Pension funds won majority approval from shareholders on all three proposals they filed at Netflix Inc., according to an SEC filing by the company.
The $167.2 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System, West Sacramento, won 81% of the vote for its proposal calling for a majority vote of shareholders to elect directors.
The $167.8 billion Florida State Board of Administration, Tallahassee, won 89% of the vote for its proposal calling for annual elections of all board members, replacing the company’s classified board structure of staggered terms for directors.
The five New York City pension funds, which have a combined $127.5 billion in assets, won 73% of the vote on their joint proposal calling for an independent chair of the company.
In other governance proposals, sponsored by individuals, a shareholder proposal calling for a simple majority vote to change corporate bylaws won 81% of the vote in support, while a proposal calling for shareholder access to the corporate proxy statement to nominate directors won only 4% of the vote in support.
All the shareholder proposals were non-binding.
Separately, the company declared the three director nominees, all incumbents, “duly elected.” Shareholders withheld 50.1% of their votes to oppose Leslie Kilgore; incumbents Timothy M. Haley and Ann Mather each received 51.7% of the vote in support.
Anne Sheehan, CalSTRS director of corporate governance, said in a statement: “The number of shareholder proposals presented at Netflix demonstrates the company’s need for an improved governance structure. We expect the board to take swift action to implement those proposals that received support from a majority of Netflix shareholders.”
Ricardo Duran, spokesman, said in an interview CalSTRS officials had no comment on the outcome of the director elections.
Netflix media contacts could not be reached immediately for comment.
