Target duking it out with "activist shareholder"

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An investor who holds a 7.8 percent interest in Minneapolis-based Target is waging a campaign to replace some of the retail giant's boardmembers with those he thinks will better help the company succeed, and one of the main areas Bill Ackman feels the company is lacking is in its stores' food selection.

As Hot Dish has earlier reported, Target has already picked up the hint, rolling out more food options in its stored and taking some control over distribution -- essentially playing catch-up with Wal-Mart, which seems to already have the food+retail=profit model down.

But Ackman, who runs Pershing Square Capital Management, a hedge fund, wants more. Specifically, he'd like to install himself and four others, one of whom -- Jim Donald -- a former Starbucks chief who, according to the Wall Street Journal, "led and expanded Wal-Mart's grocery business in the early 1990s."

The WSJ says Donald has said he is surprised by Target's failure to open more SuperTargets, which all have full groceries.