ANGRY CA VOTE - D'AMATO MAY LOSE BOARD SEAT
New York Post - New York, N.Y.
Author:	JANET WHITMAN
Date:	Sep 19, 2006
Start Page:	046
Section:	Business
Text Word Count:	238
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(Copyright 2006, The New York Post. All Rights Reserved)

 

CA Inc. investors delivered a sharp rebuke to Alfonse D'Amato yesterday, as an unusually high percentage of them withheld their support for the former New York senator's reelection as a director at the tainted technology company. Of the shares voted, about 26 percent checked the "Withhold" box for D'Amato - up from just over 8 percent last year, when some Wall Street watchdogs started calling for his ouster.

Any withhold tally that reaches even the low double-digits is considered a sign of serious investor displeasure, corporate governance pros said.

Critics want D'Amato to go because he's the last remaining director who served on the board of CA, formerly known as Computer Associates, when it became ensnared in a $2.2 billion accounting scandal that began in 2000.

Calls for D'Amato to step down escalated this year following revelations that, in 2000, he helped broker a deal for then- Computer Associates President Sanjay Kumar and founder Charles Wang to buy the New York Islanders hockey team, which one proxy-advisory firm said appears to be a clear conflict of interest.

D'Amato defended his tenure when quizzed by reporters following yesterday's shareholder meeting at Manhattan's Roosevelt Hotel.

"I think we've come a long way . . . in moving the company in the right direction," he said.

He noted that he and CA Chairman Lewis Ranieri have brought in new directors and top management to try to turn around the beleaguered company.