Reed Hastings was roughed up in the latest Netflix shareholder vote, with more than half the independent ballots calling for him to lose his chairman’s title, vote tallies out Tuesday revealed.
Hastings, the CEO and chairman, was able to ward off a proposal aimed at splitting his two roles, but only when his and another insider’s ballots were included.
Even so, a huge 47 percent of shareholders who voted at the company’s annual meeting supported giving the chairman position to someone new.
The percentage of votes cast in support of a new chairman grew to 52.2 percent when subtracting for the shares owned by Hastings and fellow director Jay Hoag, according to New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who sponsored the plan to split the roles at Netflix.
“A truly independent board would take action,” Stringer told The Post.
Dissent isn’t centered on Hastings’ performance as chairman — as Netflix shares are up 94 percent over the past year. Rather, shareholders are outraged over Hastings’ handling of other basic requests, including their inability to boot directors from the board.
A massive 82.5 percent of voting shareholders supported the implementation on so-called majority voting, which would make sure directors receive a majority of support to be on the board.
Ninety percent of S&P 500 companies adhere to majority voting in the case of uncontested elections, according to Skadden Arps.
Netflix, however, continues to operate under a rule that allows an uncontested director nominee to be seated with one measly “for” vote — despite more than 81 percent of shareholders calling for change in each of the last three years.
“The board will consider the vote results,” Netflix spokesman Joris Evers told The Post.
Shareholders also turned out in force to vote against the 53-year-old executive being on the board of the Los Gatos, Calif., company.
Roughly 25 percent of the votes cast were against Hastings’ re-election to Netflix’s board, period.
Close to 50 percent of votes cast favored booting Hoag, and 41.4 percent sought the ouster of director George “Skip” Battle.
Netflix may be reluctant to adopt the board changes shareholders want because it fears some directors will be kicking stones down the road, said one critic, Ed Durkin, who sponsored the majority-voting proposal on behalf of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters pension fund, which owns 627 shares.
Netflix shares closed Tuesday at $428.29, up 1.2 percent.