Clariant announced that representatives of its chairman and nomination committee met with White Tale in Zurich, Switzerland.
The meeting was initiated in order to identify possible ways to work together following the mutual termination of the merger agreement between Clariant and Huntsman. Yesterday the board of directors met and discussed the content and topics of the meeting held earlier in the week and decided on the way forward.
In the discussions with the chairman and nomination committee, White Tale did not present its own strategy or bespoke plans as to how they would further develop Clariant and create long-term sustainable value for all shareholders. White Tale repeated its request to hire yet another investment bank to conduct a strategic review process. Specifically, the board of directors perceives this process to be merely focused on finding bidders for various businesses with the ultimate consequence of break-up the company and selling the assets.
This, however, does not align with the entrepreneurial vision, understanding, corporate responsibility and the fiduciary duties of Clariant’s board of directors and its management to create long-term and sustainable value for all stakeholders and to further develop the company’s leading position in the specialty chemicals industry. This request therefore was unanimously rejected by the board of directors.
In the spirit of being open to major shareholders’ suggestions and with specific respect to White Tale’s request, the board of directors offers White Tale the option to initiate a registration process to propose one additional member into the board of Clariant at the upcoming AGM in March 2018. This will give all shareholders the opportunity to vote on White Tale’s application to serve on Clariant’s board. In addition, the board has again offered White Tale the opportunity to sign a non-disclosure agreement which would legally enable White Tale to gain more insight into the current strategy of the Group. This proposal continues to be available to White Tale.
Clariant’s Board and management remain open for further talks with White Tale and all other shareholders.