PAWTUCKET (Bloomberg) — Hasbro Inc. shareholders next month are scheduled to vote on a nonbinding resolution urging the board to arrange a “prompt” sale of the second-biggest toymaker to the highest bidder.
A majority vote would indicate “displeasure felt by shareholders of shareholder returns over many years and the drastic action that should be taken,” according to the resolution, which was included in Hasbro’s most recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
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The maker of Monopoly board games and G.I. Joe action figures last year reported its first loss in at least a decade. Hasbro’s stock has lost two-thirds of its value since reaching a high of $37 in May 1999. Chief Executive Alan Hassenfeld, who in February accepted blame for the poor performance, didn’t receive a bonus or raise in 2000, according to the SEC filing.
“It’s good to see this,” said John Miller, an assistant portfolio manager at Ariel Capital, Hasbro’s third-largest shareholder. “However, is now the right time to sell? That’s what investors and the board really have to determine.”
The resolution, opposed by Hasbro’s directors, was sponsored by William Steiner, of Great Neck, New York, who owns 2,100 shares. The proposal is scheduled for a vote at the Pawtucket, Rhode Island-based company’s annual meeting on May 16.
“The board strongly believes that implementation of the resolution. . .would not maximize value to shareholders,” Hasbro said in the filing. “Acting hastily to force a sale of the company at auction or otherwise to the highest bidder would restrict the board’s ability to examine all alternatives for increasing shareholder value.”
Hassenfeld failed to meet earnings targets set by the toymaker and his salary was capped at $1,005,900, reflecting a two- year freeze on senior-executive salaries begun in 1999, the filing said. He received a $452,990 bonus the previous year.
Hasbro also cut the size of the 52-year-old executive’s stock option grant to 70,000 shares, valued at $449,981 on the day they were granted. In 1999 he got grants of options of 315,000 shares, valued then at more than $4 million — nine times greater than his 2000 award.
