Barclays (LON:BARC) shares price shot up last week after it was announced that activist investor Edward Bramson would be taking a 5 percent stake in the bank, sparking rumours that the institution may be heading for a shake-up.
Whilst early indications suggest that Bramson doesn’t intend to be too much of an ‘activist’ with Barclays, the bank’s numbers show that it remains operationally and structurally inefficient. Given Bramson’s previous experience as an activist shareholder, it is likely that he is hoping to push for some changes to bolster Barclay’s performance.
Bramson’s company, Sherborne Investors (LON:SIGB), said it had invested £580 million in the bank’s shares and derivatives. With a regulatory disclosure said Sherborne owned 1.94 percent of the shares, controlling the remainder of its 5 percent stake through derivatives.
Bramson is just one of several activist investors advancing their interest in household names of late.
Earlier in March, American activist investor TCI increased pressure on the Altaba (NASDAQ:AABA) to wind down and sell off its $76 billion holding in China’s Alibaba. The shareholder said that the company, who own the legacy assets of internet group Yahoo, was trading at an unnecessarily large discount to the value of its assets and should “take advantage to recent US tax reform to liquidate.”
In the engineering sector, activist hedge fund Elliott Advisors has lent its support to Melrose in the bidding process for engineering giant GKN (LON:GKN).
Elliott are one of the biggest shareholders in GKN currently and are campaigning for fellow shareholders to look kindly upon Melrose’ controversial offer.
The investor also sent a letter to GKN’s board, saying it was “sceptical of the company’s ability to deliver on Project Boost for its aerospace business”.