Former Linde executives team up with Mantle Ridge in push for changes at Air Products
By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
NEW YORK, Oct 15 (Reuters) -Two former top executives at Linde Plc LIN.DE will join activist investor Paul Hilal in his bid to shake up management and the board at rival industrial gas company Air Products and Chemicals APD.N, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Dennis Reilley and Eduardo Menezes are teaming up with Hilal's investment firm Mantle Ridge LP which has built a stake of more than $1 billion in Air Products, said the people who are prohibited from discussing the firm's strategy publicly.
Reilley is a former chief executive and chairman at Praxair, an industrial gases company that is now part of Linde, and served on the boards at DuPont de Nemours DD.N, CSX CSX.O, Dow Chemical, HJ Heinz and Entergy ETR.N.
Menezes is a former executive vice president for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Linde and also previously worked at Praxair in senior roles. In his last position at Linde he was responsible for operations in more than 40 countries which had sales of more than $8 billion.
Hilal is also working with other former Praxair and Linde executives to push for changes at Air Products, the sources said. These include succession planning for octogenarian chief executive Seifi Ghasemi, restructuring the board, improving capital allocation and overhauling the company's strategy, people familiar with Hilal's strategy said.
Air Products was not immediately available for comment.
Hilal helped install Ghasemi as CEO in 2014 when he first researched Air Products as a partner at Pershing Square Capital Management. But a decade on Ghasemi at age 80 ranks among the oldest CEOs at S&P 500 companies and has indicated he would like to stay on. His contract is renewed yearly for the next four years.
Hilal is eyeing Reilley to become Air Products' executive chairman while Menezes might become chief executive officer, the sources said.
Since leaving Pershing Square to launch Mantle Ridge, Hilal has invested in less than a handful of companies, including CSX, Aramark ARMK.N and Dollar Tree DLTR.O, and replaced the chief executive officer at all of them. Hilal has previously recruited executives from rival companies to join him in his campaigns.
Hedge fund D.E. Shaw is also pushing for changes at Air Products and said last week the company needs to articulate a clear succession plan, refresh its board and limit capital expenditures.
Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss
Editing by Chris Reese
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