In February 2011, the Central Laborers Pension Fund, which owns more than 11,000 shares of Apple stock, introduced a proposal at the annual shareholders meeting that would require the company to “adopt and disclose a written and detailed succession planning policy.” The proposal also called for Apple to develop emergency and non-emergency succession plans and to adopt a formal assessment process to evaluate, identify and groom top candidates within the company.
The proposal was rejected, with Apple claiming that publicly discussing successors would “undermine the company’s efforts to recruit and retain executives” and “invite competitors to recruit our high-value executives. Furthermore, executives who are not identified as potential successors may choose to voluntarily leave the company.”
