CHICAGO -- Robert A.G. Monks, the eloquent institutional investor whose pointed criticism of Sears, Roebuck & Co. made him a symbol of the activist shareholder, has lost his campaign to become a director.

Georgeson & Co., a New York firm that collected ballots on his behalf, estimated that Monks received 15 percent of the votes cast at the retailer's annual meeting yesterday. The meeting came and went relatively uneventfully.

Monks, 57, is a top executive at American Express Co.'s Boston Co. subsidiary.

One of his principal charges against the company has been that the Sears board has been a rubber stamp, allowing the same executives to run the company despite years of decline.