Shareholders of Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) today re-elected Chairman Marjorie Magner, President and CEO Gracia C. Martore, John E. Cody, Howard D. Elias, Arthur H. Harper, John Jeffry Louis, Scott K. McCune, Duncan M. McFarland, Susan Ness and Neal Shapiro to the Board of Directors at the annual meeting held at the company's headquarters. The directors were elected to serve one-year terms ending at Gannett's annual meeting in 2013.
Gannett's shareholders also overwhelmingly approved an advisory resolution on the compensation of the Company's named executive officers reported in the Company's 2012 proxy statement and ratified the appointment of Ernst & Young as the company's independent accounting firm for the 2012 fiscal year.
The Board of Directors also declared a regular quarterly dividend of 20 cents per share, payable on July 2, 2012, to shareholders of record on June 8, 2012. This is consistent with the capital allocation strategy announced in February, which included increasing Gannett's dividend by 150 percent and accelerating the Company's share repurchase program to $300 million over the next two years. Together, these actions put Gannett on a pace to return more than $1.3 billion to shareholders by 2015.
"We have an ongoing commitment to return increasing amounts of capital to our shareholders and this dividend reaffirms the Board of Directors' and management's confidence in our capital allocation strategy, while also reflecting our current strength and strong belief in Gannett's future prospects," said Martore.
