(Bloomberg) -- Dean Foods Co., the largest U.S. milk bottler, cut its profit forecast last week. A day later, it amended an incentive compensation plan for senior executives, severing a link between earnings and some of their potential bonus payments...
(Bloomberg) -- Another prominent shareholder advisory firm has come out in support of Cigna Corp.’s $54 billion takeover of pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts Holding Co., dealing another blow to activist investor Carl Icahn’s efforts to block the transaction...
(Bloomberg) -- Shares of Campbell Soup Co. rose in after-hours U.S. trading on reports that Daniel Loeb’s Third Point LLC has acquired a stake and is pressing for a turnaround at the 149-year-old company. Third Point has a stake of at least $300 million in the soup maker, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the matter. The holding amounts to more than 2.5 percent of Campbell’s stock, the Journal said...
(Bloomberg) -- If recent history is any guide, Leslie Moonves won’t have to wait long to know if he still has a future at CBS Corp. Boards are acting more quickly than ever to fire executives accused of misconduct, and they’re more likely to be clear about the reasons, according to two new studies...
(Bloomberg) -- Former Intel Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian Krzanich used to say his push to make the chipmaker’s workforce less male-dominated was motivated by a desire to build a better technology industry for his daughters to work in someday. His power to directly expand opportunities for women at Intel ended when he was forced to resign in June over an extramarital workplace relationship...
(Bloomberg) -- Sempra Energy met with activist investors Elliott Management Corp. and Bluescape Resources to try and reach a truce ahead of its analyst conference set for Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter. The two sides met Monday in Washington to discuss whether Sempra would give the activists board seats and consider setting up a committee to weigh options to create shareholder value, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the details are private...
(Bloomberg) -- Activist investor Carl Icahn won’t make a bid to buy oil and gas explorer SandRidge Energy Inc., the company said in a regulatory filing Monday. The billionaire New Yorker told SandRidge last week that he wouldn’t submit an offer, just days after winning a proxy fight to replace most of the board at the Oklahoma business, according to the filing. Icahn instead signed a confidentiality agreement giving his representatives board observer rights, the company said...
Activist investor Jonathan Litt is again urging Hudson’s Bay Co. to explore ways to unlock the value of its real estate, arguing the owner of Saks Fifth Avenue should look to Macy’s Inc. for an example of how to improve shareholder value -- or even sell itself to its American rival...
(Bloomberg) -- The oil industry’s ugliest battle is heading for a climax in Oklahoma City on Tuesday. But SandRidge Energy Inc. is probably bound for the auction block anyway. Whether SandRidge or activist investor Carl Icahn wins control of the board this week, the oil and natural gas explorer is expected to sell some or all of its drilling rights as it tries to reverse a long slide in its market value, according to David Beard, an analyst with New Orleans investment manager Coker & Palmer Inc. Icahn is seeking to replace the entire seven-member board at Oklahoma-based SandRidge, which has ...
(Bloomberg) -- McKesson Corp. cut Chief Executive Officer John Hammergren’s pay by about 10 percent following a shareholder revolt spurred by claims about the health-care firm’s alleged role in the nation’s opioid crisis. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters led a vote-no campaign in 2017 against the firm’s executive pay plan after accusing the drug distributor of aggravating the opioid epidemic...
(Bloomberg) -- Large companies listed in the U.K. will have to explain the pay gap between bosses and employees under government plans to be submitted to Parliament on Monday. Firms with more than 250 staff on their books will have to publish and justify the difference in pay between chief executives and workers and will have to detail how directors are acting in the interests of both employees and shareholders, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said...
(Bloomberg) -- Usually placid Silicon Valley shareholder meetings have become targets for protesters this year, the latest example of a backlash against the technology industry’s growing power. On Wednesday morning, a plane was due to flew over the annual meeting of Google parent Alphabet Inc. with the sign...
(Bloomberg) -- Tesla Inc. shareholders sided with its besieged board by defeating a proposal to require that the chairman be an independent director and approving the re-election of three directors criticized by an activist investor group. Shareholders sided with the board’s recommendations on all agenda items, Todd Maron, Tesla’s general counsel, said during the company’s annual meeting Tuesday in Mountain View, California...
(Bloomberg) -- New allegations of questionable behavior by Athenahealth Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Bush are emerging as the health technology executive attempts to fend off a takeover proposal from an activist investor. In the past week, Bush has apologized for assaulting his ex-wife, and public records have surfaced alleging that he subjected a female employee to what she described as a “sexually hostile environment.” Now more examples of potentially inappropriate behavior by Bush have emerged. A 2017 video clip seen by Bloomberg of Bush at a health-care industry event features the CEO dressed up as a race car driver, pretending ...
(Bloomberg) -- CBS Corp.’s controlling shareholder said it was no longer interested in merging the media company with Viacom Inc., even before CBS filed a lawsuit to fend off a deal. Officials of a company owned by billionaire Sumner Redstone and his family told Viacom directors earlier this month that their interest had waned in merging the owner of MTV, Comedy Central and Paramount Studios with the U.S.’s most-watched TV network in prime time, according to a suit filed Tuesday by National Amusements Inc. NAI didn’t “intend to force a CBS/Viacom merger, whether by removing and ...
(Bloomberg Markets) -- The old boys’ network is costing university endowments money. Investment committees that have female majorities typically generate higher returns than committees that don’t. “There’s something about the way women lead and the way they collaborate,” says Jolyne Caruso-FitzGerald, a 35-year Wall Street veteran and chair of the board of trustees at Barnard College, a women’s school in Manhattan. “There’s this intimidation factor on mostly male boards...
Crescent Point Energy Corp.’s shareholders are expected to vote against a slate of directors put forth by activist investor Cation Capital Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. Preliminary results show Cation was unable to secure any seats on the board of the Calgary-based oil and gas producer, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. The official tallies are expected to be announced at the company’s annual general meeting Friday in Calgary...
The Labor Department's new guidance said that managers should only engage with companies about corporate governance , or environmental and human capital risks when it's likely that those issues will enhance the economic value of their investment. "This indicates the need for a well-developed ...
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman pledged to end three years of underperformance at Pershing Square Holdings Ltd., calling recent returns “particularly unsatisfactory” at a time when markets globally have been buoyant. Pershing Square Holdings’s management company has been restructuring into a smaller, investment-centric organization whose future asset growth will be driven by results, Ackman wrote in a letter to investors...
(Bloomberg) -- Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. became a household name with its historic rise and fall. Reviving the drugmaker is proving a unique challenge. “This is a turnaround opportunity of a lifetime,” Chief Executive Officer Joseph Papa, who took over in May 2016, said during a presentation Wednesday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco...
The U.K. government proposed changes to the way executive pay is set and company boards are structured in measures that would extend to closely held companies, as Prime Minister Theresa May seeks to crack down on corporate excess ...
Darden Restaurants Inc., whose entire board was replaced last year in a proxy fight, will split off about 430 properties and transfer them to a real estate investment trust, following through on a promise made by its new bosses. The REIT, which will be publicly traded, will lease back the properties to Darden, according to a statement on Tuesday. Darden, the owner of Olive Garden and other casual-dining chains, also is selling about 75 individual restaurants under separate deals...
Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) –- Bloomberg’s Su Keenan reports on how Activist’s recommended changes have impacted the Art House’s bottom line. She speaks to Mark Crumpton on Bloomberg Television’s “Money Moves.” (Source: Bloomberg)...
Procter & Gamble Co.'s decision Thursday to bring back former Chief Executive Officer A.G. Lafley to replace his successor echoes a now-familiar path epitomized by Steve Jobs at Apple Inc. Another successful comeback was Howard Schultz at Starbucks Corp., while Michael Dell struggled amid declining personal-computer sales after his return. Myron Ullman's second act at J.C. Penney Co. is yet to be tested: he came back last month.
