(Bloomberg) -- Delivery Hero SE has struck a deal with Sachem Head Capital Management to nominate the activist investor’s managing partner Scott Ferguson to its supervisory board, after the firm built a 3.6% stake in the food delivery company.

Delivery Hero has proposed expanding the board to eight members from six and has nominated four candidates, including Ferguson, at the company’s annual general meeting on June 19, the German company said in a statement on Monday.

The deal follows intense criticism of Delivery Hero from Sachem Head, which sees the company’s operational performance and share price as disappointing compared with peers, Bloomberg News reported earlier. In a presentation given to Delivery Hero earlier this month and seen by Bloomberg, Sachem Head called on Chief Executive Officer and cofounder Niklas Oestberg to step down. 

The activist investor’s nomination to the board may stave off that possibility, but still leaves Oestberg looking “more vulnerable,” Jefferies analysts wrote in a note to clients. Sachem Head had particularly criticized Delivery Hero’s investments in European delivery startups Glovo, Gorillas and Deliveroo Plc after valuations in the industry dropped.

Sachem Head and Delivery Hero both declined to comment beyond the earlier statement.

Read More: Activist Fund Sachem Head Said to Build Delivery Hero Stake

“We see great promise in the food delivery market and Delivery Hero’s strong competitive positions in highly attractive markets,” Sachem Head’s Ferguson said in Monday’s statement. “I look forward to working with the other members of the supervisory board and the management board to help the company realize its full potential.”

Martin Enderle has agreed to resign as chairman at the June meeting, though he’ll stay on the board, and the company proposed Kristin Lund, the outgoing CEO of Schibsted ASA, to replace him. Roger Rabalais, managing partner at Delivery Hero’s biggest investor Prosus NV, is another proposed candidate. Prosus holds an approximately 30% stake in the company.

Sachem Head, which has about $3.6 billion in assets under management, has held several activist positions in European companies, pushing for breakups, full sales or board representation. In the UK, it held a stake in restaurant group Whitbread Plc, which subsequently sold its Costa coffee-shop chain to Coca-Cola Co. It was also involved in security firm G4S Plc, which was later bought by Allied Universal Security Services LLC. The investor has also disclosed a 5.2% stake in Deliveroo.

Delivery Hero said earlier this year that negotiations to sell part of its Foodpanda business in some markets in Southeast Asia have failed. The company also announced last month that Chief Financial Officer Emmanuel Thomassin, who held the position for a decade, is leaving to join money transfer firm Wise Plc in October.

The German company’s shares rose 3.1% to €26.67 at 2:38 p.m. in Frankfurt trading on Monday. The stock has declined 26% in the last 12 months.  

 

(Updates Sachem Head’s stakes in eighth paragraph, and share price in final paragraph. A previous version corrected Ferguson’s job title, and the day of the statement.)

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