More negative press on QCOM director Savage (ex Enron board member and ex Chairman of Alliance Capital Management:
ISS Recommends Lockheed Holders Not Reelect Enron Director
Apr 10, 2002 03:18 PM (Dow Jones Business News)
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Institutional Shareholder Services is recommending to its clients who hold shares in Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) that they withhold votes from Frank Savage, who also sits on Enron Corp.'s (ENRNQ) board.
Over the course of the last couple of months, companies have taken heat from pension funds and labor activists for keeping Savage and other Enron directors on their boards.
But this is the first time the influential proxy advisory firm has taken a position on whether Enron board members should continue to serve at other companies.
Patrick McGurn, director of corporate programs at ISS stressed that the "vote no" recommendation is not related to Savage's conduct on Lockheed's board. Instead, he said, the anti-Savage recommendation is based on his ties to Enron as well as the constraints on his time given the "cascade of litigation that is likely to pour out of Enron into the extended future." Future recommendations will be made on a case-by-case basis, he said.
Savage, who retired as chairman of Alliance Capital Management International last summer, wasn't immediately available for comment. A lawyer for Enron's outside board members also wasn't available.
Lockheed offered a vote of confidence to Savage, 63.
"Mr. Savage has been a member of our board since 1990," a Lockheed spokesman said. "He has been instrumental in creating our financial disclosure policies which are widely known in the industry for their transparency, conservatism and thoroughness, and we expect him to be reelected."
In its analysis, ISS cited discussions with representatives of the AFL-CIO. The labor federation has mounted a campaign against the renomination of Savage
to both Lockheed and Qualcomm Inc.'s (QCOM) board, focusing on the report issued by Enron's special investigative committee, which was critical of the board's actions leading up to Enron's implosion. In February, Qualcomm shareholders returned Savage to the company's board.
In particular, the AFL-CIO zeroed in on Savage's role on Enron's compensation committee, citing among other things, the $30 billion former chief financial officer Andrew Fastow received for running the company's notorious off-balance-sheet partnerships, which both masked corporate debt and contributed to the company's collapse.
(This story was originally published by Dow Jones Newswires)
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David T. |
