Norwegian shipping tycoon John Fredriksen has been rejected by shareholders of New York-based International Seaways in his efforts to remove board members and squash extension of the company’s “poison pill” language.

Tuesday’s annual shareholder session in Manhattan came as a victory for International Seaways chief executive Lois Zabrocky, who had been targeted by Fredriksen’s camp for defeat in seeking re-election to the board.

Also prevailing was Kate Blankenship, the former Fredriksen group stalwart who was also seeking re-election to the board and opposed by Fredriksen’s Famatown and Seatankers Group.

“We’re so focused on the future of International Seaways, how do we stay at the front of the pack, how do we improve our competitiveness, how do we earn better across the board,” said a smiling Zabrocky after the session.

“We did a tremendous amount of shareholder interaction leading up to this, and we want to focus on growing the company, making Seaways bigger and better.”

All 10 members of the Seaways board were re-elected to one-year terms, though the specific voting tallies were not immediately available.

In another win for management, a three-year extension of a shareholder rights agreement — informally known as a poison pill — was ratified by the majority of holders, again with the final numbers not immediately known.

The extension, which blocks Fredriksen or any other holder from gaining control of more than 20% of the stock on pain of massive dilution, also had been opposed in an open letter to shareholders from Famatown last week.

Seaways also won an advisory vote on compensation for the executive management team, another item opposed by the Fredriksen camp. At the same time, shareholders concluded that future advisory votes should come on an annual basis rather than at wider intervals.

What might have been a standard annual shareholders meeting — and indeed the business portion of Tuesday’s sessions was concluded within 20 minutes — was thrust under the spotlight by the recent war of words initiated by Fredriksen in an open letter that was harshly critical of Seaways’ management.

Famatown appeared particularly upset by the extension of the poison pill, which was instituted last year after Fredriksen quietly bought up 16.6% of shares, becoming the largest holder. The initial “pill” capped his accumulation at 17.5% before dilution measures, and this now relaxes to 20% under the revised extension.

But the Fredriksen camp also took aim at the Seaways board as a “bloated” 10 members, proposing to reduce it by denying Zabrocky and Blankenship re-election.

In a pointed retort, Seaways’ management publicly questioned why Fredriksen would “target” two of the three female directors. The third — veteran financier Randee Day — also won re-election on Tuesday.

As things turned out, none of the 25 or so people attending the session at a midtown conference centre — largely directors and employees — rose to speak either for or against any of the items with the exception of Zabrocky, who chaired the meeting.