At KB Homes' annual meeting on Friday, the preliminary tally showed shareholders approved two proposals management had opposed. This is unusual as shareholder proposals rarely receive a majority of votes.
One of the proposals approved was submitted by the AFL-CIO. It asked that the board adopt a policy that a significant amount of future equity compensation grants be linked to performance benchmarks that need to be achieved before the grants vest.
The second shareholder proposal that was approved will seek shareholder approval of any future severance packages given to executives that exceed 2.99 times the executives base salary and bonus. This proposal was submitted by the Trowel Trades S&P500 Index fund.
Ron Burkle, Leslie Moonves, Dr. Ray Irani & Luis Nogales were all reelected to the board.
Prior to the meeting the company had taken a number of steps to improve its corporate governance and today named Stephen Bollenbach, retiring CEO of Hilton Hotels , as its independent chairman. All of these changes come after the firm's former CEO Bruce Karatz resigned on news he had a hand in granting backdated options to employees including himself.
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice are currently investigating KB Homes.
The firm says a final tally on the votes will be filed with the SEC on Monday.