Dillard's NY investors sell most of holdings

Arkansas Business, May 25, 2009 by Gwen Moritz

Dillard's Inc. shareholders re-elected the four directors installed last year to avoid a proxy fight with activist investors at its annual shareholders' meeting on May 16.

Curiously, those investment groups have recently reduced their holdings in the Arkansas department store chain.

Barington Capital Group of New York, led by lames A. Mitarotonda, filed on May 15 a quarterly Form 13F with the Securities & Exchange Commission showing that it owned only 1,634 shares of Dillard's stock valued at about $9,000 as of March 31. That compared with 828,445 shares valued at $3.3 million as of Dec. 31 and 1.99 million shares at the end of 2007.

The Clinton Group also sold some 530,000 shares of Dillard's stock during the first quarter, declaring less than 1.1 million shares as of March 31 on its Form 13F filed in April. The Clinton Group's CEO, George Hall, has frequently joined Mitarotonda in public letters of frustration with the management of Dillard's, including one as recently as December.

Eight of the 12 directors are elected directly by the Dillard family as holders of Class B stock. Five of them are members of the Dillard family.