Apple (AAPL) shareholders are “scheduled to vote on nominees to the company’s board of directors Tuesday,” The Asociated Press reports.
“Proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis & Co. said investors should elect Chief Executive Steve Jobs, William Campbell, Millard Drexler, Andrea Jung and Eric Schmidt to the board of directors, but withhold votes for former Vice President Al Gore, Arthur Levinson and Jerome York,” AP reports.
“Glass Lewis said more than 25 percent of shareholders withheld votes for Gore, Levinson and York last year, which raises questions about their nominations. The firm voiced concerns about audits and investigationsof Apple’s backdated stock options granting practices,” AP reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Gore, Levinson and York chaired or were members of various committee’s relating to audits, compensation, and stock option investigatons.
The Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Apple Inc. is scheduled to be held today, Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at 10am PST, at 1 Infinite Loop, Building 4, Cupertino, California 95014, for the following purposes:
1. To elect the Company’s Board of Directors.
2. To ratify the appointment of KPMG LLP as the Company’s independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal year 2008.
3. To consider two shareholder proposals, if properly presented at the meeting.
4. To transact such other business as may properly come before the meeting and any postponement(s) or adjournment(s) thereof.
All Apple shareholders are invited to attend the meeting in person. Shareholders attending the meeting may vote in person even if they have previously returned proxy cards. Only shareholders of record as of the close of business on January 15, 2008 are entitled to receive notice of, to attend, and to vote at the meeting.
Gore was on the investigative committee that looked into the backdated options. His committee’s findings were on par with those of the SEC. So why is he under fire? We know why he’s under fire in this forum, but that has nothing to do with his performance on the AAPL board.
Please, if you’re going to post about this, try posting something intelligent rather than an obvious partisan shot.
Oh please, Glass and Lewis must be some right wing nuts who hate Gore, and are disguising their illegitimate attack on him because they don’t want to appear to be such idiots.
Anyone know what the shareholder proposals are?
so we vote against people who were asked by the company to look into possible misdeeds, and did so, and found the same thing an outside investigation found?
those are the kind of people you WANT. morons….
I never received a proxy card although a shareholder well before 15 JAN 2008. I feel betrayed! The horror!!
Sounds like a good idea to me. Everyone with a brain knows that Al Gore is a total fraud anyway. He’s just stealing money for doing absolutely nothing. A lot like he does with everything else he has going on for that matter. An inconvenient truth indeed.
To iqbal:
“To Holders of Common Stock of Apple Inc.:
Notice is hereby given that the Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Apple Inc., a California corporation (the
“Company”), will be held on Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. local time, at the Company’s principal
executive offices located at 1 Infinite Loop, Building 4, Cupertino, California 95014, for the following purposes,
as more fully described in the accompanying Proxy Statement:
1. To elect the Company’s Board of Directors.
2. To ratify the appointment of KPMG LLP as the Company’s independent registered public accounting
firm for fiscal year 2008.
3. To consider two shareholder proposals, if properly presented at the meeting.
4. To transact such other business as may properly come before the meeting and any postponement(s) or
adjournment(s) thereof.
All shareholders are cordially invited to attend the meeting in person. However, to ensure that each
shareholder’s vote is counted at the meeting, shareholders are requested to mark, sign, date and return the
enclosed proxy card as promptly as possible in the envelope provided or to submit the proxy via the Internet or
by telephone. Shareholders attending the meeting may vote in person even if they have previously returned proxy
cards.
Only shareholders of record as of the close of business on January 15, 2008 are entitled to receive notice of,
to attend and to vote at the meeting.”
(link and pdf alert)
http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/10/107357/AAPL_Proxy_2008.pdf
P.S. I should have mentioned that the PDF link has the full details.
Looks to me like they are trying to get rid of the members that didn’t find in their favor during the backdating investigation.
That’s the way it is these days – if you don’t like the message, change messengers until you get the answer you want.
Speaking as a shareholder, I invite Glass, Lewis and company to shove their advice back where it came from.
-jcr
We know why he’s under fire in this forum
Is he running against Obama ? Is that what the wall to wall ads here are about ?
Gore is going to start looking very stupid, very soon over the global warming thing. Reports have been coming out about how the U.S. has had more snow cover than any year since 1966… the arctic ice has more than recovered… the founder of the Weather Channel wants to sue Gore for all the warming misinformation… etc.
The global cooling theory is coming back because of the Sun’s unexpected inactivity.
If Gore starts looking really stupid, it will reflect on Apple.
I’m not a fan of Al Gore’s politics, but this seems to be an extension of the pointless backdating witch hunt that led to nowhere before, and cost Apple valuable time and resources which could have been used to produce more value for investors in the stock.
I think Hard Nard hit the nail on the head with the “don’t like message, change messenger” scheme.
Glass Lewis & Co., please spare us with the political piece. Gore is rock solid as a board member and brings a lot to the table. The guy’s a visionary, played a large role in the development of the internet, and now plays a big part in the public’s reawakening to environmental issues. Being a responsible senator, I’d say he understands a thing or two about people, too. Again, spare us the politics, this is the kind of guy I’d want on my board.
“If Gore starts looking really stupid, it will reflect on Apple.”
Gore wasn’t invited to Apple’s board of directors for his views on Global Warming. I doubt the outcome of global warming trends and politics will have any impact on his position there.
While I don’t like his politics I would not claim that Gore is stupid. Global Warming in my view is an agenda which is driven more by politics and money than science or concern for the environment, but again this isn’t related to Gore’s position on the board. This is strictly about punishing anyone involved in the back dating investigation. This witch hunt needs to be put to rest.
“Again, spare us the politics”
To be fair, inviting a well known partisan politician to serve on your board of directors loses you any right to say “spare us the politics.”
I don’t think this has anything to do with Gore’s politics but Apple couldn’t really complain about it even if it did.
I vote for everybody EXCEPT Al Gore every time.
This is Liberty! Hourray and praises to the god $!
The only one you should withhold is Bill Campbell. Why is this bozo on the board when his flagship product, Quickbooks, continues to languish on the Mac platform? They only grudgingly took Quickbooks to OS X after years of user pleas, and then it was only a simple port. And with QB 2008 for Windows out, where is QB 2008 for Mac? No dice. And if you want to use QB with Leopard, you must buy 2007….and when 2008 comes out you will pay FULL PRICE AGAIN to get a release that still will not have all the features that the Windows version does.
Punish this man for his disrespect/disregard/disdain of Mac users everywhere.
Give me a break. I don’t have a problem with Al Gore on the board of directors. I *DO* have a problem with Bill Campbell of Intuit. Can you think of a company that makes crappier software for the Macintosh than they do?
As far as I know, the SEC has closed the books on the options backdating investigation. If that is true, Glass Lewis should drop this as reason to remove board members. They are obviously representing big pension fund shareholders that don’t like the way Apple’s board handles compensation, and are attempting to change the mix on the board. Hey, Apple is a public company, and shareholders have a right to influence the selection of the board. It looks to me like they want a board the is less a ‘rubber stamp’ to Steve Jobs wishes. Based on his performance, however, a rubber stamp board is what serves Apple best as long as Jobs is at the helm.
@rdbvideo,
“Gore is going to start looking very stupid, very soon over the global warming thing. Reports have been coming out about how the U.S. has had more snow cover than any year since 1966… the arctic ice has more than recovered… the founder of the Weather Channel wants to sue Gore for all the warming misinformation… etc.
The global cooling theory is coming back because of the Sun’s unexpected inactivity.
If Gore starts looking really stupid, it will reflect on Apple.”
RIGHT. Global warming is an instant thing. Like a light bulb. Click its on and warming, click its cold. Like the Queen Mary 2, it takes time to get going and time to stop. Like two miles when you hit the emergency brakes.
So, think global warming is a trend not the weather today. 🙁
Well, when we have eminent scientists like rdbvideo and twilight moon keeping the world safe and “warm”, who needs Gore? Sheesh, no wonder blank slate Barack “Fainta” Obama is attracting such huge crowds!
@TwilightMoon
Global Warming is NOT about politics.
Some 95 plus % of scientists agree that humans are PROFOUNDLY interfering with our environment. Right now, the debate within the scientific community is when do approach the point where we are no longer able to reverse the effects. It’s no longer a question of if or how.
Even the current administration, which has replaced many scientists in senior admin positions within govt scientific agencies with political appointees is finally admitting that there may be an issue.
The number of research studies and papers and quality of citations on the subject is overwhelming.
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/
http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/fgwscience.asp
http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics
“Sounds like a good idea to me. Everyone with a brain knows that Al Gore is a total fraud anyway. He’s just stealing money for doing absolutely nothing. A lot like he does with everything else he has going on for that matter. An inconvenient truth indeed.”
Proof please. Include facts if you have any.
I’m certainly willing to change my opinion if you can prove it.
Ready. Set. GO!