Fortune Brands flies to Teterboro as CEO search drags and activist looms

Fortune Brands flew from Laska Airport in upstate New York to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey on June 15, touching down at 10:14 a.m. local time after a 46-minute hop in its Embraer Legacy 500, tail N520FB. The company has been without a permanent chief executive since February, when appointed CEO Amit Banati never officially worked a day before walking away with an $18.4 million payout amid an activist campaign by Ed Garden of Garden Investment Management, per an AOL report last week.

The trip lands the same week Fortune Brands' interim CEO David Barry is expected to meet with institutional investors in the New York area. The company is still running a comprehensive CEO search after activist investor Garden took a board seat in March, according to a preliminary proxy filing with the SEC. Barry, a former Fortune Brands CFO, receives $18,000 a month on top of his salary during the transition.

The flight is part of a steady pattern of business travel for the Deerfield, Illinois-based company. Nearly every recent trip has started or ended at Chicago Executive or O'Hare, with regular stops in Atlanta, Cleveland, and New York — typical beats for a $4.5 billion home-and-security-products holdco still sorting out its C-suite. This particular leg, however, skipped the usual return to home base.