ESSEN (dpa-AFX) - Activist investor PrimeStone Capital is putting forward two candidates of its own for election to the supervisory board of chemicals trader Brenntag for the annual general meeting in mid-June. PrimeStone rejects Brenntag's proposed election of Richard Ridinger as the new chairman of the supervisory board and Suja Chandrasekaran as an additional member of the supervisory body, according to a recent letter from the investor, which was available on a website on Monday.

The activist investor is instead proposing Geoff Wild, a former corporate executive at German specialty chemicals and equipment firm Atotec, and Joanna Dziubak, an ex-employee of U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs, as new supervisory board members. The new members were to be elected only until the annual general meeting for fiscal 2024, it said.

The proposal to increase the supervisory board's fixed compensation was "detached from the reality of the situation," PrimeStone said in a separate statement. Brenntag had already said it would put to a vote at the annual general meeting whether to increase the fixed salary of the new supervisory board chairman from 210,000 to 325,000 euros and of ordinary supervisory board members from 120,000 to 130,000 euros.

Meanwhile, PrimeStone is refraining from forcing a shareholder vote on a split-up of the Group. Only recently, PrimeStone and other activists were calling for a quick separation of the Specialties division from the Essentials business unit in order to improve profit margins and increase the value of the stock. In the first business unit, Brenntag focuses on selling ingredients for selected industries. In the second, the company markets process chemicals./mne/men/ngu