(Reuters) - ABB Chief Executive Ulrich Spiesshofer has quit the Swiss industrial group as the board and major shareholders look for a speedier turnaround at the maker of industrial robots and supplier of factory automation. Spiesshofer's abrupt exit follows the launch of the biggest overhaul in ABB's 31-year history to reposition the company more toward digital industries and agreeing to activist shareholder demands to sell its power grids business...

DETROIT – Ford CEO Jim Hackett received total compensation of $17.8 million in 2018, up from $16.7 million in 2017, according to finance documents released by the company . The Dearborn, Michigan-based carmaker reported Hackett's pay was 276 times more than the median compensation for all U.S.-based Ford employees.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Amazon.com has named its first black director after facing growing pressure to diversify the all-white board overseeing one of the world's most powerful and valuable companies. Rosalind Brewer, chief operating officer and board director of Starbucks, is one of corporate America's most prominent women and black women executives...

Amazon, Microsoft, Visa and Xerox are among the stocks to watch...

Three of Ambac Financial Group Inc's top ten shareholders are calling on its new CEO Nader Tavakoli to step down, according to people familiar with the matter. One of the reasons they give is that he is slow to settle $4 billion in insurance claims in which at least two of them have an interest, the sources said. The policy claims relate to complex financial instruments, including secured ...

(Reuters) - Privately held outdoors retailer Bass Pro Shops is exploring an offer for Cabela's Inc , the U.S. hunting and fishing store chain targeted by activist investor Elliott Management, people familiar with the matter said...

By Ross Kerber BOSTON (Reuters) - Ben Carson, frontrunner in the struggle to become Republican presidential candidate, said on Wednesday that his support for gay rights initiatives when he was a director at major companies does not clash with his opposition to gay marriage. Carson supported various initiatives at both companies, such as barring discrimination based on gender identity, providing ...

The pharmacy at the center of suspicions over Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc's business practices began as a small pilot project two years ago and quickly grew to account for 7 percent of the drugmaker's revenue. Valeant disclosed on Monday details of its relationship with Pennsylvania-based Philidor Rx Services, defending the pharmacy against allegations of illegal activity while ...

By Andreas Cremer FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Volkswagen will dismiss Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn, a German newspaper said on Tuesday, after the carmaker admitted to cheating U.S. vehicles emissions tests and said 11 million of its cars could be affected worldwide. The Tagesspiegel newspaper, citing unidentified sources on Volkswagen's supervisory board, said Winterkorn would be replaced by ...

Combes left telecoms equipment maker Alcatel this week to become chief operating officer of telecoms networks operator Altice and chairman of its French subsidiary Numericable-SFR. France's AMF financial regulator said on Tuesday it was investigating whether the package respected governance rules...

Tokyo (AFP) - Scandal-hit Toshiba and McDonald's Japan were on Friday booted from a stock index launched to highlight firms with the best return on equity and other shareholder friendly criteria. The shuffle comes as Toshiba grapples with a crisis that exposed a pattern of top executives pressuring underlings to inflate profits by about $1.2 billion since the 2008 global financial crisis...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Activist investor firm Jana Partners said Thursday it took a 7.2 percent stake in packaged-foods maker ConAgra and said it may start a proxy battle by nominating three candidates to the company's board of directors. ConAgra's stock rose $2.48, or 6.3 percent, to $41.60 in aftermarket trading. Jana Partners said ConAgra's results have been disappointing since it bought Ralcorp, the owner of Post cereals, in January 2013...

SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. hedge fund Elliott ramped up its campaign against a proposed $8 billion merger of two Samsung Group [SAGR.UL] firms, creating a website to lay out its case and saying it wants corporate governance improvements rather than an unfair deal. In a rare case of shareholder activism in South Korea, the fund has filed two injunction requests to block the merger...

By Tom Hals Wilmington, Del. (Reuters) - A Delaware judge ruled on Friday that a private equity firm paid a fair value of $32 per share to acquire Ancestry.com Inc and rejected hedge fund claims the price should have been as high as $47 per share. The ruling is a setback for an increasingly popular hedge fund strategy called "appraisal arbitrage," in which investors vote against a proposed deal ...

Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn said on Wednesday that he sold Netflix Inc shares too soon, admitting that his son Brett and fund co-manager David Schechter were correct to believe the stock was significantly undervalued. Icahn sold 2.99 million shares of Los Gatos, California-based Netflix in October 2013 after the stock rose more than fivefold in 14 months. "What I was worried about ...

(Reuters) - Activist investor Carl Icahn raised his stake in U.S. car rental company Hertz Global Holdings Inc to 10.77 percent from 8.48 percent. The billionaire was already Hertz's largest shareholder and in the past few months had successfully pushed for management changes and won board seats on the company. Hertz shares rose 1.7 percent to $25.68 in trading after the bell on Tuesday. Hertz ...

SEATTLE, Nov. 25, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Juno Therapeutics today announced that Maggie Wilderotter, Chairman and CEO of Frontier Communications Corporation, has been appointed to the Juno Board of Directors. Wilderotter, the eighth member of Juno's Board of Directors, brings significant public company experience as both a board member and a senior executive to the Juno Board. Before ...

(Reuters) - Activist investor William Ackman is supporting the $66 billion deal in which Actavis PLC will buy Allergan Inc and plans to withdraw from an Allergan special shareholder meeting he had planned, CNBC television reported on Tuesday. Ackman, who had been fighting alongside Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc for control of Allergan, had called for the Allergan meeting to vote out ...

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Renova Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company developing gene therapy treatments for congestive heart failure and other chronic diseases, announced that Daniel M. Bradbury joined its board of directors. The company also completed its third round of funding, raising $7.52 million.New board member brings decades of life science experience Mr ...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- John E. Mendez has been nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as the newest chairman of the Board of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), which maintains a special reserve fund authorized by Congress to help investors at failed brokerage firms.Mendez is a partner practicing in the New York and Los Angeles offices of ...

Putting women on boards does not necessarily mean that more women make it to the top of the executive tree, according to number crunching by New Financial, a think tank...

ZURICH (Reuters) - The bosses of drugmakers Roche and Novartis both earned more than 13 million Swiss francs ($13.6 million) last year, according to a study published on Wednesday, 18 months after the Swiss voted for some of the world's strictest controls on executive pay. The pay packets of Roche CEO Severin Schwan and Novartis counterpart Joe Jimenez topped the list of Switzerland's best-paid ...

(Reuters) - Activist investor Starboard Value LP said on Wednesday it had offered to acquire the remaining shares in RealD Inc RLD.N after raising its stake in the 3D technology licensor. Starboard offered $12 per share in cash, a premium of 29 percent to RealD stock price as of Wednesday close, valuing the company at about $540 million. RealD said in an emailed statement that it would review ...

By Paul Lienert and Bernie Woodall DETROIT (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury last year permitted top executives at General Motors Co and Ally Financial Inc to collect "excessive pay" while those companies were part of a taxpayer-funded government loan program, a special inspector general reported on Wednesday. The Treasury responded that the report contained "many inaccuracies and omissions," saying ...