Apple Holders Reject Activists

Apple (AAPL Quote) fought back three proposals from activist investors seeking to change the company's compensation policies.

But the high vote counts at the company's Thursday annual shareholder meeting suggest broad investor concern about the company's governance despite a year of strong sales and profit.

According to Apple's general counsel, Donald Rosenberg, preliminary tallies indicate that resolutions offered to clarify executive compensation policies and establish options granting guidelines for senior managers failed to gain the required majority support.

A proposal to give shareholders an advisory vote on executive pay packages also failed to pass. The threshold for passing was that a majority of shareholders had to vote and that proposals had to win at least 50% of the votes for and against each measure.

With Apple's options backdating scandal still smoldering, nearly 47% of shareholders voted for a proposal to require that option grants reflect the stock price on the day they are granted, according to Con Hitchcock, outside counsel for Amalgamated Bank LongView Fund, which submitted the proposal.

"Clearly we're very pleased with the high vote that we got," said Hitchcock, who attended the meeting. "There's obviously a lot of concern among shareholders that Apple had not put the options backdating matter behind it."

Amalgamated had submitted similar proposals to seven other companies found to have backdated stock options, including Macrovision (MVSN Quote) and McAfee ( MFE Quote). Amalgamated withdrew proposals at six companies that agreed to put policies in place that would prevent backdating.