Questions remain at DuPont a year after Peltz defeat

Jeff Mordock

DuPont executives outnumbered shareholders at the company's annual meeting Wednesday in New York.  That's a stark contrast from last year's meeting, when hundreds descended on its headquarters to witness then-CEO Ellen Kullman square off against activist investor Nelson Peltz.

In less than a year since DuPont shareholders cheered Kullman's successful efforts to block Peltz and his four nominees from the board of directors, things have taken an unimaginable turn for the chemical giant. Fresh off her proxy victory, Kullman was unceremoniously dumped by the board. In her place, new CEO Ed Breen has slashed the budget by laying off employees, consolidating units and terminating contracts.

In December, Breen outlined what could be the end of the DuPont that has existed for more than two centuries when he announced thecompany would be merging with Dow Chemical to create a $130 billion conglomerate that would later be broken up into three separate companies.....To Read More....

My Take - It seems to me there's only one thing that's clear - Kullman must have been a souce of discontent from a lot of quarters, and this battle with Peltz brought it all out into the open and exposed a managment style and view of the world's economy.  The economy changed and Kullman was unwilling to make the "necessary" changes many thought were needed.  Did she believe DuPont could weather this out on it's own and others didn't?  It's been my experience stockholders and directors are bean counters and much more concerned with the next qualterly profit than the long haul, although they will claim otherwise, saying this is the fix needed for the long  haul. However, it's been my experience bean counter boards of directors are not visionaries.  They're  just grand go along to get along guys, but tha't the problem - visionaries started these companies and bean counters took them over.  The thing I find puzzling is why the stockholders cheered at her win and seemingly remained silent at her firing?  If that's the case - why, and who's right? 

Well, as the reporter said in Charlie Wilson's War - we'll see!