No seat on Tyson's board for Pacelle

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

The head of the Humane Society of the United States has dropped his efforts to get a seat on the board of Tyson Foods Inc., the largest pork-producing company in the world. Humane Society Chief Executive Wayne Pacelle said he was seeking the board seat in order to force Tyson to take steps to improve the treatment of animals in its supply chain.

In 2007, Tyson said it would phase out gestation stalls in 10 years at the urging of the companies it supplied. Apparently that wasn't fast enough for Pacelle. Pacelle was backed by American business magnate Carl Icahn, whose net worth was estimated by Forbes magazine in September at US$14.8 billion. As Pacelle's campaign waged on, it became apparent that he would never make it on the board because of the company's dual-class voting structure. While those structures are common in Canada, they are not in the United States. Owners of common shares can invest their money and yet receive no control over the direction of the company. BP