Cevian says ABB needs to 'hurry up' push to simplify - paper - RTRS
29-SEP-2015 12:42:05
ZURICH, Sept 29 (Reuters) - ABB ABBN.VX Chief Executive Ulrich Spiesshofer needs to speed up his streamlining efforts at the Swiss engineering group, a director of ABB's second-largest investor told a Swiss business newspaper.
"When it comes to boosting efficiency and agility as well as the simplification of the business units, ABB management needs to hurry up," Lars Foerberg, managing partner of Cevian Capital, told Finanz und Wirtschaft, according to an interview published on the paper's website on Tuesday.
ABB revealed in June that Cevian had taken a stake of more than 3 percent. The activist investor has since increased it to about 5.2 percent. (Full Story)
Foerberg said Cevian agrees with ABB's decision to combine its Power Systems and Power Products into a new division, Power Grids, which will be subjected to a strategic review over the coming year before ABB decides what to do with it.
ABB CEO Spiesshofer has said all options are on the table, including a sale of Power Grids. UBS analysts estimated the business may be worth $10 billion. (Full Story)
"To start with, there needs to be an impartial, fact-based analysis of the division," Foerberg told the paper. "As far as I can tell, that's what ABB is doing."
He said the possible sale suggested the division had few synergies with the rest of ABB's business.
Cevian, which has also bought stakes in German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp AG TKAG.DE and Swedish truckmaker Volvo VOLVb.ST, generally invests in companies in which it sees the potential to double the value of its investment within three to seven years.