At its annual shareholders meeting, Apple (reluctantly) agreed to adopt majority voting on the board of directors.
Shareholders voted in favor of the measure in 2011, but Apple’s leadership nixed the idea. The adoption of the measure is probably due to pressure by Calpers, the US’ biggest public pension fund that owns 0.26% of Apple (that’s a stake worth $1.4 billion). The renewed measure was sponsored by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.
Before the change, shareholders in the world’s largest listed company could only withhold their vote in favor of the election of a director, rather than vote against, notes the “Financial Times” (http://macte.ch/U4xgp). If a director was unopposed, only one vote in favour was required to retain the post, irrespective of how many votes were withheld.
Apple also asked shareholders to re-elect William Campbell, Tim Cook, Millard Drexler, Al Gore, Robert Iger, Andrea Jung, Arthur Levinson, and Ronald Sugar to the company’s Board of Directors. And they did. Also at today’s meeting:
° CEO Tim Cook said FaceBook was “friend,” not foe.
° Cook wouldn’t comment on Apple HDTV rumors.
° Cook wouldn’t commit to a cash dividend regarding Apple’s almost US$100 billion in cash.
