NEW YORK/ESSEN (dpa-AFX) - The management of chemicals trader Brenntag is facing more and more headwind in its power struggle with an activist investor at the upcoming annual general meeting. After the important shareholder advisor ISS, the second influential investor service provider, Glass Lewis, is now also siding with the critical financial investor Primestone, as the Bloomberg news agency reported on Wednesday, referring to a communication to Glass-Lewis clients. Primestone ultimately presented the more convincing arguments, drawing attention to matters of corporate development and governance, the company said.

Primestone wants to prevent Brenntag's proposed election of Richard Ridinger as chairman of the supervisory board and Suja Chandrasekaran as a member of the control body from going through at the June 15 shareholder meeting. Primestone had made two proposals of its own for the Supervisory Board in the form of former chemicals manager Geoff Wild and ex-Goldman Sachs banker Joanna Dziubak. Ultimately, Primestone is concerned that Brenntag should split into the two divisions for specialty and basic chemicals.

The dispute with Primestone Capital has been going on for half a year. Back in December, the investor intervened for the first time and opposed Brenntag's planned takeover of US rival Univar Solutions. Instead, the activist investor demanded a split-up of the DAX-listed company. Brenntag called off the takeover of Univar at the beginning of the year following public criticism.

Meanwhile, Brenntag's management received support from Deutsche Bank's fund subsidiary DWS. Accordingly, in a statement to Bloomberg, DWS expert Hendrik Schmidt recommended supporting Brenntag's proposals for the supervisory board. Major investor Klaus-Michael Kühne had already come out in favor of the company's approach last week./men/jsl/stw