Financial institutions are particularly common targets for activist investors

Frankfurt In Germany, campaigns by activist investors in public limited companies are relatively rare. Of the 100 largest actions of this kind in the world, Germany is affected by only one, as a study by shareholder advisor Squarewell shows: the showdown between the hedge fund Petrus Advisers and the real estate financier Aareal Bank. Squarewell had evaluated the 100 largest activist campaigns against 90 companies that took place between September 2019 and December 2021.

The Aareal campaign is particularly typical of this in two respects, as the evaluation, which is exclusively available to the Handelsblatt, shows.

• On the one hand, the financial sector is currently the most common target of such campaigns: 22 of the 90 companies attacked were financial institutions, followed by 18 industrial companies and 14 companies from the IT sector.
• On the other hand, personnel changes on the “board”, i.e. in the decision-making bodies of a company, are among the most frequent demands of activist investors. In Germany, where a distinction is made between the operational board of directors and the controlling supervisory board, the target of such advances is usually the supervisory board determined by the shareholders.