Many Yahoo shareholders don’t like activist investor Jeffrey Smith – but many more don’t like CEO Marissa Mayer.
As the struggling Sunnyvale company with a “for sale” sign out front set July 18 for its second-quarter earnings call, it has reported the results of its June 30 shareholders’ vote on board of directors nominees. Each share was worth one vote.
Mayer garnered by far the most votes against her presence on the board, with some 105 million votes opposing her reappointment. Smith, the Starboard Value chief whose proxy fight against Yahoo led to his placement on the board in April, received the second-highest number of “against” votes, with 93 million. The next-closest nominees in the “against” vote tally were company chairman Maynard Webb and Jane Shaw, a director since 2014, each with about 59 million.
Mayer and Smith, despite also earning the fewest “for” votes, still made it onto the board by comfortable margins – Mayer received about 555 million votes in support, and Smith 565 million.
The voting numbers suggest that shareholders felt especially compelled to cast votes on Mayer, who was the subject of fewer abstentions than any of the other 10 nominees, by about a 1.6 million-vote margin.
Mayer, who has faced a barrage of criticism over the past year for failing to revive the faltering Yahoo, had received far higher support in last year’s shareholder vote, garnering the second-highest number of “for” votes, about 618 million. Only about six million votes were cast against her last year, putting her close to the middle among board members.
Photo: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer (AP Photo/NBC, Peter Kramer, file)
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