It’s official: Target shareholders aren’t happy with the board.
The embattled discount chain’s 10 directors were reelected by significantly lower margins than they were a year ago after a massive credit-card data breach helped spur last month’s ouster of CEO Gregg Steinhafel.
Interim chairman Roxanne Austin got slapped with 22 percent of votes cast against her at the retailer’s annual meeting earlier this week in Dallas, a Friday securities filing revealed. That’s against opposition of just 5 percent a year earlier.
Lead independent director James Johnson saw 37 percent of votes cast against him, compared with 13 percent opposition last year, filings showed.
Austin and Johnson were among seven directors who had been under attack by proxy adviser ISS, which cited the board’s poor handling of the data breach.
Critics have likewise blasted the company for a botched entry into Canada, where a rollout of 124 retail outlets spurred more than $1 billion in losses last year.
A nonbinding “say-on-pay” proposal by Target’s board defending its executive compensation plan passed with 78 percent of the vote. A proposal to split the roles of chairman and CEO and have an independent chairman, which was opposed by the board, failed with 54 percent voting against it.