The CEO’s best policy is to ignore the noise. The decluttering demerger plan looks solid and is backed by shareholders
It was not a knockout quarter to put Elliott Management, the big, aggressive and newly arrived US activist hedge fund, back in its box. GlaxoSmithKline’s revenues fell 18% as patients, sensibly, delayed their GSK shingles vaccinations so they could be jabbed with other people’s anti-Covid juice.
That phenomenon will be around for a while and was expected, but weary shareholders may reflect (again) that there is always something at GSK. The cry: “Why can’t the company be more like AstraZeneca?” has been heard for half a decade for a reason. AstraZeneca’s shares have soared in the period; GSK’s have gone roughly sideways.
