Starboard Targets Solstice With $100 Million Cost-Cut Push After Failed Deal, FT Reports

3-line summary

• Activist investor Starboard Value, which manages $8.2 billion in assets and has previously targeted Bristol-Myers Squibb, Salesforce, and Kenvue, holds a stake in Solstice Advanced Materials (NASDAQ: SOLS) reported to be worth several hundred million dollars; Starboard is demanding about $100 million in corporate overhead cost cuts, improved execution in Solstice's refrigerants and nuclear businesses, and a tighter focus on core operations, with founder and CEO Jeff Smith expected to present the case at a 13D Monitor activist investing summit.
• The push follows Solstice's late-August withdrawal of its roughly $14.5 billion cash-and-stock merger with Element Solutions ahead of a shareholder vote; investors had questioned the strategic rationale given limited business overlap and raised capital-allocation concerns, since Solstice would have paid a higher earnings multiple for Element than its own market value implied.
• Solstice, which makes chemicals for air conditioning, insulation, and refrigeration as well as electronics and semiconductor materials, also supplies chemicals used in uranium enrichment; its stock nearly doubled after its October 2025 spinoff from Honeywell before giving back most gains following the Element deal announcement and subsequent withdrawal. Starboard sees growth potential in the nuclear business tied to rising AI-data-center power demand and a 2028 US deadline to end imports of Russian enriched uranium, which positions Solstice as one of few companies able to perform early-stage uranium enrichment outside Russia and China.

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