News that Third Point, the activist hedge fund led by Daniel Loeb, is to list a €500m-€700m fund in London brings the undisputed master of the poison pen to the UK’s shores.
Known for his abrasive turn of phrase,and venomous tongue, Loeb is among the highest profile, and surely the most entertaining, activists at work in the US. So this is an excellent time to look back at some of his finest work.
There is, from last year, a letter to Nabi Biopharmaceutials in which he wrote: “Rest assured: our silence since receiving your flaccid response should not be interpreted as reduced focus on our position in Nabi….. you hide your heads in the nearest warm aperture in an apparent “ostrich defense” and ignore your shareholders (the top three now owning over 28% of your shares in aggregate) in the hope that the Company’s owners will go away before your next annual meeting.”
Also, there’s an open letter to Salton from 2005: “What is most astounding about the Company’s apparent death spiral is Mr. Dreimann’s inexplicably insouciant attitude and the fact that he remains in charge….
“The conference call debacle pales in comparison to what I witnessed last summer when I attended the U.S. Open tennis final. You can only imagine my consternation when I looked around the stadium and saw the Salton name emblazoned all around the interior of the stadium walls next to such robust companies as IBM, JP Morgan and Mass Mutual. I had to wonder how much precious capital had been squandered in such a poorly conceived marketing scheme to promote the Salton name when the Company was in such dire financial straits. My bewilderment quickly turned to anger when I saw the crowd seeking autographs from the Olsen twins just below the private box that seemed to be occupied by Mr. Dreimann and others who were enjoying the match and summer sun while hobnobbing, snacking on shrimp cocktails and sipping chilled Gewurztraminer.”
He wrote earlier this year in a missive to PDL Biopharma, “many fund managers who have been similarly rebuffed, and who have detected such a deficit in talent, probity and judgement as we have come to find in Mr McDade, might come to the logical conclusion to “cut and run”…..Instead we have come to a different view: we concluded that the Board of Directors has no choice but to immediately terminate Mr McDade,” before going on to attack the company’s corporate head quarters, dubbing them the “Taj Mahal,” and accusing Mr McDade of being “fixated” on when his berth in the adjacent marina would be ready.
Companies are not the only recipients of Mr Loeb’s sarcasm and aggressive prose. He fell out with Ken Griffin in 2005, after the Citadel boss snared an analyst from a rival firm.
Also infamous is his email exchange with a potential recruit, where he levelled this accusation at the hapless applicant: “We find most brits are a bit set in their ways and prefer to knock back a pint at the pub and go shooting on weekend rather than work hard.”
We won’t take it personally. Welcome to Blighty.
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