HPE adds KLA chair to board in pact with activist investor Elliott
Robert Calderoni, chairman of chip tools maker KLA, has joined HPE's board and will lead a new strategy committee formed under a cooperation agreement with Elliott that includes information-sharing, the company said on Wednesday.
Elliott, which holds a stake of more than $1.5 billion in HPE, also has the right to appoint an employee to HPE's board under the agreement that lasts at least a year and prevents the hedge fund from launching proxy contests.
The announcement is a win for Elliott, which manages about $72.7 billion in assets and has a long history of pushing for changes at companies including Southwest Airlines, Phillips 66 and Texas Instruments.
Elliott has been pushing ahead with campaigns globally this year despite market volatility that led many peers to settle. It won two seats at oil refiner Phillips 66 in May in a high-profile proxy fight.
Shares of HPE, which makes servers deployed in data centers for AI workloads, were little changed in morning trading on Wednesday. The stock has declined 5 per cent so far this year, underperforming AI server rivals such as Dell Technologies and the benchmark S&P 500 index.
Demand has boomed for AI servers as big tech companies and startups race to roll out generative AI services such as ChatGPT that require huge amounts of computing power. But the business has been a drag on margins because of the high costs of advanced chips designed by the likes of Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices.
HPE said its strategy committee will also include independent board directors Gary Reiner, Raymond Lane and Charles Noski. It also said Calderoni and any Elliott employee director would be nominated to stand for election at HPE's 2026 annual shareholder meeting.
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