About a month later, Danone's then-CEO and chairman, Emmanuel Faber, was ousted and its board overhauled in a high-profile victory for shareholder activism.
Danone, the maker of Activia yogurt and Evian bottled water, did not respond to a request for comment.The company's stock has declined around 13% in the past two years. Unilever and other large rivals have also underperformed the EURO STOXX Consumer Products and Services EUR Price index over the past year.
Some 236 campaigns were launched globally between January and July, the most the industry has seen in at least half a decade, Alvarez & Marsal said. His New York-based fund Trian is now the company's fourth-biggest shareholder, according to LSEG data. Shortly after his arrival on the board, Unilever appointed a former Heinz executive as CEO. Unilever's food business has struggled with slow growth for years, fuelling speculation it could be spun off. Unilever and Trian declined to comment for this story.Gianluca Ferrari, founding partner of investor Clearway Capital, said his firm had some consumer companies on its radar but declined to name them. The Frankfurt-headquartered fund does not publicly disclose its assets under management.