Activist Investor Newsletters: Proxy Advisors And Unhappy Shareholders by Stock Pucker
Not much of an intro, but of note, the pricing on the suite of activist investor newsletters is set to go up tomorrow – new pricing will look something like $200 per quarter for the major activist newsletter, $335 a quarter for the underrated activist newsletter and $265 a quarter for the No 13F newsletter – or all three for $720 a quarter.
This Week In Activism Vol. 17
News—
- Casella Waste got a letter from its activist, JCP Investment, noting that the fund had received inquiries about buying the waste management company. It also took the company to task over corporate governance in the letter.
- Barington Capital won its proxy battle at Eastern Co., getting two board seats.
- Sandell Asset Management slammed PartnerRE in a letter for not entertaining acquisition talks.
- JET Capital sent another letter to SunCoke Energy, saying that the company has basically ignored its recommendations.
- The Clinton Group got 3 board seats at Imation.
- Rosetta Stone, the target of Nierenberg Investment Management and Osmium Partners, has received buyout interest from RSD Capital.
- Orange Capital upped its stake in Bellatrix Exploration yet again (increasing its shares owned 7%), and now owning 16.4% of the oil company. Shares are still down 56% since Daniel Lewis’ Orange went active in 2014 (October coverage).
New campaigns—
- Vector Capital went active on eGain with a 9.8% stake. Good news for eGain investors – we made a short call on eGain back in 2013 with shares down 65% since then. Now, Vector also went active on Clicksoftware in March, a month later the company got a takeover offer and is 40% higher.
- Glenhill Advisors changed its passive 7% stake in Pep Boys to active – joining GAMCO as an activist investor in the name.
- Ancora Advisors is active at Mutualfirst Financial with a 5.1% stake, having met with management and believing that the company is trading at a discount.
Interesting activist reads around the web—
- Tech Firms Seek Ways to Fend Off Activist Investors, WSJ
- A Shareholder Advocate in Word, but Not in Practice, NYTimes
- Dimon Chides ‘Lazy’ Shareholders Who Follow Proxy Advisers, Bloomberg
- Activists May Seek Targets With Unhappy Shareholders, Valuewalk
Most read posts from stockpucker this week—
- H Partners Publishes Website On Tempur ($TPX), H Partners Management went active on Tempur-Pedic ($TPX) back in Feb. The fund is trying to overthrow the CEO. It’s now published a website taking to task the company, www.fixtempursealy.com.
- West Face Capital’s Activist Letter On Gran Tierra ($GTE), Earlier this week, Canadian hedge fund, West Face Capital, went active on Gran Tierra Energy (GTE). It owns 9.78% of the Canada-based $1bn market cap oil explorer. Below is the chopped and screwed version of West Face’s letter, emphasis ours.
- Early insights from 13F day $QCOM $YUM $PXD, It’s here, 13F day that is; in working up the suite of activist investor focused newsletters to go out in a few days, it’s hard not to get distracted by the various other 13Fs from value investors like Seth Klarman coming across the wire
- Computer Sciences Corp Plans To Split, Yet Again, Computer Sciences Corp is planning to split its commercial IT and government business. This comes after an apparent failure to sell the entire company.
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. Full disclosure: We don’t own any of the stocks mentioned.
Until next week—stockpucker.
