Breen now chairman and CEO at DuPont
The DuPont Co. has named Edward D. Breen as chairman of the board and chief executive officer, less than a month after naming him to those positions on an interim basis after Ellen Kullman resigned both jobs on Oct. 5.
The DuPont Co. has named Edward D. Breen as chairman of the board and chief executive officer, less than a month after naming him to those positions on an interim basis after Ellen Kullman resigned both jobs on Oct. 5.
The appointment of Breen, 59, raises the prospect of a breakup of the 213-year-old, Wilmington-based chemical company amid continued pressure from an activist shareholder.
Breen has had discussions about potential deals involving DuPont's seed and crop-chemicals unit, the company's largest segment by revenue.
He told analysts on an Oct. 27 conference call that "consolidation should happen" in the agricultural industry. Dow Chemical Co. is evaluating options for its own seeds and pesticides unit. With Breen in charge, it increases the probability that the DuPont and Dow businesses will merge, Jonas Oxgaard, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York, said Monday in a note.
The new CEO has been grilling business-unit heads, praising the company's research and global sales reach, calling for careful cost-benefit analysis, and projecting cuts to the company's administrative expenses.
Breen first joined the board of the company in February. Last month, he said he was looking to expand a $1.6 billion cost-savings program after the company cut its earnings forecasts. An additional round of "surgical" cuts could take "a little bit of slop out of the system," he said last month.
A breakup of DuPont is what Trian Fund Management, DuPont's fifth-largest shareholder, has been pushing for since it went public with its demands in September last year. Trian, led by Nelson Peltz, lost a proxy fight in May in a bid to get four seats on DuPont's board.
Hours after Kullman announced her departure, Trian cofounder Ed Garden said the firm had increased its stake in the company and that "the DuPont story is not over."
DuPont's choice of Breen marks the first time in its history the company is led by someone who doesn't have a long tenure and who isn't a member of the DuPont family.
"The board has concluded he is the right leader for the company," Sandy Cutler, DuPont's lead independent director, said of Breen in a statement Monday.
Breen, of New Hope, is perhaps best known for running Tyco International Plc, breaking up the firm and tripling investors' money during his decade at the helm.
This article contains information from Inquirer staff writer Joseph N. DiStefano and Bloomberg News.