GCI New Gannett Co Inc

Tribune Publishing Co. said shareholders voted, as expected, to re-elect the company's board nominees at its annual meeting Thursday.

But the publisher of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times didn't give the exact breakdown of the vote, giving no indication of how much support Gannett Co. garnered for its "withhold" campaign. Gannett was encouraging shareholders to withhold their votes for the board as a symbolic gesture of no confidence and support for Gannett's takeover attempt.

Gannett was unable to offer a competing slate of directors as it had initiated its unsolicited pursuit of Tribune after the deadline had passed to wage a proxy fight.

USA Today owner Gannett has said it would review whether to proceed with its takeover approach after the result of the vote, after Tribune rejected bids at $12.25 and $15 a share—63% and 99% premiums, respectively, over Tribune's share price before Gannett made its first bid public.

A representative from Gannett couldn't immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

Tribune has argued that Gannett's offers undervalued the company and that more value could be derived from Mr. Ferro's plan to modernize its 11 newsrooms—revolving around a technology platform called "Tronc," using things like artificial intelligence and "machine vision" technology—if it is given the time to take hold.

The company last week took the unorthodox approach of selling 4.7 million shares of its stock to medical doctor and billionaire investor Patrick Soon-Shiong at $15 apiece—the price Gannett had proposed in its sweetened bid.

Dr. Soon-Shiong's investment in Tribune, a 12.9% stake at $70.5 million, made him the company's second-largest shareholder. It also made the company more expensive for Gannett to purchase, as it would presumably have to purchase Dr. Soon-Shiong's additional shares, which could push the total cost of the company up.

As part of the deal, Dr. Soon-Shiong was slated to take a seat on Tribune Publishing's board as vice chairman, starting Thursday after the shareholder meeting.

Mr. Ferro had marshaled the support of three proxy-advisory firms, Institutional Shareholder Services, Glass, Lewis & Co. and Egan-Jones Rating Co., and big institutional investors often follow the recommendations of those firms.

Meanwhile, a Tribune shareholder, Capital Structures Realty Advisors LLC, filed a lawsuit against Mr. Ferro and the rest of the Tribune board, seeking to block the sale of stock to Dr. Soon-Shiong. Dr. Soon-Shiong, in an interview, said he had only heard of the lawsuit through the media Thursday morning and had not reviewed the complaint.

A merger of the two companies would tie household their household news outlets up under one firm, as newspaper companies have struggled in recent years in part from disruptions caused by the internet.

Write to Joshua Jamerson at joshua.jamerson@wsj.com and Lukas I. Alpert at lukas.alpert@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 02, 2016 13:55 ET (17:55 GMT)

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