UK canned foods maker Premier Foods should hold an open auction to sell off its flagship Batchelors Soup brand in a bid to improve the company’s financial outlook, activist investor Oasis Management said on Thursday.
The call from one of the company’s biggest shareholders comes ahead of an annual meeting later this month at which it has called for the removal of Premier Foods’ chief executive Gavin Darby. Oasis has previously said the company’s brands were strong and had been mismanaged by the current leadership.
“Using conservative assumptions, Oasis believes that the sale of Batchelors … would generate more than 200 million pounds ($264.72 million) of proceeds, or more than 60 percent of the current market capitalisation of the company,” Oasis said in an email on Thursday.
($1 = 0.7555 pounds)
By Noor Zainab Hussain
Source: Reuters
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