Jana Partners presses Cooper Cos. on CEO change and possible sale, WSJ reports
The push follows a stake Jana disclosed in Cooper last October and a strategic review the company said it completed this month.
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The Wall Street Journal reported that Jana Partners is pushing Cooper Cos. to replace its chief executive and consider selling core parts of the business.
Jana's involvement with Cooper dates back to October 20, 2025, when the Journal first reported the activist fund had built a stake in the company and planned to press for strategic changes, according to CNBC's coverage of that report. Cooper's two main businesses are CooperVision, which makes contact lenses, and CooperSurgical, which sells women's health and fertility products, according to Fierce Biotech. Jana has previously urged Cooper to explore combining or selling its contact lens unit to Bausch + Lomb, whose chief executive Brent Saunders said he was open to combining lens operations, Fierce Biotech and CNBC reported. The size of Jana's stake has not been publicly disclosed, though Cooper appeared among the fund's top five holdings in a 13F filing dated March 31, 2026, according to GuruFocus.
Cooper said on September 9, 2026, that it had completed a strategic review and increased its share buyback authorization, according to the company's investor relations site.
Activist pressure to overhaul leadership and divest underperforming units is the kind of move shareholders often read as a path to unlocking value, and it fits a broader pattern in which investors push industrial and healthcare companies toward operational discipline and asset sales, a shift that can reprice a stock in the near term.