Cevian Capital

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Cevian Capital AB
legal form Aktiebolag
founding 2002
Seat Stockholm , SwedenSwedenSweden 
management Christer Gardell , Lars Förberg
Number of employees 40
Branch Investment funds
Website www.ceviancapital.com

Cevian Capital AB is a Swedish investment company founded in 2002 with headquarters in Stockholm and offices in Pfäffikon (SZ) on Lake Zurich and London, which pursues the strategy of “investor activism”, i.e. an influence on the management of the companies in which it holds shares.

Cevian is led by the two founders Christer Gardell and Lars Förberg and manages client funds of over EUR 10 billion.

Investments

Cevian builds significant equity positions in companies that are considered undervalued and usually requires a vote on the supervisory board or board of directors in order to gain influence on business policy. One of the most important investments was a minority position from 2004 onwards with the insurer Skandia , the sale of which to Old Mutual in 2006 allowed Cevian to double his capital investment.

In Germany, Cevian first became known as an investor in Münchner Rück , in which Cevian held around three percent of the capital from 2007; In 2010, Cevian left this investment. In May 2010, Cevian acquired an initial ten percent stake in crane manufacturer Demag Cranes ; In 2011, this triggered a takeover offer from the US manufacturer Terex for Demag Cranes.

From the end of 2009 to mid-July 2010, Cevian built up a 12.3% stake in the Swiss Panalpina .

Since October 2011, Cevian has been the largest single shareholder in the construction service provider Bilfinger with a stake of 18.9%, which was later increased to 26%.

At the English Cookson Group , Cevian achieved the split into Alent and Vesuvius in 2012 .

In December 2013, Cevian acquired more than half of the € 900 million capital increase from ThyssenKrupp and initially held approx. 11% of the shares, and since the beginning of March 2014, through further acquisitions, now a little over 15% and is therefore the second largest shareholder behind the Krupp Foundation .

In December 2017, Cevian sold the entire shares (8.2%) in Volvo Trucks to the Chinese Volvo owner Geely . Cevian achieved a profit of more than two billion euros.

Current holdings

Companies Percentage ownership %
FIG 5.34
Panalpina 12.30
Bilfinger 29.53
thyssenkrupp 20th
Danske Bank 7.70

Surname

The company's original name was Amaranth Capital ; but since the name was already occupied by the US hedge fund Amaranth Advisors , the European naming rights were sold and the name was changed to Cevian in 2003.

The name Cevian has no deeper meaning. When the company changed its name from Amaranth to Cevian, it was about the requirements that the name should be easy to pronounce in Swedish and English, that it would not conflict with other companies registered in Europe, and that there would be no negative connotation in one of the great languages.

Lars Förberg explained how the name came about: "Actually, my partner Christer Gardell and I had given our investment company a different name. However, it turned out that an American hedge fund already had it. So we and a couple of colleagues went into it Set a sauna, drank a little beer and looked for a name. At some point someone with a mathematical background came up with the term Cevian. It's a geometric formula. We just liked the name. "

Individual evidence

  1. a b Jen Wieczner: Meet Europe's best activist investor. In: Fortune . August 27, 2015, accessed January 5, 2016 .
  2. Self-reported on the company's website , accessed on January 5, 2016
  3. a b Icahn of Sweden Arranging Disruptive Deals Makes Cevian Hated. In: www.bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, August 18, 2008, accessed January 20, 2014 .
  4. Demag Cranes gets critical major shareholder. Handelsblatt, May 21, 2010, accessed on January 20, 2014 .
  5. The success in Panalpina wants to be sustained. In: Finance and Economy . Finanz und Wirtschaft, June 23, 2015, accessed January 5, 2016 .
  6. Bilfinger SE: Shareholder structure , as of June 30, 2015
  7. Financial investor Cevian wants to have a say at Thyssen Krupp. In: Rheinische Post . December 6, 2013.
  8. Financial investor increases at Thyssen-Krupp In: Handelsblatt . 4th March 2014.
  9. What is this man up to ?, in: FAS No. 2, January 14, 2018, p. 35.
  10. Holger Wittich: Geely joins Volvo Trucks: Volvo owner also acquires truck division . In: auto motor und sport . ( auto-motor-und-sport.de [accessed on January 3, 2018]).
  11. What is this man up to ?, in: FAS No. 2, January 14, 2018, p. 35.
  12. ABB: Major shareholders , as of July 1, 2018
  13. More Cevian at Bilfinger , at www.morgenweb.de , accessed on April 2, 2017
  14. Danske Bank: Largest shareholders ( Memento of the original dated May 28, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.danskebank.com
  15. What is this man up to ?, in: FAS No. 2, January 14, 2018, p. 35.