EBay Inc rejects Icahn’s nominees to its board

EBay Inc yesterday rejected two nominees of  activist investor Carl Icahn to its board, claiming both were unqualified, and urged shareholders to vote against them at its next annual meeting.

Icahn, with just over a 2-per cent holding in the   e-commerce company, has been urging eBay for weeks to spin off its PayPal payments business and has made repeated accusations against the company over poor corporate governance.

The billionaire investor had nominated Daniel Ninivaggi and Jonathan Christodoro, both employees of Icahn Enterprises LP employees.

Both are regularly nominated by Icahn to boards.

According to the chairman of eBay`s corporate governance and nominating committee, Richard Schlosberg III, the board considered both but rejected them as neither nominee had relevant experience or expertise.

EBay added, since each Icahn nominee currently sat on four public company boards, they were in breach of eBay`s guidelines on "overboarding."

In a statement EBay founder and chairman Pierre Omidyar urged shareholder to support the company`s slate, which included chief executive John Donahoe.

According to the company, Donahoe`s 2013 compensation was down over half to $13.8 million, largely reflecting the board`s decision in 2012 to give him a one-time award of $14.8 million in performance share units.

Meanwhile, EBay is urging shareholders to vote for its directors rather than activist investor Carl Icahn's nominees.

The company said its four directors who were up for re-election, including CEO John Donahoe, company co-founder and managing director Fred Anderson, Intuit co-founder Scott Cook and former Agilent Technologies CEO Edward Barnholt, should be re-elected.