Newcrest gets away with mild rebuke NEWCREST has received only a mild rebuke from shareholders for its horror year in which it lost its former blue-chip status because of a perfect storm of collapsing gold prices, production guidance misses, massive asset value writedowns and its continuous disclosure controversy. A number of proxy advisers had called on shareholders to punish the company by voting against the adoption of the remuneration report and the re-election of three non-executive directors. Shareholders rejected the call at yesterday's annual meeting in Melbourne, responding instead to the company's efforts to demonstrate it was back on track by voting through the resolutions. There was a mild rebuke contained in the voting by Newcrest's mainly overseas owners. The remuneration report received a 12.85 per cent protest vote, compared with about a 3 per cent "no" vote during happier days for goldminers last year. The individual resolutions for the re-election of three non-executive directors -- Richard Lee, Tim Poole and John Spark -- received "no" votes of up to 29.5 per cent. Newcrest defused tension ahead of the meeting with its recent revelation that chairman Don Mercer would be stepping down this year and that, having found a new chief operating officer after a 12-month search, chief executive Greg Robinson would step down in favour of the chief operating officer -- former Rio Tinto aluminium executive Sandeep Biswas -- in the second half of next year after seven years in the position. After the meeting, Mr Robinson said this year had been something of a perfect storm. He said while he was "obviously disappointed" with the group's performance his planned departure was not related. He said that he had never worked harder in the past 12 months and that he was not prepared to "commit for another five years." Mr Robinson earlier told shareholders that more work on righting Newcrest needed to be done. We have not reached the right level of predictable delivery and we are working very hard to improve this. I will note, over the last two quarters we have delivered well against plan," he said. In his chairman's address, Mr Mercer said shareholders had been understandably disappointed with the group's performance on a number of measures. We have listened and actions have been taken. 2014 will be a year of further adjustment, but I believe the outlook for Newcrest is positive," Mr Mercer said. He also told the meeting that ASIC's investigations into allegations Newcrest selectively briefed analysts -- ahead of its June announcement to the stock exchange which detailed a litany of operational woes brought in to sharp focus after the April crash in gold prices -- was continuing. An investigation commissioned by the company gave it the all clear, saying no "smoking gun" was found that would have confirmed any breaches. After the meeting Mr Robinson again pointed the need for improved performances from the the group's lesser mines -- Telfer in Western Australia, Hidden Valley in PNG and Bonikro in west Africa -- in the lower gold price environment. "We don't want low returning assets in the portfolio in the long-term," he said. While he stopped short of saying the operations faced closure, Mr Robinson said the performance of the operations remained under constant review. Mr Robinson said that Telfer would be starved of fresh capital investment until its future as a lower-cost producer could be confirmed. The mine was the group's flagship before the Cadia operation in NSW was developed, and the troublesome acquisition of the Lihir mine in PNG was made.