Piper Sandler Companies (PIPR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Piper Sandler Companies' Annual Meeting of Shareholders. I am Chad Abraham, Chairman and CEO. Joining me are my fellow Directors of the Board. They are Jon Doyle, Vice Chairman and Head of the Financial Services Group of Piper Sandler Companies; Bill Fitzgerald, Former Chairman and CEO of the Ascent Capital Group; Vicki Holt, Former President and CEO of Proto Labs; Tad Piper, Retired Former Chairman and CEO of Piper Sandler Companies; Deb Schoneman, President of Piper Sandler Companies; Tom Schreier, Former Chairman of Nuveen Asset Management; Sherry Smith, Former Executive Vice President and CFO of SUPERVALU; Phil Soran, Retired Former President, CEO and Director of Compellent Technologies; Brian Sterling, Former Managing Director of Piper Sandler Companies and Former Co-Head of Investment Banking at Sandler O'Neill + Partners; and Scott Taylor, Former Executive Vice President and General Counsel of NortonLifeLock. Now we will turn to formal business by calling the meeting to order. We will conduct the meeting according to the agenda and procedural rules. March 25 was the record date set by the Board. The record shareholder list is available from the Inspector of Elections. Affidavits showing proper mailing of meeting notice, proxy statement and annual report will be filed with the meeting minutes. More than 16.8 million shares, or about 92% of the outstanding shares, are present in person or by proxy, which represents a quorum to conduct business. The time is now 2:02 p.m. on May 21, 2021. The polls are open for voting electronically according to the instructions previously provided. Shareholders that have completed the proper steps may now electronically submit their vote. Tony Carideo of The Carideo Group is our Inspector of Election. His oath of office will be filed with meeting minutes. The first item of business is the election of 9 Directors to serve until the 2022 Annual Meeting or until successors are elected and qualified. The nominees are: Chad Abraham, John Doyle, Bill Fitzgerald, Vicki Holt, Tom Schreier, Sherry Smith, Phil Soran, Brian Sterling and Scott Taylor. The second item of business is the proposal to ratify the Audit Committee's selection of Ernst & Young as Independent Auditor for 2021. Representatives of Ernst & Young are present. The third item of business is an advisory vote to approve the compensation of the officers disclosed in the proxy statement, or a say-on-pay vote. These are the only 3 items to be voted on. I am now opening the floor for shareholders who wish to discuss a business item. Please enter your comments in the fields provided. Please hold general questions until after we close the polls. Any discussion of the business items described? If no additional discussion, we will close the polls. It is now 2:04. The polls are now closed. And now here are the preliminary voting results. Each Director nominee has been elected. More than 99% of votes cast were voted in favor of ratifying selection of Ernst & Young as Independent Auditor for 2021. More than 73% of votes cast were in favor of the say-on-pay proposal. The say-on-pay vote is advisory. The Board will take the voting results under advisement. These voting results are preliminary and will be adjusted to reflect any additional ballots cast during the meeting. The final vote will be reported on Form 8-K following the meeting. We have completed the formal portion of the meeting. The meeting is now adjourned. We will now take questions of general interest to shareholders. Seeing that there are no questions The annual meeting is now concluded. Thank you.