CalPERS to Keep Votes From Morgan Directors

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System said Thursday that it would withhold its votes from Morgan Stanley directors up for reelection because the securities firm failed to implement a shareholder proposal for annual elections.

The proposal, sponsored by shareholder activist Evelyn Y. Davis, urged Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest securities firm by capital, to change the current three-year terms. It received the support of 58.9% of voting shareholders at Morgan Stanley’s annual meeting a year earlier. Three of the firm’s eight directors are up for reelection.

At Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s annual meeting last week, 52.5% of shareholders voted to support Davis’ resolution that Goldman’s 10 board members be elected annually. Goldman Chief Executive Henry Paulson said after the vote that he would “carefully consider the question.”

CalPERS owned 4.5 million Morgan Stanley shares as of the end of 2003.