PROPOSAL II: RATIFICATION OF
SELECTION OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM
At a meeting held on May 20, 2021, the Companys Audit Committee approved and the Board of Directors, including a majority of the
Independent Directors, approved and ratified the selection of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the Companys independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022. The Company expects that a representative of
PricewaterhouseCoopers will be present virtually at the Meeting, and will have an opportunity to make a statement (if the representative so desires) and to respond to appropriate questions. After reviewing the Companys audited financial
statements for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021, the Board of Directors Audit Committee recommended to the Board of Directors that such statements be included in the Companys Annual Report on Form
10-K. A copy of the Audit Committees Report appears below.
Audit Fees: Audit fees
consist of fees billed for professional services rendered for the audit of our year-end financial statements and services that are normally provided by PricewaterhouseCoopers in connection with statutory and
regulatory filings. Audit fees billed during the fiscal years ended March 31, 2021 and March 31, 2020 were $1,345,000 and $1,345,000, respectively.
Audit-Related Fees: Audit-related services consist of fees billed by PricewaterhouseCoopers for assurance and related services that are
reasonably related to the performance of the audit or review of our financial statements and are not reported under Audit Fees. These services include attest services that are not required by statute or regulation and consultations
concerning financial accounting and reporting standards. Audit-related fees billed during the fiscal years ended March 31, 2021 and March 31, 2020 were $71,688 and $71,810, respectively.
Tax Services Fees: Tax services fees consist of fees billed by PricewaterhouseCoopers for professional tax services. These services
also include assistance regarding federal, state, and local tax compliance. Tax services and fees billed during the fiscal years ended March 31, 2021 and March 31, 2020 were $110,000 and $100,000, respectively, which represented work
related to, among other things, preparation of tax returns, our regulated investment company (RIC) qualification, excise tax distribution requirements and form extensions.
All Other Fees: Other fees would include fees billed by PricewaterhouseCoopers for products and services other than the services
reported above, of which there were none in the fiscal years ended March 31, 2021 and March 31, 2020.
The Audit Committee has
established a pre-approval policy that describes the permitted audit, audit-related, tax and other services to be provided by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Companys auditors. The policy requires that the
Audit Committee pre-approve the audit and non-audit services performed by the auditors in order to assure that the provision of such service does not impair the
auditors independence.
Any requests for audit, audit-related, tax and other services that have not received general pre-approval must be submitted to the Audit Committee for specific pre-approval, and cannot commence until such approval has been granted. Normally, pre-approval is provided at regularly scheduled meetings of the Audit Committee. However, the Audit Committee may delegate pre-approval authority to one or more of its
members. The member or members to whom such authority is delegated reports any pre-approval decisions to the Audit Committee at its next scheduled meeting. The Audit Committee does not delegate its
responsibilities to pre-approve services performed by the independent auditor to management.
All
services described above under Audit-Related Fees and Tax Services Fees were pre-approved by the Audit Committee.
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