Ralph Whitworth, the founder of Relational
Investors, has been named interim chairman of Hewlett-Packard
As Ray Lane relinquishes the chairmanship of
Hewlett-Packard’s board, the computer company is turning to a seasoned
activist hedge fund manager to oversee the company’s directors temporarily.
Ralph V. Whitworth, who became H.P.’s interim
chairman on Thursday,
joined the board in late 2011 after amassing a sizable stake in the
company. Rather than risk a fight, H.P. elected to give him a seat and
assignments on its investment and compensation committees.
It was only the latest victory for Mr. Whitworth,
who began his investing career as a top lieutenant to
T. Boone Pickens. Since founding
Relational
Investors in 1996, he has established a reputation as a top-ranking
activist hedge fund manager who often gains board seats.
Among his highest-profile investments to date are
Genzyme, where he had a hand in arranging the biopharmaceutical company’s
sale to
Sanofi-Aventis;
Waste Management, where he became acting chairman in 1999 after an
accounting scandal; and
Occidental Petroleum.
Last year, Relational disclosed that it owned a
stake in
PepsiCo. The two sides had what a Pepsi spokesman
described at the time as “constructive meetings,” though investors
speculated whether Mr. Whitworth had contemplated agitating for a breakup of
the food giant.
At H.P., Mr. Whitworth was tasked with leading an
independent investigation into the company’s disastrous acquisition of
Autonomy, since he was the only director not on the board at the time of the
deal.
This Forum program was open, free of charge,
to anyone concerned with investor interests in the
development of marketplace standards for expanded access to
information for securities valuation and shareholder voting
decisions. As stated
in the posted
Conditions of Participation, the purpose of this public
Forum's program was to provide decision-makers with access to
information and a free exchange of views on the issues
presented in the program's Forum
Summary. Each
participant was expected to make independent use of
information obtained through the Forum, subject to the
privacy rights of other participants. It is a Forum
rule that participants will not be identified or quoted
without their explicit permission.
This Forum program was initiated in 2012 in
collaboration with The Conference Board and with
Thomson Reuters support of communication technologies to address
issues and objectives defined by participants in the 2010 "E-Meetings"
program relevant to broad public interests in marketplace
practices. The website is being maintained to provide
continuing reports of the issues addressed in the program,
as summarized in the
January 5, 2015 Forum Report of Conclusions.
Inquiries about this Forum
program and requests to be included in its distribution list
may be addressed to
access@shareholderforum.com.
The information provided to
Forum participants is intended for their private reference,
and permission has not been granted for the republishing of
any copyrighted material. The material presented on this web
site is the responsibility of
Gary Lutin, as chairman of the Shareholder Forum.
Shareholder Forum™
is a trademark owned by The Shareholder Forum, Inc., for the
programs conducted since 1999 to support investor access to
decision-making information. It should be noted that we have
no responsibility for the services that Broadridge Financial
Solutions, Inc., introduced for review in the Forum's
2010 "E-Meetings" program and has since been offering
with the “Shareholder Forum” name, and we have asked
Broadridge to use a different name that does not suggest our
support or endorsement.
