BlackRock Attacks Directors Representing Over 4 Tech Boards: FT

  • BlackRock, Inc BLK cracked down on company directors representing too many boards in the U.S. technology industry, the Financial Times reports.
  • BlackRock voted against the reappointment of Sanford Robertson to the board of Salesforce, Inc CRM, where he chairs the governance committee. He was the founding partner of PE firm Francisco Partners.
  • BlackRock also voted against Twitter Inc TWTR director Egon Durban, who sat on seven public company boards. Durban is co-CEO at venture investor Silver Lake.
  • Durban lost his Twitter board membership in May. However, BlackRock urged him to relinquish two other positions to stay on its board.
  • Contrastingly, rival asset manager Vanguard voted in favor of Robertson and Durban.
  • For three consecutive years, BlackRock has voted against Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL board member Ann Mather, a former CFO at animation studio Pixar, because she sits on an "excessive" number of boards. 
  • BlackRock opposed Mather's membership on the Alphabet board despite exiting the board of Airbnb, Inc ABNB and Arista Networks, Inc ANET.
  • BlackRock voted against Judith McGrath on Amazon.com Inc's AMZN board for the first time in three years. McGrath was the former Chair and CEO of MTV.
  • BlackRock opposed the directorship of more than four company boards. Vanguard also maintained the same rule, albeit subject to exceptions.
Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs
Comments
Loading...
Posted In: NewsManagementTechMediaBriefs
Benzinga simplifies the market for smarter investing

Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.

Join Now: Free!