Ackman's Pershing Square secures seat on Zoetis board

Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund activist, has parachuted one of his representatives on to the board of Zoetis, the $22bn animal health company he is trying to shake up or sell.

Zoetis, the world's largest animal health group by sales, said it had appointed Bill Doyle, a member of the investment team at Mr Ackman's Pershing Square fund, as a director. Another "mutually acceptable" independent director will also be added to the board, Zoetis said.

"We welcome Bill to the board," said Zoetis chief executive Juan Ramon Alaix. "He brings significant expertise and relevant industry and operational experience."

Mr Doyle is one of Mr Ackman's closest advisers and was instrumental in forming a partnership between Pershing Square and Valeant, a Canadian pharma group that went on to pursue a $47.5bn hostile takeover of Botox maker Allergan.

Their bid was derailed by Actavis, which bought Allergan for $66bn after emerging as a "white knight" bidder and sealing the biggest M&A deal of 2014. Mr Ackman's fund still made a paper profit of about $2.6bn, having amassed a stake of almost 10 per cent in Allergan.

Mr Ackman has built a stake of about 10 per cent in Zoetis along with fellow hedge fund Sachem Head and is pushing for a shake-up of the company, which was spun out of Pfizer in 2013. He wants the group, which sells drugs for farm animals and pets, to slash costs and improve shareholder returns.

People familiar with his thinking say he will push for a sale of the company if it does not start making progress by the middle of the year.

Bayer and Novartis both expressed interest in buying Zoetis before it was carved out of Pfizer, but the rules governing spin-offs made it difficult for them to acquire it during the two years after it became fully independent. That two-year period ends in June.

Valeant has also been linked to the animal health group, although its chief executive recently played down suggestions he would make a bid, telling the Financial Times he thought it was "highly unlikely anything is going to happen with Zoetis".

Pfizer spun off Zoetis in an initial public offering priced at $26 per share in January 2013, as part of its own plan to concentrate on human pharmaceuticals. Shares in Zoetis, which have gained 31 per cent in the last six months, were little changed in early New York trading at $43.75.

Zoetis sells more than 300 lines of products to livestock producers and veterinarians across 70 countries.

In November, Mr Ackman revealed Pershing Square had taken an 8.5 per cent stake in Zoetis while Sachem Head, run by former Ackman employee Scott Ferguson, had acquired 1.6 per cent. Their stake is currently worth about $2.2bn.

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