Tuesday 30 July 2013

James Murdoch: popularity in 2012 vs 2011

As I've blogged previously, somewhat surprisingly James Murdoch got an easier ride at BSkyB's 2012 AGM than the 2011 meeting. This was despite getting slammed by both the CMS select committee and Ofcom inbetween.

To recap, in 2011 the vote against his re-election was 17.4% with 7.1% abstaining, the comparable figures in 2012 were 4.9% and 0.35%. So clearly some big shareholders backed right off. Today, whilst hoovering up the latest asset manager voting disclosures, I thought I'd take a look at votes on James Murdoch at BSkyB's 2012 AGM, versus those in 2011, to see who switched sides.

This is what I can find so far (2011 vote first, 2012 vote second)

Aberdeen - Oppose / For
Aviva - Oppose / Oppose
CCLA - Oppose / Oppose
F&C - Oppose / For
Goldman Sachs - Abstain / For
Hermes - Oppose / Oppose
Jupiter - Oppose / For
Kames - Oppose / For
L&G - Oppose / For
M&G - For / For
Martin Currie - Abstain / Abstain
Newton - Oppose / Oppose
Royal London - Oppose / For
Schroders - Oppose / Oppose
Standard Life - Oppose / For
State Street - Abstain / Oppose (yes, those are the right way around)
SWIP - For / For
Threadneedle - Abstain / For
UBS - Oppose / For 

These are just the ones I can find, but it tells the story. A lot of institutions backed off, despite (or, perhaps, because of) the intervention of both Parliament and the broadcasting regulator. Pretty unimpressive IMHO.

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