J.M. Smucker taps activist investor, expands board

ORRVILLE, OHIO — The J.M. Smucker Co. has tapped activist investor Elliott Investment Management LP to help the food company sharpen operations and financial performance and stay on a path toward long-term growth.

Announced Feb. 26, the engagement with Elliott also includes an information-sharing agreement that J.M. Smucker said will “facilitate collaboration toward the shared goal of driving sustainable value for all shareholders.”

Following talks with Elliott, J.M. Smucker also has named two new independent directors. Plans call for David Singer, former chief executive officer of Snyder’s-Lance Inc., and Woo-Sung (Bruce) Chung, chief financial officer of NRG Energy Inc., to join Smucker’s board on April 15. The move will raise the board’s membership to 11, including 10 independent directors.

“Over the past several years, we have fundamentally transformed the company and built a portfolio of leading and iconic brands in attractive categories that resonate with consumers,” Mark Smucker, chairman, president and CEO, said in announcing the engagement with Elliott. “Today, we have a strong foundation in place and a clear focus on driving continued organic growth, while enhancing profitability and earnings.”

J.M. Smucker fields “a strong portfolio of market-leading brands in categories that benefit from durable consumer demand,” said Marc Steinberg, a partner at West Palm Beach, Fla.-based Elliott.

“As one of The J.M. Smucker Co.’s largest investors, we believe the new additions to the board and decisive shift toward disciplined capital allocation, operational improvement and purposeful leadership updates represent critical steps toward ensuring The J.M. Smucker Co. reaches its full potential,” Steinberg said. “Dave and Bruce bring to the board proven leadership in consumer brand-building and financial stewardship that will further strengthen The J.M. Smucker Co. as it executes on this path.”

J.M. Smucker announced the Elliott engagement on the same day it released fiscal 2026 third-quarter results. For the period, the company reported almost $1 billion in impairment charges for its Sweet Baked Snacks business plus a $724 million loss.

“The engagement with Elliott is recent and has actually been very constructive,” Smucker said in a Feb. 26 conference call with analysts on the quarterly results. “We’ve had a number of meetings with the folks there and, largely, what they see is what many of you already know: We’re a great company with strong brands. And there’s really good alignment between what they’re seeing and what we are seeing, focusing on continuing operating improvements, which will lead to profit restoration over time; the continued portfolio management, in the near term focusing on organic growth, also disciplined capital allocation; and then, lastly, governance.”

Smucker described Singer and Chung as “two proven executives with track records of creating value.” J.M. Smucker said Singer brings extensive executive, operational and board experience at branded food and beverage companies. Before retiring as Snyder’s-Lance CEO in 2013, he was executive vice president and CFO of Coca-Cola Consolidated Inc., the largest US bottler of Coca-Cola. He currently sits on the boards of Performance Food Group Co. and Brunswick Corp. and previously served on the boards of Flowers Foods Inc. as well as Snyder’s-Lance.

Similarly, Chung brings strong financial expertise and leadership experience to the board, J.M. Smucker said. As executive vice president and CFO of NRG Energy, an energy and smart home services company, he guides financial strategy, risk management and corporate development.  

“We do and have continued a pretty consistent board evolution over the last five years,” Smucker told analysts. “And these two recent additions of Bruce Chen and Dave Singer will further that governance and, in particular, make sure that we have the right support in terms of how we’re thinking about capital allocation and our financial priorities. So we really feel very good about where we are in the conversations with Elliott and very confident that we have both the right board and the right team to continue to drive our strategy and the growth of the company.”