DowDuPont gives you three ways to win

Article Excerpt

DOWDUPONT INC. $71 (New York symbol DWDP; Manufacturing sector; Shares outstanding: 2.3 billion; Market cap: $163.3 billion; Takeover Target Rating: Lowest; No dividends paid; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.dow-dupont.com) began trading on September 1, 2017, following the merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont. The combined company now plans to split into three separate publicly traded firms—Agriculture, Specialty products, and Materials—within 18 months. Former Dow CEO Andrew Liveris, now the executive chairman of DowDuPont, and former DuPont CEO Ed Breen, now CEO of DowDu- Pont, will lead the process. A number of activist investors hold interests in the company. These include Nelson Peltz’s Trian Partners, Daniel Loeb’s Third Point LLC and Jana Partners LLC. These activists recently reviewed DowDuPont’s plans to split into the three parts and made a number of proposals to change the allocation of assets. As a result, the company will make some of those alterations in an attempt to avoid a prolonged fight with the investors. That revised plan will see…