Dan Loeb drops bid to replace entire Campbell Soup board
Billionaire Dan Loeb is backing off his bid to replace the entire board at Campbell Soup.
Instead, the activist investor’s hedge fund Third Point — which also recently retreated from its push to sell the company amid a lack of interest from potential acquirers — said Friday it will settle for replacing just five of the 12 seats on the soupmaker’s board.
Loeb’s fund admitted that while Campbell shareholders have recently told it that “change is necessary,” they also believe that “some continuity is a good thing.”
“Third Point has done something that Campbell and its board refuse to do: embrace and respect the input of non-insiders,” the hedge fund said in a letter to Campbell Chairman Les Vinney.
In a signal of hard-knuckle bargaining behind the scenes, Campbell said late Friday it had offered to add two of Third Point’s nominees to its board — an offer the hedge fund denied.
“Instead, they have decided to continue this wasteful and distracting proxy fight,” Campbell said in a letter to shareholders.
The back-and-forth comes ahead of proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services’ recommendation for how to vote at Campbell’s Nov. 29 shareholder meeting. Proxy advisory firms seldom recommend replacing a full board. Their recommendations are closely watched — but not always followed — by investors.
Third Point’s retreat is just another sign of the uphill battle the hedge fund faces as it angles to turn around the 149-year-old business and sell off non-core assets.
Roughly 41 percent of shares are controlled by descendants of condensed soup inventor John Dorrance and they have already committed to vote against Third Point’s slate.
Last month, Third Point sued to delay Campbell’s meeting, claiming it made misleading statements to shareholders. A judge denied Third Point’s motion for expedited discovery into Campbell’s board last week, paving the way for the meeting to go as planned.
Third Point had initially pushed for a full sale of Campbell when announcing his activist position in August. The Post, however, reported in October that Kraft Heinz briefly looked at Campbell but wasn’t interested.
Campbell announced plans sell its international and fresh foods businesses at the conclusion of a three-month strategic review process. On Friday, CNBC reported that Campbell’s Australian Arnott’s cookie business reportedly caught the eye of Mondelez, Kraft Heinz and Ferrero.
Reps from Campbell told The Post that the company does not “comment on rumors or speculation.”
Campbell shares rose 2 percent to close at $38.96.