Air Products pushes back on activist invest

Air Products and Chemicals is telling shareholders to vote down a slate of potential directors that activist investor Mantle Ridge has nominated for election at Air Products’ annual meeting in January. The hedge fund has been clamoring for Air Products to find a successor to its 80-year-old CEO Seifi Ghasemi. It is also skeptical of the industrial gas firm’s focus on low-carbon hydrogen. But in a letter to shareholders, Air Products’ board says that the company is the most profitable industrial gas business in the world and that it will unveil a potential successor to Ghasemi in March.