UPDATE: Director Salgado Loses Majority Vote On Attendance Concerns
26 Aprile 2012 - 7:00PM
Dow Jones News
NEW YORK (Dow Jones) -- NYSE Euronext Inc. (NYX) said a longtime
director will offer to quit the exchange company's board after
nonbinding, preliminary results showed he failed to get a majority
of support in a shareholder vote.
The majority of investor votes that were announced at the Big
Board's annual shareholders meeting Thursday declined to back the
reelection of Ricardo Salgado, vice chairman of Banco Espirito
Santo S/A (BES.LB), Portugal's largest bank by market
capitalization. Salgado attended fewer than 75% of the exchange's
board meetings in 2011, NYSE board chairman Jan-Michiel Hessels
told shareholders before the preliminary voting results were
announced Thursday morning.
Thursday's vote marked the first time a director has failed to
get a majority vote from NYSE shareholders, a company spokesman
said.
Last year, the company wrestled with its proposed merger
agreement with Deutsche Boerse AG (DB1.XE, DBOEF). The deal,
announced in February 2011, was rejected by European regulators
earlier this year. The planned $18.1 billion tie-up would have
created the world's largest combined market for trading stocks and
derivatives.
It wasn't clear when the board will decide whether to accept
Salgado's expected resignation request. An NYSE spokesman said
after the meeting it will be considered in "a timely fashion."
The exchange has previously vouched for Salgado's involvement in
key discussions such as those about the proposed Deutsche Boerse
deal. NSYE defended Salgado's attendance record in a proxy
statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last
month, noting he missed meetings as he attempted to navigate Banco
Espirito Santo through the European sovereign-debt crisis.
"Mr. Salgado's intensive efforts to address the crisis
restricted his ability to attend certain of the significant number
of special meetings held in connection with the proposed business
combination with Deutsche Boerse, which were not part of the
regular meeting schedule and were often called with little advance
notice," NYSE said in the March 26 proxy filing.
An NYSE spokesmen declined to let reporters speak to Salgado,
who attended Thursday's meeting.
Proxy-advisory services Glass Lewis & Co. and Institutional
Shareholder Services Inc. both recommended against Delgado's
re-election, according to documents from the companies.
The NYSE Euronext vote comes less than two weeks after Citigroup
Inc.'s (C) shareholders rejected the compensation plan the bank's
board had approved for its senior executives. The rebuke marked the
first time a major bank had suffered a "no" vote on executive
pay.
James Rothenberg, a representative of holders of 50,000 shares,
said after the NYSE shareholder meeting that the vote against
Salgado was "unfortunate."
"He can't be in two places at one time," Rothenberg said.
-By Chris Dieterich, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2611;
christopher.dieterich@dowjones.com;
(Alexandra Scaggs and Jacob Bunge contributed to this
article.)
Grafico Azioni NYSE Group (NYSE:NYX)
Storico
Da Giu 2024 a Lug 2024
Grafico Azioni NYSE Group (NYSE:NYX)
Storico
Da Lug 2023 a Lug 2024