By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
BOSTON (Reuters) – Activist investment firm Macellum Advisors GP LLC is seeking to take control of retailer Kohl’s Corp’s board and has nominated 10 directors, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Macellum, led by Jonathan Duskin, has criticized Kohl’s for not doing enough to improve its business and has publicly called for the company to consider putting itself up for sale.
Duskin has said privately that Kohl’s 14-member board is too large and too entrenched to make the changes needed to push up the company’s lagging share price. He also said that the company needs to have a shareholder on the board and he nominated himself along with nine others.
Bloomberg first reported that Macellum had nominated 10 people on Thursday.
This marks the second time that Macellum has nominated directors at Kohl’s after it was part of a consortium that sought to replace nine board members last year.
The investors agreed to drop that challenge when Kohl’s expanded its 11-member board by three directors in 2021.
Reuters reported in December that Macellum was planning to nominate directors and in January that the firm was pressing Kohl’s for at least one board seat and a public statement that the company is reviewing strategic alternatives.
Last week Kohl’s rejected two takeover offers that would have valued the company at roughly $9 billion. Duskin said he was “disappointed and shocked by Kohl’s hasty rejection of confirmed indications of interest.”
(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Susan Fenton)
