“Apple Inc. said it had made it easier for long-time shareholders, or a group of shareholders, to nominate a director for its board, joining a growing list of companies offering ‘proxy access,'” Scott Thurm reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“In a securities filing, Apple said its board of directors had adopted amended bylaws Monday that allow a shareholder, or a group of up to 20 shareholders, holding 3% of its shares continuously for three years to include board nominees in the company’s annual proxy statement,” Thurm reports. “The bylaw allows shareholders to nominate up to 20% of Apple’s directors. Apple’s board currently has eight members, so shareholders could nominate one director.”
“Proxy access gives shareholders greater clout to oust directors and influence strategy by letting them list competing board candidates on corporate ballots,” Thurm reports. “The push comes as activist investors seek changes on many company boards.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s pretty easy for seven to ignore one.
I strongly disagree with this board nomination process; It’s severely anti-Jobsian, this, along with going into debt no matter the reasons given. My advice: Do not artificially please acquisitive shareholders. Instead, please loyal long term Apple investors who love the product rather than the share profit.
John Dingler, while I understand your sentiment, Apple is a corporation. It is owned by its shareholders, not the Board of Directors or senior Apple management, or even the employees (other than through their stock ownership). A corporation must answer to its shareholders in some form, and I see this as a good way of acknowledging that relationship without much risk of letting activist shareholders twist the intent and purpose of the company.
If Apple begins to fail its customers, then that will send its way back through reduced revenues and profits to the shareholders. And then the shareholders can step in and put some pressure on the BoD to reform and revector.
D U M P A L G O R E ! ! !