Activist Stocks: Rovi; Medifast; Yum! Brands

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Activist wannabes, working on some new stuff at activiststocks.com so no time to chit chat about machinations and hearsay. The facts are below; news and stories for May 1. Tip us off @activiststocks, daily newsletter sign up, ICYMI the latest newsletter is here.

News-

  • Today is the Glenn Welling show. His Engaged Capital got support from Glass Lewis for 2 of its 3 nominees for the Rovi board [here] and comes after ISS made a similar recommendation earlier this week [here]
  • Another Engaged target Medifast completed its board overhaul last night. Engaged convinced the company to completely change up the board, shrinking it to nine and ousting eight directors.

Stories-

  • There’s no way you’ve missed the Third Point / Dan Loeb letter, if you did…Loeb has taken a stake in Yum! Brands, then Keith Meister’s Corvex Management came clean that it’s also long the fried chicken and tacos mess. It’s said that Yum! is a top 5 position for Corvex and that he’ll be taking about it at Monday’s Sohn conference. Yum! has been one of the easiest “company in need of an activist” calls over the last year. h/t to all that called it i.e @HedgeyeHWP
  • Loeb is also long Devon Energy; interesting change of pace for Loeb; from Loeb’s Third Point Reinsurance call in Feb., “All of the funds that have been set up to capitalize on distress in the oil patch might be disappointed, kind of like European funds that were set up to capitalize on European distressed debt situations.” We’ll have more thoughts on all this later, but here’s the letter [link to Loeb letter]

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