Two prominent shareholder advisory firms have criticized Tyson Foods Inc. for its dual-class share structure, which grants the family of the meat company’s founders outsized influence over the company.
Ahead of Tyson’s annual shareholder meeting next week, Glass Lewis & Co. is recommending votes against three incumbent directors of Tyson’s board -- Les Baledge, Mike Beebe and David Bronczek -- for not taking action on shareholder proposals that obtained significant support at last year’s meeting. One of the proposals was to hire a bank to come up with a plan to collapse its dual-class shares.