Efforts by an activist investor for an alternative board to engineer a sale of United States Steel (X) to someone other than Japanese rival Nippon Steel was opposed by founder and chief executive of Pentwater Capital Management in an interview with Bloomberg News Tuesday.

Ancora Holding, an activist fund that said it owns about 0.2% of US Steel, disclosed plans on Monday to nominate an alternative slate of directors at the next annual shareholders meeting. Once in place, the new board would replace sitting CEO David Burritt with Alan Kestenbaum, former CEO of Canadian steel maker Stelco Holdings prior to its acquisition by Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF).

But Pentwater CEO Matt Halbower dismissed the Ancora proposal in a telephone interview with Bloomberg. The Florida-based hedge fund is the company's third largest investor, behind Vanguard and Blackrock (BLK), according to Bloomberg.

Halbower and Ancora also did not return messages from MT Newswires for additional information.

(Market Chatter news is derived from conversations with market professionals globally. This information is believed to be from reliable sources but may include rumor and speculation. Accuracy is not guaranteed.)