ABB can be pressed into sharing – Swedish Dagbladet

Photo: Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters

Activist fund, however, would could also decide to simply lobby for cost savings and more efficient operations, says a person who previously worked with Cevian (unclear if it is the same source).

During the early summer, Cevian emerged as the second largest shareholder with a stake of over 5 percent, and speculation about whether it could be the prelude to a division of the company, or other changes may be forthcoming, have occurred in the market.

Christer Gardell, founder and Head of Cevian. Photo: Henrik Montgomery / TT

Christer Gardell, founder and head of Cevian, however, has been sparse with comments about their motives for investment and held to ABB’s a great company with great potential for value creation.

With higher expected growth for ABB’s automation activities and presumed decline of the power business is a division anyway no more than reasonable, as William Mackie, an analyst at Kepler Chevreux in London, told Bloomberg News.

During the last year fell ABB operating margin (EBITDA) to 12.0 percent from 13.8 the year before. Competitor Rockwell reported at the same time an adjusted EBITDA margin of 21 percent.

– If we do not see an improvement in margins to more than 16 percent, together with prudent cash generating capital allocation, I think we should be very open to the idea that the company’s structure too complex, says ABB’s tenth largest shareholders of Nordea Investment Officer Mathias Leijon to Bloomberg.

In Dagens Industri in mid-April, before Cevian foray, he spoke warmly of dismembering ABB power and automation, Bloomberg mentions he is 18-24 months as a suitable timeframe for evaluating if the cutting is appropriate.

In ABB’s largest owner Investor’s semi-annual report revealed that the Investor during the second quarter increased its position from 8.9 to 9.5 percent.

Neither Cevian, ABB or Investor wants to comment on the issue, according to Bloomberg News, who points out that ABB’s shares over the last five years has underperformed relative to comparable companies as Rockwell, Honeywell, Siemens and General Electric.

On Thursday at 7 published ABB’s interim report. Analysts expect an operational EBITA margin, which is the endpoint ABB has declared particularly the case in the future, at 11.3 percent (10.7), according to SME Direkt.