, certain comments that we make regarding MarketAxess that are not historical facts are considered forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management's assumptions and beliefs in light of information presently available, and involve both known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that the company's actual results may differ materially from the results indicated in the forward-looking statements. For a discussion of important risk factors, stockholders should refer to the reports and documents filed from time to time by MarketAxess with the SEC, including, in particular, the description of risk factors in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019. I just checked to see if there's any questions, and we have received no questions. And we can now proceed to closing the meeting. Rick, that's over to you.

The matters that this meeting was called to consider have been completed. This meeting is hereby adjourned. Thank you very much for your attendance this morning. We look forward to seeing you next year.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.