Delivery trucks sit parked at the FedEx Corp. <\/strong><\/span>Ground<\/strong> distribution center in Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S., on Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2018. FedEx is heading into fiscal 2019 running on all cylinders, with revenue growth and margin expansion expected across all three of its segments.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

F<\/span>edEx Corp.<\/strong> will lose a board member next month when one of its directors hits the mandatory retirement age of 75. Next in line: founder\u00a0Fred Smith.<\/p>\n

If the board doesn\u2019t take action, the courier\u2019s chairman and chief executive officer will be out as a director in about a year. FedEx already has changed its rules once to accommodate the inexorable march of time, though. And there probably won\u2019t be much investor resistance if the company boosts the age limit again or creates an allowance for Smith, said headhunter\u00a0Scott Simmons.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo shareholder is going to say, \u2018No, we want Fred out,\u2019 \u201d according to Simmons, a managing director of Chicago-based Crist|Kolder Associates. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone would say it\u2019s time for him to step aside.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

James Barksdale, who has served on the FedEx board for 18 years, must step down before the company\u2019s annual meeting on Sept. 24. The company\u2019s bylaws require a director to retire immediately before the annual meeting during the calendar year in which he or she turns 75.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In 2015 the\u00a0board increased its maximum age by three years as Smith neared what at the time was the limit of 72. FedEx could bump up the limit again or eliminate the age limit just for Smith, Simmons said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Hand-Wringing\u2019<\/h3>\n

\u201cThey may make a special exception without fearing the precedent,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the precedent fear would be if it\u2019s just Joe the outside director who they\u2019d like to keep around a little bit more. That\u2019s where you could get some hand-wringing.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Smith, a former Marine, founded FedEx in 1971 as a small air-freight company and has built it into a logistics business with a market value of $65 billion. Simmons likened Smith\u2019s sway in the company to that of\u00a0Warren Buffett, 87, at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.<\/p>\n

FedEx doesn\u2019t have mandatory retirement for executives, so if the board stands pat, Smith could step down as chairman but remain CEO. Theoretically.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot envision that scenario at all: not in the case when you have a founder, chairman and CEO who is so prevalent within the company\u2019s history,\u2019\u2019 Simmons said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s up to the board\u2019s governance committee, which is composed of independent directors, to recommend any changes to the retirement policy, according to FedEx spokesman Patrick Fitzgerald. He didn\u2019t say where the board stands on Smith\u2019s status.<\/p>\n

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• From Bloomberg.com<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

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