P&G continues to review vote tally as Peltz awaits board seat

Nov 22 (Reuters) - Procter & Gamble Co is still reviewing a tally of shareholder votes cast at its annual meeting more than a month ago, after a fierce proxy contest narrowly handed activist investor Nelson Peltz a board seat.

The consumer products company said on Wednesday it has not yet decided to launch a formal challenge to the results, which are still preliminary, but is reviewing a count performed by IVS Associates Inc to make sure it is accurate.

In response, Peltz���s firm, Trian Fund Management, said it was disappointed that P&G continues to question the outcome, which handed him a victory with a margin of just 0.0016 percent of shares outstanding. ���Regardless of how they voted, P&G shareholders should be concerned that P&G has opted to waste further time and shareholder money contesting the official tabulation of the independent Inspector,��� Trian said in a statement.

Trian asked P&G to reconsider its decision to review and immediately give Peltz a seat on the company's board.

Peltz launched his war against P&G management in July, criticizing the company���s lagging stock price and railing against its ���suffocating bureaucracy.��� From then through Tuesday���s close, P&G shares have risen 1.9 percent.

Immediately after its annual meeting in mid-October, P&G said it had beat Peltz by a slim margin, but IVS���s tally, released a week ago, showed otherwise.

P&G, whose brands include Tide laundry detergent, Crest toothpaste and Pampers disposable diapers, said it was pushing to get a final certified report from the Independent Inspector of Elections as quickly as possible.

Typically during such reviews, lawyers from both sides vet the counting process performed by an independent third-party. If the outcome does not go its way, P&G can launch a formal challenge, though it did not say whether it plans to do so. (Additional reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Writing by Lauren Tara LaCapra; Editing by Bernard Orr and David Gregorio)