Another round is being fought between the minority shareholders of Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE: TARO) and controlling shareholder India's Sun Pharmaceuticals Co Ltd. (BSE: 524715) (65.9%). US institutional investor BlueMountain Capital, which manages assets worth $15 billion and holds a 1.5% stake in Taro, opposes the appointment of two of the current external directors for an additional term and proposes two alternative external directors. The shareholders meeting to discuss the issue will convene of September 9.
The reason for the objection is the recommendation of the two directors - Ilana Avidov-Mor and Dan Biran - to accede to Sun's request last year to buy all Taro's shares at a price of $39.50 per share. After the share passed the price of Sun's offer, and following opposition from shareholders the deal was cancelled and today the share is traded at a price of $65.6, reflecting a market cap of $2.94 billion.
BlueMountain wrote, "We believe it is in the best interest of all minority shareholders to support each of our nominees for the office of external director and to vote against the re-election of the current external directors.
They stress that above and beyond the required majority to approve the appointment of two external directors, the candidates must also win support of most of the minority shareholders participating in the vote so that objections must be less than 2%.
BlueMountain is proposing two alternative candidates as external directors former Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) COO and executive VP Ben-Ami Rosenfeld and retired Col. Adi Bershadsky, the first woman to reach that rank in the Israel air force and a former Defense Ministry attaché in several countries.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 5, 2013
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