Campbell chairman Third Point’s Loeb ‘self-serving’

Campbell Soup Co. Chairman Les Vinney sent a letter to shareholders Thursday urging them to vote for the company’s existing board of directors at its annual shareholder meeting Nov. 29.Campbell Soup Co. Chairman Les Vinney sent a letter to shareholders Thursday urging them to vote for the company’s existing board of directors at its annual shareholder meeting Nov. 29.

New York-based hedge fund Third Point and its founder Daniel Loeb filed a definitive proxy earlier this month with the Securities and Exchange Commission to replace Campbell’s entire board with an independent slate.

Vinney’s letter calls the independent slate, which includes two former food industry executives and two former Campbell board members, “nothing more than hand-picked agents selected to execute Dan Loeb’s self-serving scheme to deprive you of the opportunity to benefit from the Company’s plans to maximize shareholder value.”

Third Point has presented a variety of ideas to revamp the company, but according to Vinney’s letter, none of what Loeb’s outfit has recommended, including stabilizing Campbell’s fresh food and beverage portfolio and attracting a world-class operating team, is anything Campbell hasn’t already considered in its board-led strategic review executed this summer.

“Third Point has, at best, a superficial understanding of the food industry and the company, as evidenced by its non-substantive plan filled with platitudes and business school buzz words,” he wrote.

Four of Campbell’s largest shareholders representing 41 percent of the outstanding shares notified the company separately that they intend to vote for the current board, according to Vinney. Three of those are current board members, and all four are decedents of Campbell’s condensed soup inventor John Dorrance: Bennett Dorrance, Mary Alice Dorrance Malone, Archbold van Beuren and Charlotte Weber.

Third Point has claimed Dorrance, Dorrance Malone, and van Beuren have “long enriched themselves at the expense of shareholders and the company.”

According to Vinney, these shareholders are “subject to the same fluctuations in our share price as all other shareholders” and “do not enjoy any preferential dividends or voting rights.”

Third Point did not return request for comment by press time.

Campbell is currently conducting a CEO search to replace interim CEO Keith McLoughlin, who took the job after former CEO Denise Morrison stepped down on the same day the company’s third quarter earnings were announced. According to Vinney’s letter, the current board is confident that it will appoint a CEO by the end of the year.

“We have not let Third Point’s proxy contest distract us. We are focused on maintaining our thoughtful approach to ensure that our choice for CEO is the best long-term fit for Campbell and our shareholders,” he wrote.

The annual shareholders meeting is on Nov. 29.