Smith & Nephew is facing calls from three of its top-20 shareholders to break itself up after being targeted by activists this summer.
They’re pushing for a spin-off of the medical device maker’s orthopaedics division, which sells replacement hip and knee joints, if management can’t improve its performance following mixed results and a slowdown in Chinese sales last month.
Cevian Capital, a Swedish activist investor backed by Carl Icahn, declared a 5 per cent stake in Smith & Nephew in July and said the company wasn’t making the most of its “fundamentally attractive businesses”.
Elliott Management mounted a similar campaign in 2017.
Two of the shareholders said a private equity firm could potentially buy the division, which is Smith & Nephew’s largest by sales.
