Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Watching HP board is like watching a slow bleed-out Nilofer

Watching HP Board Situation is Like Watching a Slow Bleed-Out

The New York Times Saturday quotes Patrick McGurn, special counsel for Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), who states that “shareholder efforts to remove directors in uncontested elections rarely succeed or come close, even in egregious circumstances.” In 2012, there were elections for 17,081 director nominees at U.S. corporations. According to ISS, just 61 of those nominees — or 0.36 percent — failed to win majority support. Furthermore, over 86 percent of directors received 90 percent or more of the votes. “Of the 61 directors who failed to get majority approval,” the Times adds, “only six actually stepped down or were asked to resign. Fifty-one are still in place, as of the most recent proxy filings. McGurn concludes, “People are calling them zombie directors.”
The HP board has this kind of legacy:
After ousting Mark Hurd as chief executive in 2010 amid messy accusations of sexual harassment, the board hired Léo Apotheker to replace him, even though Mr. Apotheker had

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