WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Forest Laboratories Inc. (FRX) confirmed Monday that all ten of its Board nominees were elected by a substantial majority, while none of billionaire investor Carl Icahn's nominees made it.
Forest said the confirmation was based on the preliminary report of the independent inspector of elections for the Forest's Annual Meeting.
According to the report, ten company nominees were elected to the Forest Board, each receiving more than a majority of all outstanding shares. Over 226 million votes, or approximately 98.0 percent of the votes cast in the election, were voted for each of the six Forest nominees that had not been contested.
With regard to the four contested seats, the Forest nominees were elected by wide margins. Goodman and Solomon received over 169 million and 165 million votes, respectively, and Messrs. Goldwasser and Salans each received over 152 million votes for their election.
Meanwhile, Icahn nominee Richard Mulligan received only 70.5 million votes in support of his election and Alex Denner, the Icahn candidate with the second highest total, received less than 49.0 million votes.
Therefore, the margin of victory for the contested Forest nominees was 81 million votes with respect to Mulligan and 103 million votes with respect to Denner. Messrs.
As of the 2011 Annual Meeting record date, the Icahn group held approximately 19.9 million Forest shares.
CEO Howard Solomon said, 'We are pleased to receive this positive news confirming the results of our ten nominees today as we launch Dailresp and Viibryd with our field sales organization. This is an important week as we move forward with two of the 'Next Nine' products in our late-stage pipeline. We expect these high-potential products to help drive growth and diversify revenues in the years ahead.'
Based on the inspector's preliminary report, shareholders representing more than 231 million shares, or 83.1 percent of the company's issued and outstanding common stock voted.
The preliminary vote count is subject to review, challenge and official certification, but is not expected to change materially, if at all.
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