"Much of the tremendous progress we have made has been overshadowed by the economic crisis of historic proportions that began last year," Bill Ford was quoted as saying by Autonews while attending the meeting. "We are undergoing the most rapid and far-ranging transformation in our history."
The voting results show that a total of 1,945,535,622 shares of common stock and 70,852,076 shares of Class B stock were represented at the annual meeting in person or by proxy. Each of the company's directors received 3,266,703,051 votes, or 93.3 percent of the votes cast at the meeting.
PricewaterhouseCoopers has become the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2009. Out of the 98 people who attended the meeting, 98.5 percent voted in favor. The shareholders also approved the issuing of common stock in excess of 20 percent of amount outstanding and 1 percent of amount outstanding to an affiliate.
The voters ruled against limiting executive compensation until the company achieves two consecutive years of profitability (90.7 percent against). Also rejected was the proposal to disclose policies and procedures related to political contributions (89.5 percent against).
The recapitalization plan to provide all of the company's outstanding stock have one vote per share and the disclosure of any prior government affiliation of directors, officers, and consultants were also rejected with 80.5 percent and 94 percent of the people voting against.
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