Effort to split Exxon Mobil control fails

Exxon Mobil Corp. Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson will retain both of those jobs at the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company after a highly public, Rockefeller-led push to separate the roles failed again Wednesday.

Stripping Tillerson of the chairman’s job in favor of an independent director was the main focus of the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Dallas.

The measure was supported by 39.5 percent of shareholders, slightly less than last year’s 40 percent, despite a hard push by descendants of John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Exxon Mobil predecessor Standard Oil Corp.

Various institutional investors in the U.S. and abroad also lined up behind the proposal.

•Ford Motor Co. plans to conduct involuntary layoffs of salaried employees by August as part of a restructuring in the face of slumping sales and record-high gas prices, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Marcey Evans said the company hasn’t determined how many white-collar jobs will be cut.

But she said that unlike previous layoffs in recent years, employees won’t be offered voluntary buyout packages with financial or early retirement incentives.

Evans said Ford wants the cuts completed by Aug. 1, which is not enough time to make voluntary offers and wait for employees to accept them.

•American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc. said Wednesday it will cut more than half of its U.S. hourly work force, or 2,000 jobs, through early retirement, buyout offers, plant closures and layoffs.

The moves were made possible by a new contract ratified last week by the United Auto Workers union that came after a nearly three-month strike.

The auto parts maker said its total hourly labor costs would drop from $73.48 before the new contract to between $30 and $45. Actual costs will vary by factory.

•Digital video recorder pioneer TiVo reported Wednesday that its first-quarter net income more than quadrupled as operating costs, most notably for marketing and research, declined.

Alviso-based TiVo Inc. earned $3.6 million, or 4 cents per share, for the three months ending April 30, up 336 percent from $835,000, or 1 cent per share, in the same period a year earlier.

Revenue for services and technology totaled $54.9 million, down from $58.1 million for the same period last year.