Loeb Attacks Dow
Chemical After Talks Over Board Seats Break Down
By
Michael J. de la Merced
November
13, 2014 3:27 pm
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Daniel S. Loeb is the chief
executive of Third Point.
Credit Michael Nagle for The New York Times. |
Updated, 4:54 p.m. |
Daniel S.
Loeb is finally taking off the gloves in his fight with
Dow Chemical.
Mr.
Loeb, the activist hedge fund manager, unveiled on Thursday
a new
website that takes aim at Dow after months of trying to
persuade it to take further steps to increase shareholder value,
including a breakup.
Dow has
already promised to sell several divisions and announced that it would
increase its stock dividend and a share
buyback program. Yet Mr. Loeb’s firm, Third Point, lists on the website
several instances of what it called “broken promises” by Dow and its chief
executive, Andrew N. Liveris.
Among them
are several missed earnings targets. Of a claim by Mr. Liveris that Dow is
no longer in the petrochemical manufacturing business, Third Point wrote
that the contention was “nonsensical” because the company draws a majority
of its profits from ethylene cracking, a process used in the petrochemical
industry.
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The activist investor Daniel S.
Loeb is pushing to break up Dow Chemical.
value-dow.com. |
The site
also discloses that Mr. Loeb has retained two longtime executives as
advisers: Robert. S. Miller, the chairman of the
American International Group, and
Raymond J. Milchovich, the former chief executive of the airplane maker
Hawker Beechcraft.
Though both
men are described on the site as being an “advisory board” to Third Point,
they were also two of Mr. Loeb’s suggested candidates for Dow’s board during
about a month of discussions between the two sides, people briefed on the
matter said. Mr. Loeb gave the company until last Thursday, but held off
from taking further action after Dow promised constructive cooperation with
the activist investor.
However, Dow
on Thursday countered with two other director candidates, whom Mr. Loeb
rejected.
Though Mr.
Loeb has stepped up his attack on Dow, he has not yet decided whether to
move forward with a public proxy fight, these people said.
A spokesman
for Dow said in a statement that the company “fundamentally disagrees” with
Mr. Loeb and that its board and management are running the company with an
eye on both the short- and long-term interests of shareholders.
Of the
website, the company said, “The statements contained therein display a
fundamental lack of understanding of our company and an approach by an
activist investor that has little interest in anything that benefits the
many long-term shareholders in Dow.”
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The New York Times Company |
