On April 14, 2025, HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) conducted its 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, marking a significant milestone in the company’s ongoing corporate governance and stakeholder engagement efforts. Key proposals included the re-election of the Board of Directors, ratification of the company’s independent auditor, and an advisory vote on executive compensation. This post provides a quantitative analysis of the voting results, assesses implications for investors, and contextualizes these findings by incorporating recent themes discussed in HP’s prior earnings calls.
Source: Official SEC 8-K Filing
The 2025 HP Annual Meeting saw the re-election of all thirteen Board nominees with high approval ratings:
Approval Percentages: Ten of thirteen directors received more than 99% of the votes cast in their favor. Notably, Fama Francisco, Gianluca Pettiti, and Songyee Yoon each received approximately 99.7% support (695,000,000+ votes for, less than 2.3 million votes against).
Lowest Support: The least-supported directors—Bruce Broussard and Enrique Lores—still garnered robust support, both registering 97.5% approval (each with approximately 17.2 million votes against out of nearly 700 million shares voted).
Investor Participation: Broker non-votes totaled 119,490,838 shares, signifying robust shareholder engagement with more than 700,000,000 shares affirmatively voting in each election.
Fluency and authority: This level of concentrated support for HP’s leadership underscores a strong shareholder endorsement of the company’s current strategic direction and board composition, correlating with recurring themes from previous earnings calls regarding stability, experienced governance, and a commitment to sustainable value creation.
“Our Board’s expertise has been instrumental as HP navigates the post-pandemic PC and printing market shifts,” CEO Enrique Lores remarked in the recent Q4 2024 earnings call. [Cite: HP Earnings Call Archive]
Shareholders overwhelmingly ratified Ernst & Young LLP as HP’s independent auditor for FY 2025:
Approval: 93.6% of votes (765,041,860 for, out of 817,717,585 total shares entitled to vote) supported this proposal.
Ongoing auditor ratification was a focal governance item highlighted in HP’s 2024 Q4 call, with management emphasizing transparent, rigorous oversight and financial reporting integrity amid a shifting global regulatory environment.
HP’s shareholder-approved executive compensation in an advisory vote by a 93.7% majority (654,425,815 votes in favor, 39,427,880 against). This decisive outcome reflects continued trust in HP’s pay-for-performance philosophy.
Context: Despite industry cyclicality and macro volatility discussed in recent calls, stakeholders clearly believe HP’s executive incentives remain balanced with shareholder interests.
“Our compensation plans are aligned to drive sustained shareholder returns and operational excellence,” noted CFO David Meline during Q1 2025 remarks.
The results from the 2025 Annual Meeting echo consistent themes from HP’s preceding earnings calls: a pivot toward disciplined capital allocation, board continuity to ensure stability, and accountability in executive pay. Notably:
HP has maintained a high degree of board member stability over the past five years.
Investor focus on transparency and governance has increasingly influenced voting trends, as seen in the high approval percentages in both director elections and auditor ratification.
HP Inc.’s 2025 Annual Meeting demonstrates quantifiable, broad-based investor confidence across all major issues: corporate leadership, accounting integrity, and compensation alignment. These outcomes reinforce HP’s reputation for stakeholder-driven governance and strategic prudence—key perspectives regularly cited by company executives during earnings discussions and now statistically validated via annual meeting results.
Source: HP Inc. SEC 8-K Filing, April 2025
Tags: hpq, annual meeting, shareholder voting, board elections, executive compensation