The potential divestitures are likely to do little to appease Dan Loeb’s Third Point, which recently disclosed a 5.65 percent stake in the company and called a sale of the business the “only justifiable outcome” of its review. The activist is teaming up with shareholder George Strawbridge, a family member of the founder, to call for the sale.
Strawbridge had his own stint on the Campbell board, on which he served from 1988 to 2009. A business man in his own, with ventures that include a stake NFL team the Buffalo Sabres, Strawbridge spent time on the board active and quizzical.
For Third Point to agitate for a sale, it would need to win over enough support from the family. The descendants of John P. Dorrance — the man many say invented condensed soup — have multiplied across many different clans over the years, and they weren’t all in agreement over whether to sell, sources have told CNBC.
Mary Alice Dorrance Malone is Campbell’s largest shareholder, with a 17.7 percent stake in the company. Her brother, Bennett Dorrance, has a 15.4 percent stake. Other descendants hold a combined 7.9 percent of the company in the Campbell Soup voting trust.
Without a sale, Loeb and Strawbridge may push for a full turnover of the Campbell board, all of whom come up for reelection this year.
“Only a reconstituted board, free of the need to defend past actions and other legacy issues, will be able to objectively explore all strategic alternatives, including a sale of [Campbell] or other business combination, that would substantially increase the value of the [Campbell’s] shares,” wrote Strawbridge in a recent filing.
Doing so would threaten to ouster the three soup heirs that sit on it: Bennett, Mary Alice and their nephew, Archie Van Buren. Van Buren is the only one who has worked at the company for a prolonged period of time, giving him unique insight into its ins-and-outs.
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