The long-standing former chairman of Credit Suisse faces opposition from a feisty activist shareholder in the only corporate gig he still holds.
A non-executive director job at British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline is Urs Rohner's last corporate job. The 61-year-old Swiss lawyer retreated entirely from Zurich-based Credit Suisse after handing over to António Horta-Osório nine weeks ago.
Activist Lays Out Demands
The luckless executive now faces a fresh attack from U.S. hedge fund Elliott Management, which on Thursday laid out demands in a 17-page letter for GSK to name board members with «deep biopharma and consumer health expertise, and that the new, fit-for-purpose GSK Board will then run robust processes for selecting the best executive leadership,» for both.
The activist shareholder, which holds a «significant» position in GSK, the «Financial Times» (behind paywall) reported in April, didn't mention Rohner or any of his board colleagues by name. A board member of GSK since 2015, Rohner has no prior expertise in pharmaceuticals or in consumer goods. He chairs the pay committee and sits on three more including one tasked with the spin-off.
«Years Of Under-Management»
However, Elliott does ask whether CEO Emma Walmsley and GSK's 12-person board are the right people to spin off its consumer health division, which produces popular brands like Aquafresh toothpaste and Advil pain medicine. «Despite possessing strong businesses in attractive markets, GSK has failed to capture business opportunities due to years of under-management,» the investor wrote.
Rohner's «side hustle» at GSK – which earns him a paltry £147,000 ($203,400) per year – drew criticism in Switzerland from the start from investor adviser Ethos, which questioned whether he had bandwidth alongside his full-time Credit Suisse job.
Surviving Investor Attack
Ethos was also the first adviser to call for Rohner to leave, back in 2017. He survived all attacks, including one from heavyweight U.S. investor Harris Associates last year.
He took home 4.7 million Swiss francs ($5.1 million) at Credit Suisse last year, but waived part of the package after the bank's troubles with Greensill and then, shortly after, Archegos, surfaced publicly. Rohner, who apologized to investors and shareholders in his farewell speech at Credit Suisse, eschewed the traditional Swiss «décharge» backing from investors at his last shareholder meeting.
