Article: Unlike Last Year, Few Shareholders Show at Newport News Shipbuilding Meeting.(Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News)

May 19--RICHMOND, Va.--Bill Gates didn't make it, but that just placed the Microsoft mogul, who is also Newport News Shipbuilding's largest shareholder, among the vast majority of the company's shareholders who skipped the annual meeting.

No more than 20 shareholders showed up at the Richmond Marriott Hotel for the meeting Thursday, and that suited William P. Fricks, the shipyard's chairman, just fine.

"We must be doing something right," he joked.

It was a far cry from last June, when nearly a thousand striking workers made the trip to Richmond for the meeting, prompting the stuffy Jefferson Hotel to give Newport News Shipbuilding the boot. The ...

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