Shareowners Going "Off the Reservation" on SWOP

Of 95 companies that held say-on-pay votes as of Feb. 25, 93 had favorable votes. The vast majority of those won more than 90 percent of the votes cast, according to an analysis of the first month of proxy filings under the final Securities and Exchange Commission rules by Schulte Roth & Zabel. Companies, however, haven’t had as much luck on their frequency recommendations.

In particular, triennial SOP vote recommendations, the overwhelming choice among boards of the 93 companies that have held frequency votes so far, have had mixed success. While 52 of those companies recommended triennial votes, just 27 won majority support for triennial votes from shareholders.

via Parsing the Early Say-on-Pay Votes – Compliance Week. As we have said before, why would shareowners vote for power once every three years, instead of to have it every year. See Addressing CEO Pay.

Don’t you just love this quote? “There was some concern early on that shareholders would ‘go off the reservation,’ but most companies are getting significant shareholder support, not just squeaking by,” says Michael Littenberg. When shareowners aren’t supporting management, we’re off the reservation? Wow, I guess we know who’s in control.

For much more on the subject and analysis of vote counting issues, see the March RR Donnelley Securities Newsletter, with content provided by TheCorporateCounsel.net.