Calpers to withhold votes for Apple's Board
updated 01:45 pm EDT, Thu April 15, 2004
Calpers vs. Apple Board
Calpers, the largest U.S. pension fund, said on Thursday it would after it failed to implement a shareholder-approved proposal to treat stock options as an expense, according to The Washington Post: "[It] also criticized Apple's board for authorizing Apple's auditor, KPMG LLP, to perform nonauditing, or consulting services, for the maker of Macintosh computers and the iPod digital music players. Calpers said it would withhold voting its 1.48 million shares from the entire board, vote them against ratifying Apple's auditor, and against a shareholder proposal limiting executive compensation, saying the 'proposal is too restrictive.'"
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
Hm...
Being involved with a California educational institution, I'm familiar with Calpers, and I'd say their snubbing of the Apple board for failing to expense stock options is a good move.
I love Apple for its products, and even as a company they've done some good things, but corporate executive compensation has reached absurd levels recently, and Apple is toward the really bad end of the offender scale (mainly on account of Steve's erratic compensation).
Is it really such a big deal to list an expense as an expense? Gee, not hiding huge paychecks behind creative accounting--what a novel idea.