Sending a message to the non-working Ford family?
While a grand total of only 63 people bothered to attend the Ford Motor Company annual meeting of shareholders in Wilmington, Delaware today, 29.5% of Ford investors voted against Ford family control of the company through their holdings of Class B stock. The Ford family gets 16 votes per share of B. Common stockholders get one vote per share. The disparity allows the Ford family to retain control of the publicly-held automaker.
Voting results showed that 3,154,667,973 shares of common stock and 70,852,076 shares of Class B Stock with a total aggregate of 5,651,353,427 votes were represented in person or by proxy at the annual meeting. These shares represented 90.5% of all the votes that could have been cast at the annual meeting.
A dissident shareholder proposal relating to consideration of a recapitalization plan to provide that all of Ford Motor Company’s outstanding stock have one vote per share was rejected, but of the total of 4,420,910,286 votes cast 29.5% of shareholders – or 1,283,063,982 of them – approved the measure. Not surprisingly, management – picked by the family – was against the proposal.
Ford earned $8.8 billion in pre-tax operating profit during 2011, an increase of $464 million over 2010. Operating margins declined to 5.4%. The numbers include a hugely favorable one-time, non-cash special item of $12.4 billion. (See Ford Motor Pays Mulally More than $29 Million in 2011)
About Ken Zino
Ken Zino, editor and publisher of AutoInformed, is a versatile auto industry participant with global experience spanning decades in print and broadcast journalism, as well as social media. He has automobile testing, marketing, public relations and communications experience. He is past president of The International Motor Press Assn, the Detroit Press Club, founding member and first President of the Automotive Press Assn. He is a member of APA, IMPA and the Midwest Automotive Press Assn.
He also brings an historical perspective while citing their contemporary relevance of the work of legendary auto writers such as Ken Purdy, Jim Dunne or Jerry Flint, or writers such as Red Smith, Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson – all to bring perspective to a chaotic automotive universe.
Above all, decades after he first drove a car, Zino still revels in the sound of the exhaust as the throttle is blipped during a downshift and the driver’s rush that occurs when the entry, apex and exit points of a turn are smoothly and swiftly crossed. It’s the beginning of a perfect lap.
AutoInformed has an editorial philosophy that loves transportation machines of all kinds while promoting critical thinking about the future use of cars and trucks.
Zino builds AutoInformed from his background in automotive journalism starting at Hearst Publishing in New York City on Motor and MotorTech Magazines and car testing where he reviewed hundreds of vehicles in his decade-long stint as the Detroit Bureau Chief of Road & Track magazine. Zino has also worked in Europe, and Asia – now the largest automotive market in the world with China at its center.
