The Activist Investor Blog
The Activist Investor Blog
How to monitor activist investing
What’s the best way to stay on top of the status and progress of one or another activist investor, and their work at one or more companies?
The cheapest way is to follow their filings at the SEC’s website. There, they post notices of their complete holdings in all their portfolio companies (Form 13F, quarterly, for those who file them), holdings in specific companies (Form 13G for passive investments, and Form 13D for activist ones, more on that below), and, when it happens, proxy filings (Form 14A, with a number of variants for preliminary and final filings, and for filings by companies and investors).
(For the uninitiated, investors with more than 5% of a company’s shares must disclose this holding, and their intentions with respect to that holding. For a strictly passive investment, with no activism in mind, the investor files a Form 13G. Investors that have activist ideas at all, ranging from informal discussions with management to an outright takeover, file a Form 13D, and in particular explain those ideas in Item 4. of the filing.)
Problem is, the SEC does not automatically notify you of new filings. For that, you need to use one or another of the SEC filing monitoring services. I use SEC Info, which sends you an email message whenever a given investor (or company) makes a filing (cost: $120 annually). So, I receive a few dozen emails a day for various investors and companies that I track. SEC Info also has a nicely searchable database of all filings, much easier to use than the SEC’s own website.
Other services provide different angles, too. 13D Monitor delivers very thorough coverage on about 50 activist investors, and all companies (over $100 million market cap) at which one or more activist investors have worked (based on Form 13D filings). Investors that want to follow one or another activist investor, or see what happened at a company they have researched, will find this useful.
Another useful service is SharkRepellent, which features a database emphasizing governance characteristics of over 5,000 U.S. public companies. While it’s name might suggest an emphasis on helping companies fend off activist investors, it has many investor clients. It helps an investor that wants a quick-and-dirty look at governance at a given company, and also at takeover defenses, board and executive entrenchment, and other attributes that make a company a better or worse candidate for activism. They also issue a research report on some specific subject of interest (poison pills, disclosures) a few times a year.
Both 13D Monitor and SharkRepellent cost thousands of dollars annually, and are worth it. A free weekly newsletter, the Catalyst Equity Research Report, summarizes 5-10 activist efforts each week, based on 13D filings. It does follow a given activist campaign over several months, and is a convenient way to get updates on one or another company.
Of course, if you know of a service or newsletter that you like, please let us know.
Sunday, March 14, 2010