Business briefing for April 7

Ingevity makes peace with activist investor The pine chemical maker Ingevity has reached an agreement with the activist investor Vision One Fund that will avoid a cantankerous proxy fight. Vision One owns nearly 1% of Ingevity’s stock, worth about $13 million. In February, the Miami-based investor nominated four directors to Ingevity’s board. In a presentation at the time, it called out what it sees as Ingevity’s “bad acquisitions and bad corporate strategy.” For example, Ingevity’s purchase of Georgia-Pacific’s pine chemical business, Perstorp’s caprolactone business, and Ozark Materials cost a total of $1.3 billion but generated losses for the firm, Vision One says. Ingevity has been trying to right the ship. In January, the firm announced that it was exploring strategic alternatives for its industrial specialties business, and in March it tapped former CMC Materials CEO David H. Li to be its new CEO. Ingevity has now agreed to put one