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In a recent securities filing, Apple announced that it plans to offer "proxy access", which allows longtime shareholders or a group of shareholders to nominate a member for its board of directors, reports the Wall Street Journal.
In a securities filing, Apple said its board of directors had adopted amended bylaws Monday that allow a shareholder, or a group of up to 20 shareholders, holding 3% of its shares continuously for three years to include board nominees in the company’s annual proxy statement.
The new bylaws allow shareholders to nominate up to 20 percent of Apple's board of directors. Since Apple has 8 directors, shareholders would be allowed to nominate one director. Proxy access is a recent push by activist investors that seek to make changes on company boards, giving shareholders greater influence on company strategy and the ability to oust directors. Other prominent companies to adopt proxy access include McDonald's, Goldman Sachs and Coca-Cola.
In March at Apple's most recent annual meeting, a shareholder proposal that asked the Cupertino company to adopt proxy access garnered 39 percent support.
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- bring back the quad core mac mini
- bring back a 4" iphone model
- add one more port to the retina macbook
- add a file system to the ipad pro
- release the powerbook g5
Not many good things can come when a company is solely focused on growth, stock price, and appeasing shareholders. While I realize those things all have a certain level of importance, once they become the majority focus, other parts of the company suffer.
It's naive to say that Apple has not gotten more cozy with Wall Street, and their expectations, since Jobs died, because they undoubtedly have. What Cook failed to realize, I think, is that once you open that door, there is no going back. Apple would have been better off ignoring the demands of the market, and letting investors decide whether it would be prudent to invest based on the results of the company. Surely not much would have changed in that regard, since the Market has continued to hold Apple to a different standard even though Cook has given them at least some concessions as to their demands. Now Apple seems to have a strategy that must appease the market, rather than allowing the market to make money off of be spectacular performances Apple has each quarter. Now it seems, no matter what, it will never be good enough, and the institutional investors will demand and a bigger and bigger say, all while looking out for their own best interests. I think it was a mistake to crack that door open at all, even if only slightly. In that regard Tim Cook is nothing like Steve Jobs, who let the products speak for themselves and if you didn't like it, then you could take a hike.
Wall Street is too dumb.
My real issues were in the Steve era, OG iPhone with no apps or 3G. The mess that was Mobile Me. The first few OS X releases which were not even close to consumer ready, OG MacBook Air which was also not ready for prime time (remember the little flap for the extra ports - yuck). etc.
Luckily they learnt from their shortcomings and successor products in these lines have gotten better and better (yet as always there is still room for improvement).
No doubt there have been more small software blips (particularly on iOS), but I also understand complexity is up (my devices do a lot more than they did 3+ years ago), not to mention knit better with each other than previously too. iOS 9.2 and OS X 10.11.2 have been pretty solid so far for me, hoping that continues.