Exxon Mobil Shareholders Defy Board

DALLAS, TX — The performance Wednesday of Exxon Mobil Corp. chief executive Rex W. Tillerson at the company’s annual meeting might have been downright warm and fuzzy compared with his predecessor’s, but that didn’t stop shareholders from adopting a resolution over the objections of the company’s board of directors.

Exxon officials said they believed it was the first time in the company’s history that a resolution had been adopted over the objections of the company, and it was seen as a sign of anger over the board’s decision to award outgoing chief executive Lee Raymond a final-year pay package of $69.4 million and a retirement lump sum of $98.4 million.

“I think there’s some unhappiness about the way [Raymond’s] compensation was handled, and I think that’s what we were seeing” with the shareholders who voted for the resolution, Tillerson said at a news conference after the meeting.

The nonbinding resolution, which passed with 52.2 percent of shares voting, said directors should be required to get a majority, not just a plurality, of votes to win a spot on the board. As usual, all of the company’s directors this year ran unopposed.

Washington Post