Activist shareholders battle for stock options changes
Although Apple’s shareholder meeting Thursday ought to be celebratory after a record-setting quarter and Jobs general placation of its environmental adversaries, a group of activist shareholders is threatening to spoil the party with a proposal on the company’s proxy statement relating to the stock options backdating scandal that just won’t go away.
According to MarketWatch, the proposal is sponsored by New York’s Amalgamated Bank LongView Collective Investment Fund and the Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds (which own about 796,000 shares of Apple’s stock between them). It calls for the company to set grant dates for stock options during a given fiscal year ahead of time. It also requires that options granted to senior executives be given an exercise price equal to the average opening and closing prices of Apple stock on the day the options are given.
“In our view, corporate efforts to game the timing of options can distort a core purpose of options, which is to motivate executives to improve long-term performance for the benefit of all shareholders.”
But Apple calls the measure unnecessary, because the company hasn’t granted any options to senior management since 2003.
“Even if Apple decides to grant stock options to senior executives in the future, the Board believes that the proponent’s restrictive approach is not necessary to protect the interests of Apple shareholders.”
So we’ve heard from the activist shareholders and we’ve heard from Apple. What about an impartial third party? Well, proxy advisory firm Proxy Governance Inc. is also against the proposal.
“No number of controls and process improvements can prevent every instance of willing and intentional fraud.”
But what about unwilling and unintentional fraud?
#1 Scott Rose says:Is anybody reading this forum going to the Apple shareholders meeting today?
If so, can you PLEASE stand up & ask Steve Jobs why in the HELL he is keeping Intuit CEO Bill Campbell on the Apple Board of Directors, when Bill Campbell has CONTINUED to deliver COMPLETELY SUBPAR financial products for Mac OS X?
Even in the year 2007, Quicken & QuickBooks are absolutely horrible products on the Mac, and COMPLETELY pale in comparison to their Windows counterparts.
Just a quick example:
1. Quicken for Mac does NOT auto-download from MOST financial institutions for instantaneous downloading like it does in Quicken for Windows.
2. Quicken & QuickBooks for Mac both feature less than 50% of the feature set of the Windows versions of these products.
3. QuickBooks has no multi-user support, whereas every version of QuickBooks for Windows can be networked.
4. Neither product supports a cross-platform file format so Windows users will actually LOSE MANY FEATURES & FINANCIAL INFORMATION upon switching to Macintosh, and the tedious export/import routine for QuickBooks still does not work reliably under any circumstances.
These are just the top 4 issues off the top of my head, but obviously there are DOZENS UPON DOZENS more! There are no other real personal financial software alternatives for the Mac (with the exception of MYOB, which is okay for small businesses), so we are stuck with these subpar products from Intuit.
And the only way that many Windows users can switch to the Mac is to end up using their Intuit product in Parallels or Boot Camp.
All of this and BILL CAMPBELL SITS ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AT APPLE!!
I will not be able to make it to the shareholders meeting — can somebody please bring up this information at the meeting?
As far as I’m concerned, Bill Campbell should be kicked off the board completely or step up to the plate and treat Mac users with the respect that they deserve.
KICK BILL CAMPBELL OFF THE BOARD, ONCE AND FOR ALL!