Carl Icahn is about to get a taste of his own medicine.
An activist investor launched a proxy fight against Newell Brands on Wednesday, blasting a recent truce that billionaire Icahn recently struck with the Hoboken, NJ-based maker of Mr. Coffee, Graco strollers, and Rawlings baseball gloves.
Jeff Smith — whose Starboard Value famously sparked a turnaround at Olive Garden by pressuring owner Darden Restaurants to salt the pasta water — is angling to replace four board members.
Three of those board members were recently appointed by Icahn, under an agreement Icahn struck with Newell last month.
“Make no mistake — this agreement was clearly a desperate attempt to hand outsized influence to one shareholder in order to entrench management and disenfranchise shareholders,” Smith wrote in a letter to shareholders.
That’s on the heels of a similarly barbed attack from Smith last week in a letter that questioned “the circumstances and motivation” of Newell’s deal with Icahn.
Last month, Newell agreed to add four of Icahn’s nominees to its 11-member board, with Icahn having the option to name a fifth. Three of the nominees have direct ties to Icahn, while a fourth, David Atchison, has no public board experience and was a college classmate of Icahn’s son Brett, Smith noted.
While Smith is not looking to unseat Brett, who joined the board under the agreement with Icahn, he said that having a board with so many ties to one shareholder was “unnecessary and, frankly, dangerous.”
Newell said it has already taken steps to “transform our company into a simpler, stronger, faster business.” “We are laser focused on transforming the company and enhancing shareholder value,” the company said in a statement while criticizing Starboard for waging a “disruptive proxy fight.”
Smith counters that Newell shares have suffered since the company merged with Jarden in April 2016, estimating that $10 billion of value has been “destroyed.”
Also troubling to Smith were the sudden resignations of five Newell board members earlier this year.
Reps for Icahn didn’t respond to requests to comment.