Third Point asks Campbell Soup to delay CEO appointment

Billionaire investor Dan Loeb is calling on Campbell Soup to put the brakes on its slow search for a chief executive until after the soup-maker elects a new board next month.

“We think it is entirely uncontroversial to insist that the next permanent CEO be selected by the newly elected board,” Loeb’s Third Point wrote in a letter to Campbell’s Chairman Les Vinney on Wednesday.

Third Point is waging a proxy battle to overhaul Campbell’s 12-person board at the company’s Nov. 29 meeting. The $18 billion hedge fund holds nearly 10 percent of Campbell’s shares alongside George Strawbridge, a descendant of former Campbell owner John Dorrance.

“It seems to us that the chance of the company being able to attract a first-rate food executive in the middle of a proxy fight is low,” Third Point wrote.

“No top-notch candidate would join a company when the board that selected them could be replaced within a few weeks,” it added.

Third Point began slurping up Campbell shares over the summer — just weeks after the sudden resignation of Chief Executive Denise Morrison in May.

The Camden, NJ-based company announced a strategic review process in May, which concluded in August with Campbell’s decision to sell its international and fresh foods business.

Third Point believed that the company should have pursued a full sale. It noted that if chosen now, the new CEO would be “hamstrung” by the current board’s thinking.

“Transformative CEOs like to be instigators, not merely executors,” Third Point wrote.

“They are there to refresh the recipe when the ingredients have gone stale.”

A Campbell spokesperson said, “It has always been the board’s intention to select the company’s next CEO upon finding the best candidate, which we expect to do by the end of the calendar year,” adding that the board has been “examining qualified candidates for months.”