It is an unusual move for a hedge fund to back a smaller rival. The Spring Fund is buying a stake in Irrational Capital, a hedge fund launched three years ago by Duke University behavioral economist Dan Ariely and his business partner David van Adelsberg. The Times ultimately struck a deal with the investment firms, offering up two board seats.Jeffrey Ubben, Founder & CEO at ValueAct Capital, poses for a portrait before speaking on the Reuters Newsmaker event' "The Future of Shareholder Activism" panel in Manhattan, New York, U.S., February 22, 2017. In 2008, the hedge funds Harbinger Capital Partners and Firebrand Partners told the company they intended to nominate four independent directors to the publisher’s board. The Times has dealt with activist investors before. The activist firm Elliott Management revealed a position in the social media company Pinterest in August, and the activist firm Blackwells Capital pushed for the ouster of the chief executive of Peloton, John Foley, this spring. Often it seeks out companies, like Adobe and Microsoft, that are in the middle of changing their business models.Īctivist investors have been increasingly willing to take stakes in companies with dual-class structures like The Times. Unlike some other activist investors - like Carl Icahn, who made a name for himself with bruising courtroom battles - ValueAct has a track record of investing in companies over a long period and working with management behind the scenes. “The board and management team will continue to make decisions that we believe are in the best interest of the company and all company shareholders,” Ms. Sulzberger, who is also the publisher of The Times.ĭanielle Rhoades Ha, a Times spokeswoman, said in a statement that members of the company’s management team had held conversations with ValueAct to exchange views. The family has controlled the business since Adolph Ochs purchased it in 1896. The shares used to elect the majority of the company’s board, called Class B, are controlled by a trust for the Ochs-Sulzberger family, which owns 95 percent of these shares. The Times Company has a dual-class share structure. It has a goal of signing up 15 million by the end of 2027. The Times has 9.17 million paid subscribers. “This is an opportunity we believe management needs to drive with urgency, as it is the biggest lever to accelerate growth, deepen NYT’s competitive moat, and ensure the long-term strength and stability of the platform,” ValueAct said in the letter, according to a person with knowledge of its contents. ValueAct said that created a potential growth opportunity. In a letter to its investors on Thursday, ValueAct said it had conducted research that showed many consumers were not aware that The Times sells a bundled subscription to its products, which include news, games, a cooking app and the sports publication The Athletic. Shares of The Times, which are down about 27 percent year to date, jumped more than 10 percent on news of ValueAct’s investment, which was first reported by Bloomberg. The Times is controlled by the Ochs-Sulzberger family, which limits the influence outside investors have on the company. The purchase of the stock, made public in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, makes ValueAct one of the largest shareholders in The Times, alongside Vanguard and BlackRock Fund Advisors. ValueAct, an activist investor that has taken stakes in major companies including Microsoft, Reuters and 21st Century Fox, said on Thursday that it had bought nearly 7 percent of The New York Times Company’s common stock and would push for changes to some of the publisher’s business operations.
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