This Week In Activism: Gran Tierra Energy; Casella Waste; Wesco by Stock Pucker
The Sohn conference today and SALT conference tomorrow has us on our heels this week. Thus, we’re a little late with TWIA this week – and it’s a little light by past standards.
THIS WEEK IN ACTIVISM VOL. 13
News—
- Silk & Sons has joined the “iPass Shareholders for Change” in its activist stance against iPass. It changed its 5.8% stake from passive to active. More here.
- Mangrove Partners owns 7.5% of Atlantic Power and is pushing the company to split itself up, but will settle for capital returns – i.e. special dividend.
- Sarissa Capital got the CEO and founder of Ariad Pharma ousted. He’d been there for 25 years. Sarissa will be leading the search committee for a new member.
- Starboard Value got a win at LSB Industries, adding 5 members to the board. LSB also said it was exploring options for putting its climate control business in an MLP.
- Macellum and Barington Capital put together a presentation on Children’s Place. They own just 2% of the company, but think the retailer could get sold give the valuation.
New campaigns—
- West Face Capital went active on Gran Tierra Energy with a 9.8% stake. More on our thoughts here. We also have the presentation that West Face put together – email us if interested since they’re trying to keep it out of mass circulation.
- JCP Investment is now active at Casella Waste with a 5% stake. They’re pushing for #corpgov changes, including addressing the dual class structure. Our thoughts.
- Atlantic Investment went active on Wesco, the industrial supply company. It owns just over 5% and hasn’t laid out any plans capital allocation is the likely focus. More from us.
Interesting activist reads around the web—
- Lipton’s latest on Activism: Maybe you should settle, WSJ
- Bigger activist get bigger results, Reuters
- Activist rattle the cages of 19 big companies, USA Today
- Jana Partners’ Barry R. has a different take on BlackRock’s activist diss, NY Times
Most read posts from stockpucker this week—
- Campus Crest Communities Gives The Clinton Group The ‘Finger’, Campus Crest Communities ($CCG) has retained management consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal North America…
- Activists Got A Big Win At Jamba Today, Jamba announced that Engaged Capital founder, Glenn Welling, and managing member of JCP Investment Management, James Pappas, would be joining the company’s board.
- Orange Capital’s Letter To Macerich Shareholders: Talk To $SPG, The activist and fellow activist Land & Buildings are pushing for the mall REIT to end its litigation with L&B and allow shareholders to vote for a new slate of directors for the upcoming annual meeting.
- Why Yum Brands ($YUM) Needs An Activist Investor, One possible answer is a partial spinoff of its China operations, which would trade on the Chinese exchange.
In case you missed our last activist update, here it is.
Have feedback, or questions about certain activist campaigns, email us at [email protected]. Or drop us a line if there’s a campaign you want us to cover.
Until next week—stockpucker.
