Millbrook Capital Management, also known as MMI Investments, L.P., demanded yesterday in a letter that George J. Walsh III, the Chairman of Chemed Corp (CHE), “promptly dismantle Chemed’s culture of corporate largesse, as embodied in Chemed’s November 2008 purchase of a corporate jet for nearly $9 million.” Earlier this year, the activist hedge fund nominated a slate of independent director candidates for the Chemed’s board.
In the letter, the hedge fund’s President Clay B. Lifflander stated “This November when many of America’s largest companies were being publicly excoriated for wasting stockholder capital on corporate jets, Chemed’s management and board decided to double its own fleet, acquiring a second 15-seat Hawker private jet. Yet even though this purchase accounted for more than 36% of 2008 capital expenditures for the whole company, there was no mention of it on the fourth quarter conference call and no disclosure in the company’s 2008 10K.” |
