On Tuesday, activist investor CIAM said that it had asked the management boards of Dutch-Belgian supermarket operator Ahold Delhaize to convene an extraordinary meeting of shareholders to vote on the company's takeover defence mechanism.
At its shareholders' meeting on 11 April, Ahold's boards argued that the defence, which had been approved by shareholders for a 15-year period ending in 2018, can now be extended unilaterally and indefinitely.
At the annual general meeting, Jan Ernst de Groot said that the management and supervisory boards could extend the company's poison-pill protection without seeking the approval of shareholders.
However, since that announcement, a group of institutional shareholders led by CIAM disagreed and may mount a legal challenge.
Ahold Delhaize said that full-year net sales went up 1.7% last year, at constant exchange rates, to €62.69 billion.
News by Reuters, edited by ESM. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
