Yahoo to update shareholder vote after error

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.

[The_Decider]

If these shareholders are unhappy sell and go buy stock in a company that isn't concerned with long term growth and will sell itself out for a quick buck.

[zanely]

Last time I looked "quick bucks" were worth just as much as long-term bucks.

[Prince2k3]

As long as ipod and iphone are out. Apple will be on top I don't think regular consumers are concerned with DRM and even know what DRM is. You can say all you want about iTunes it is still used because majority of the people carry ipods and iphones so... sheep as it my Apple is carrying the shepards stick.

[tech_crazy]

What does this have to do with Yahoo?

[aka_mythos]

Most shareholders are concerned about the long term growth. The ones concerned with short term gain were the ones who came in after the Microsoft negotiations were announced, driving up yahoo's price. Any one who is concerned with long term growth should be concerned with Yahoo tying itself to Google while it sounds nice its a big concession guaranteeing that for a very long time Yahoo can be proud of it's new mantra "We're number two!" Which is something the current leadership embraces while a lot of stockholders don't.

[Vegaman_Dan]

The sad thing about the vote is that is completely meaningless. Yahoo's charter has stipulations that the votes are merely a guide and the board is under no obligation to pay heed to them. Even if every single vote was to toss Yang out, the board can ignore the shareholders entirely.

I wonder if that is standard in corporations or if Yahoo really got a sweet setup there.