Huntsman Corporation HUN
Huntsman has serially missed its own Investor Day promises while an entrenched board shields management; elect Starboard's four independent chemical-industry nominees to restore accountability.
Thesis
Starboard's supplemental deck rebuts Huntsman's February 2022 investor presentation point-by-point, arguing that CEO Peter Huntsman and an interlocked legacy board have serially misled shareholders to obscure chronic underperformance. Huntsman missed its 2016 Investor Day $1.3bn EBITDA target by 11%, failed every lever of its 2018 Investor Day plan to reach $60/share, destroyed value at the Textile Effects business (acquired in 2006 at $92M EBITDA, still only $97M sixteen years later), and fire-sold its Venator stake for $140M after promising $1bn. The board repeatedly waived its own mandatory retirement policy for 75+ directors Archibald and Burns, then rushed three under-qualified defensive appointees only after Starboard's 13D. Starboard nominates four independent chemical-industry veterans — Gallogly, Beach Lin, Schnabel, Smith — pointing to its proven turnarounds at GCP Applied Technologies and Corteva as evidence change works.
SCQA
Huntsman Corporation is a diversified specialty and intermediate chemicals maker led by CEO Peter Huntsman, with a long-tenured interlocked board heading into the 2022 annual meeting.
Management has missed every Investor Day target since 2016 — EBITDA, share price, Venator monetization, Textile Effects — then rewrote peer sets, timelines and definitions to obscure the record; the board enabled it by waiving its own retirement rules.
Elect Starboard's four independent chemical-industry nominees — Gallogly, Beach Lin, Schnabel and Smith — to the 10-person Huntsman board at the 2022 annual meeting to install genuine accountability and oversight.
Starboard points to its GCP Applied Technologies turnaround (sold to Saint-Gobain at a 39% premium) and Corteva's 41% outperformance as the template — independent chemicals expertise on the board unlocks trapped value.
The three reasons
- 1
Huntsman failed every Investor Day promise since 2016 and now rewrites history to hide it
- 2
The board waived its own 75-year retirement policy three years running to entrench legacy directors
- 3
Huntsman has underperformed peers and the S&P 500 across nearly every time period since IPO
Primary demands
- Elect Starboard's four independent director nominees (James L. Gallogly, Sandra Beach Lin, Susan C. Schnabel, Jeffrey C. Smith) at the 2022 Annual Meeting
- Refresh the entrenched legacy board including long-tenured directors whose mandatory retirement was repeatedly waived
- Hold management accountable for serial failures to deliver on Investor Day promises
- Align executive pay with performance rather than top-quartile pay for bottom-quartile EVA
KPIs cited
Pattern membership
Precedents cited
- GCP Applied Technologies (Starboard won majority slate 2020; company sold to Saint-Gobain at 39% premium)
- Corteva (Starboard campaign — 41% outperformance vs. S&P 500 post-engagement)
Composition what's on the 88 slides
Slide gallery ·
Notes
Supplemental deck explicitly framed as companion to Starboard's Feb 28, 2022 investor presentation — specifically a rebuttal to Huntsman management's counter-presentation. Signature rhetorical device is the two-column 'Highly Misleading Claims' vs. 'Reality' grid (p.4), repeated throughout as 'The Truth' vs. 'Huntsman's Misleading Tactics' closers after each section — deliberate drumbeat to frame management as dishonest. Heavy reliance on CEO-quote-contradiction: Peter Huntsman's own words from 2006, 2013, 2017, 2018 pulled verbatim to expose broken promises on Textile Effects EBITDA and Venator monetization. An unusual section (6: 'Starboard's Past Investments') is self-defense responding to Huntsman's attacks on Starboard's GCP record — rare for an activist to devote this much space to defending its own track record. No stake percentage disclosed here (the 13D was filed Sept 27, 2021 and referenced but pct not repeated). No explicit target price or upside quantification — thesis is governance-focused rather than valuation-driven. Four nominees: James L. Gallogly (ex-LyondellBasell CEO), Sandra Beach Lin (ex-Celanese EVP), Susan C. Schnabel (aPriori Capital), Jeffrey C. Smith (Starboard).