Playing the Heinz card
Peltz uses familiar tack in P&G battle
Nelson Peltz, waging a bitter battle with Procter & Gamble to win a seat on its board, had five former H.J. Heinz board members write a letter vouching for his board-worthiness.
The letter took aim at P&G’s concern that Peltz would be a disruptive force on its board.
“Like you, many of us had feared that Nelson’s presence would disrupt the effectiveness of our Board process and derail the execution of our strategy,” the letter, signed by the five, said. “However, just the opposite proved true.
“Nelson respected the view of his fellow directors and proved to be a constructive force and an important cohesive and collegial voice in the boardroom,” the Heinz alums wrote.
Peltz served on the ketchup maker’s board for seven years, into 2013, after a hardfought proxy battle in which he sought five board seats and won two.
If playing the Heinz card seems familiar, it should.
Peltz poured forth from the same playbook in 2015, when the activist investor was battling to win a seat on the DuPont board.
In fact, three of the five signatories to the Heinz letter were used by Peltz to vouch for his board-worthiness during a 2015 proxy fight with DuPont — which turned out to be unsuccessful.
Peltz hedge fund Trian Partners announced a $3.5 billion stake in P&G in July. It hopes to win a seat on the board.
“I think the process itself is much worse than the actual result,” Bill Johnson, a former Heinz chief executive (and current Trian adviser), said in an interview with CNBC on Monday, adding that the Peltz-Heinz proxy fight was “much nastier” than the P&G battle.
If so, the Heinz board members in 2015 didn’t let on.
Peltz “approached board and management relationships professionally and collegially,” Charles Bunch, a former Heinz director, said in 2015, making statements eerily similar to those in the Heinz letter.
P&G reps declined to comment.