After Jana’s announcement, the company said it was “committed to driving value for all Whole Foods Market shareholders
and will continue to act to achieve this important objective.”
But analysts have speculated the company could be a takeover target, which would
result in a big payday for Jana, Neuberger Berman and other investors.
It secured two board seats, but the process, Mr. Amato said, was “in all honesty expensive and time-consuming.”
In the case of Whole Foods, Neuberger Berman lobbied for the activists to do the messy work of battling the company in public.
Relations between institutional investors and activists have evolved in recent years,
and it is not unheard-of for big investors to support activists who have set their sights on a high-profile company.
Charles Kantor, who oversees Neuberger Berman’s investment in Whole Foods, said
that the company had “a phenomenal brand and had executed the difficult things,” but that “they haven’t done well with the basic Retail 101.”
Mr. Kantor said it was normal for his group to speak with other investors.
For decades, Neuberger Berman — which invests some $267 billion for pension funds, sovereign wealth funds
and individuals — and peers like T. Rowe Price and BlackRock were reluctant to rock the boat at the companies they invested in.
Agitating for change was left to the activist hedge fund managers like Mr. Icahn
and Mr. Ackman, rabble-rousers with a reputation for shaking up companies, raising their stock prices and making big profits.
