Just make soup, activist investor tells Campbell
Dan Loeb urges significant changes to help modernise the iconic US company
New York — Dan Loeb, who is seeking a complete overhaul of the Campbell Soup board, said the embattled snack maker could fetch as much as $58 per share in a sale and should consider offloading brands such as Pop Secret and Pepperidge Farms Frozen Cakes, as he urges significant changes to help modernise the iconic US company. The activist investor argued in a new 45-page investor presentation on Monday that Campbell had been mismanaged, missed the shift in consumer preferences towards natural and organic ingredients, and was forced to make major acquisitions to try to catch up, including its “ill-timed” $6bn purchase of Snyder’s-Lance in March. “We believe the past year has been particularly disastrous,” Loeb’s New York hedge fund Third Point told shareholders in a letter dated September 28. “Campbell’s key brands are rapidly losing market share.
“Its leadership drastically overpaid for bad deals that saddled the company with way too much debt,” the letter said. Loeb also said ...
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