The beef between Magna’s brass and investors is alive and well (even sans Frank Stronach)

The beef between Magna’s brass and investors is alive and well (even sans Frank Stronach)

In Frank Stronach’s absence at the annual meeting of Magna International in Toronto on Thursday, CEO Don Walker took up the mantle as the company’s token antagonist to shareholders. The company brass and institutional investors have been locked in a decades-long battle over the automotive part giant’s management, and Stronach has always been at the heart of the discordant relationship. With Stronach missing in action for the first time since the company started having annual meetings 50 years ago, it fell to Walker to castigate shareholders for criticizing Magna management over a misguided sale of land to Stronach and former co–CEO Siegfried Wolf in 2011. Heated rhetoric notwithstanding, corporate governance is a hot-button issue at Magna—one that could see Stronach, and his mammoth paychecks, turfed from his directorship. [Globe and Mail]