Bed Bath & Beyond Faces Activists

摘要

The nation's second largest retailer of home textiles is locked in a battle for its future. At its annual shareholder meeting next month, Bed Bath & Beyond will learn whether investors will back its newly installed board of directors and current strategy or the plan of an activist group that wants to toss them all out, especially CEO Steven Temares. The activist group - Legion Partners Holdings, Macellum Advisors and Ancora Advisors - has put its own slate of nominees on the proxy for a vote. Among the 16 candidates are former Pier 1 CEO Alexander Smith, former Macy's vice chairman Janet Grove, former Gap Inc. executive Jeffrey Kirwan and Hugh Rovit, formerly CEO of home textile company Ellery Home Fashions. The nominees were announced in late March, and in mid April BBB overhauled the board itself. Co-founders and co-chairmen Warren Eisenberg and Leonard Feinstein exited the board effective May 1, and the company swapped out five other directors. Temares remains in place as the only non-independent director on the ten-member board. None of the investor group's nominees made the cut, although BBB said it had invited the activists to participate in the board refresh project. It reported they did not do so. Afterward, the activists launched a web site, https://restorebedbath.com/, making their case for a complete overhaul of the leadership and laying out their own strategy for the company. Whatever one thinks of the plan, the numbers are sobering.