00:00I mean, this is a company, I was looking at it, down something like 90% over the past five
00:04years.
00:04Who's the activist investor? What are they pushing for?
00:07So the activist, Danny, is Irenic Capital.
00:09They were a spin-out a few years ago by a guy named Adam Katz.
00:12He came from Elliott, and he had a co-founder as well.
00:14It's kind of a more obscure name, I would say, in the grand scheme of things, as far as activism
00:18goes.
00:19But I think, you know, on the face of it, this is sort of relatively small activist going into a
00:23very large company,
00:24or was a very large company, to your point.
00:26And they're basically pushing the company to make some changes,
00:28those changes being principally, in the first instance, to spin out what is their smart glasses business,
00:33what they call the specs business.
00:35Irenic is arguing that they've already sunk $3.5 billion into this business,
00:38and it's kind of a distraction for what Snap is looking to achieve.
00:42The other thing you should probably note about this is that Snap is obviously a controlled company.
00:46And activism in controlled companies usually is quite interesting to watch,
00:50because if you think back to Peloton a few years ago when Blackwell's in 2022
00:54and other activists tried to push changes there, that was controlled by Foley.
00:58The CEO, he is obviously no longer at the company.
01:00But it's hard sometimes to make a thesis work at a controlled company,
01:04because how can you launch a proxy fight and spend all that money on a proxy fight
01:07when you know the vote is going to go against you?
01:09So this is one to watch for sure.
01:11I think, and a large part of this might be like trial by the court of public opinion,
01:15because how can you push a board or make a board feel uncomfortable to make those changes
01:20when you have the likes of Glass, Lyrus, ISS and so on,
01:22you know, watching those board members and, you know, what their reaction is this type of stuff.
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