BH vote: did 82.2% or 50.7% vote in support of the new compensation package?

[farnamstreet]

The headline makes you think that 82.2% of shares voted in favour of the proposal. That might, however, be a little misleading.

 

Only 79.5% of total shares (937,343 of 1,433,553) voted. Of those, Biglari controls 209,550, so only 727,793 non-biglari shareholders voted in support of the new pay package. Looked at another way, only 50.7% of non-biglari shareholders voted in support of the package (and of those, some are his friends like Cooley)

[accutronman]

Your math is incorrect. There were 937,343 For, 199,493 Against, and 3,295 Abstentions for a total of 1,140,131. Taking out Biglari controlled shares makes the percentage 64% in support.

 

 

[farnamstreet]

The math is correct. We're using different denominators. You're using the number of shares that voted whereas I'm using total outstanding shares.