Broadridge Financial Solutions Messes Up Yahoo! Board Vote Count, But Fixes It Immediately

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:56:08 +0000

Broadridge Financial Solutions was responsible for counting the votes at the Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) shareholder annual meeting. After Capital Research and Ironfire Capital’s Eric Jackson challenged Yahoo!’s counting process because they believed there should have been more opposition against Jerry Yang and Roy Bostock, the search engine company insisted that the votes were counted correctly.

However, Broadridge Financial Solutions stated that there was a truncation error that led to the under-reporting of the number of votes. But Broadridge stated that the error didn’t affect the outcome of the election where all of Yahoo!’s directors were re-elected.

Broadridge stated that this incident was isolated.

“The independent inspector of elections certified the results of the election and Yahoo accurately announced those results,” read a statement released by Yahoo! “[Yahoo!] did not participate in the execution of the votes and was not a party to any errors which may have been made either by a voting institution or a proxy processing intermediary acting on behalf of banks, brokers and institutions.”

Below are the corrected voter recounts provided by Broadridge:



Director	Shares For	% For	Shares Withheld	% Withheld
Roy J. Bostock	632,023,657	60.4%	414,071,927	39.6%
Ronald W. Burkle	649,373,291	62.1%	396,722,293	37.9%
Eric Hippeau	948,862,579	90.7%	97,233,005	9.3%
Vyomesh Joshi	971,594,650	92.9%	74,500,934	7.1%
Arthur H. Kern	714,871,925	68.3%	331,223,659	31.7%
Robert A. Kotick	967,044,818	92.4%	79,050,766	7.6%
Mary Agnes Wilderotter	964,939,727	92.2%	81,155,857	7.8%
Gary L. Wilson	756,006,576	72.3%	290,089,008	27.7%
Jerry Yang	693,055,602	66.3%	353,039,982	33.7%

Below is the original vote tallies:

Director	Shares For	% For	Shares Withheld	% Withheld
Roy J. Bostock	832,023,657	79.5%	214,071,927	20.5%
Ronald W. Burkle	849,373,291	81.2%	196,722,293	18.8%
Eric Hippeau	948,862,579	90.7%	97,233,005	9.3%
Vyomesh Joshi	971,594,650	92.9%	74,500,934	7.1%
Arthur H. Kern	814,871,925	77.9%	231,223,659	22.1%
Robert A. Kotick	967,044,818	92.4%	79,050,766	7.6%
Mary Agnes Wilderotter	964,939,727	92.2%	81,155,857	7.8%
Gary L. Wilson	856,006,576	81.8%	190,089,008	18.2%
Jerry Yang	893,055,602	85.4%	153,039,982	14.6%

Will this affect the outcome? Highly unlikely. Will shareholders be upset that Roy Bostock and Jerry Yang did not receive a higher percentage vote for staying on the board? Pretty likely.

Related Link:
1. Silicon Alley Insider

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Broadridge Financial Solutions Messes Up Yahoo! Board Vote Count, But Fixes It Immediately