UPDATE 1-Motorola investors vote for power to call meetings
* Voters approve shareholder power to call special meeting
* Elect all 13 nominated directors
* Investors complain on exec pay, directors, div suspension
By Rick Popely
ROSEMONT, Ill, May 4 (Reuters) - Frustrated Motorola Inc (MOT.N) shareholders voted on Monday to give holders of 10 percent of its stock the power to call special shareholder meetings, and complained about everything from executive pay to the performance of the board at the loss-making phone company.
About 80 percent of votes cast were in favor of a shareholder proposal, which the company opposed, to allow investors to call special meetings.
Shareholders voted in line with the rest of the company's recommendations, including the election of 13 nominated directors.
Several shareholders stood up to show their impatience over issues such as Motorola's recent suspension of its dividend and a weakening of its once-iconic brand at the annual meeting in Rosemont, Illinois near Motorola's Schaumburg headquarters.
George Polous, a shareholder from Burbank, Illinois complained Motorola's "directors should not be re-elected because they have not done their jobs."
"The same guys have been on for years and nothing has changed. It's just gone down," he told Reuters, referring to Motorola's performance.
Another shareholder Martin Glotzer, from Chicago complained to Reuters at the meeting about Motorola's announcement in early February that it was suspending its dividend.
Motorola has been losing out to rivals Nokia Oyj (NOK1V.HE), Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and LG Electronics (066570.KS) for more than two years due to a weak selection of handsets.
In a market where consumers are often fickle and chasing the latest fad, Motorola has been slow to deliver advanced phones with high-speed Web links, and failed to create a successor to its once-lauded Razr phone, launched in 2004.
In August, Motorola hired Sanjay Jha, then a key executive of chip supplier Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O), to head the phone unit and act as co-CEO with Greg Brown.
Shareholders at the meeting complained about executives' pay, saying it was too high in light of the firm's weak performance. Motorola last week said its first-quarter loss widened to $231 million and it burned over $1 billion in cash during the quarter.
Jha and Brown reminded shareholders they had agreed last year to voluntarily reduce their base annual salaries to $900,000.
Polous told Reuters the cuts were a good sign, but the jury was still out on whether Jha was doing a good job. "You have to give him at least another year," he said.
Asked when the cellphone maker would break even again, Jha said he did not expect it to happen this year. He said further cost cuts could produce a profit sooner, but he was looking for "sustainable growth."
Soon after his arrival at the company, Jha postponed a plan to split off the cellphone unit into a separate entity, saying it needed to return toward profitability before a transaction.
He also cancelled many Motorola phones in the works to refocus development efforts on building advanced phones based on Android, an operating system developed by Google Inc (GOOG.O).
These phones are expected to appear on shelves in the fourth quarter of this year. Asked about the Android project, Jha said, "It's not going to be just one product. It's a whole series of products. I'd say 30-40 percent of our energy is focused on 2010 (products)," he told reporters after the meeting.
Brown took over as CEO in January last year when the previous chief Ed Zander left amid bitter shareholder criticism.
Motorola has lost about 80 percent of its market value since mid-October 2006, when its shares traded above $26 in New York. The stock has risen from a low of $3.10 in early March to close at $5.71 on Monday, as some investors bet Jha is making the right moves to turn around the business. (Writing by Sinead Carew, Editing by Ian Geoghegan)
