(Reuters) -McDonald’s Corp on Sunday said Carl Icahn has nominated two members to the board of the burger chain.
The billionaire activist investor, who stated that he holds 200 shares in the company, nominated Leslie Samuelrich and Maisie Ganzler to stand for election at the 2022 annual meeting, the company said in a statement, adding that the nominations relate to a narrow issue regarding pork.
Icahn has insisted on new McDonald’s commitments, including requiring all of the company’s U.S. pork suppliers to move to “crate free” pork, and set specific timeframes, the company said.
“While the Company looks forward to promoting further collaboration across the industry on this issue, the current pork supply in the U.S. would make this type of commitment impossible,” McDonald’s said.
McDonald’s said it sources only approximately 1% of its U.S. pork production and does not own any sows, or produce or package pork in the United States.
The company expects to source 85% to 90% of its U.S. pork volumes from sows not housed in gestation crates during pregnancy by the end of 2022 and expects 100% of its U.S. pork to come from sows housed in groups during pregnancy by the end of 2024, it added.
Icahn, who became known as a corporate raider on Wall Street, was embroiled in a similar proxy battle with Southwest Gas Holdings Inc in November last year.
(Reporting by Anirudh Saligrama in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Mark Porter)