That was the conundrum that helped put a nail, theoretically at least, in the “golden coffin” concept, which involves giving payments to families if a top executive dies in office.
In a tale like a Woody Allen screenplay, sixty-six percent of shareholders at an annual meeting of Shaw Group, a Baton-Rouge-based engineering firm, voted thumbs down Jan. 29 on a proposal to pay $38.2 million upon the death of chairman J.M. Bernhard Jr. in addition to a posthumous $15 million “non-compete” arrangement.
Naturally, it is difficult to imagine how Bernhard could be working for a competing firm after his death. Apparently, shareholders thought so, too, in the non-binding vote, which was orchestrated by union-oriented Amalgamated Bank which holds less than one tenth of a percent of company stock.
The company argued that the payouts would make Bernhard immune from potential headhunters.
Thye vote suggests that shareholders are going to be especially aggressive as the proxy season approaches.
