Irenic Capital Management, a New York- based activist investor, has continued to quietly build up its stake in FD Technologies, market filings show.
The most recent update shows it now holds 19.1 per cent of FD’s shares, or 5.4 million shares in total. At FD’s current share price of around 18.30 that’s equivalent to nearly €99 million worth of shares.
Very few shareholders will acquire that much of a company without having a view on how the business is run, and that is doubly true of Irenic, which was founded by Adam Katz and Andy Dodge.
It is an activist fund, meaning it takes positions in companies in order to use its shares and voting power. From time to time it also uses its public platform to “encourage” management teams to make changes in the way they run their business.
As Cantillon has noted in the past, Irenic has been very vocal in recent years in relation to some of the companies it has invested in, such as gas producer Capricorn Energy, where it publicly opposed a big merger deal it was proposing. Or Wagamama where it called on boss Ken Hanna to step down; or by publicly opposing Rupert Murdoch’s plans to merge Fox and NewsCorp.
It’s not clear what more Irenic could ask from FD which has already announced a major restructuring of late, splitting off its marketing arm MRP to execute a merger with American firm Contentgine, as well as floating the possibility of selling off other divisions.
That is a matter upon which Irenic is likely to have very significant views, though when Cantillon contacted a spokesperson for FD to see what contact management had had with Irenic since the New York firm began building its stake, we got no response prior to publication.
There have been some hints, however. In May Seamus Keating, FD’s chief executive, told the Business Post that “Irenic are one of a number of large shareholders and we speak to them pretty regularly just as we would with anybody else”.
He interpreted their stake building as reflective of “their opinion in that they think what we’re doing is the right thing to do, and they’re very supportive of it”.
Certainly that’s been the story of the share price, which has been soaring in value of late, from just under €12 in March to the current price of €18.30.
However, it seems highly unlikely that some missives from New York haven’t been sent in the last few months.
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