Forbes – Hedge fund H Partners scored a victory on Friday in its bid to unseat directors from the board of mattress giant Tempur Sealy International, indicating widespread investor dissatisfaction with the company’s financial results and management. The win, however, is likely to be just the beginning in a series of changes at the Lexington, Ky-based mattress company, which has struggled to increase earnings and profit margins, or meet financial guideposts, since its much-hyped 2012 acquisition of Sealy.
H Partners, an under-the-radar but top performing hedge fund emerged in early 2015 with a campaign against Tempur Sealy’s board of directors, arguing that the company chronically under-performed expectations and was unwilling to engage with shareholders. Because those issues came to a head this year, H Partners missed a deadline to nominate its own slate of board directors, forcing the fund into the unusual position of running a campaign to have investors withhold votes for three Tempur Sealy board members, CEO Mark Sarvary, chairman P. Andrews McLane, and nominating committee head Christopher A. Masto.
