Watch Now


XPO shareholders reject union bid to separate chair, CEO positions

Jacobs to continue in both roles.

Shareholders of XPO Logistics, Inc. (NYSE:XPO) on Wednesday defeated a Teamsters union proposal to separate the chairman and CEO posts and appoint an independent director to serve as the company’s chair, a proposal that could have removed XPO Founder, Chairman and CEO Brad Jacobs from the chairman’s role.

The proposal was “soundly” defeated at the Greenwich, Connecticut-based company’s annual shareholder meeting. The non-binding proposal was supported by prominent shareholder advisory firms Glass, Lewis & Co. and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), both of whom said that, in general, an independent chair can oversee a company’s executives and set a pro-shareholder agenda without the inherent conflicts confronting a CEO or other executive insiders.

The Teamsters, who have been embroiled in an acrimonious battle with XPO over representation issues, also raised concerns that the company’s recent performance served as justification to split the roles. XPO, which opposed the proposal, said that Jacobs has created significant shareholder value while holding both roles since 2011, and that separating the positions would impede the pace and effectiveness of corporate decision-making.

XPO had reported disappointing third and fourth quarter financial results, was the subject of a scathing short-seller’s report in December, and has lost two-thirds of the business from its largest customer, known to all – though never publicly acknowledged by XPO – as Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). The price of XPO shares had fallen from $116 a share at the end of September 2018 to the low $40 a share range in March.


4 Comments

  1. Tyson miller

    Brad Jacobs Will Not respond Back to me I am going through cancer treatment I write him letter that send back never open them nhb terminal

  2. Yvonne Williams

    XPO is getting what’s coming to them the way they do there employees what ever they loss they deserve it the way they treat their carriers they are ripping them off. This company is so bias. I hope they stock drop lower than $60 Brad Jacobs is not doing a good job in his roles. XPO will always loss because they have to many law suites .

    1. Howard Jackson

      XPO employees in Lebanon Indiana are feeling the pain by being required to work 9 hours a day five days a week and. Now its 8 hours on Saturday and SUNDAY.

Comments are closed.

Mark Solomon

Formerly the Executive Editor at DC Velocity, Mark Solomon joined FreightWaves as Managing Editor of Freight Markets. Solomon began his journalistic career in 1982 at Traffic World magazine, ran his own public relations firm (Media Based Solutions) from 1994 to 2008, and has been at DC Velocity since then. Over the course of his career, Solomon has covered nearly the whole gamut of the transportation and logistics industry, including trucking, railroads, maritime, 3PLs, and regulatory issues. Solomon witnessed and narrated the rise of Amazon and XPO Logistics and the shift of the U.S. Postal Service from a mail-focused service to parcel, as well as the exponential, e-commerce-driven growth of warehouse square footage and omnichannel fulfillment.