By David Benoit And Jacob Bunge
Nelson Peltz was one big shareholder away from a board seat at
DuPont Co.
The activist investor won 293 million votes, or about 43% of
those counted in last Wednesday's annual meeting, a result that
made him close but short of taking a board seat, according to a new
disclosure Tuesday of the preliminary tally.
Mr. Peltz received 77 million shares less than director Robert
Brown, who had the lowest vote total of sitting DuPont directors
that were reelected.
Mr. Peltz's Trian Fund Management LP lost the vote of top
holders Vanguard Group Inc., State Street Corp. and BlackRock Inc.,
people familiar with the matter said last week. In order to make up
the difference between Mr. Peltz and Mr. Brown, Trian would have
likely needed only one of them to go the other way, as the swing of
their shares would have made the difference.
In the end, Mr. Peltz got the highest count of his slate. The
four DuPont directors Trian's nominees were up against got around
56%, but Mr. Peltz was the only dissident to garner more than
40%.
Trian nominee John Myers, the former head of General Electric
Co.'s asset management business whom DuPont had at one point
offered to take onto the board, got 36% of the votes cast.
Mr. Peltz and Mr. Myers had both won the recommendation of proxy
adviser Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. Trian's other two
nominees, Arthur Winkleblack and Robert Zatta, didn't get the ISS
nod. They received 20% and 24%, respectfully.
DuPont Chairman and Chief Executive Ellen Kullman got 97% of the
votes cast, the filing said, while lead independent director
Alexander Cutler got 56%.
Write to David Benoit at david.benoit@wsj.com and Jacob Bunge at
jacob.bunge@wsj.com
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