US hedge fund ratchets up pressure on Dame Emma Walmsley before company’s demerger next year
The US activist investor Elliott Management has in effect demanded Dame Emma Walmsley reapply for her job as chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline before the pharmaceutical company’s demerger of its consumer healthcare division next year.
In a 17-page public letter (pdf) to the chair and board of GSK, the New York hedge fund, which took a “significant” stake in the drugmaker in April, set out a number of recommendations to restore GSK’s credibility after, it wrote, “years of disappointing performance”. It is Elliott’s first public statement since its investment.
