Netflix shareholders on Monday voted down a proposal to split the CEO and chairman roles of Reed Hastings, who has held both slots since the company went public in 2002, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
"Netflix has demonstrated extraordinary long term success under the leadership of Reed and the board," Netflix told the paper, which noted that a similar proposal passed last year, but Netflix’s directors didn’t take any action.
Calpers, a large California public pension fund, and Scott Stringer, New York City’s comptroller and the overseer of the city’s pension funds, requested the separation of roles. That request also received the endorsement of two major proxy advisory firms -- Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass, Lewis & Company – over concerns that the dual roles presents potential conflicts of interest and weakens the board’s ability to represent shareholder interests, The New York Timesreported Sunday.
Shareholders, the WSJ added, also approved a nonbinding proposal to require an investor vote if Netflix wanted to adopt a "poison pill” that could fend off a hostile takeover.
Last December, Netflix announced that it had terminated its poison pill shareholder rights plan that was originally put into play after investor Carl Icahn acquired a 9.98% stake in Netflix. Icahn sold off a chunk of that stake last fall.
