The installation of Landis+Gyr Group AG of living and commercial cards.
Landis+Gyr Group AG
Company: Landis+Gyr Group AG (Land-Ch)
Business: Landis+Gyr group is a company based in Switzerland that is mainly employed in the business with electrical components and devices. It specializes in measuring solutions for electricity, gas, heat/cold and water for energy resolutions for supply companies. Landis+Gyr product portfolio consists of advanced measurement and intelligent energy management products such as electricity measuring devices, heating and coolers, solutions for network management and solutions for personal energy management. In addition, the company offers various software services, managed services, cloud services, smart grid services, system integration, training as well as advisory and support services.
Market value: around 1.49b Swiss francs (CHF 51.60 per share)
Activist: spectrum entrepreneurial property
Property: 5.01%
Average costs: n/a
Activist comment: Spectrum Entrepreneurial Ownership (“SEO”) manages a concentrated portfolio of large minority investments, usually six to eight positions, in listed European companies with a focus on the DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) region). As a long-term and committed anchor shareholder, SEO endeavors to trigger the full potential of its portfolio companies. The company aims at small and medium-sized cap companies with several catalysts for added value and prioritizes an amicable commitment, whereby mostly sitting on the board of most companies in which they have engagements. The fund's stable capital base comes from family offices, foundations, pension funds and other long -term institutional investors. SEO was founded in 2022 by Fabian Rauch and Dr. Ilias Läber co -founded. The two headmaster together have four decades of board experience in listed companies and have previously worked at Cevian Capital for about a decade.
What happens
Behind the scenes
Landis+Gyr is a leading global provider of integrated energy management solutions in Switzerland, which specializes in advanced measurement infrastructure and smart grid technologies. Supply companies and energy suppliers use the portfolio of Landis on smart metering technologies, sensors, software and services to modernize and improve the efficiency of their infrastructure. While Landis is a very old company that was founded in 1896, it became privately owned and privately owned by a number of strategic and financial investors for a large part of its history. In 2011, Toshiba acquired a share of 60% in the company for 2.3 billion US dollars, but decided six years later that the Swiss unit on IPO. On July 21, 2017 with CHF 78 (CHF) per share, it started trading in the Six Swiss Exchange, which implies a market capitalization of CHF 2.3 billion.
Today Landis acts well below his IPO of over 35%. It is also significantly undervalued and acts compared to the Nasdaq-cunning Pure Play Peer ITRON (approximately 15 times 15 times), with which it functionally has a duopoly in the United States, and each controls 35% to 40% of the market. In July 2024, the SEO from Kirkbi acquired a 5% interest in Landis and became the second largest shareholder. Shortly afterwards, Landis asked for an extraordinary general assembly in August 2024 to vote in front of the board Fabian Rauch, co -founder and managing director of SEO. Two months later, on October 30, 2024, the company announced a strategic review of its business portfolio, which contains the following key elements: (i) increasing focus on its business in America; (II) Checking the value creation options for business in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and (III) Evaluation of a possible change in the location in the United States. Since then, however, several things have sent the share price, including Landis, which reduce the sales guidelines of 24 in the financial year by 8%, and the announcement to end the business with electric vehicles in EMEA, which leads to the expected reduction fees of 35 to 45 million US dollars. In terms of reducing the instructions, the warnings fell on deaf ears, although Landis constantly reports that the growth after the kovids was not sustainable due to the ascended demand. The shares fell by almost 22%on February 11, 2025, the date of the announcement.
The concentration on America is very useful. Landis achieved sales of $ 1.963 billion from three geographical segments: America (58%), EMEA (34%) and Asian-Pacific (8%). Although EMEA contributed a third of sales, it only delivered less than 8% of the adjusted profit before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, less EBITDA than its significantly smaller Asian-Pacific unit. Researching additional growth opportunities in America and processing the EMEA business by selling or spinning this company could be highly academic for the shareholder value. A change in the location of the list, probably to a US exchange, would also make sense if you consider that this Swiss company generates most of its profits in the region. This is a strategy for which Cevian drove ahead with both CRH and Pearson, and it has been a popular activist catalyst in Europe in recent years.
Landis is a story of a failed justice with a little island board. The greeting of Fabian Rauch was the first strong signal that changed the board. Shortly afterwards a value creation plan was the second signal. The third occurred in November 2024 when the CEO Werner Lieberherr company replaced Peter Mainz. Finally, the fourth signal occurred in January 2025, when the company announced that its chairman Andreas Umbach will not stand for re -election and will be replaced by Audrey Zibelman.
Ken Squire is the founder and president of 13D monitor, an institutional research service for shareholder activism, and the founder and portfolio manager of the 13D activist fund, an investment fund that invests in a portfolio of activists 13D investments.