(Bloomberg) -- Grifols SA, the drugmaker reeling from a short-seller attack earlier this year, named two new board members as it faces pressure from a group of small shareholders led by hedge fund Mason Capital Management LLC.
Grifols will appoint Pascal Ravery, a former executive at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Paul S. Herendeen, who has served as an executive at several health firms, to fill two vacant seats on the board, the Spanish company said in a filing late Monday.
Herendeen’s selection had been proposed by a group of investors led by Mason Capital and he will serve as a proprietary director. Ravery will be an independent director.
Mason Capital has been vocally critical of the Grifols board overall and, specifically, of the Grifols family and one of its closest allies, Tomas Daga, who also holds a board seat. In several letters sent to the board of Grifols, Mason co-founder Kenneth M Garschina called for the company to disclose the fees it had paid law firm Osborne Clarke, of which Daga is a founding partner. Mason also opposed a take-private approach by Brookfield Asset Management, which has since been withdrawn.
The Grifols family owns about a third of the company and has several board seats.
Grifols has for months faced questions over corporate governance as well as its cash flow. The highly leveraged firm will need to refinance about €1.4 billion ($1.5 billion) in debt next year.
(Updates with detail in fourth paragraph.)
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