Qualcomm Board Members Draw Moderate Support From Shareholders

(RTTNews) - Qualcomm Inc.'s (QCOM) vote tallies from its annual meeting show that the chipmaker's board was re-elected with reduced support from shareholders, fallout from a failed hostile bid from Broadcom Ltd. that many investors wanted.

Directors were running unopposed at a meeting last week because Broadcom pulled an alternative slate of candidates after its acquisition attempt was blocked by the U.S. government. Qualcomm disclosed in a regulatory filing Thursday that the incumbent directors drew the support of 580 million to 781 million votes out of a total available of about 1.48 billion. The supporting votes were down from last year, when most company nominees got more than 1 billion votes each, and the number of shares withheld -- essentially a vote against -- from most directors jumped.

Chief Executive Officer Steve Mollenkopf drew 665.9 million supporting votes, with 171.8 million withheld from his nomination. Last year, only about 4 million votes were cast against him. Qualcomm's new chairman, Jeff Henderson, faced 258 million withheld votes, compared with 580 million votes in his favor.

The polling details are a further indication of investors' dissatisfaction with Qualcomm's performance in recent years. Profits have been slashed by legal disputes and regulatory fines. Broadcom, whose bid was quashed on national-security grounds by U.S. President Donald Trump, had argued it would be a better steward of Qualcomm's leading mobile-phone chip technology and would change a business model that some customers and government agencies think is unfair.