Tuesday, October 10, 2017

The Suds Sucker Proxy

So the biggest corporate proxy battle in history just took place this morning here in Cincinnati (home of Proctor and Gamble, or P&G as it's know now), and it was, if you'll excuse the pun, a complete wash for billionaire hedge fund master Nelson Peltz.

Nelson Peltz has been thwarted in the largest proxy battle in history, failing to claim a board seat from $236 billion giant Procter & Gamble
Peltz, the founder of $14 billion hedge fund Trian Partners, lost the proxy fight by a slim margin against P&G, the maker of consumer products like Tide, Crest, and Bounty and the largest-ever company to face such a challenge.

Trian quickly announced it disagrees with P&G's vote count and is calling for a recount.

The billionaire investor has been trying to shake up Procter & Gamble since announcing a $3.5 billion stake in February. He was nominated to the board in July.

The two companies have spent some $100 million on the campaign to win over shareholders, 40% of which are comprised of individual retail investors, according to Reuters.

This one isn't over, not by a long shot.  P&G is still one of the biggest employers in the Cincy area and people are afraid Peltz is going to take over and shed thousands of jobs just to add another few billion or so to his pile of billions.

There are also a lot of retirees around with pretty decent retirement and pension benefits (including P&G stock) and those would certainly be first on the block if Peltz had his way.  The first skirmish may have seen Peltz from raiding the company, but the war is far from done.

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