DEVON ENERGY SHAREHOLDERS ELECT DIRECTORS, ADD ONTO BOARD

Devon Energy Corp. shareholders on Wednesday elected John Krenicki Jr. as a director.

Krenicki, 56, is a senior operating partner at the private-equity investment firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice LLC. He previously worked at General Electric Co. for 29 years, including as vice chairman and president and CEO of GE Energy. He has a master’s degree in management from Purdue University and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Connecticut.

Krenicki’s election expands the Devon board to 10 members. Shareholders also re-elected all nine incumbent directors.

A shareholder proposal designed to allow shareholders to call for special meeting or rule changes with a majority vote failed after receiving 46 percent of the vote at Wednesday’s meeting.

Chairman Jon Richels said shareholders already can call for a special meeting in a process that requires all shareholders to be notified before a vote takes place.

“Our opposition to this is that under this proposal, a group of shareholders with no dissemination of information can sign a resolution that large groups of our shareholders might never have seen,” Richels said during the meeting.

“In an era where the movement of regulators and corporate governance has been to more and better disclosure to shareholders, this would be a big step backward in not allowing full disclosure to shareholders.”

Following the annual meeting, the directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of 8 cents per share of common stock payable Sept. 28 to shareholders as of Sept. 14.