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Eleazer Klein Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva:

Activist investing is in vogue in North America, and well publicised by the brash actions of managers such as Carl Icahn of Icahn Enterprises, Bill Ackman of Pershing Square and Paul Singer of Elliott Management. It is slowly gaining ground in Europe, with a distinctive European flavour and above-average performance.

European companies are no longer unfamiliar with what activists do, as some have had to deal with them. Volkswagen, Adidas, Rolls-Royce, Alliance Trust, NH Hoteles, Eon, Sika and Ansaldo STS have all become the targets of European funds, or US funds with European operations, reported the Financial Times earlier this year.

Activist investing consists in buying large numbers of a public company's shares and/or trying to obtain seats on the company's board with the goal of implementing a major change in the company. Activist hedge funds in Europe have tended to follow the model adopted by Cevian Capital, a Swedish activist fund manager, says The FT: quietly building up significant stakes in public companies and engaging with their management and board members behind the scenes, before taking their demands public.

"It is a slow build in terms of activists finding success in Europe and in Asia," Eleazer K......................

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