Sun Communities, Inc. (SUI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to Sun Communities 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Chairman and CEO, Gary Shiffman.

Good morning, and welcome to the 2021 Annual Shareholder Meeting of Sun Communities. I'm Gary Shiffman, the Chairman and CEO of the company, and I want to thank everyone for joining us today. We are excited to be hosting our meeting virtually this year. The use of a virtual meeting format has allowed us to be more inclusive and reach a greater number of our shareholders, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. We will conduct the business portion of our meeting first and answer questions at the end of the meeting. Though we may not be able to answer every question, we will do our best to provide a response to as many as possible. The polls to vote on the 3 proposals being considered at the meeting are now open. Any shareholder who hasn't voted yet or wishes to change their vote, may do so by clicking the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions there. Shareholders who have sent proxies or voted via telephone or Internet and do not want to change their vote, do not need to take any further action. The polls will close at the conclusion of the discussion of the 3 proposals. It's now shortly after 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time and the meeting is officially called to order. On behalf of all of the Sun Communities stakeholders, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the outstanding efforts of the entire Sun team, our Board of Directors, our legal and accounting advisers as well as all of our third-party partners for their commitment and assistance this past year. And now I would like to introduce the other members of the Board who are attending today's meeting virtually: Tonya Allen, Meghan Baivier, Stephanie Bergeron, Brian Hermelin, Ron Klein, Clu Lewis and Arthur Weiss. Also attending today's meeting virtually are representatives of our independent auditor, Grant Thornton. They will be available during the question-and-answer session after the meeting to respond to appropriate questions. And finally, the company has appointed Matt Murphy as our outside legal counsel, Jaffe, Raitt, Heuer & Weiss to act as Inspector of Election. Mr. Murphy is attending today's meeting virtually and has taken the oath of Inspector of Election earlier today. After the formal meeting has been adjourned, we will provide time for general questions. Only validated shareholders may ask questions in the designated field of the web portal. Out of consideration for others, please limit your questions to 1. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. However, no one attending via the webcast or telephone is permitted to use any audio recording device. March 12, 2021 was the record date for determining shareholders entitled to vote at this meeting. An affidavit has been delivered, attesting to the fact that on or about April 6, 2021, a notice of Internet availability of the notice of meeting, the proxy statement and the 2020 annual report to shareholders, or those documents themselves, were mailed to all shareholders as of the record date. On the record date, there were approximately 111.7 million shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting. We are informed by the Inspector of Elections that approximately 89% of those shares are represented at the meeting, and therefore, a quorum is present for purposes of transacting business. Now I present the matters to be voted upon. The polls to vote on the proposals will close after they are presented. The first proposal is the election of 8 directors to serve until our 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are duly elected and qualified. All of our current directors were nominated by election by the Board as disclosed in the proxy statement. The nominees are: Tonya Allen, Meghan Baivier, Stephanie Bergeron, Brian Hermelin, Ron Klein, Clu Lewis, Gary Shiffman and Arthur Weiss. The second proposal is an advisory vote on executive compensation. This vote, which is often called a Say-on-Pay vote, is a nonbinding vote, although the compensation committee and the Board will certainly take the results of the vote into account when making future compensation decisions. The third proposal is the ratification of the selection of Grant Thornton as the independent registered accounting firm to audit the company's financial statements for the year ending December 31, 2021. [Voting]

Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, I now declare the polls are closed. The Inspector of Elections has informed me that the preliminary voting results indicate that the nominees for election to the Board have been duly elected. The compensation package for executive officers has been approved and the appointment of Grant Thornton as the company's independent registered accounting firm for 2021 has been ratified. The company will report the final vote results by filing a Form 8-K with the SEC in the next few days. There being no further business to come before the meeting, the 2021 Annual Meeting is now adjourned. At this time, we would open things up for shareholder questions and comments. We will attempt to answer any or as many questions as time permits, but only questions that are relevant to the meeting will be addressed.

Gary, there are no questions.

Since there are no questions, I would like to thank everybody for attending the 2021 Annual Meeting, and this concludes the call. Thank you all.