POET - POET Technologies Provides Results of 2024 Annual General and Special Meeting | Benzinga
TORONTO, June 25, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- POET Technologies Inc. ("POET" or the "Company") (TSXV:PTK, NASDAQ:POET), the designer and developer of the POET Optical Interposer™, Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) and light sources for the data center, tele-communication and artificial intelligence markets, today reported the voting results of its Annual General and Special Meeting (the "Meeting" or "AGSM"), which was held virtually on Friday, June 21, 2024.
The Company's VP Finance and Administration, Kevin Barnes, delivered customary introductions and the call to order, and POET's Chairman of the Compensation Committee, Glen Riley, conducted the formal business of the Meeting, which included the approval of all proposals outlined in the Company's management information circular and voting material as previously distributed to shareholders.
After completing the formal business of the Meeting, the Company's Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Suresh Venkatesan, presented POET's current status as a company dedicated to producing advanced communication solutions for Artificial Intelligence networks. Dr. Venkatesan's presentation featured the Company's financial stability, the close match between the needs of AI network operators and POET's optical engine products, current major customer projects to produce 800G and 1.6T transceivers, and its operational strategy to address the current geopolitical situation. The presentation was followed by a brief Q&A session. The slides presented at the Meeting along with webcast replay can be accessed in the Investor Relations section of POET's website at: https://poet-technologies.com/agm/agm2024.html.
AGSM Voting Results
A detailed Report on Voting Results of the AGSM is attached to this press release. In summary, the shareholders of the Company approved the following proposals:
- Re-election of Suresh Venkatesan, Jean-Louis Malinge, Theresa Lan Ende, Glen Riley and Chris Tsiofas as directors, with no director receiving less than 84% of the votes cast;
- Appointment of Davidson & Company LLP as the Company's auditors by 98% of the votes cast;
- Approval by 74% of the votes cast to amend the terms of certain stock options held by insiders of the Corporation;
- Approval of the Corporation's omnibus equity incentive plan by 86% of the votes cast, which included an increase in the number of stock options awards available to 12,218,458, representing 20% of the 61,092,291 commons shares issued and outstanding at the time of the vote. A copy of omnibus equity incentive plan as approved will be available under the Company's issuer profile on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca).
Option Grants
Following the AGSM, the POET Board of Directors met to elect officers and to discuss option grants for directors, officers and employees. For their service on the Board of Directors until the next Annual General Meeting, the directors were granted a total of 277,659 options which will vest quarterly in arrears over the next year. The balance of each members compensation is paid in cash over four quarters in accordance with the established formula for member compensation. Following the recommendation of the Compensation Committee, the Board also granted to certain officers a total of 630,000 options and granted an additional 750,000 options to certain employees. The officer and employee options are subject to a four-year vesting, in which 25% vest on the first anniversary of the grant and the remaining 75% vest quarterly over the remaining three years. The director, officer and employee options are exercisable for 10 years at a price of CAD$2.48, being the closing price of the Company's shares on June 24, 2024. The options were granted subject to provisions of the Company's 2024 Omnibus Incentive Plan and are subject to the TSX Venture Exchange policies and applicable securities laws. For further details on the Company's share capital, refer to the Company's Financial Statements and MD&A for the three-months ended March 31, 2024, which may be found on SEDAR+ and EDGAR.
About POET Technologies Inc.
POET is a design and development company offering high-speed optical modules, optical engines and light source products to the artificial intelligence systems market and to hyperscale data centers. POET's photonic integration solutions are based on the POET Optical Interposer™, a novel, patented platform that allows the seamless integration of electronic and photonic devices into a single chip using advanced wafer-level semiconductor manufacturing techniques. POET's Optical Interposer-based products are lower cost, consume less power than comparable products, are smaller in size and are readily scalable to high production volumes. In addition to providing high-speed (800G, 1.6T and above) optical engines and optical modules for AI clusters and hyperscale data centers, POET has designed and produced novel light source products for chip-to-chip data communication within and between AI servers, the next frontier for solving bandwidth and latency problems in AI systems. POET's Optical Interposer platform also solves device integration challenges in 5G networks, machine-to-machine communication, self-contained "Edge" computing applications and sensing applications, such as LIDAR systems for autonomous vehicles. POET is headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with operations in Allentown, PA, Shenzhen, China, and Singapore. More information about POET is available ...