GREENWICH, Conn., April 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- FrontFour Capital Group LLC, together with its affiliates ("FrontFour"), today commented on the preliminary results of the Annual Meeting of Shareholders (the "Annual Meeting") of Sensient Technologies Corporation (NYSE:SXT) (the "Company" or "Sensient") held earlier today.  Although the results of the election were extremely close, based on the preliminary vote count, FrontFour's slate of highly-qualified nominees were not elected at the Annual Meeting.  The Company's proposal to approve the compensation of its named executive officers, often referred to as a "Say-on-Pay" vote, was, however, handedly rejected by shareholders.   

Stephen Loukas of FrontFour commented, "We would like to thank the shareholders who voted for us for their overwhelming support.  Although we are disappointed that our nominees were not elected to the Board, we believe that shareholders of Sensient have sent a clear message for change to the Board.  Given the significant 'WITHHOLD' votes received by a majority of the Board, including those that were not targeted by us, and shareholders' rebuke of the Board-approved compensation package for its senior executives, we hope that the Board will take immediate action to reform its corporate governance and executive pay practices and improve on its operating results."

Based on the preliminary count, a majority of the Board receive significant WITHHOLD votes, including Fergus M. Clydesdale receiving WITHHOLD votes by over 50% of the votes cast, and Hank Brown and Edward H. Cichurski receiving WITHHOLD votes of approximately 50% of the votes cast.

"We continue to believe that the Board is responsible for the Company's substantial financial underperformance within its Flavors & Fragrances business as well as the poor return on capital metrics.  We are hopeful that today's voting results have sent a strong message to the Board that shareholders will hold them accountable if the Company's governance practices and financial performance do not improve.  The Board should also undertake a more robust cost reduction plan than the $20 to $25 million annual cost savings currently targeted by the Company.  We remind shareholders that the Board was willing to materially increase the size of the Company's cost-cutting initiatives to up to $50 million in the course of settlement discussions as well as increase the size of its recently announced $100 million stock buy-back program," stated Loukas.

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SOURCE FrontFour Capital Group LLC