Power Corporation of Canada ($POW)

Ladies and gentlemen, the time set for the Annual Meeting of Shareholders has come, and I hereby call the meeting to order. As you can see, simultaneous translation is available. My name is Paul Desmarais. And standing next to me are Mr. Jeffrey Orr, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Stephane Lemay, Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary. As Chairman of the Board, I'm responsible for chairing this meeting, Mr. Lemay will serve as Secretary. We are delighted to welcome you today, and we also welcome those who are watching the meeting via the webcast. I must say that I don't remember having seen so many people at this meeting for a long time, and it must be because of Jeff. [indiscernible] It's only July 1st, only July 1st. And so that is quite a showing today. At this meeting, we may make statements containing forward-looking information. I would like to draw your attention to the visuals, where you can read it, you're lucky. So I invite you to read all of this, as you wish. Throughout the meeting [indiscernible] specific questions on formal items of business. and we'll have the opportunity to ask those questions. And before we proceed to vote on specific items as well. We will also have a question period, of course, as you all know, at the end of the meeting. I note the presence of Mr. Welchinski, and Madam [indiscernible] of Deloitte and the corporation's auditors. I hereby appoint Mrs. Pina Pacifico and Mrs. Teresa De Luca, of Computershare as scrutineers for this meeting and authorize them to submit the attendance list.

Mr. Chair, we would like to confirm that our shareholders are present here in person or by proxy are 85% of the those who are admissible for the vote. There are shareholders or proxy holders present at this meeting representing in person or by proxy 80.5% of the total eligible votes at the meeting. Thank you.

Thank you very much. The secretary has informed me that the notice of this meeting and the related documents have been mailed in accordance with applicable requirements. I therefore confirm that we have quorum, and that the notice of meeting was sent with respect in compliance with the requirements. I therefore state that this meeting is duly constituted and I also open up the vote for all of the items on the agenda. Some of the items will be voted on. Some of you have already been voted by proxy on these items and, of course, do not need to vote again. Registered shareholders or their proxies who have not yet voted on the agenda items will have received 3 ballots for this purpose upon registration. If, however, that is not the case or if you wish to change your vote, please raise your hand now or before the vote on each item of the agenda and the scrutineer will provide you with the ballots. Are there any raised hands? Seeing none, that is fine. We're an organized group as I can see. This is a nation of financial statements. As permitted by applicable law, we have used notice and access to deliver our 2026 management proxy circular in our annual financial statements and related management discussion and analysis. Shareholders have received by mail, a notice of access notification, providing information on how to access these documents. Copies of the annual financial statements are available on our website and on our profile on SEDAR+. At this point, we'd be moving on to the other items in the agenda. I'd like to ask Mr. Orr, Mr. Jeff Orr to make a few comments.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to all. We're very pleased to be able to welcome you here today to our Annual Meeting online and those of you joining us online. We also like to welcome you. Today [indiscernible] joining us online, thank you for being here. 2025 was a significant year for Power. We celebrated our 100th anniversary. It was an opportunity to reflect on the journey that has brought us this far. Empower Truly has a rich history. It is a history that has been built decade after decade, thanks to the talent of our employees and the trust of our business and community partners and as well, so thanks to our community partners. Throughout the year, we have held several events to honor those who have contributed to the company's success, both past and present. Among other things, a cocktail reception was held here in Montreal, which brought together more than 400 of our community partners and with whom we work. It was very important for us to thank them. Their work reflects a long-standing conviction of power, the importance of acting as a socially responsible company. We are proud to support numerous community organizations whose remarkable work improves the lives of thousands of people every single day. This proud is shared by all of the companies in our group. In this regard, the Power Group contributed $49 million to more than 4,000 community organizations. This approach is also deeply rooted in our core values, trust, respect, integrity, and social responsibility. '25 was a very strong year for Power, and we continued that momentum into 2026. But we are in an environment of heightened risk, geopolitical risk, economic risk, technological risk. We also have high inflation that is lingering, which not only affects financial markets, but is obviously putting stress on many people in our society. But at the same time, there's lots of opportunity in front of us. The macro factors have, in fact, been very positive. Stock markets have kept going up. Interest rates are quite supportive of our business investors have done very well. They're confident. So all of these factors, combined with the momentum that we have across the Power group has contributed to record financial results and outstanding shareholder returns. Let us begin with our financial results. Power delivered a solid performance in 2025. Power's adjusted net earnings reached $3.5 billion, a 14% increase compared to 2024. Net earnings came in at $2.6 billion and the adjusted net earnings per share increased by 16% to $5.31. Net earnings per share was at $4.01. We have continued this momentum in 2026. Yesterday, Power released its financial results for the first quarter of 2026. And adjusted net earnings per share reached $1.43, up 17% from the first quarter of 2025. And the net earnings was -- per share was at $1.29 per share. So as you know, that Power has a long history of increasing its dividend. In the first quarter of 2026, Power announced a 9% increase in its dividend, just as we did in the first quarter of 2025, and this was for Q1. So following our recent announcement, the quarterly dividend has increased to $0.6675 per share. If we look over the last 5 years to 2020, there was an increase of more than 50% over that same period. In 2025, as well, we repurchased shares for the amount of $700 million. So combined with dividends paid as well as share buybacks, we turned back more than $2.3 billion to our shareholders last year as well, share buybacks are continuing in 2026. So once again, if you look back in 2020, we returned more than $11 billion to our shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks. Results, the return of capital as well as the momentum being enjoyed across Power's businesses have produced extraordinary returns for our shareholders. When you compare Power's returns to the TSX to the TSX Financial, we have produced really strong returns, whether you look over shorter periods, 1, 3, 5 years, or if you stretch it out over longer periods, going all the way out to 30 years, Power Corp shareholders have enjoyed superior returns to our relevant benchmarks. So 100 years, 100 years ago, Power actually was a power company. That's what we did. It's not a name that we picked up to assume that we have strength or anything like that. We were producing hydroelectric facilities to provide energy to a growing country. Now today, we're a financial services company. We own and oversee a leading financial services company in Canada, the U.S., Europe and Asia. Great-West, IGM and GBL are 3 public companies that we own. And together, they have a market capitalization in excess of $100 billion. We're also building alternative asset management businesses being cigar and Power Sustainable. Our companies help people build financial security. That's what we do. We provide financial advice. We provide insurance products, investment products, income security products to provide financial securities. And we do so through 3 channels. financial advisers who deal with their clients, and most of our businesses deal through financial advisers, be Canada Life, IG Wealth, Mackenzie, Rockefeller in the States, Empower, Irish Life. We also work through employers. So we go through people and get to people at their place of work and help them and empower Canada Life and Irish Life, are very big in these channels. And increasingly with technology, we're dealing directly with clients. And the best example of that would be what we're doing at Wealthsimple. In total, we serve over 45 million people in North America and Europe. And we have over $4 trillion of our clients' assets on our various platforms through these companies I just described. Now over time, our strategies change with opportunities and changing risk, but fundamentally, the way we approach our businesses, our investing principles, they have remained the same for decades. We take a long-term perspective. We either have leading franchises or we have a view to being able to build a leading franchise. We have a very active governance model, and we take a prudent approach to risk with a very strong financial position. That was true 40 years ago and it's true today. So Great-West has leading positions in each of its geographic markets and across its lines of business. Lines of business are retirement, wealth management, insurance and group benefits. Now including in the U.S. now, where in Power alone now serves 20 million people in the U.S. and it's become Great-West Life's largest segment. Empower is actively building its brand in the U.S. through advertising, sponsorship and thought leadership. For example, in power field, where the Denver Broncos play. It used to be called Mild High Stadium. For those of you who grew up with that is now on Powerfield. And we've also got numerous golf sponsorship as an example, including Cameron Young the player's champion and Hottest Golfer in golf right now. Over the last 5 years, Great-West has produced excellent financial results it publicly stated financial objectives 5 years ago, and it has exceeded or met every single objective that it published enjoying great results. Now has got leading positions in its 2 core sectors being wealth management and asset management. Its core companies, core businesses in Wealth Management is IG Wealth Management and in Asset Management is Mackenzie. Those are the more mature businesses producing the bulk of the income and they have had excellent financial performance over the last few years and are enjoying very strong inflows from their clients. But IGM also has a portfolio of emerging businesses, what they call the strategic investments not producing a lot of income today, but are going to -- if all things continue this way, b, the company is producing the income 5 and 10 years from now. And the growth of these businesses, as shown on this slide, Wealthsimple alone, 74% growth in assets over 12 months. Rockefeller, our New York-based wealth management company, 25% growth. You can see it across the board. These companies are really enjoying fantastic growth. And financially, IGM itself announced 2 years ago its own financial objectives publicly. And after 2 years, is well ahead of its 9% earnings per share growth target, having achieved 14% per year compounded over the last 2 years. Let us turn to group [indiscernible] GBL, it's one of Europe's leading holding companies. It is a leading active investor on the continent, focused on long-term value creation. In 2025, GBL continued to implement its strategy of focusing more on private assets and returning capital to shareholders. GBL has also generated attractive returns for Power and its shareholders. In 2025, it notably distributed EUR 1 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks and it delivered a total return to shareholders of 23.2%. 6 years ago, at the time of its reorganization, Power announced a strategy to support the growth of its alternate alternative asset management platform, staggered and Power Sustainable. These platforms invest in private companies, they select and manage portfolios that are composed of equities and credit instruments. Since the announcement of the strategy, assets under management have increased more than tenfold. Almost all of this growth comes from capital, raise from investors, other than Power. This was, in fact, our intention from the outset. Sagard is one of the fastest-growing alternative asset managers and that is seeing the greatest growth. Main focus is primarily on the mid-market, as we like to say. In 2025, Sagard launched Sagard Private Equity Solutions, and this was the result of 3 separate acquisitions Unigestion, performance equity management and BEx Capital, which enabled the creation of a global leader in private equity solutions for the mid-market. And so today, Sagard manages over $64 billion in assets and employs over 500 professionals. On its side, Power Sustainable was established in 2020. Today, it offers 4 highly attractive products and has over $4 billion in assets under management. Power Sustainable relies on excellent investment managers with impressive track records as well in 2026. Power Sustainable priority remains raising additional capital to continue its growth in the 4 strategies that are in very relevant asset categories. If you go back over the last decade, the advent of personal computers, the Internet, mobility, digitalization, we've gone through massive changes. And on the horizon is AI. You cannot open any piece of paper or any website without talking about AI. It offers tremendous promise and it offers for society and for people. And for companies like us, it offers the possibility of serving our clients in a much better way and gaining greater productivity, but also many risks, including what bad actors can do with technology impacts unemployment. There's lots of things that are out there that are unknown. I will say that previous leaps in technology have resulted in massive improvements in standards of living and improve the lot of society overall. So we'll see how AI plays out. But we are all over it. If we go back 10 years ago, Power faced similar uncertainty with what was happening in fintech. It was -- we were excited about what it could do, but we were worried about it disrupting us. So we adopted a multifaceted strategy, including becoming a leading investor in fintech companies, and that produced 3 meaningful benefits. First of all, we own many great companies. Wealthsimple being the leading example, but we also bought personal capital in the U.S., which is now part of Empower. We created partnerships between the fintech companies and our incumbent businesses. So Nest mortgages conquest planning, they're embedded into the offerings of IG Wealth Management, for example. Perhaps most importantly, we took a massive step forward in the knowledge and the attitudes of our management teams being exposed to new technologies, and we're in a much better place and a much more agile place than we were 10 years ago. So the Power group is approaching AI with the experience and the playbook and the confidence gained from its fintech activities. I would say we're like a hockey team that has learned from the experience of its previous playoff series and we're poised to achieve even greater success in the next round. How did that get there? Where is [indiscernible]? I don't know how that's snuck into the year. That -- this is an annual meeting. We need a little to quorum around here. I want to make a few comments on leadership transition. If you go back over the past 12 months or so, the leadership, CEO leadership has been transitioned to GBL, IGM, Great-West Life and Power Corp. This is part of a well-planned succession process. It demonstrates the depth of talent we have across our group and it provides continuity and builds on the momentum that we're enjoying. So if you go back to last year in May, we just announced that Johannes Huth was taking over as Managing Director, essentially CEO of GBL with [indiscernible] moving to Chair and Mr. Paul Desmarais moving from Chair to Vice Chair. July 1 of last year, David Harney, became CEO of Great-West Lifeco, placing Paul Mann, who had been in the role and very successfully built the business over 10 years. And then in February this year, IGM announced its own transition as part of PowerCorp's leadership transition, where we announced James O'Sullivan coming in to be President and CEO of Power on July 1 with me becoming a nice Chair. So as part of that, Damon Murchison was named CEO of IGM and he will remain in his role as CEO of IG Wealth. And Damon is going to do a great job. He's a tremendous leader great knowledge of the industry. He's been 11 years at Mackenzie and IG Wealth, really great stuff. Now James O'Sullivan, had 30 years of experience prior to becoming CEO of IGM. He's got vast leadership experience across many parts of the financial services business. At IGM, let's just say the business is much stronger today than it was 6 years ago. He strengthened the core businesses of IG Wealth and Mackenzie. He strengthened the portfolio of strategic investments that I showed you earlier, the leadership bench has been strengthened. The financial results have been great and shareholders have done extremely well. James is going to bring his experience, his leadership skills. His judgment, his intellect, his values his integrity to the role of CEO of Power, and he's going to do a fantastic job. Congratulations, James. Great. We look forward to welcoming you and Lucy to Montreal. So before I close and pass it back to the chair, if you'll permit me to make some personal reflections on a couple of years around the group. First thing, I am really, really confident about the future of Power Corporation. We have got leadership in people. That's the main thing. It is so strong. Our franchises are in great shape. They have strong momentum, and we have the proven Power Sustainable approach to investing and managing our businesses. Most importantly, we have the best ownership situation imaginable. I'll tell you my story of coming to Power. 25 years ago, I decided to join the group after 20 years at BMO Nesbitt Burns. I had been working over those 20 years closely with Power, which was our largest client. I made the decision with Susie as I've done every other major decision in my life for the last 46 years. Just by way of example, as Susie and my relationship. I've been -- this is my 25th year as a CEO at a public company on stage for AGMs, and Susie has been there for 25 of those AGMs. But more important issue is there, the other 364 days of the year as my partner in life. So I was happy at BMO Nesbitt Burns, but working on all these deals with Paul, with Andre, with Robert Gratton, who did so much to contribute to the growth of Power Corporation. I come back and the quality of the discussions and the depth of what we went through, the long-term nature to get the facts before you decide just the decency of the people I came home to Susie and I said, "You know what, I want to spend the rest of my career working with those people". I wasn't running from something. I was going to something. And I would say, Paul and Andre, I'll say this to the 2 of you. It starts with you. Whether you say that or realize that, you're a long-term perspective, your engagement in the business the values you bring, the fairness you continually demonstrate. That sets the foundation for the rest of the management teams and the boards to do what they do. You set that foundation and then we can do what we do. And I believe that's our long-term competitive advantage. I think the only real long-term competitive advantage is people and culture. And we're able to attract people. And when they come, they don't leave, they don't want to leave because there's too much fun to work here. and we end up building this great culture and taking great long-term decisions. And as great as it is, I have no doubt it can get even better, and it will get better as we move forward. So I just want to say how fortunate and lucky I feel to have had this opportunity to be part of this for all these years to Paul, and Andre to you to my fellow directors, previous directors, Power Financial Directors and previous Power financial directors, the teams my previous colleagues, looking at you, Greg, but there's many others as well. Thanks for being here and at the subs as well. Thank you so much. It has really been an honor and a pleasure to serve all of you. Thank you.

Thank you, Jeff, for those very generous comments to say the least. I must say I'm quite touched by your comments myself. And -- but let me make a few reflections on what Jeff was talking about on -- and congratulations for an incredible year and incredible results, hard to not be excited. But I'm very pleased to join him in order to thank our employees and our management and teams for these sound results. It's always gratifying to share positive news with our shareholders. So today, I would like to speak to you about an important amount of the Power Sustainable group that Jeff mentioned, that is a leadership transitions in our teams. Over the past year, Power Corporation and each of its 3 publicly traded operating companies have all announced as you saw, new chief executive appointments. At Power, we have always believed that leadership transitions should be approached and addressed with care, discipline and a view to ensuring continuity in our individuals. A core part of our stewardship is the way in which we approach these decisions. through close alignment, I would say, as Jeff mentioned, between ownership, management that works closely with them and the Board. with whom we work. We have a clear sense of direction as well. There will not be confusion after the 4 years that we've been here. And it's very much the case with the changes that we announced in February. As you know, as of July 1, Mr. Orr will become Vice Chair of the Corporation, and Mr. James O'Sullivan will become President and Chief Executive Officer. I'd like to recognize to start with Jeff's outstanding contribution. He has had a remarkable career in Canadian business and finance spanning more than 4 decades. Before joining Power Group in 2001 as President and CEO of Investors Group and later of IGM Financial, he built an outstanding career at the Bank of Montreal. And thank God, we were able to lower them away, I have to say. As a young investment banker, Jeff was involved. Imagine this in Power Financial's first initial public offering which, by the way, is quite funny because we toured the country. Remember what happened? Nobody was interested to talk about that. I'd just been named President, so you can imagine, I was a little depressed. It wasn't going very well. and then we made up for it after, I guess. But it is quite an incredible thing in history, both for the company and for him that this early connection from our organization was there. And when you think of it 2 decades later, that connection comes full swing and he becomes President and CEO of the company. I mean who would have guessed that, right? And we were pretty young at the time. Jeff has now been with the Power group for over 25 years, as you mentioned. During that time, most recently over the past 6 years as President, CEO of Power Corporation. He was instrumental in strengthening and repositioning Power Sustainable and deepening our leadership bench, big, big deal. It sounds easy, very difficult. We reached outside, and I'll talk about that in a minute and inside. And then painting focus, of course, on long-term value creation. That has got to be one of our differentiating factors here. Jeff, in fact, when I think of you, Jeff, I think of CEOs that behave like owners like Jeff cares, it's his company. And you know what, that makes a big, big difference to everybody, including the owners. It's very touching to see somebody -- sometimes I wonder, jeez, he seems to like displacing better than I do. It just really is attached to it. So it's a big deal. Now during the financial crisis, I'd say with a lot of common discipline and clarity of purpose, Jeff played a central role in steering our group through this profound disruption. I can tell you that frankly wasn't a day where Jeff won't come in the office to say, Paul and Andy, I think we have a problem. And I felt my face would go white like the sheet. And I knew how bad it was depending on his look on his face. But I remember a particular problem with Putnam, where I thought we're going to lose billions. And we -- he stayed calm. Said Paul going to deal with this. We're going to do this, that and we got through it. despite the regulators wanting to go after us, as you recall. But in the year since Jeff has been a driving force and achieving meaningful progress, of course, with our group companies. In the end, that's pretty exciting. As Chair of the Board of Great-West NIG, which is really the big job of the CEO Power Financial, that's what it is, is to work with our group companies. He champion those strategic initiatives that are -- got us really going in a great direction. He got -- we deployed Empower, looks easy now because it's going well, but you can imagine how we debated that and we're sure what we were going to do. And finally, we said we're going for it. And Jeff was right there to make his recommendations. Now the second largest retirement service company, as you pointed out in the U.S. He also supported the acceleration of the alternative asset management business and the continued development of our fintech strategy, which, again, we used to read this in the newspapers. And every time you read about in the papers, you always think, "Oh, my God, we're going to go broke. We are in trouble. These people are going to disrupt us. We're in trouble". And finally, at one point, we sat down, we said we're just to stop reading about this. Why don't we just do it. And I remember when our -- we had our meetings with Andy, Jeff and I and we all said, we're going to give $200 million into that thing. And we said to the -- at the time, we said to the team kill us, if you can disrupt a lot of us. And they did. And they're disrupting a lot of people, but we learned a lot. And through that, Jeff, was able to build incredible excitement in the group companies as well. And James made this point recently at the Board meeting, the excitement that's been generated by our fintech group and our group companies with the young people and the energy that's been going on there is very exciting. And Jeff, you're at the helm of all that decision-making. Power today is Jeff put. I think the numbers speak for themselves is well positioned with strong operating businesses. Big thing in our group, strong balance sheet. We're obsessed with it and clear strategic direction. And we're -- as my father would say, Paul, hang on to that cash. And we got a lot of it, I have to say. So that's also you leave at a moment where I don't think we've ever held as much cash in the group in ever in our history. But beyond strategy and results, Jeff's leadership has been marked by a strong sense of stewardship. I was kind of alluding to it earlier. He has consistently attracted mentored empowered talented leaders. And as we reinforce a culture that combine solid performance with always responsibility. And I think people are confident, Jeff, when we have leaders, as you said, that culturally, we've got their back. We know you're going to take some risks. We know it's dangerous, but we're going to take those risks. We're going to take those chances. And we're taking them together, which is a big deal. We took our decisions together and with the people implementing those things. And I think those people always felt we had their back. And I think that's a big deal because I think that's what permits us to do the kind of wild things that we're doing, like great well said, who would ever do that. And all kinds of other things. I mean I could go through each company and talk about all the innovations that we've taken on. But to sum it up, on behalf of my brother, the Board and all shareholders, I want to thank Jeff for his extraordinary contribution. We are privileged that we will continue as Vice Chair. I'm thrilled by that. Jeff, that doesn't happen often either. And usually often the CEO that's coming in doesn't want that, but shows you the generosity of James who says the company matters. And Jeff couldn't be good advice. Of course, we're going to keep Jeff. And that's the kind of leadership that we look for. So your experience, Jeff sound judgment, deep knowledge of our group is a huge value, and thank you for staying with us. So as we look ahead, Andre and I who have been very aligned on these things. I also want to welcome James O'Sullivan to his new role. James is an accomplished executive with deep experience across multiple segments. As Jeff has said, I won't repeat them. But at the helm of IG, you've done, let's call it a hell of a job. And there, again, you've been gutsy. You've done new areas, new things. And you've shown great leadership, too. Now the people in that firm, you can see it. They just love you. They love working for you. That's a big deal. And to be able to do that and bring that kind of loyalty in any operation, I think is a fabulous quality that we think the world now. So during your tenure, you worked closely also with senior leadership. That's another fabulous thing. It's not like James just running one company. He's on the board of Great-West and some of our group companies, wealth simple as I recall, and others. And therefore, he knows our businesses. He's worked with us. He's seen our culture. He knows how we think. And he brings in all this vision and experience, of course, that this role requires. He brings a deep set profoundly grounded values. I underline that because that's very important, Andre and I and an integrity to closely align with the culture and our values that really have defined our group and Jeff, you couldn't have expressed has been better. It was very touching that you would do that. So James is here with us today. James, would you plan and please stand and be recognized at you. Now we can see you.

[indiscernible]

James, we've got a bet in the office now jumping ahead on the French lessons. I'm taking a bet with some of my colleagues, I have decided to learn Italian. And I'm going to want to see if I'm going to beat them to the race or they're going to beat me. So we're going to see here who wins this rate. I'm getting nervous. James clearly is jumping ahead here. So James, thank you for being here. This transition gives me the opportunity to speak more broadly about succession people and governance. As I mentioned, effectively managing leadership discussion is among the most important tasks of any board. Eventually, succession must happen. And ideally, it happens at a time and in a way that provides continuity and builds on momentum that is already in place. At Power and across our group, succession planning is not something that begins when changes near. It is rather a constant focus that benefits from years of attention honest evaluation and a willingness to think well beyond the immediate horizon. It follows a playbook that has been used by Power Sustainable for close to 6 decades. It began with my father and his leadership transitions that are planned well in advance and with discipline. And the Boards of Directors are actively involved in the process that is owners and management. We focus not only on the next appointment but on the broader continuity of the business, the development leaders over time, and the preservation of sustained progress of our operations. Most of the CEOs appointed at our group companies have come from within the Power Group though there have been notable and highly successful exceptions, including James, who was appointed CEO of IGM Financial. Succession planning is rooted in our management philosophy and its underlying principles have remained consistent despite changing environments that we have operated in. Within the Power Group, provide concrete successful examples of our special recipe, let's call it that, in this regard. You can now see a few of these examples on the screen. Over time, we have also built highly effective management teams, bringing together individuals of various experiences, backgrounds and complementary skill sets. We will continue to build on that strength and by attracting deeply highly tatted people who share common values. One thing that struck me when they sent you these pictures, it really strikes you more than the words. Not a lot of people there. And think of all the years. We're talking over 40 years. Think of all the corporations you know everywhere are changing CEO over 5 years at the most, they say, "Oh my God, 10 years, he's enough, take them out. It's too long". Not here. No way. Here, where we got good people and they're well and they're energetic, we ride with them till the end. And then when it's the end, we invite them to stay. So that is the circle of how we've done this, and I think it's really important. So it now brings me to the governance. Our governance model has been refined over decades in a way that Power conducts itself as an active shareholder involved through its group companies Board of Directors and with management in all matters of -- and we keep it simple, strategic direction, leadership, capital allocation and dividend pulse. We rely on management, I'd like to sum it up this way. We rely on management to propose strategic plans and the Boards of Directors and of course, the owners to approve these plans after appropriate discussion. We then entrust the management team's responsibility to execute those plans. We don't get in the middle of it. We let them do their job, but we monitor their execution. And so we're always [ Yangan Yang ] between management owners and boards and you're always working together. And I think that's a big part of our recipe. Andy and I, in particular, are highly conscious of our dual role as both the controlling shareholders and as members of the Board of Directors of our group companies. Those are both separate responsibilities and they're important ones. This model has been one of the group's great strengths. Our approach is rooted in disciplined thinking and a commitment to resilience over the long term rather than being driven, of course, by short-term market pressures. It is our firm and deeply held intention to continue to guide with this approach. As I conclude my remarks, I'm proud to say that we approach the future from a position of strength. We have strong businesses are -- we have experienced boards and talented leadership teams as well. And throughout the entire group, we can count on extremely talented people across our companies whose commitment and professionalism deserve our profound gratitude. And James comes to Power Corporation, I feel confident because I know that you have people around you, like Jake and Claude, who work with Jeff and who will be working with you and that is a really major asset that you've been able to build, Jeff. And it is also an asset that gives me a great deal of confidence vis-a-vis our future and everything that we can continue to accomplish. So Jeff, we wish you all the best in your new roles. And to our shareholders, I'd like to thank all of you for being with us as well as thank you to our employees for your constant support. Thank you. Just when I was thinking I could take a break. The next item on the agenda is the election of directors. [indiscernible] to propose the nominees.

Mr. Chair, I nominate the 14 persons for election as directors of the corporation. Mr. Marcel Coutu, Andre Desmarais, Paul Desmarais, Gary Doer; [indiscernible], Anthony Graham, Sharon MacLeod, Paula Madoff, Isabelle Marcoux, Jeffrey Orr, James O'Sullivan, Timothy Ryan Jr., [indiscernible] and Elizabeth Wilson.

Thank you, Mr. [indiscernible]. Are there any further nominations or questions from shareholders specifically on this item? I now declare the nominations closed and would ask Mr. [indiscernible] to present the motion.

Mr. Chair, I move that those nominated be elected directors of the corporation to hold office until the next meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected, subject to the provisions of the corporation's bylaws.

Thank you, Mr. [indiscernible]. Let's now proceed to the vote. If you have a blue ballot, please fill it out now and hand it to the scrutineers. So we're good, fabulous. Have we received -- we have, in fact, received all of the ballots, all the better. The next item on the agenda is the appointment of auditors. I would like to ask Ms. [indiscernible], an employee as well as shareholder of the company to present the proposal. You're responsible for all of the gifts for Power Corporation. She is the person to go to.

Mr. Chairman, it's teamwork. I propose that Deloitte be appointed as the company's auditors to serve under the closing of the next Annual Shareholders Meeting.

Thank you Ms. [indiscernible]. Any specific questions regarding this proposal? Let us now move on to the vote by ballot. If you have a salmon colored ballot. Please fill it out now for this item. The ballots will then be collected. We have collected them. This could be a record -- business, the approval of nonbinding advisory resolution on the corporation's approach to executive compensation. I would ask Mr. [indiscernible] an employee and shareholder of the corporation to present the motion.

Mr. Chair, I move that the nonbinding advisory resolution on the corporation's approach to executive compensation as articulated in the management proxy circular be approved.

Thank you, Mrs. [indiscernible]. Are there questions from shareholders specifically on this item? We will now move to voting you can complete, again, the salmon ballot, which we're not doing because we all have them. We have received all of the ballots. Let us now turn to the shareholders' proposals. The company has received 3 shareholder proposals from MEDAC, 2 of which will be put to a vote at this meeting. Each proposal has been set forth in the proxy statement. The Board's recommendations are also set forth. As we all know, as usually presented in the proxy circular, I see that Mr. [indiscernible] is here. He's representative of the MEDAC, and I'll turn it over to Mr. [indiscernible] to do the presentation.

Chair, I hope that everything is going well. My name is [indiscernible]. They couldn't go better. I'm acting on behalf of the MEDAC in education and defending shareholders, as I do each year, the metric has been in place for 30 years. I will have been there for 20 years now, a little bit more. I'm very pleased to be here today. We have 3 shareholder proposals. One is not subjected to the vote. We were able to agree on the issue of AI. You'll recognize the policies that are in place with Power Sustainable satisfy the same objectives as those policies and objectives that are set by the voluntary code imposed by the federal government that we can buy into, and you'll say us that you don't want to buy in, but you'll also tell us that your policies comply with the same objectives. So we're very satisfied with this. And I may come back to this during the question period. I might come back to the issue of AI. In my mind, that is a key and important issue. And it is likely to replace many jobs in the economy, including those jobs at Power. So in brief, we submitted to further proposals. One proposal aimed at strengthening the participation of shareholders at the meetings. It's not here that there are a few shareholders. We're very pleased to see that is taking place in person. But this proposal which were not very successful this year. In fact, we've come until the end of the major season of shareholders' meetings where there now. And in fact, regarding the results we heard, we feel that this is valid, especially for the fourth item that we were asking for under this proposal. Had we received approval of this only element, we would have been an agreement with proceeding to the vote. We actually presented a table where you're able to see what the shareholder participation rates, whether it is rising or lower than it was. Compare this to the shareholder participation in institutions and we actually produced a table by [indiscernible] where the data exists, but it's difficult for shareholders compile this data and to insert it into a table that would not be very costly, but it is complicated for a single shareholder to do this because you have to consult many documents produced in the past to see where they're not, this is possible. We dare to hope that this specific measure will eventually be carried by somebody. We hope that it will be less difficult here given the shareholder structure and the multiple votes that you have in place, we believe that this idea might have been interesting to you. But we're not here to convince you, we don't expect extraordinary results on this proposal. Of course, we invite all of the shareholders to support it, but we will be continuing to put questions to you about this measure. And it is easy the data is in existence, and I think it will be easier to produce a table regarding this. Our second proposal is one that has previously been supported. That is to put in place a consultative vote essential points. Again, this is an instrument allowing all the shareholders to speak to the issues of the environment. It is not possible for a corporation like ours are another publicly traded corporation with such a wide shareholdership to consult each and every shareholder to see what each shareholder thinks about environmental policies. And this kind of advisory vote, and we'll all recall that word, this would make it possible for all to be consulted. We're satisfied to note that you published the poll results last year on the proxy circular. That's an excellent policy. We also noticed that there are about 14% of shareholders who do not have multiple voting shares and who supported this measure last year. That is not tremendous. Nevertheless, it cannot be overlooked, so we invite all of the shareholders to support this proposal. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for your comments and your proposals, Mr. [indiscernible]. So the Board's recommendation is, as you know, in the proxy circular and they're well detailed and explain the reasons why we do not agree with you. But frankly, I have nothing further to add to these comments that we published. And that all of the shareholders have had an opportunity to see prior to the vote. We will now proceed with the vote. If you have a green ballot, please hand us into the scrutineers. Do we have any green ballots? We don't have any? That's fine. So I declare voting closed on all items of the agenda, and I'd like to ask the scrutineers to present their preliminary report. There might be slight differences between the results announced this morning and those to be released after the meeting.

Mr. Chairman, with respect to election of directors, a majority of the votes cast at this meeting were voted in favor of the 14 nominees named in the proxy circular, with each nominee receiving in excess of 84%. The result with respect to the appointment of auditors, the results resolutions passed with votes cast in excess of 96.46%. The result with respect to executive compensation, the resolutions passed with votes cast in excess of 97.86%. The result with respect to shareholder proposal #1, the resolutions was defeated with more than 99.87% who voted against the proposal. The results with respect to the shareholder proposal #2. The resolution was defeated with more than 95.11% who voted against the proposal. Thank you.

Thank you to the scrutineers. I declare the resolution and the election of directors adopted and the 14 nominees elected as directors. Congratulations, from the Board, I declare the resolution on the appointment of auditors adopted as well. Congratulations to our auditors. I hereby declare that the nonbinding advisory resolution on the company's approach to executive compensation has also been adopted. And I declare that both shareholder proposals have been defeated. A report setting forth the results of the vote will be filed on SEDAR, plus following the meeting and a report on the election of each director will be included in a press release issued following the meeting. This ends the formal portion of the meeting, and we will now be happy to take questions. But before proceeding to question [Audio Gap] [Technical Difficulties - Please refer to the preliminary transcript that will be posted shortly.]