Clifton S. Robbins‘ Blue Harbour Group has recently increased its stake in Investors Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISBC). As a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed, Blue Harbour raised its exposure to the company to 26.62 million shares, from 22.34 million shares held earlier. Following the increase, the activist position amasses 7.4% of the company’s outstanding common stock.
Blue Harbour Group has initiated a position in Investors Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISBC) during the first quarter of 2014, after the company went public in March. Over the course of 2014, the investor has raised its position to 20.46 million shares in August, when it filed its first 13D filing and disclosed going activist on the company. Mr. Robbins’ fund stated that it considers the stock attractive and that it has engaged in discussions with the management and the board of the company and would continue to further discuss matters related to maximizing the shareholder value of Investors Bancorp. Meanwhile, the stock of the $3.90 billion company appreciated by around 4.4% since going public.
Investors Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISBC) is a special situation company that was reorganized from a mutual holding company Investors Bancorp MHC. Following the reorganization, the public shareholders hold 100% of the company, instead of 40% held previously with the other 60% being held by a mutual holding company. Last year, aside from the reorganization, Investors Bancorp, the holding company for Investors Bank, completed the acquisition of Gateway Community Financial Corp and declared a cash dividend of $0.05 per share.
However, even though Blue Harbour went activist on the stock and declared that it has engaged in discussions with the company, it has not specified anything regarding its next moves. However, the fact that the fund has recently upped its stake shows that it has some plans for the company, especially since the position that currently is valued at some $288 million represents more than 11% of Blue Harbour’s equity portfolio and is one of the largest in terms of value.
Jim Simons‘ Renaissance Technology is another shareholder of Investors Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISBC), although it looks like it is not particularly optimistic about the company’s prospects. In its last 13F filing, Renaissance disclosed holding 7.93 million shares of the company as of the end of September, down by 2.32 million over the quarter. On the other hand, Jonathon Jacobson‘s Highfields Capital Management raised its stake by 1.0 million shares to 9.27 million shares.
Blue Harbour has been investing in activist situations since it was founded in 2004 by Mr. Robbins, a former partner at private equity giant KKR. The fund has an equity portfolio worth $2.6 billion as of the end of September, and aside from Investors Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISBC), it also owns an activist position in Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc (NASDAQ:MDRX), which represents 7% of the company. Moreover, Blue Harbour’s largest equity position is represented by Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM), whose stock gained 34% over the last year.
It will be interesting to see how this story surrounding Blue Harbour and Investors Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISBC) will develop and we will keep a close eye on it. However, the banking industry is not one in which we can see a lot of activism. Nevertheless, as Blue Harbour has been activist on Investors Bancorp, another fund was prepared to go into a proxy fight with another bank. In December, Nelson Peltz‘s Trian Partners entered into an agreement with Bank of New York Mellon Corp (NYSE:BK), of which it owns 28.90 million shares. Under the terms of the agreement, the company would give the investor a board seat, a move that is considered to have prevented a long and expensive proxy fight.
Disclosure: none
