Yahoo to update shareholder vote after error
The firm that transmitted some major shareholders' votes to Yahoo made an error, meaning that the vote results didn't fully reflect disgruntlement with management.
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Yahoo said it plans to update a shareholder vote results after an error in transmission meant some dissatisfaction with Yahoo management wasn't reflected in Friday's board member election figures.
Capital Research Global Investors, suspecting an error in the Yahoo vote tally, said on Monday that it requested that the firm it uses to transmit the votes to Yahoo check its work to see if there was an error. On Tuesday, that firm, Broadridge Financial Solutions, said it found a "truncation error" that underreported how many votes were withheld for some board members.
Withholding votes in a board member election is a symbolic but still potentially potent form of communication. The vote update isn't expected to change the overall outcome of the election, which saw all board members re-elected.
In Yahoo's official voting tally, released Friday, 14.6 percent of votes for Chief Executive Jerry Yang and 20.5 percent for Chairman Roy Bostock were withheld.
Capital Research Global Investors owns 6.2 percent of Yahoo stock at last count; sister group Capital World Investors, which owns 9.85 percent of Yahoo shares, also used Broadridge to transmit its votes.
Chuck Freadhoff, a representative for Capital Research Global Investors and Capital World Investors, didn't comment on its plans.