Elliott says AkzoNobel will lose four times more jobs without PPG takeover

Elliott Advisors, which owns a 3% stake in AkzoNobel, said on Friday that the Dulux owner could lose up to 6,400 jobs if it remains a standalone company rather than combining with US rival PPG Industries.

Elliott said it had commissioned third-party independent research which showed that over four times the number of Akzo employees could be made redundant by a standalone company.

The private investment firm - which has been trying to get Akzo to engage in takeover talks with PPG - said: "AkzoNobel has made stakeholder protection a centrepiece of its rationale for refusing to engage with PPG. The employees of AkzoNobel are one of those key stakeholder constituencies. Elliott believes there is a strong probability that AkzoNobel employees would have greater job security and significantly more growth opportunities in a combined PPG and AkzoNobel scenario than they would under the stand-alone scenario communicated by AkzoNobel in its Investor Day on 19 April.

"Elliott would like to remind stakeholders that since 2009, Akzo Nobel has made 11,970 employees redundant, a figure which excludes further rationalizations made in 2015 and 2016, which AkzoNobel chose not to report."

AkzoNobel has so far rejected two takeover offers from PPG and is currently considering a third unsolicited approach from the US chemicals manufacturer.