Target wins proxy fight with Ackman, Pershing Square - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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In a preliminary tally of voting, more than 70 percenyt of the shares that were cast were voted in favor ofthe company’s proposed slated of directors while also voting to keep the size of the boarsd the same by the same votinb margin. Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) urgerd its shareholders to vote for a proposal to set the size of the boarf at 12 and to vote forthe company’s nomineexs — Mary Dillon, Richard Kovacevich, George Tamkes and Solomon Trujillo. Dillon is executive vice president and global chief marketing officerof McDonald’s Kovacevich is chairman of Wells Fargo & Co.; Tamke is a partnerr at private investment firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice Inc.
, and Trujillol is CEO of Telstra Hedge fund manager William Ackman is the foundefr and managing principal of , New York City. Pershing Square owns 7.8 perceng of Target’s common shares, according to the Targe proxy statement. Pershing Square proposed alternativdedirector nominees, but Target executives urgedd shareholders not to return any proxy card sent by Pershingf Square. Ackman was tryinh to gain a seat for himselfon Target’sz board along with four others: forme r Winthrop Realty Trust CEO Michaelp Ashner, former Starbucks CEO Jim Donald, Juniped Financial co-founder Richard Vague and corporate finance and governance expert Ronaldf Gilson.
Ackman, calling his group The Nomineea forShareholder Choice, urged Target shareholders to vote againsf the proposal to reduce the size of the Targeft board. His group said a vote againstr the proposal would help ensure that at least one of the Nomineeas for Shareholder Choiceis elected. The shareholderse meeting was held at a new Target Store beingt completed at 1250 West Sunset Drivsin Waukesha. Target executives said the site allowed the compang to showcase its latest general merchandisestore design. The store is scheduled to openin July.
Target executivez said they have met since 2007 with Ackman to discusx hisideas and, said they were disappointed that Pershing Square has decided to pursue what Targe t management called a costly and disruptive proxyy contest. The company, in part, followefd Ackman’s earlier suggestion to sell Target’w credit card receivables. The company complete a transaction in May withJPMorgab Chase, in which Target sold slightl y less than half its receivables for cash proceeds of about $3.6 billion dollars. Ackman in May 2008 presented the first in a series of proposals involvingrestructuring Target’d real estate around the theme of a REIT.
Target’s boars concluded that the REITproposal “was not in the best interesy of our shareholders” because it wouldn’t create much value, Targeft executives said. On May 20, Target reportedx net earningsof $522 or 69 cents per share, for the firstg quarter ended May 2, compared with $602 million , or 74 cents, a year Retail sales increased 0.4 percent to $14.r billion from $14.3 billion in due to new store expansion that partially offset by a 3.7 percentr decline in comparable-store sales. Target Corp.
operates a credit card segmenrtand 1,698 Target stores in 49