Shareholders at Activision, the maker of such video games as Doom and Guitar
Hero, voted 69 percent in favor of a shareholder proposal that would give them
an annual advisory vote on executive compensation. It marked the highest support
for a so-called “say on pay” proposal in the U.S. since investors first began
voting on the matter two years ago.
As You Sow, a San Francisco-based activist group, floated the proposal.
Conrad MacKerron, director of the group’s corporate responsibility project, says
the measure received 69 percent support from investors at Activision’s annual
meeting on September 27.
“We were a little shocked,” MacKerron says. “This goes way beyond the smaller
group of activist shareholders to Activision’s more mainstream investors. It
should send a big red warning to management.”
In a statement, Activision confirmed that the nonbinding stockholder advisory
vote did pass last week with majority approval (it wouldn’t confirm the vote
total), and that it was “evaluating” the proposal. Ashley Dyer, a spokesman for
the Santa Monica, California-based company, declined to comment further.
Activision is currently being investigated by the Securities and Exchange
Commission regarding its past stock option granting practices.
Activision becomes the seventh company this year to have a say-on-pay vote
reach majority support, according to RiskMetrics Group, a governance research
firm. The proposal has averaged 42.4 percent in 42 shareholder meetings since
January.
Filed by Jeff Nash of Financial Week, a sister publication of Workforce
Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.
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