(Reuters) - Activist hedge fund Starboard Value LP has asked a proxy solicitor to probe the level of support among Bristol-Myers Squibb Co shareholders for the U.S. drug maker's $74 billion (57 billion pounds) deal to buy Celgene Corp, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. The acquisition would be the biggest pharmaceuticals deal ever and would unite two major sellers of cancer drugs. Starboard has not decided whether it would oppose the Celgene deal, the sources said...

Hercules Capital, Inc. (NYSE: HTGC) (“Hercules” or the “Company”), the leading specialty finance company to innovative, venture growth, pre-IPO and M&A stage companies backed by leading and top-tier venture capital firms, today announced the appointment of Gayle Crowell to serve as a member of its board of directors, effective February 4, 2019...

(GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Omega Flex, Inc. (NASDAQ: OFLX) (the “Company”) today announced that the Board of Directors appointed James M. Dubin as a director of the board of directors. Mr. Dubin has been designated as a Class 3 director, and will have a term expiring at the 2020 annual shareholder meeting. Mr. Dubin is currently the Executive Chairman of Conair Corporation, a diversified consumer products company...

NEW YORK , Feb. 4, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Fir Tree Capital Management LP ("Fir Tree"), manager of certain funds that together have economic exposure to approximately 7.2% of the common stock of Halcón Resources Corporation ("Halcón" or "the Company") (NYSE: HK), today issued an open letter and presentation to the Board of Directors of Halcón (the "Board") urging the Company to work with shareholders to immediately appoint two independent directors to lead a process to sell for cash and/or stock the entire Company and to cut its excessive corporate overhead. The presentation referenced in the letter can ...

(Reuters) - Paulson & Co, the hedge fund firm led by billionaire investor John Paulson, has upped its overall interest in Britain's Premier Foods Plc to 11.9 percent, a regulatory filing https://reut.rs/2WyWn6J showed on Friday. The activist investor's move comes a little over two months after the Bisto gravy and Oxo-cube maker said Chief Executive Officer Gavin Darby would be stepping down, following a shareholder revolt, led by activist hedge fund Oasis Management, that called for a management overhaul. Darby stepped down as CEO on Jan. 31, 2019. Paulson had urged Premier Foods to replace its ...

PARIS (Reuters) - LVMH, owner of Moet & Chandon champagne and Hennessy cognac, does not want to destabilise Pernod Ricard and has nothing to do with activist investor Elliott buying a stake in the French spirits group, its Chairman and CEO said on Tuesday. LVMH billionaire boss Bernard Arnault, who described relations with Pernod Ricard CEO Alexandre Ricard as "friendly, made the comments at a news conference on the luxury group's annual results...

Jan. 24 -- PG&E's entire board of directors should be ousted and replaced in the wake of what a big investor describes as a series of failures and blunders that have caused fatal disasters that stretch back nearly a decade, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday...

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Activist fund Elliott raised doubts about Thyssenkrupp's plan to split in two in a letter to the conglomerate's chief executive last month, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. The remarks add to scepticism expressed by other shareholders about the German group's plan - announced in September - to spin off its capital goods businesses. Shares in the group have fallen by 32 percent since...

PARIS (Reuters) - French spirits group Pernod Ricard named business veteran Patricia Barbizet to the newly created role of lead independent director on Wednesday as it faces pressure from activist investor Elliott to improve its governance. Pernod Ricard, which makes Martell cognac and Jameson whiskey, also said longtime founding family ally and former chief executive Pierre Pringuet was stepping down as vice-chairman of the board, although he will remain a director...

(GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ashland Global Holdings Inc. (NYSE: ASH) today announced significant changes to the composition and leadership of its board of directors, consistent with its ongoing board refreshment program. These include the addition of two new independent board members, appointment of a lead independent director and appointment of new board committee chairs ...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Olympus Corp said it would propose to give top shareholder U.S. hedge fund ValueAct Capital a seat at its board, a rare move in the country where activists are still viewed by companies as asset-strippers to be resisted. The Japanese medical equipment and camera maker also said Yasuo Takeuchi, its vice president, will become chief executive officer from April 1, replacing Hiroyuki Sasa. Shares of Olympus jumped more than 10 percent after the announcements on Friday...

Activist investor Elliott Management Corp. has raised its stake in German energy company Uniper SE (UN10.XE) to 17.84% from 16.51%, according to a regulatory filing. Uniper's largest shareholder, Finnish state-controlled Fortum Oyj , is currently barred from holding more than half the shares by Russian authorities, due to some Uniper activities in the country. But if circumstances change, Fortum could potentially launch a takeover bid and buy out minorities, such as Elliott...

Luby’s Luby’s, Inc. (NYSE:LUB) (“Luby’s” or the “Company”) today announced that it has mailed a letter to shareholders in ...

SYDNEY (Reuters) - National Australia Bank shareholders delivered an unprecedented protest vote against the lender's executive remuneration plans on Wednesday, the latest display of investor disquiet over poor governance in the country's financial sector...

Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) Chief Executive Craig Jelinek's fiscal 2018 total compensation was valued at $7.4 million, up from $6.6 million in 2017, mostly consisting of stock awards in both periods. Mr. Jelinek's base salary rose to $800,000 from $713,462, Costco said in a securities filing. Fiscal 2017 included an additional week...

LONDON (Reuters) - Activist investor Shareholder Value Management has called on Mears Group to move swiftly to appoint a new chairman or it will call a fresh extraordinary general meeting, a letter to the company seen by Reuters showed. The move is the latest in a long-running attempt by the German-based fund, Mears Group's third-biggest investor, to push through a board change at the social housing maintenance and repair services provider...

TOKYO (Reuters) - How big should executive pay packets be? How widespread is lax corporate governance in Japan? And what's the future of the alliance between Nissan and France's Renault? These are the broader issues brought into focus by the indictment of ousted Nissan Motor Co Ltd chairman Carlos Ghosn. Ghosn was arrested on Nov. 19 charged with understating his compensation by about half of the 10 billion yen (69.77 million pounds) he was awarded over five years from 2010...

TORONTO — Detour Gold Corp. says interim CEO Michael Kenyon has resigned following a vote that saw shareholders side with activist investor Paulson & Co. Inc. in a extended proxy battle. The vote saw five Paulson-nominated directors approved, including two who had also been endorsed by Detour, as well as four others from the slate put forth by Detour...

ZURICH (Reuters) - Credit Suisse plans to buy back 2 to 3 billion Swiss francs ($2-3 billion) of shares over the next two years and raise its dividend, voicing confidence that its strategy is working after a painful three-year restructuring. Switzerland's second-biggest bank confirmed commitments to distribute half of net profit to shareholders, mainly through buybacks or special dividends, offering a sweetener to investors who have had to stomach hefty share price declines during Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam's three-and-a-half-year tenure. By focusing on managing assets for the world's wealthy, particularly the very richest and entrepreneurs in Asia, Credit ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Pressure on oil companies to tackle climate change is growing after an activist group for the first time filed a shareholder resolution urging BP to set hard targets for reducing overall carbon emissions. Follow This, a Dutch organisation that spearheaded a number of climate shareholder resolutions at Royal Dutch Shell AGMs over the past three years said it also filed one with the Anglo-Dutch company for 2019...

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A leading corporate governance advocate said the board of Japanese carmaker Nissan must accept collective responsibility over alleged disclosure failings that led to the ousting of chairman Carlos Ghosn. The remarks by Jamie Allen, secretary-general of the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA), come as a biennial survey by the ACGA and CLSA, an Asia-focused brokerage, showed Japan sliding three places to seventh in a regional ranking of governance standards - the worst decline in performance of any country. “If the chairman has been shown to be fraudulently disclosing information, then it’s not just the chairman that is ...

(Reuters) - Campbell Soup and Third Point LLC are close to settling a bitter proxy contest by adding two of the hedge fund's nominees to the U.S. food company's board and giving the activist investor a say in selecting Campbell's next CEO, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday...

Telecom Italia shares rose slightly Monday after the company named Luigi Gubitosi as its new chief executive officer Sunday to replace recently-ousted CEO Amos Genish. Mr. Gubitosi joined Telecom Italia as an independent board member in May 2018. He was appointed an extraordinary commissioner of Alitalia SpA in May 2017 and previously served as CEO of Italy's Wind Telecomunicazioni SpA and general manager of Italian state broadcaster RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana...

Many on Wall Street are weathering the autumn technology rout by buying the shares of firms with slower, steadier earnings growth, the latest sign that investors largely remain sanguine about U.S. stocks despite recent reversals. Trading has turned rocky since the S&P 500 finished the third quarter with its biggest gain since 2013...