Vodafone shareholders pass on the Mayo

Link: Vodafone’s rebel investor suffers heavy defeat – Telegraph

Vodafone shareholders have overwhelmingly rejected proposals by rebel investor John Mayo at the company AGM.

Mayo, the head of Efficient Capital Structures (and former Marconi finance director) had been pushing for some changes to the group, including getting rid of their 45% share in US mobile operator Verizon.

In a rather strange twist, Mayo didn’t even turn up to the AGM to answer questions on his proposals. Whether this affected the vote will probably never be known, but with only 4.6% of shareholders voting for the Verizon proposal and 3.15% for a £34bn bond issue proposal, it’s pretty clear that his plans are now in tatters.

According to the Telegraph, the most successful proposal was that to restrict Vodafone’s ability to make acquisitions without shareholder approval, which gained 6.02%. Rather ironic, considering that ECS had effectively pulled the resolution weeks ago.