Landis+Gyr Group Ag’s Residential and Commercial Focus Focus Installation of electric meters.
Landis+Gyr Group AG
Company: Landis+Gyr Group AG (Land-CH)
Business: Landis+Gyr Group It is a company based in Switzerland that is mainly engaged in the business of electrical components and equipment manufacturing. It specializes in solutions for electricity, gas, heat/cold and water for energy measurement solutions for public services. The Landis+Gyr Product Portfolio consists of advanced energy management products and smart measurement, such as electric meters, heating and cooling meters, network management solutions and personal energy management solutions. In addition, the company offers various software services, managed services, cloud services, smart network services, system integration, training, as well as consulting and support services.
Value market value: Approximately 1.49b Swiss Franks (51.60 CHF per action)
Activist: Spectrum business property
Property: 5.01%
Middle Cost: n/a
Activist comment: The business property of SPECTRUM (« SEO ») manages a concentrated portfolio of large minority investments, usually six to eight positions, in European companies traded with a focus focused on the Dach region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland). As a long -term and engaged anchor shareholder, SEO strives to trigger the full value potential of their portfolio companies. The company is aimed at small and medium -sized businesses with multiple catalysts for value creation and prioritizes friendly commitment, usually sitting on the board of most companies where they have commitments. The stable capital base comes from family offices, endowments, pension funds and other long -term institutional investors. SEO was co -founded in 2022 by Fabian Rauch and Dr. Ilias Läber. The two main ones have a combined experience of four decades in contributed companies and each has previously worked at Cevian Capital for about a decade.
What happens
Behind the scenes
Landis+Gyr is a leading world provider in integrated energy management solutions, specializing in advanced measurement infrastructure and smart network technologies. Public services and energy suppliers use Tech portfolio, sensors, software and Landis smart metration services to modernize and improve the efficiency of their infrastructure. While Landis is a very old company, founded in 1896, was privately owned and invested by a series of strategic and financial investors during much of its history. In 2011, Toshiba acquired 60% participation To the company for $ 2.3 billion, but eventually opted for IPO the Swiss unit Six years after. He started negotiating at the six Swiss exchanges on July 21, 2017, at 78 Swiss francs (CHF) per action, which involves a market cap of 2.3 billion CHF.
Today, Landis traces well below its IPO price, above 35%. It is also significantly subvaluated, quoting about 7.5 times the business value/ebitda, compared to its nasdaq pure game of nasdaq (approximately 15 times) with which it functionally has a duopoly in the United States, each of 35% to 40% of the market. In July 2024, SEO gained a 5% interest in Kirkbi Landis, becoming the second largest shareholder. Shortly afterwards, Landis requested an extraordinary general meeting to choose the Council of Fabian Rauch, co -founder and managing partner of SEO, in August 2024. Two months later, on October 30, 2024, announced the company A strategic review of his business portfolio that includes the following key elements: (i) increase the focus on his business in America; (ii) review the opportunities for value creation for their business Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and (III) evaluate a potential change in the list’s location in the United States. However, several things have sent the actions price since then, including Landis by reducing their income guide to FY24 by 8% and the announcement that will His electric vehicle charging business in EMEA, which resulted in a expected cost of deterioration of $ 35 million to 45 million. In terms of reducing orientation, despite continuously Landis messaging, postcobal growth was unsustainable due to the demand for Pentina, warnings fell on the deaf ears. Shares fell almost 22% on February 11, 2025, the date of the announcement.
Focusing in America makes a lot of sense. Landis generated $ 1,963 million from three geographical segments: America (58%), Emeea (34%) and Asia-Pacific (8%). Although Emea contributed a third of the income, it obtained only 8% of the admissions adjusted before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, less ebitda than its significantly smaller Pacific unit and Pacific. Exploring additional growth possibilities in the Americas and ending their EMEA business through a sale or spinoff of this business could be highly welcoming for the value of shareholders. A change in the location of the list, probably to a US exchange, would also make sense that this Swiss company generates most of its benefits in the region. This is a strategy that Cevian pushed both CRH and PearsonAnd he has been a popular activist catalyst in Europe in recent years.
Landis is a story of a failed heritage with a little island board. Welcome to Fabian Rauch was the first strong signal that the Council wanted to change. Announcing a value creation plan shortly after was the second signal. The third passed to November 2024When the company replaced the CEO Werner Lieberher with Peter Mainz. Finally, the fourth signal took place in January 2025 when the company announced that its president Andreas Umbach will not resist re -election and will be replaced of Audrey Zibelman.
Ken Squire is the founder and president of 13D Monitor, an institutional research service on shareholders activism and the founder and founder of portfolio of the 13D activist fund, a mutual fund that invest in a portfolio of 13D Investments activists.
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