Star­board launch­es first sal­vo in Pfiz­er fight, al­leg­ing ex-CEO, CFO were pres­sured to flip

The ac­tivist in­vestor tar­get­ing Pfiz­er claims that the com­pa­ny’s for­mer CEO and CFO, who were pre­vi­ous­ly work­ing with the in­vestor, were pres­sured to flip and side with the com­pa­ny.

In a pub­lic let­ter Thurs­day to Pfiz­er’s board of di­rec­tors, in­vestor Star­board Val­ue al­leged that for­mer CEO Ian Read and CFO Frank D’Ame­lio were threat­ened with a claw­back of com­pen­sa­tion and un­vest­ed stock, as well as po­ten­tial lit­i­ga­tion.

“We un­der­stand that peo­ple with­in Pfiz­er and/or their rep­re­sen­ta­tives have con­tact­ed Mr. Read and Mr. D’Ame­lio and pur­port­ed­ly threat­ened to com­mence cost­ly lit­i­ga­tion against them, claw back pri­or com­pen­sa­tion, and can­cel un­vest­ed per­for­mance stock units un­less they pub­licly re­lease a state­ment sup­port­ing the cur­rent Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, Dr. Al­bert Bourla,” Star­board said.

Pfiz­er didn’t im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to re­quests for com­ment, nor did Read and D’Ame­lio.

Star­board said in its let­ter that it wasn’t cer­tain whether Pfiz­er’s board knew of the events. It called on the board to launch a spe­cial com­mit­tee to in­ves­ti­gate the claims.

Star­board’s state­ment is the first of what could be a pro­tract­ed messy bat­tle for the fu­ture of the drug­mak­er. The in­vestor said it had pre­vi­ous­ly spo­ken with Read and D’Ame­lio, who shared Star­board’s per­spec­tive that the com­pa­ny need­ed a change in di­rec­tion.

Pfiz­er’s shares $PFE have lost half their val­ue since their pan­dem­ic peak. The com­pa­ny has en­gaged in sev­er­al rounds of cost-cut­ting, trimmed some as­sets, and changed out sev­er­al se­nior ex­ec­u­tives.

News first broke of Star­board’s $1 bil­lion stake in the com­pa­ny on Sun­day, with Read and D’Ame­lio “hap­py to help” with the ac­tivist’s ef­fort, ac­cord­ing to a source fa­mil­iar with the dis­cus­sions. The two ex­ec­u­tives called se­nior board mem­bers on Sun­day, in­clud­ing Bourla.

But on Wednes­day night, Read and D’Ame­lio re­scind­ed their sup­port for Star­board, is­su­ing a state­ment that they “have de­cid­ed not to be in­volved in the ef­forts of Star­board Val­ue re­gard­ing Pfiz­er.”

The dizzy­ing saga pre­empts what’s now set to be an even more con­tentious meet­ing be­tween Bourla, in­de­pen­dent di­rec­tor Shan­tanu Narayen and Star­board on Oct. 16. Star­board said “pos­si­bly oth­er mem­bers of the board” may al­so join.