ESSEN (dpa-AFX) - Pressure is mounting on chemicals trader Brenntag, with voting rights adviser ISS siding with activist investor Primestone Capital and backing its candidates for the company's supervisory board, according to a report. In it, ISS called on shareholders to reject Brenntag's proposed election of Richard Ridinger as chairman of the supervisory board and Suja Chandrasekaran as a member of the supervisory body in return. A decision on the supervisory body is to be taken at the upcoming Annual General Meeting in mid-June.

In a statement released this evening, Brenntag said the company strongly disagrees with this assessment. The chemicals trader recommended that its shareholders vote in favor of the proposed candidates. Both candidates are absolutely independent, it said. In the statement, Brenntag denied this quality to Geoff Wild, who was proposed by Primestone Capital. In addition, the company fears for the independence of the board as a whole if the financial investor were to get its two candidates through, as the latter would then have a representation of 33 percent on the supervisory board, but would itself only hold around two percent of the shares.

Primestone Capital had already spoken out against the appointment of Ridinger and Chandrasekaran in mid-May and put forward two opposing candidates for the Supervisory Board in Wild and Joanna Dziubak. The manager had previously headed the German specialty chemicals and equipment company Atotec, while Dziubak is a former employee of the U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs who had also sat on the supervisory board of the Danish company Chr Hansen.

The dispute with Primestone Capital has been going on for half a year now. The investor had already intervened for the first time in December and opposed Brenntag's takeover talks for its US rival Univar Solutions. Instead, the activist investor demanded a split-up of the Dax company at that time. Brenntag called off the takeover of Univar at the beginning of the year following public criticism.

Meanwhile, PrimeStone refrained in mid-May from forcing a shareholder vote on a split-up of the group./tav/knd/mis/nas/men