UK Edition
AstraZeneca investors will fight Wallenberg re-election
A powerful investor group is planning to oppose the re-election of a member of Sweden’s most prominent business dynasty to the board of AstraZeneca.
Glass Lewis said Marcus Wallenberg’s other roles, including being chairman of Saab and banking giant SEB, could prevent him from “dedicating the time necessary to fulfil the responsibilities required” of him as a non-executive director of the pharmaceuticals giant.
Mr Wallenberg, known as “Husky”, is the great-grandson of SEB’s founder, André Oscar Wallenberg.
The family’s Stockholm-listed holding company Investor AB still owns a 21pc stake in the bank, as well as 30pc of Saab, 4pc of Astra, 16pc of home appliances maker Electrolux and 7pc of telecoms giant Ericsson.
A former member of the secretive Bilderberg Group’s steering committee, he has been a director of Astra since 1999. A fifth of shareholders rebelled against his appointment last year.
Glass Lewis said in its report: “A non-executive director of a FTSE 100-listed company should retain some spare capacity in case a crisis or other event escalates the demand on their time.”
“To this end, we note that director Wallenberg attended 11 of the 13 board meetings held in the year under review.”
Astra, the UK’s second-largest pharmaceutical company after GlaxoSmithKline, made $1.9bn (£1.5bn) in pre-tax profits last year, and sales of $22bn.
Last month it struck a blockbuster deal worth up to $6.9bn (£5.3bn) with Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo to develop a cancer treatment known as trastuzumab deruxtecan.
It has asked shareholders for $3.5bn to help fund the tie-up, but hopes to generate as much as $4.5bn in annual sales if the drug can be brought to market.
A spokesman said: “Marcus Wallenberg continues to bring considerable business experience and makes a valuable contribution to the work of the board of AstraZeneca.
“It is also worth noting that the view in this report is not one that is shared by other advisory bodies.”