Activists see value in these two

Article Excerpt

We continue to keep an eye on activist investors. Like us, they search for undervalued firms that can boost shareholder value by selling or spinning off assets, or putting themselves up for sale. Here are three recent examples. CLOUDERA INC. $16 is a hold. The company (New York symbol CLDR, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 296.1 million; Market cap: $4.7 billion; No dividend paid; Takeover Target Rating: Highest; www.cloudera.com) makes software for data engineering, data warehousing, machine learning and analytics. Those programs run on either the cloud (making use of the Internet and remote servers) or on a client’s own servers. The company, which began operating in 2008, went public in April 2017 when it completed an initial public offering of 15.0 million shares at $15.00 a share. Partly due to pressure from activist investor Carl Icahn, who now owns 17.7% of Cloudera, the company recently accepted a $16.00-a-share takeover offer from private equity firms Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and KKR &…