Newspaper & Mailroom
Gannett Shareholders Elect Board Members, Approve Say on Pay; Board Declares Dividend
Friday 02. May 2014 - Shareholders of Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) today re-elected Chairman Marjorie Magner, President and CEO Gracia Martore, John Cody, Howard Elias, John Jeffry Louis, Scott McCune, Susan Ness, Tony Prophet and Neal Shapiro to the Board of Directors at the annual meeting held at the company's headquarters, with each director receiving at least 99% of the votes cast.
The directors were elected to serve one-year terms ending at Gannett’s annual meeting in 2015. Duncan McFarland retired from Gannett’s Board of Directors effective today after serving for nearly 10 years.
Gannett’s shareholders overwhelmingly approved, by almost 95% of the votes cast, an advisory resolution on the compensation of the company’s named executive officers reported in the company’s 2014 proxy statement and ratified the appointment of Ernst & Young as the company’s independent accounting firm for the 2014 fiscal year. Gannett’s shareholders also approved a shareholder’s proposal seeking adoption of a company policy relating to the vesting of future equity awards granted to senior executives upon a change in control of Gannett. The company’s Executive Compensation Committee values the views of its shareholders and will take the outcome of the vote into account as it considers future changes to the Company’s change in control plan.
The Board of Directors also declared a regular quarterly dividend of 20 cents per share, payable on July 1, 2014, to shareholders of record on June 6, 2014. This is consistent with the capital allocation strategy announced in February 2012, which included increasing Gannett’s dividend by 150 percent and accelerating the company’s share repurchase program to $300 million over the next two years. Together, these actions put Gannett on a pace to return more than $1.3 billion to shareholders by 2015.
“Our strategy of leveraging our powerful local brands, national scale and financial strength is generating sustainable revenue growth, increasing profitability and delivering great value to our shareholders. We continue to see the positive effects of the fundamental changes we are making to position Gannett to thrive in the digital age,” said Martore.