Trian, General Catalyst Launch $7 Billion Janus Bid

Watch Trian, General Catalyst Launch $7 Billion Janus Bid - Bloomberg on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00Let's switch gears here and talk about activist investor Nelson Peltz. He is making his next move.

00:04His firm, Tryon Fund Management, together with General Catalyst, offering $46 a share to buy

00:09the rest of Janus Henderson that it doesn't already own. Bloomberg's M&A reporter Michelle

00:14Davis is now here to fill us out, fill us in on all the details. How much of a surprise is this?

00:20It's a bit surprising because you don't generally see an activist investor like Tryon partnering

00:25with a General Catalyst type company that normally is behind VC growthy bets. So that part is really

00:31surprising. And Tryon has been in Janus Henderson for a while. Is it not happy with what it's gotten

00:37so far? So, you know, activist investors always want more. This is the latest in a five-year saga

00:43for Nelson Peltz's Tryon. They've been in the stock for five years, helped oust the CEO. And now the

00:50view is maybe with General Catalyst, if they use AI, they can help improve the company. And the

00:55thought is it's easier to do that. It'll be easier to do that out of the public view as a private

01:01company. And Nelson Peltz helped oust the former CEO, as you mentioned, and pretty much helped

01:06install the current CEO, Ali Dabaj, who we've spoken to numerous times here at Bloomberg. Does that mean

01:11that the company is in support of this investment, this move? It's probably too early to say for sure.

01:17The company, in its statement, acknowledging that it had received this offer, said that they're

01:22going to be forming a special committee. It's typical in these situations for them to then,

01:26you know, assess the offer. But sometimes they'll also run a broad process to see if there's any

01:30other interest that's at a higher value than what's being offered here. So really too early to say.

01:35But I'm sure we will get updates. We will break updates over the coming weeks.

01:39So Ali Dabaj had this mandate to turn around the firm and, you know, basically make sure that there

01:44net inflows, positive net inflows. How has he done? How is Janice Henderson as a company doing?

01:49So it has seen some outflows, but the stock overall, even after dipping a bit earlier this

01:56year during, you know, Liberation Day turmoil, it's, I think, down 2% on the year. So pretty flat.

02:01Obviously, the stock market's at record highs. So underperforming the rest of the market. And

02:06you'll see that the offer they made was at not too high of a premium to where the stock is trading now.

02:11That might be a reason for the company to say, you know, this isn't fair. We think we're

02:16undervalued, but it remains to be seen, I guess, how they review it.