Jeffrey Smith, Managing Member, CEO and Chief Investment Officer for Starboard Value LP. He speaks at the Sohn Investment Conference in New York.
NEW YORK Reuters Activists have a sizable stake in Rogers Corp and are seeking seats on the board of directors of the electronics materials company in its push for changes, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.
The board challenge comes after chemical company DuPont walked away from a $5.2 billion deal to acquire Rogers in November because it didn't get regulatory approval for the transaction in China. The deal was supposed to be announced in late 2021.
The sources said that Starboard, which is led by Jeffrey Smith, has been building a stake in Rogers that is nearing 5%, and has notified the company that it will nominate at least three people to the company's 10 member board, because the matter is confidential.
Starboard's plans for the company could not be immediately known. Starboard and Rogers didn't respond to requests for comment.
Rogers, founded in 1832, makes materials that are used in electronics and wireless infrastructure.
Its stock price fell 47% over the last 52 weeks after the DuPont deal was scrapped. Since the beginning of 2023, the stock has gone up 22% as the broader market moved higher, giving Rogers a market value of $2.8 billion.
Since the DuPont deal fell apart, the company has made changes. Colin Gouveia, who ran Rogers' elastomeric material solutions unit, became CEO this year. The former chief executive, Bruce Hoechner, who retired at the end of last year, will step down from the board at the end of March, according to the company's website.
Starboard has been active, including recent bets on cloud-based software company Salesforce, software company Splunk and website maker Wix.com.