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By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Outdoor goods company Yeti Holdings, which makes cooler boxes and insulated cups, on Monday said it would add two new directors, expanding the size of its board after months of discussions with activist investor Engaged Capital.
Magnus Welander, former chief executive of lifestyle and outdoor company Thule, and Arne Arens, former chief executive officer of footwear brand Boardriders, will join eight directors, increasing the board's size to 10.
The company was already working on refreshing its board and Arens was introduced to the company by Engaged, a person familiar with the matter said.
Yeti, founded two decades ago by two brothers who wanted a better cooler to keep their drinks cold in the Texas heat, is currently valued at $2.7 billion. Its stock price has come under pressure recently amid the prospect of tariffs on goods from China, where many of the company's products are manufactured.
Engaged, which owns roughly 2% of Yeti's common shares, has held talks for months with management and has told people that the company's stock price could triple over the next three years if management pursues growth strategies and returns cash to shareholders, two other sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Yeti's stock price climbed nearly 4% on Monday while the broader market was largely flat.
The company is already working on finding alternative production sites and recently told investors on a conference call that it is "ahead of plan" in shifting its drinkware production out of China. The company said it expects to have 80% of its drinkware capacity located outside of China by the end of 2025.
The fund has also urged Yeti to improve communication with investors by scheduling conferences, an investor day and being in touch more actively with shareholders, the people familiar with Engaged's thoughts said.
Engaged's efforts have been behind the addition of more than a dozen directors to boards over the past five years, industry data showed.
Earlier this month it laid the groundwork for a board fight at Portillo's when it nominated two director candidates to the restaurant chain's eight-member board.
(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Mark Porter)
