Boston, MA 10/25/2013 (wallstreetpr) – Rupert Murdoch was re-elected to the chairman position of the Twenty-First Century Fox Inc (NASDAQ:FOXA) board. Also elected to the 12 member board last Friday was Murdoch’s two sons Lachlan and James. The meeting was held at the company’s Fox studio lot in Los Angeles.
The election however did not come without opposition from some of the shareholders as well as from the Proxy Advisory Firm Institutional Shareholder services. The main opposition came from the Christian Brothers Investment services and the British Columbia investment management in Canada who sighted that the level of family control would influence the impending reorganization. On the other hand, Proxy Advisory Firm Institutional Shareholder Services advised against the election of Murdoch and eight other directors including his two sons.
The firm said that the company should have put its poison pill plan to a shareholder vote. The poison pill plan prevents hostile takeover in the event that a buyer acquires a 15% stake at either of the companies (Twenty Century Fox or News Corp). Murdoch split News Corp which remained with the newspapers while Twenty-First Century Fox remained with the movies and the entertainment bit a move that has so far been hailed and is being well executed. In place of the 8 directors that the firm had advised against, it recommended the election of independent directors like Delphine Arnault, Jacques Nasser and Robert Silberman who were recently added to the company’s board.
The company in its defense said that they required Murdoch’s unique insight and strategic vision and that the current board had delivered good returns to the shareholders. In 2011 in the same scenario, Proxy Advisory firm had advised the opposite and favored the election of Murdoch to the position of chairmanship and warned against the voting of all the other board members.
