Under pressure: Danone has agreed to ditch its stake in a Chinese dairy business
Danone has bowed to activist pressure and agreed to ditch its stake in a Chinese dairy business.
The consumer goods giant that makes Activia yoghurt has been facing calls to sell assets following poor performance from its shares, which lost a quarter of their value since the start of the year.
Yesterday bosses caved to pressure from investors such as Artisan Partners and said they planned to take steps towards selling shares in Hong-Kong listed China Mengniu Dairy Co, thought to be worth £740million.
Artisan has called for chief executive and chairman Emmanuel Faber to go and claimed that Danone’s latest annual results ‘exhibited a continuation of poor performance’.
It has urged bosses to sell non-core assets and return more value to shareholders.
