It's increasingly clear that Motorola Inc.'s (NYSE: MOT) plan to split into two companies to separate its ailing cell phone business from its other telecommunications equipment operations is not appeasing shareholders. The latest sign came Monday evening at the company's shareholder meeting, where investors did more than just make a lot of noise. They passed a resolution loosening management's control over executive pay by making it subject to an annual shareholder vote.
FT.com, which covered the meeting, quotes shareholders as saying they were "embarrassed and outraged" by the company's decline,and calling the plan to split into two a "cop out" that does nothing to revive the company's cell phone business.
In the days leading up to the shareholder meeting, activist investor Eric Jackson, who heads a group called Motorola Plan B representing 135 investors holding 600,000 Motorola shares, had urged shareholders to vote against three longstanding Motorola board members, who he said had failed to learn the lessons of two boom-and-bust cycles (the StarTac and the Razr) -- namely, that phones are fashion, and fashion gets old very fast.Continue reading at TechConfidential.com
