Disney Board Opponents Made Little Headway With Shareholders

Corporate governance geeks will be interested in this footnote to the shareholder vote for the Disney board at Tuesday’s annual meeting: The results, just released, suggest that advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services had more sway with the company’s stock holders than its rival Glass, Lewis & Co did. Both groups objected to corporate governance decisions, but urged investors to express their anger by opposing different directors. ISS urged a “no” vote for Judith Estrin, Aylwin Lewis, Robert Matschullat, and Sheryl Sandberg — members of the Nominating and Governance Committee who wanted to make CEO Bob Iger Disney’s chairman as well. And Glass Lewis opposed Susan Arnold, John Chen, Fred Langhammer, and Aylwin Lewis — members of the Compensation Committee who allegedly didn’t link executive pay to performance. Glass Lewis also doesn’t think  Orin Smith belongs on any board after serving as a director of Washington Mutual, the savings and loan association giant that collapsed in 2008. All were handily relected. Lewis — the only candidate both groups opposed — had the worst result with 73.4% support. Among the rest, the candidates ISS opposed received the lowest votes with an average of 82.4% in favor. The directors Glass, Lewis wanted to dump averaged 86.8% approval. As for the two board members that passed muster with both groups: Iger sailed through with 96.7% approval, but Monica Lozano beat him with 98.9%.