WAUKESHA, Wisconsin (Reuters) -– Target Corp (TGT.N) shareholders dealt a blow to activist investor William Ackman on Thursday, rejecting his slate of proposed directors and voting instead to keep four incumbents on the retailer's board.

Despite a tearful appeal in which he invoked Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous “I Have a Dream” speech in a final effort to win votes, Ackman did not come close to gaining any seats on the board.
Target, which spent roughly $11 million defending itself during the proxy contest, said that, based on a preliminary total, each of its four nominees received support from more than 70 percent of the shares voted.
Each of the five nominees on Ackman's slate received support ranging from the high-single digits to the low 20s in terms of the percent of votes cast, the retailer said.
Target also said shareholders voted in its favor to set the board size at 12. Ackman wanted it set at 13.
“We're disappointed,” said Ackman, whose Pershing Square Capital Management has a 7.8 percent stake in Target, of the results. “We'd love to be on this board, but shareholders voted.”
His said a pledge made earlier in the week to remain a Target shareholder for five years was conditioned on winning a seat on Target's board. With no seat on the board, he said he now had more flexibility with his Target holdings, although he expected to be a “long-term holder.”
Target shares fell 1.2 percent, or 46 cents, to $39.14 in Thursday's New York Stock Exchange trading.
“The pressure on the stock could be over concerns that Pershing Square will sell some, or all, of its position, but we do not anticipate that will occur given that it would be damaging to Mr. Ackman's credibility,” Telsey Group analyst Joseph Feldman said.